This playlist is 93% vinyl friendly. Near perfect.

New in 2025, the Korg Handytraxx is a funky looking lad. A portable belt drive motor turntable ‘aimed at both DJs and vinyl enthusiasts’ that can run either via AC power or AA batteries and features a 2.5w built-in speaker. From £359 through to £1099, depending on the model/spec.

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Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms tweak/edit/chop and the occasional tune might sound a bit dodgy, quality-wise. On top of that, the switch between different decades and production values never helps in the mix here. 🙂

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Lyric of Playlist 137

Maybe it’s Martyn and maybe it’s Stevie.

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00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

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00.41

NEW ORDER – Bizarre Love Triangle ’94 – ‘the best of’ NewOrder, 2LP – London – 1994

Or maybe ‘Bizarre Love Triangle-94’. This title stuff gets tricky when you’re reworking songs… and as for the album title? My proof reading department of a very long time ago would have thrown a wobbler. don’t get me started. 🙂 The song? A huge fave with the band’s following as a whole but another from their mid to late ’80s back catalogue/period that, if I’m honest, makes me smile more now than it did back then.

‘Very cheerful sounding dance/pop muzak remixed by Shep Pettibone. It even has a sort of ‘set it off’ rhythm beat (quite popular in discos last year) and a great instrumental version for mixing. This will be played to death in clubs especially the more eurobeaty ones – and just when you thought they’d never get their act together again‘. – Mark Moore, The Catalogue #43, Nov/Dec ’86. 

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04.18

THE CURE – All I Ever Am – Songs Of A Lost World, LP – Fiction/Polydor – 2024

Robert Smith in reflective voice as the ongoing years give us all more to be reflective about.

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09.31

DEPARTMENT M – Bad Formulae – Deep Control, LP – Hide & Seek Records – 2016

From their only full album release and the last musical sighting of mainstay, Owen Brinley.

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13.36

SAVANT – Using Words – The Neo-Realist (At Risk), LP – Palace Of Lights – 1983

Their Stationary Dance 12″ is right up there with my absolute fave sounds from the whole post punk etc etc period, but I missed this back in the day and the vinyl (and original) format version of the album does not now come cheap.

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20.36

JAZZ THE GLASS – GracE – Output 2025, Download only (Bandstand) – 2025

Mate and ex one half of The Flamingos (This Heat, Reason For Living, Original Colour, Icarus Descending) with IMHO one of his best to date.

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23.48

MARTYN BATES – Sad Song Of Almost – The Return Of The Quiet, LP – Cherry Red – 1987

Folk… soulful… beautiful.

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27.11

LIKE MINDED SOUL(S) (feat CARA) – Seventythree – Cookin’ EP 10, 2×12″ EP – Cookin’ Records – 2002

The name depends on where you look and years after the above release the track cropped up as ‘Seventy Three’ by Methodblack, another pseudonym of the same guy, Irish DJ/producer, Rob Swain. Whatever, it took me over two decades to work out anything about the track – as it was as anonymous grab off the radio. The interweb! Shazam! Innit all brilliant? As that Paul Whitehouse character might nearly have said.

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32.01

STEVIE WONDER – My Cherie Amour – 7″ – (Tamla) Motown – 1967/68

Late teens… Putnoe, Bedford… sunshine… oh, and very likely a girl in mind.

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34.53

JAPAN – Canton – Tin Drum, LP – Virgin – 1981

If you go looking we can safely narrow down the Canton being evoked here… and it’s none of the twenty five plus(!!!) Cantons in the US, alone.

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39.46

BEATMASTER – Lipservice – 12″ – Tommy Boy – 1984

Near comical/cartoon vocals, but with Keith LeBlanc producing, his tumbling drum programming – borrowing heavily from his not so comical vocals, Malcolm X ‘No Sell Out’ production the year before – hints heavily at the Tackhead sound then to come.

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44.29

TWO SISTERS – B-Boys Beware (Club Mix) * – 12″ – Sugarscoop – 1983

Very much me riding a wave of enthusiasm for electro in these years.

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49.38

WARP 9 – No Man Is An Island (12″ Remix) * – 12″ – 4th & Broadway – 1983

‘Norman is an island‘… as the joke used to go in these parts. Also, see above.

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54.44

ERIC B. & RAKIM – I Know You Got Soul – 12″ – Cooltempo – 1987

Funky! Bobby Byrd’s 1971 original in no small measures but maybe noted as much for the ‘Pump Up The Volume!’ line which, courtesy of M.A.R.R.S and elsewhere went onto have a life of its own. 🙂

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59.22

GOAT + MC YALLAH – Nimerudi – 7″ – Rocket Recordings – 2024

With much menace in that rumbling bass and attitude in the vocal… ‘400 copies available with Rocket Recordings 25th anniversary book ‘Out of the Void – The Art of Rocket Recordings: 1998 – 2024‘… and should you be able to get your hands on a copy (and I haven’t, yet) it’s A side @ 45rpm and B side @ 33rpm for the ‘turntabilists’.

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01.02.53

KASSIE KRUT – Reckless – 12″ – Firetalk? – 2025

Kassie Krut’s debut, a self-titled, self-produced EP on a limited run of 300 vinyl, shipping sometime in 2025, but could be gone… by… now. A lot of music these days – importantly spread across a few genres – seems to be weighted with vocals/melodies written by Millenials… but targeting (subconsciously?) an audience a good few years younger. 🙂

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01.06.24

FREEFORM ARKESTRA – Freeform Theme (Raw Deal remix) – Freeform EP, 10″ – Straight Ahead – 2000

Fat, fuzzy and brutal jazzy d&b-like… and heard via a Patrick Forge or Gilles Peterson KISS FM radio show of the time. There were real musicians involved in this, me thinks.

