Various Artists - Where Have All The Horns Gone?! (1981)

After performing major surgery on a number of albums to remove the excess flab, and cosmetic surgery on a few others to give them a nip and tuck here and there, my attention turned to some of my favourite horn-led songs, and I wondered what they would sound like without their brass sections. Pretty good, as it turns out, as most of them remain great tracks even without the horns, and with some you don't even miss them despite hearing them hundreds of times already in their familiar versions. So purely as a bit of fun, and as an experiment to see what these programmes can do, here is a collection of songs which are famous for their inclusion of a horn section, presented in all their naked glory.  

Track listing

01 25 Or 6 To 4 - Chicago
02 Bitch - The Rolling Stones
03 I'm Just A Singer In A Rock And Roll Band - The Moody Blues
04 And When I Die - Blood Sweat & Tears
05 Keep The Customer Satisfied - Simon & Garfunkel
06 No Reply At All - Genesis
07 Spinning Wheel - Blood Sweat & Tears
08 Reward - The Teardrop Explodes
09 Wake Up Boo - The Boo Radleys

10 Questions 67 & 68 - Chicago

11 You've Made Me So Very Happy - Blood Sweat & Tears
12 5:15 - The Who
13 Deacon Blues - Steely Dan

Neil Christian And The Crusaders - Get A Load Of This (1967)

Neil Christian And The Crusaders might be a relatively obscure UK pop group of the early 60's, but they were as good a breeding ground for guitarists as John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, including in their ranks at various times such luminaries as Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Albert Lee, Mick Abrahams and Paul Brett, as well as pianist Micky Hopkins, and bassist Alex Dmchowski, who later went on to join Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation. Christopher Tidmarsh started his career in music by managing a North London-based outfit called The Red-E-Lewis And The Red Cats, who underwent a line-up shift when the original members joined Johnny Kidd as The Pirates from July 1961 to early 1962. Recruiting guitarist Bobby Oats and drummer Jim Evans, they played a few gigs at the Ebisham Hall in Epsom, and Tidmarsh first spotted Jimmy Page paying there. In early 1959, John Spicer joined the band on rhythm guitar, and when Oates announced that he was leaving the band, Tidmarsh contacted Page and invited him down to Shoreditch to audition for the vacancy. He became their new lead guitarist and Spicer switched to bass, and in Spring 1960 Tidmarsh replaced Lewis on vocals, and they reinvented themselves as Neil Christian And The Crusaders. Tidmarsh changed the names of his musicians, with Page being known as 'Nelson Storm', John Spicer was 'Jumbo' and drummer Evans was nicknamed 'Tornado'. 

Page toured with them for two years until he was forced to quit due to illness, suffering from glandular fever, although he would later still record with the band in the studio until 1964. Page's replacement was Paul Brett from the Impacs, who was himself briefly replaced by Albert Lee, while bassist Jumbo Spicer left to be replaced by Arvid Andersen. The Crusaders were augmented by pianist Tony Marsh, who had previously been in a Wembley-based combo called the Escort alongside drummer Keith Moon, and is was Marsh who introduced guitarist Ritchie Blackmore to Neil Christian, who teamed up with Andersen and Evans for a brief spell in early 1965. In March 1965, Blackmore and the rest of the group defected Screaming Lord Sutch to become The Savages, and so Christian pulled in an entirely new line-up, taking over a Luton group called The Hustlers, who featured Mick Abrahams on guitar. By June 1965 the new line-up was cemented by the addition of drummer Carlo Little, keyboardist Graham Waller and bassist Alex Dmchowski. While he was guitarist with the Crusaders, Abrahams stood in for Screaming Lord Sutch, who did exactly the same set as The Crusaders, before eventually leaving in late 1965. 

