BEATS OF LOVE 

 7.  Orange Coloured Liquid by Spooky 

WHEN RADIO Otherway played Spooky's Land Of Oz it had me scouring the shelves to find my copy. It's no great coincidence to then see Young Marco and Rush Hour's Christiaan Macdonald compile the same duo on their superlative double long-player Planet Love Vol One. All manner of things tends to happen in two's.   

Progressive House is now a dirty word, but it was a natural response by musicians influenced by the many simultaneous dance music off-shoots of the day. It's aged better than most of them, and unlike many more blinkered artists, Spooky delivered a slightly patchy but proper album, the highlight of which is undoubtedly this track.

 

Normally, with a comp of this quality, I get more drawn to the music I don't pre-own. In this case, I'm instead drawn to the records already on my shelves. For now, at least. Glam's My Mother Said is a prime example of why I'm not a good DJ as I totally overlooked the Cosmic Trance mix. Thankfully, because of this oversight, my copy is still practically mint. On any other comp, this would be my highlight, but on this it has to settle for the best intro instead. 

Spooky for me are the highlight. After taking their album down from the shelves and I saw the track-listing, I didn't know what to expect. I haven't until now played it in years. The spoken word sample still works a treat, and the song sounds much trippier than I recall. Pre-dating a lot of acts who had far wider critical acclaim for making similar music. Either the best camp-fire musical ode to Tomato Soup ever or celestial inspired higher plane sounds, it is a slow-burner well worth discovering or re-discovering.

I compiled this track on a cassette tape along with Amorphous Androgynous and Dreamfish tracks, amongst other intimate spins, and played it loudly in my mate's car, hoping some promoter would be standing outside Crompton's Post-Office carpark and talent spot me. Instead, I just got funny looks from middle-aged housewives who are now either dead or really old.

I think it sounded better on my cassette than their LP, but predictably it sounds better still on this comp. Basically, if you're anti-comp and want to pretend to have discovered it first, buy the LP proper.

If, like the rest of us, you can on occasion accept the natural order of things, buy the comp as it's cheaper and there are many other celestial inspired sounding treats in store for you. With yet another great Steele Bonus sleeve design to marvel at whilst it's spinning.

                     https://selector.news/2021/04/26/safe-trip-planet-love-vol-1/

  

BEATS OF LOVE 

6. LSD by Soffplaneten

AFTER Bolton Wanderers followed by Subbuteo, Shoot, Look-In and Match Weekly, seven-inch singles were the sixth love of my life, closely followed by Smash Hits. Because they were down my rankings, I rescued them from the bargain crates of Martins Newsagents and Woolworths. Hence, I played Meaning of Love and not my favourite, Just Can't Get Enough, Arabian Nights and not Spellbound, etc...

By 1983, all that changed, Bolton was in decline, and music became a more prevalent part of my life. Having younger sisters also meant Fame and Michael Jackson were clearly an influence on my earlier-self. All my mates with older brothers were banging on about the dreary Joy Division. Wham! was the game-changer. I loved my Wake Me Up seven, but when my father's friend professed loving follow-up single Freedom, they instantly became my sister's band. Although I was still privately in awe of Careless Whisper, I never bought it.

I still had the dilemma of what singles I could admit to owning and what singles I couldn't. Hence, You are my World lived in a hidden record box. I had soon gone from playing the Good Ship Venus seven crouched over my portable player so no one else could hear, to playing my sister's Something About You. 

At around this time, Loggers, the local reprobate, introduced himself by falling out of a tree and landing at my feet glue-bag first. He soon started turning up on my doorstep when I was bunking off school and had the audacity to nick my father's only big fat Cuban cigar that took pride of place. It wasn't all he nicked, as when I went around to his folk's, when they were away, he started dancing to his Soft Cell seven inches in my sister's bikini. 

 

Most folk would have read the warning signs, but I was a bit in awe of a part time punk lip-synching to Bedsitter and dropped out of school altogether. A few years later sat tripping in Rochdale with him. My nice watch went missing. Stolen in plain sight, no doubt. Thankfully, not longer after that, charged with indecent exposure, he disappeared. However, thanks to LSD, I openly embraced my feminine side and felt more whole through some all innocent self-discovery. Without Loggers, I wouldn't have had a clue how to buy it.

I was as loyal to LSD as seven inch singles, for a few years, until I became over sensitive and deeply paranoid. I still think small doses of the stuff are more preferable for teens not completely programmed by their parents than national service. And acknowledge that it did me more favours than the Stones. The A-side has more chugger credentials but this more clunky B-side number finds a better groove and repeats a cooler refrain. Mid-paced cosmic funk is great at the best of times but when the singer blurts out slowly L, then S, then D, it gets top marks by consigning the weedy Northside effort to the skip. The sleeve is nuts too, and as with all these crazy Scandinavian sevens that get brilliantly lost in translation, the irony police are off duty, so you can't tell if the OTT homage is tongue in cheek or not. 

Either way, this goofy record illustrates why after all these years I'm still as hooked as ever and totally lost in the ever surprising world of seven-inch singles. 

        https://awoha.com/Awoha-Press-3

 

 BEATS OF LOVE

5. You Set My Soul by The Telescopes 

I'M SURE strange happenings are a part of the human condition. Early Telescopes songs accompanied me to Reading in 89 on my Walkman when in transit, filling my face with warm cans of Castlemaine, I sat, transfixed, looking at a really cute girl opposite who was half goth and half indie kid. The rest of my festival was spent in an LSD crash-helmet, appreciating the Butthole Surfers and Frank Sidebottom, and not much else, until I re-boarded the coach 2 nights later, where I sat transfixed again. 

