Recommendations Archive

2014

SEPTEMBER

Is there a record shrink? Like someone you can go and talk to about an addiction to records? I think it’s an illness of some kind, I’ve had various odd moments throughout my music buying life which make me wonder; like panicking when I left an LP behind that maybe I should have bought, or getting over excited and sleepless about records that may or may not turn up. I remember even having a most disturbing sleepless night when I knew a collection of film music was turning up at 58 Dean Street Records the very next day. It’s an illness of sorts I’m sure, but of course there are benefits, like looking at the sleeves and listening to the unusual noises coming off the records. These are the ones giving off the odd sounds round here at the moment.

MARCH

Recently I’ve been trying very hard to buy more records. Like a weirdy fever has descended upon me. I’ve been travelling to old record shops, going to boot fayres too if I can get away with it. Some records I have been after have turned up and I’ve been doing quite a lot of DJing too which has only added to the fever. In fact the other night we did a Vision On and I played loads of things I’ve recently found and it was very enjoyable indeed. In fact two ladies in paper hats came up to me came up to me and told me what excellent tunes I’d been playing. Here are just some of the recent finds and old crap that has recently surfaced from the collection.

JANUARY

Lordy, it’s a new year so I thought it was time for some new recommendations. How very exciting. Actually these were supposed to appear in December but I ran out of time and stuff. Anyway, there have been few recommendations recently as it’s getting harder to find albums that genuinely excite me. This is daft really when you think how many records are out there now – but that has meant there is too much to see and ingest, I’ve almost become record blind. There are lots of new and weird and exciting discoveries from all around the world appearing all the time, as well as lots of people pressing albums that were repressed a few years ago, plus lots of people pressing any old rare LP because it’s rare and not necessarily that good. This creates a crowded and confusing marketplace, which works brilliantly if this is music you are just discovering, but for me it makes it tricky, and harder to find music that really thrills me and is worthy of writing about. Also, bargains are now hard to find, for all the obvious reasons. But I have found some old and new bits and bobs recently, whether they are actually worthy of writing about is possibly up for debate. But I’m going to do it now anyway.