Christian disbanded the Crusaders soon after and decided to pursue a solo career, and his fortunes went on the upswing after he hooked up with songwriter and producer Miki Dallon, and landed a number 14 hit single with Dallon's 'That's Nice. To promote 'That’s Nice', Christian reassembled The Crusaders with Richie Blackmore, Tornado Evans, Avid Andersen and Tony Mash, and they toured the UK and Europe, particularly Germany, where they had a residency in Munich. While there he also recorded some tracks for the Metronome label, with 'Two At A Time' being a big hit for him in Germany in 1966. Christian went back to England and recruited new musicians who formed the final incarnation of the Crusaders, with pianist Matt Smith joining three members of Lord Caesar Sutch & The Roman Empire, Richie Blackmore, Carlo Little and bassist Tony Dangerfield. After The Crusaders split up following an argument in a restaurant, Christian released his final UK 45 'You're All Things Bright And Beautiful' for Pye in 1967, although when he moved to the Vogue label he recorded 'My Baby's Left Me' with his old Crusaders mates Blackmore and Little, with Nicky Hopkins on piano and Rick Brown on bass. Christian continued to release singles under his own name and as Neil Christian And The Crusaders well into the mid 70's, but he is best remembered for employing a string of guitarists who later went on to greater things, and an album around 1967 could have included tracks featuring most of them. As that never came about, then here is the best of the band's output, leaving aside some of the more 'pop' moments, and concentrating on the R&B that let those guitarists shine. 

Track listing

01 She's Got The Action
02 Get A Load Of This
03 One For The Money
04 Yakity Yak
05 That's Nice
06 Honey Hush
07 Bad Girl
08 Crusading
09 Oops
10 Countdown
11 My Baby's Left Me
12 Let Me In
13 I Like It

Featuring on guitar:
01, 02, 08, 12, 13 Jimmy Page
04, 07, 09, 10, 11 Richie Blackmore
01, 05 Mick Abrahams 
03, 06 Phil McPill 

Sunday - Whitney Houston Presents Sunday (2000)

Sunday were a R&B quintet from New Jersey, comprised of five girls aged between 18 and 22. Three sisters, Tawanda, Notasha, and Tiffany, were joined by their two cousins, Shakira and Stacey to form a group very much in the style of Destiny's or En Vogue, but with their gospel roots setting them apart. The quintet started singing together at the New Life Deliverance Church in Newark where their maternal grandmother was a pastor for 23 years, and they caught the eye of Robyn Crawford, a long-time associate of Whitney Houston, who signed them to a record deal. They recorded their self-titled debut album in 2000, which was executive-produced by Houston and Crawford, and it was led by the single 'I Know', which underperformed on the Billboard Hot 100, barely cracking at #98, but managed to fare better on the R&B/Hip-Hop aspect, peaking at number 32. However, this was not enough to prevent the album from getting canned by Capitol Records and Houston's label Better Place Records, and so it remains unreleased to this day. Like so many of these shelved albums, there is much to enjoy on here, and so here is what could have been the start of a promising career for these Whitney Houston protégées. 

Track listing

01 I'm Takin' Your Man 
02 Me For Me
03 Somebody Else
04 Fed Up 
05 Make It Hot
06 All Of A Sudden
07 I Know 
08 What Am I Gonna Do?
09 Alone
10 Everything's Alright
11 Believe In Love (feat. Whitney Houston)

The Dodos - Up The Block (1966)

In 1966, The Dodos released their highly influential and ground-breaking album, 'Up The Block'. A true innovation in sound, the Dodos left their more simplistic and singles based song-writing for more expansive and fresh sounding songs. With a harder edge than previous output, this record really shook the music scene and influenced many of their contemporaries to follow suit. The title, Up The Block evokes a sense of community which the Dodos both fostered and bristled against. This sentiment is explored within the songs of the album as well, on tracks like 'Marvelman' and 'Best Friends' which both take a combative look at their fan's expectations of them. Meanwhile songs like 'At the Pub', 'The Drums' and 'Honk That Horn' feel more like celebrations of their fans. There are a few classic Dodos boy meets girl songs, such as 'She Smiled At Me', 'Five Ways Till Love', 'Sun In My Eyes', and 'Blue Green Red', which all evoke the nostalgia of previous works, while also moving forward sonically. Two songs which were previously released as singles in late 1965 ('Magazine Blues' and 'One Day You Won't Need Us') were drastically reworked for the album, with completely different structure/sound and lyrical changes. The album had many sessions and there are drastically different alternate versions that were not used for the album which may be released at a later date as part of a rarities album. One such song is the side A closer, 'Dance It Away'. Written by Joseph Lemmon, the songs is a lumbering almost hypnotic song about watching your best girl give herself to the moment while dancing. 