When my sister started Liverpool Poly, it got me away from peer-group pressure and the crash-helmet. I accompanied her to the student union bar where I'd saunter off to watch bands like the Throwing Muses rehearse with Jeff, or ponder the world in impressive greasy-spoons on my own. I was soon smitten by her friend Ellie's Welsh charm, warm personality, and subtle sex appeal.

However, when Ellie came over to mother's to visit my sister, I was all psyched up for a Mary Chain and Telescopes gig at the Ritz that night so spent the early evening twisting their arm into both driving me there and meeting up later at Ruby Tuesday's, the late and great Dave Booth's residency. My mother, for the first time, could see I was flirting as I was allowing things to run very late. 

When I finally got there, the Telescopes had already spilled over onto the street, and were all packed up. Looking smaller and more insignificant than I'd imagined them to be. I then sidled up to the bar (something I never normally did) and began an excited conversation with the girl who had transfixed me the previous summer and who I hadn't seen since. 

She was living in a nearby town and invited me onto the last bus, something more akin to a Tardis for me and my mates. I tried to cajole her into 42nd Street but she had to work in Boots Pharmacy the next day, so, as much to reassure myself that it wasn't a dream, I promised I'd call in as she was soon going back to Nottingham Uni. Reluctantly, I then met my sister as arranged, where, instead of flirting with Ellie, whose short crushed-velvet skirt had been such a turn on a couple of hours earlier, I sat in a love-struck daze. Talking about another girl is a big no no I soon learnt. 

Building back the confidence to overcome a shyness that had momentarily vanished but had returned with a vengeance, despite only 12 hours elapsing, is also tough. Sadly, walking into Boots, something I did a thousand times a day in my head for at least a month after, was harder than putting the crash-helmet back on. I never saw Ellie or the half goth and half indie kid again. For some strange reason, I blamed the Telescopes. It was all their fucking fault. 

I'm sure strange happenings are part of the human condition. Slightly less fickle, and after thinking my Telescopes trip had ended with 9 minutes of whale noises, I've now finally bought their 1992 self-titled sophomore LP and feel shame that this dream-pop masterpiece totally passed me by. Creation's genius was a passion for a wide range of music that clearly influenced the acts they signed. That this release also coincided with the launch of Joe Foster's impressive Rev-Ola series gives weight to this assumption. 

When I liked their first incarnation, they were Mary Chain disciples who superimposed feedback over fragile songs. Here, the fragile songs have escaped the noise and what is left is a lot more beautiful, revealing Stephen Lawrie to be a real tunesmith. Evoking a far wider spectrum of 60s psyche influence, its subtle harmonies and pastoral doodling are never ostentatious and serve to conjure up a mighty listening experience that leaves you truly transfixed. Yes, I'm sat transfixed again.  

The fragility, and his tunesmith genius, is best realized in this achingly beautiful song. A song that gets more beautiful with each listen. A song I bought separately on a promo twelve to see if it could be improved. It couldn't. It really stands out as the highlight on a solid long player and Ed Ball deserves a round of applause for his under-stated piano playing. When those subtle vocal harmonies kick in, it becomes something else, something truly wonderful. 

What I'd give to be that young again and on a coach with this on the Walkman, looking at that really cute girl opposite...

 BEATS OF LOVE 

4. Wishing Star by Leo Almunia

IT'S NOT every day that the artists who created one of your favourite albums (Pulsar) fly into town to play a show, but that's what Leonardo Ceccanti did with his ever smiling Almunia partner Gianluca Salvadori in 2013 for SFH. We put lots of love in the air that Wednesday evening and it gave me the insurmountable task of eclipsing it, which, in truth, I haven't been able to do.

Other than some bits and pieces, they've sunk off the radar in the UK, so I was happy to hear the ever discerning Claremont 56 was releasing a solo LP, Minor Circle, by Leo. The best British label in the world. Happier still when I heard the sound-clips, and now truly ecstatic to finally get this sun-drenched goodness on the stereo. The same personnel as said album; Paul Murphy mixing, Mark Warrington's superb artwork, and Leo overseeing almost everything else, sadly minus Gianluca, produces another veritable masterpiece. An eight-year hiatus is a long-time, even by Howard Hughes standards, but this is well worth any wait.

Those sorely missed guitar strings of every persuasion are so damned hot and still stretch out for miles and miles. Even veritable masterpieces have their highlights; Abbey Road's Here Comes the Sun, Back in Denim's The Osmonds, or Mystery to Me's Hypnotized, and Leo's LP is no exception as this song attests.   

Somewhat swampier than the duo's past classics, but still crystalline enough to shine plenty of light and depth into the listening experience. Equal parts, dubby, atmospheric, and spacey, with top marks production from start to finish, make this another epic musical journey, the highlight of which is most reminiscent of glories past.

Less swampy, with the guitars as light as a souffle omelette, it breezes along majestically and in passages even soars into the sky. Tomorrow, I could easily write similar words about the closer, but today that sounds more condensed and slightly less moving, and epic. Moving, and epic, or a sublime psychedelic sunshine minstrel tune, I'm as confused as the next man. Call it anything but nu-fucking-disco, I guess. All I know is this album is truly great, and this song is greater still. The high place is revisited.  

Welcome back Leo, and I hope some promoter has both the sense and promotional nous to put on some top UK shows. I'll be there for sure, plucking my imaginary guitar strings, tunelessly, to your wondrous music. 

LISTEN : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuWfv7Umbxg