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01.10.47

FACTORY FLOOR – Between You – 12″ – Phantasy Sound – 2025

First music since 2018? This recent, 300 copies only vinyl release sold out immediately. ‘Original and Extended Mix feature… presented in a riso printed sleeve, each of which are hand numbered by the band‘. Bandcamp

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01.15.00

10,000 MANIACS – Planned Obsolescence – Human Conflict Number Five, 12″ EP – Press – 1984

Released originally in the US in 1982 and a track containing a sound so irritating there MUST have been a debate over whether it stayed in the mix. So irritating but I’m guessing someone involved thought ‘We need to weird this up a bit… ‘ and the ‘cranky wheeze’ – accentuated in a bridge – was it! A fab slice of leftfield pop but it takes nothing less than Natalie Merchant’s enchanting voice to trump the pain.

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01.19.16

THE WAKE – Of The Matter – 7″ – Factory – 1985

New Order’s then live sound man, Ozzy in the producer’s seat here, a relationship partly built through the Scottish band often supporting their heavyweight label mates.

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The Wake (Carolyn, Stephen, Mac and Caesar), outside Winkles, Bedford after their gig, Sept 7, ’83

Photo credit/copyright – Dec Hickey

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01.22.03

FIAT LUX – The Moment – Ark Of Embers, LP – Splid Recordings – 2019

I remember seeing the band perform this live on TV at the time but Ark Of Embers was their ‘lost’ (unreleased) 1985 album. It also doubled up with all their earlier and better known material for a 2CD, Cherry Red label release, also in 2019.

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01.25.03

GENERAL LEE – Pleasure – 7″ – Lost Weekend – 1979

And speaking of ‘Lost’. On the Lost Weekend label, not some northern soul obscurity but a disco-influenced 7″ that someone with both cash and conviction paid £2000 for! The groove reminds me a bit of Candido’s Jingo, which funnily enough came out the same year. Who came first, I wonder.

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01.29.04

PATHLESS – Goddess – Glücklich III (A Collection Of Brazilian Flavours From The Past And The Present), v/artists 2LP – Compost – 1999

Like the Freeform Arkestra track above, definitely heard via either a Patrick Forge or Gilles Peterson KISS FM radio show (I’d guess more it was with Patrick) and combined with the Straight No Chaser mag being a must read at the same time(s), you got your info where you could.

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01.33.19

THOMAS LEER – Letter From America – 4 Movements, 2×12″ EP – Edigsa – 1982

The above release mentioned on the show but back a year earlier included on a Cherry Red label four track 12″ that (pictured below) I had/have. ‘Electronic jazz’ I’m thinking these days re ‘Letter… ‘, I possibly went for spinning the EP’s track ‘Don’t in our club, rather than this.

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01.37.12

YHWH NAILGUN – Castrato Raw (Fullback) – 45 Pounds, LP – AD 93 – 2025

But out later this month, costing just £22 🙂 this track is the band in a lighter vein! Oh, and a shout out for their 2022 cassette-only EP, No Midwife And I Wingflap… for the title alone. 🙂

YHWH, short for Yahweh, a word I hear a lot these days, as I’m very regularly bumped into by the Facebook reels of one Dan McClellan. I have no time for religion (other than the takes of the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry and the likes) but McClellan knows his shit like few others and is a fascinating listen when it comes to addressing others on that there Bible thing. He gets pointed to videos of the ‘less well informed’, shall we say to say. And his ‘OK, let’s see it’ is usually just the precursor to another demolition job. YHWH Nailgun? I’m not sure where they stand on all this… if at all… and I won’t be looking to find out, either. 🙂

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01.39.15

THE BOX – No Time For Talk – The Box, 12″ EP – Go! Discs – 1983

As in yer face as anything coming out of Sheffield’s late ’70s/early ’80s ‘industrial’, new wave, alternative scene, due in no small part to Pete Hope’s angsty vocals.

Pete (with shades) in a more chilled out state, at Cabaret Voltaire’s Bedford Boys’ Club soundcheck, Aug ’84.

Photo credit unknown. I’d have said it was mine… only for the fact I’m in the photo. 🙂

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01.41.57

SHRIEKBACK – A Kind Of Fascination – Tench, 12″ mini LP – Y Records – 1982

Sounding to these ears now like it could have been funky but quirky New York no wave. 🙂

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01.46.18

WARSAW/J.D. (JOY DIVISION) – Novelty – Warsaw, LP (+ 7″) – RZM Productions – 1980

Unless you had close connections with the band at the time, this bootleg of May ’78 studio recordings (made, as I’d only learn a few years later, for RCA) was a bit of bolt out of the blue to me when I got hold of a copy – in nearer ’82 than ’80, I reckon – and such was the speed with which these young lads were writing, only three of the tracks made it to Joy Division’s debut album proper, Unknown Pleasures, recorded just eleven months later, with Transmission appearing as a 7″, and needless to say, the recordings have been bootlegged ad infinitum since.

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01.49.54

SLAB! – Mars On Ice (John Peel session: 12.8.86) – Unreleased – 1986

More driving sounds as the band perform their first single during one of my fave Peel sessions. From long after their exit here’s an insight into the rarely spotted Slabbers as (ex) band members enter the conversation further down.

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1.54.00

PIGBROS – Not A Lot (Long Version) – Just Call Me God, 12″ – Cake Records – 1987

At the time, I think I caught the first of their two mid ’80s John Peel sessions… and not much else but this tune, from the last of their handful of releases, clatters along with some purpose.

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Show 138 is a comin’ April 6.

Dec x