The album version is also sung by Joseph, but there was a version sung by Samuel, who gave a wonderful vocal performance and raced through the song making it significantly shorter and punchier. The label wanted to release the Samuel version as a single, but the band and specifically Joseph fought to make the sixth single from the album 'Marvelman' instead, as Joseph felt more connected to the lyrical content of that song, and so the Samuel version while, breathtaking ,has yet to make the light of day. The Dodos were very staunch on the idea of providing value to their listeners, and so they always tried to make singles and album tracks different enough that no one felt cheated buying both. And this means that a wide selection of unreleased session tracks are in the Dodos vaults, all as good as the released version, but different. Of note is also Johnny's stepping up as far as song-writing goes on this album, having written 'At The Pub', 'Magazine Blues', 'Over Your Head', and 'One Day You Won't Need Us'. This was the first time in their career that Johnny had so many songs on an album. One of the album standouts has to be Bippo's 'The Drums'. A real joy of a track with not only a great vocal & percussion performance by the Dodos' drummer extraordinaire, but the rest of the band goes all in making it one of the most colourful and exciting tracks on the album. This is a rollicking good rock and roll album with something for everyone.  

Track listing

01 At The Pub
02 She Smiled At Me
03 Sun In My Eyes
04 Magazine Blues
05 Five Ways Till Love
06 Honk That Horn
07 Dance It Away
08 Blue Green Red
09 Over Your Head
10 Best Friends
11 The Drums
12 One Day You Won't Need Us
13 Marvelman

The Micky Finn - The Sporting Life (1967)

In the summer of 1961 lead guitarist Micky Waller, rhythm guitarist Bevis Belmour, bassist Mick Stannard, and drummer Richard Brand put together a Shadows-like instrumental band called The Strangers, and gigged around Bethnal Green in East London. The following year, they became a much more R&B-oriented group and enlisted vocalist Harry Bates, although by 1963 Waller and Brand had left to form a more 'mod' sounding band, while the remainder of the group carried on as The Mates, with new drummer Albert Smith. Having been  bitten by the Jamaican Blue Beat bug whilst hanging out at the Crypt Club, Aldgate, they decided to concentrate on this music, and so formed a new band, recruiting John Cooke aka "Fluff" on keyboards, John Burkitt on bass and Alan Marks on vocals. After having heard that Cyril Davis & His R&B All Stars featured a drummer called Micky Waller, he changed his surname to Finn, and the band became Mickey Finn & The Blue Men. Their agent, Don White, secured them a recording contract with Blue Beat Records, and in 1964 they released their debut single, a rendition of Elias & The Zig-Zag Jive Flutes 'Tom Hark', coupled with 'Please Love Me', composed by Alan Hawkshaw of Emile Ford & the Checkmates. After a couple of months, they switched to Oriole, and began recording with Jimmy Page on harmonica, after meeting him at Hackney Club 59. 

The follow up single, covering Bo Diddley's 'Pills' and Jimmy Reed's 'Hush Hush', was released in March 1964, and was banned after the police had discovered some purple hearts stashed in Mickey Waller's amp during a raid on The Scene Club. By mid 1964, ex-Stranger Mick Stannard had replaced Burkitt on bass, and they became known as simply The Mickey Finn. Their final 45 for Oriole was a Chuck Berry number 'Reelin' And Rockin'', but it failed to chart, even though it was tipped as a hit on 'Juke Box Jury'. Through their new manager, Chris Radmall, they got a deal with Columbia, and began recording with producer Shel Talmy in 1965, and their cover of Ian Whicomb's smash hit 'The Sporting Life' is now one of their most notable releases. They followed this with 'I Do Love You'/'If I Had You Baby' in July 1966 on Polydor, and then spent the summer of 1967 in Southern France, where they had a residency at the Voom Voom Club, St-Tropez. 'Garden Of My Mind' appeared on Direction Records in 1967, but after a few more years on the circuit, they decided to call it a day in 1971, with Micky Waller and John Cooke going on to The Heavy Metal Kids. Waller relocated in France and became a sought-after session musician, recording with Nino Ferrer, among others, and he eventually returned to the UK and joined Steve Marriott’s All Stars in 1976, and then the group formed by ex-Pretty Things singer, Phil May & the Fallen Angels, in 1977. The Micky Finn made a couple of excellent singles in their hey-day, and this has kept them at the top of any list of obscure UK beat groups of the 60's, and by 1967 they had recorded enough material for an album, although this would have had to include both their R&B and psychedelic songs on the same record, so this could be why it never happened. However, let's enjoy all of their best music on this imaginary album from 1967.  

Track listing

01 Night Comes Down
02 Ain't Necessarily So
03 Poverty
04 Reelin' And A'Rockin'
05 Garden Of My Mind
06 Hush Your Mouth
07 If I Had You Baby
08 The Sporting Life
09 Miss Jane

10 Because I Love You
11 I Still Want You
12 God Bless The Child

13 Please Love Me
14 Time To Start Loving You

Kenny - Old Songs Never Die (1979)

Kenny was one of the myriad bands thrust onto the British glam scene as it approached its end in the mid-70's, and they were generally regarded, alongside the Bay City Rollers and Slik, as simply another in a long line of acts created by master songwriters Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. In fact, although the five-piece group's best-known material was indeed the work of that pair, Kenny's Rick Driscoll and Yan Stile were also very competent songwriters in their own right, as the group's final few releases proved. Kenny had actually already existed for some three years before Martin and Coulter first encountered them, as under the name Chufff the quartet were regulars on the free festival progressive rock circuit, playing alongside such stalwarts as Hawkwind and the Edgar Broughton Band. They were discovered by Martin and Coulter in late 1974, apparently rehearsing in a banana warehouse in the north London suburb of Enfield, and their initial response to the songwriters' overtures were disdainful. Martin and Coulter would not take no for an answer, and as they had recently recorded a new version of a song previously cut with the Bay City Rollers, a dance number called 'The Bump', they were anxious to find a ready-made band to promote it on television. Indeed, the record had already been released and seemed destined for a chart entry, and so as they seemed assured of stardom, Chufff agreed to become Kenny. 

In the event, that stardom was to prove extremely fleeting, as while the group certainly garnered some publicity from the Kellogg's cereal company's objections to the band's "K" logo, and 'The Bump' made number three in early 1975, the group enjoyed just three further British hits, all penned by Martin-Coulter, including the number four smash 'Fancy Pants', plus 'Baby I Love You OK', and 'Julie Ann'. Driscoll and Stile only managed to get a couple their own songs onto vinyl, with 'Dancin' Feet' on the flip of 'Julie Anne', and 'Happiness Melissa' appearing on the b-side to the late-1975 flop 'Nice To Have You Home'. The under-performance of Kenny's debut album furthered the band's desire to extricate themselves from their predicament and, in late 1976, they went to court to free themselves from Martin-Coulter, after which they signed to Polydor and recorded a new, all original, album, 'Ricochet', and released the single 'Hot Lips'. Neither drew any attention whatsoever and when a serious road accident put Stile out of action, Kenny folded. For a manufactured pop band of the period they managed to get quite a few non-album songs on the b-sides of their singles, and so if you have fond memories of 'The Bump' then check out this collection of their harder to find tracks.  

Track listing

01 Forget The Janes, The Jeans And The Might Have Beens (b-side of 'The Bump' 1974)
02 Bring Back The Good Old Melodies (b-side of 'The Bump' 1974)
03 I'm A Winner (b-side of 'Fancy Pants' 1975)
04 The Sound Of Super K (b-side of 'Baby I Love You, OK!' 1975)
05 Dancin' Feet (b-side of 'Julie Anne' 1975)
06 Happiness Melissa (b-side of 'Nice To Have You Home' 1975)
07 Bangin' My Head Against A Brick Wall (b-side of 'Hot Lips' 1976)
08 Crying (out-take 1976)
09 Abe's Lament (out-take 1976)
10 Old Songs Never Die (single 1977)
11 Don't Hold On (b-side of 'Old Songs Never Die')
12 Reach Out (I'll Be There) (single 1979)
13 Time Is The Healer (b-side of 'Reach Out (I'll Be There')

Pierre Henry - Ceremony (1969)

This might seem like something of an odd post, considering how much time and effort it took to remove just about every trace of Pierre Henry from the original mix of Spooky Tooth's 'Ceremony' album, but after posting the result I receive at least two comments from people saying that they would have preferred to have heard less Spooky Tooth and more Pierre Henry! After confirming that they weren't joking, I did strip out a couple of tracks, and as they were gratefully received, I found that I had a bit of free time this weekend, so I've stripped out the other four tracks, and here is 'Ceremony' as performed solely by Pierre Henry. As I mentioned in the comments, this sort of  'music' isn't really for me, and so as I've had to listen to them all multiple times while working on them, I'll probably never need to hear this again.   

Track listing

01 Have Mercy
02 Jubilation
03 Confession
03 Prayer
05 Offering
06 Hosanna

Queen - Flash Gordon (1980)

While writing and recording 'The Game', Queen were asked by renowned movie director Dino DeLaurentis to provide the soundtrack for his upcoming sci-fi epic 'Flash Gordon', which the band accepted and promptly began working on both albums simultaneously. Although at first many fans criticized 'Flash Gordon', since it was issued as an official Queen release rather than a motion picture soundtrack, it has proven to be one of rock's better motion picture soundtracks over the years. The majority of the music is instrumental, with dialogue from the movie in place of Freddie Mercury's singing (only two tracks contain lyrics), but the song-writing is still unmistakably Queen. Highlights abound, such as 'Football Fight', 'Vultan's Theme (Attack Of The Hawk Men)', 'The Wedding March', and the heavy metal roar of 'Battle Theme'. But it was the two more conventional songs that were the album's best tracks, with the anthemic U.K. Top Ten hit 'Flash's Theme', and the woefully underrated rocker 'The Hero'. With Queen involved, 'Flash Gordon' is certainly not your average, predictable soundtrack, and in a recent comment, Anonymous suggested that a version of it without the dialogue and effects would be an interesting listen. As it was quite unusual at the time for a soundtrack album to include sounds from the film, I thought that it was a valid idea, and so here is the unadulterated version of Queen's soundtrack to the film 'Flash Gordon'.  

Track listing

01 Flash's Theme
02 In The Space Capsule (The Love Theme)
03 Ming's Theme (In The Court Of Ming The Merciless)
04 The Ring (Hypnotic Seduction Of Dale)
05 Football Fight
06 In The Death Cell (Love Theme Reprise)
07 Execution Of Flash
08 The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash)
09 Arboria (Planet Of The Tree Men)
10 Escape From The Swamp
11 Flash To The Rescue
12 Vultan's Theme (Attack Of The Hawk Men)
13 Battle Theme
14 The Wedding March
15 Marriage Of Dale And Ming (And Flash Approaching)
16 Crash Dive On Mingo City
17 Flash's Theme Reprise (Victory Celebrations)
18 The Hero

The Four Pennies - A Place Where No One Goes (1966)

The Four Pennies started out as the Lionel Morton Four, taking their name from their singer, who had served as a choir boy in a cathedral in his hometown of Blackburn, Lancashire, during his youth. In 1963 they changed their name to the more commercial alternative of The Four Pennies, named after Penny Street, where their favourite music shop was located. The band now consisted of Lionel Morton on vocals and rhythm guitar, Fritz Fryer on lead guitar, Mike Wilshaw on bass, keyboards, and backing vocals, and Alan Buck on drums, and they got a record deal with Philips almost immediately, and their first single 'Do You Want Me To' came out in 1963, scoring a number 47 placing in the UK singles chart. Their second single, 'Tell Me Girl', was released in 1964, but the b-side proved the more popular song, and 'Juliet' is now the song with which they are most associated, after it hit the number one slot on the UK Singles Chart. It was a self-penned number, written by Fryer, Wilshaw and Morton, but ended up being the only UK Number one of 1964 not to chart in America. Following the UK chart-topping success of 'Juliet', the band racked up subsequent 1964 UK hits with their original 'I Found Out The Hard Way' and a cover of Leadbelly's 'Black Girl', followed by the release of their debut album 'Two Sides Of Four Pennies', which, as was customary for British acts of the time, mostly ignored their hit singles. After their first single of 1965 failed to reach the UK chart, Fryer left The Four Pennies to found a folk trio called Fritz, Mike and Mo, and he was replaced on guitar by David Graham. The revamped quartet then hit the UK chart again with 'Until It's Time For You to Go', written by Buffy Sainte-Marie, but their 1966 cover of Bobby Vinton's 'Trouble Is My Middle Name' would be their final chart placing, after which Fryer returned to the fold, replacing his own replacement Graham. They finished 1966 by releasing their second album, 'Mixed Bag', but neither it, nor the singles 'Keep The Freeway Open' and Tom Springfield's 'No More Sad Songs For Me', charted, and so by the end of the year the group had dissolved. As it happened, they could have released a much better second album than 'Mixed Bag' in 1966, by just including some of their better singles and their b-sides, but as they didn't do that then here is what it would have sounded like. 

Track listing

01 Square Peg
02 Till Another Day
03 Don't Tell Me You Love Me 
04 Juliet
05 Trouble Is My Middle Name
06 No Sad Songs For Me
07 Black Girl
08 Keep The Freeway Open
09 Miss Bad Daddy
10 Cats
11 The Way Of Love
12 A Place Where No One Goes
13 Way Out Love
14 I Found Out The Hard Way
15 Tell Me Girl (What Are You Gonna Do)

Jhené Aiko - 3:16AM (2012)

Returning to music after completing her education, Jhené Aiko released a mixtape titled 'Sailing Soul(s)' in March 2011, which was made available via her official website, JheneAiko.com. All the songs on the mixtape were written by her, except for 'July', and it featured collaborations with Miguel, Drake and Kanye West, among others. To promote the mixtape Aiko was joined by R&B singer Miguel on a one off free secret performance on Sunday, 15 July 2011, and in October she released music videos for two of the songs from the mixtape, 'My Mine' and 'Stranger'. In 2011 she also began working closely with artists from Carson-based independent record label Top Dawg Entertainment such as Schoolboy Q and Ab-Soul, and the latter was featured on her 'Sail Out' EP, which was released in November 2013. Before that, however, in 2012, she met with No I.D., record producer and vice president of A&R at Def Jam, who ended up signing Aiko to his Artium Records imprint through Def Jam. Her first release on the label was '3:16AM', which was made available for digital download on iTunes in September 2012, and which was the first single from the forthcoming 'Sail Out' EP. The EP was released in November 2013, and debuted at number eight on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 34,000 copies. In June 2014, 'To Love & Die' was released for digital download as her forthcoming album's lead single, but she had in fact recorded another albums worth of material while in the studio for the 'Sail Out' sessions, and so before the release of her actual debut record 'Souled Out' in 2014, she could have issued the '3:16AM' album in 2012, and so as she didn't do that then we'll just have to do it for her. 

Track listing

01 3:16AM
02 2 Seconds
03 Comfort Inn Ending
04 For My Brother
05 I'd Rather Be
06 I'm Back
07 Keep Ya Head Up
08 Snapped
09 Everything Must Go
10 In Love We Trust
11 Wait No More
12 Burning Man (3:16PM)

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Drink Paint Run Run (1972)

Following the release of the classic 'Trout Mask Replica' album in 1969, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band's (the first time the group were not referred to as 'His' Magic Band) follow-up had to be something special, and 1970's 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby' certainly continued in a similarly experimental vein. Appearing within the most experimental and visionary stage of the group's career, it was their most commercially successful album in the UK, spending twenty weeks on the Albums Chart and peaking at number 20. Art Tripp III, formerly of the Mothers of Invention, played drums and marimba on the record, along with a returning John French, who had been ejected from the group during the 'Trout Mask Replica' sessions. An early promotional music video was made of its title song, alongside a bizarre television commercial that included excerpts from 'Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop', silent footage of masked Magic Band members using kitchen utensils as musical instruments, and Beefheart kicking over a bowl of what appears to be porridge onto a dividing stripe in the middle of a road. The video was rarely played but was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art, where it has been used in several programs related to music. The next record was just credited to Captain Beefheart, and the atmosphere of 1972's 'The Spotlight Kid' seemed more relaxed and fun. 

The music is simpler and slower than on the group's two previous releases, and this was in part an attempt by Don Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition, as the band had made virtually no money during the previous two years. The next record was released as by Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band, and 1972's 'Clear Spot' is rightly regarded as a high-point in the band's career. The production credit of Ted Templeman made AllMusic's Ned Raggett consider "why in the world wasn't it more of a commercial success than it was", and while fans of the fully all-out side of Beefheart might find the end result not totally to their taste, those less concerned with continually pushing back the borders enjoyed his unexpected blend of styles, tempered with a new accessibility. And, of course, it included that fantastically strange piece of aggression that was 'Big Eyed Beans From Venus'. While recording these three albums the group laid down many, many instrumental takes, while Van Vliet searched for that perfect recording over which to lay his vocals, and hours worth of them have survived, so here is a selection of the very best. As most of them are instrumentals, I've included a couple of alternate vocal takes of songs that did eventually end up on albums, just to give the album a bit of variety, but these are completely different versions.  

Track listing

01 Suzy Murder Wrist
02 U Bean So Cinquo
03 Drink Paint Run Run
04 Flaming Autograph
05 Love Grip
06 No Flower Shall Grow
07 Sun Zoom Spark (Take 3)
08 Best Batch Yet
19 Seam Crooked Sam (Take 1)
10 Dual & Abdul
11 Dirty Blue Gene
12 Open Pins
13 Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian

Bern Elliott & The Fenmen - I Can Tell (1964)

Bernard Michael Elliott was born in Erith, Kent, on 17 November 1942, and attended Picardy School in Belvedere, before forming his own beat group, which became Bern Elliott and the Bluecaps. After a name change to Bern Elliott and the Fenmen in 1961, the group performed over the next two years in clubs in Hamburg, Germany, and were signed to a recording contract with Decca in early 1963. 'Money' was released by several artists at the time, but Bern Elliott and the Fenmen were unique as a group in registering a UK Singles Chart Top 20 hit with the song in December 1963, with their Merseybeat style belying their southern England roots. However, they did appear on 13 March 1964 episode of the UK television programme Ready Steady Go!, playing their follow-up hit, 'New Orleans'. In May 1964, Elliott parted company with The Fenmen, and utilised The Klan for a short time as his backing group on one release, 'Good Times'/'What Do You Want With My Baby', which was released on Decca in September 1964. The following year Elliott tidied himself up in an effort to become a smoother pop entertainer, and issued two solo efforts, 'Guess Who' and 'Voodoo Woman', neither of which troubled the charts. The Fenmen continued as a band in their own right, issuing further efforts both for Decca and CBS, including 'I've Got Everything You Need, Babe' in 1965 and 'Rejected' in 1966. After the Fenmen themselves disbanded, Wally Allen (aka Wally Waller) and Jon Povey moved on to The Pretty Things, but despite only releasing one EP and a couple of singles before the band members went their separate ways, they had recorded enough material for an album by 1964, and so if Decca had wanted one then it could have sounded like this. 

Track listing

01 Money
02 Be My Girl
03 Everybody Needs A Little Love
04 Good Times

05 (Do The) Mashed Potato
06 Chills
07 New Orleans
08 Please Mr. Postman
09 Talking About You
10 Nobody But Me
11 What Do You Want With My Baby
12 I Can Tell
13 Shake Sherry Shake
14 Little Egypt
15 Shop Around

Grouper - False Horizon (2016)

Grouper is the solo project of musician, artist and producer Liz Harris, who was born on 15 July 1980 in Northern California, and who grew up around the San Francisco Bay area, in a Fourth Way commune there which was inspired by the philosophy of George Gurdjieff. The community was known as "The Group", which would later serve as some inspiration for the moniker Grouper. After finishing at university with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Harris briefly moved to Los Angeles, where she worked with Mayo Thompson at Patrick Painter. Her first album was an eponymous self-released full-length CD-R, followed later that year by 'Way Their Crept' on Free Porcupine Society Records. In 2008 she released 'Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill', which turned out to be her breakthrough album, with AllMusic reviewer Heather Phares praising it for showing more musical range than Harris' previous work, and for "letting more melody, more structured songs, and even a few phrases emerge from the ether", while Pitchfork gave it 8.2 stars, calling the work "an arresting album of pastoral psychedelic pop". Harris has continued to release albums since then which challenge the listener, including one consisting of two parts: 'A I A: Dream Loss' and 'A I A: Alien Observer', and a pair of longform tape collage pieces which originally took shape for commissioned performances in New York and Berkeley. Her 2014 release 'Ruins' is relatively stripped-down, with just piano, voice and field recordings, and while being only 22 minutes long, 2018's 'Grid Of Points' garnered generally positive reviews. On 27 July 27 2021, Harris announced a new Grouper album, 'Shade', and released its first single 'Unclean Mind', and to trace how she got to that point, from her self-released CD-R to her 12th official album on the respected Kranky label, here is a collection of her non-album singles and other rarities, recorded between 2007 and 2016, and spanning her career from her ambient instrumentals to her singer/songwriter phase.   

Track listing

01 Quiet Eyes
02 Everyone In Turn
03 Hold
04 Water People
05 Hollow Tone
06 I'm Clean Now
07 Sick
08 Cassiopeia
09 Headache
10 Moving Machine
11 False Horizon
12 Demona