Kanye West - So Help Me God (2015)

In 2015 Kanye West spent a week in Europe promoting an '80-percent done' new album that didn’t have a title or a release date. He later revealed on Twitter that his upcoming 'Yeezus' follow-up would be titled 'So Help Me God', and it was accompanied by an image that could be the album's cover: a diamond shape connected at the points by four lower-case m's, that Reddit users discovered is a 13th century monastic symbol for the Virgin Mary. At the 2015 Brit Awards he debuted a fiery new track called 'All Day', then followed that up with a performances of 'Only One' on U.K. chat show 'The Jonathan Ross Show' and on Sweden's 'Skavlan'. Along the way he chatted with BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe about the new album, saying "It's fun to work hard. We’re being inventive, and the College Dropout came out of a fight to rap. This new album is coming out of a fight to design". Despite West finally offering up his new album title, a release date was nowhere to be seen, and when pressed he said that release dates are '100 percent played out', and that his new LP would arrive in a surprise fashion, like Beyoncé’s 'Beyoncé' or Drake’s 'If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late'. Some months later another tweet announced that the album would no longer be called 'So Help Me God' and would instead be titled 'Swish', but as we now know, that didn't happen either. Eventually, West's new album did appear, and surprise, surprise, it wasn't called 'So Help Me God' or 'Swish', but 'The Life Of Pablo', and it included none of the tracks that had been rumoured to be on the record, apart from a shortened take of 'FML'. Luckily for us, a lot of the tracks were either released as singles or leaked online, and so enterprising fans have attempted to put together an approximation of SHMG, and this is just one of them, with a fan-created cover that I think is the best of the ones out there, especially the 'official' one that West tweeted, which was, to be honest, pretty boring. I have to admit that I'm not the biggest Kanye West fan, so I'll have to leave it to the rap fans out there to tell me if this really is as good as everyone seems to think that it is.    

Track listing

01 Ultralight Prayer (feat. Kirk Franklin & Choir)
02 All Day (feat. Allan Kingdom, Kendrick Lamar, Paul McCartney & Theophilus London)
03 I Feel Like That
04 Fall Out Of Heaven (feat. Bon Iver & The-Dream)
05 New Angels
06 When I See It
07 God Level
08 Can't Look In My Eyes / Can U Be (feat. Kid Cudi)
09 Awesome
10 FML (feat. Travis Scott, The Weeknd & Bon Iver)
11 FourFiveSeconds (feat. Paul McCartney & Rihanna)
12 Only One (feat. Caroline Shaw & Ty Dolla)

The The - Gun Sluts (1997)

The 1990's saw the return of Matt Johnson's band The The, following some years as a solo artist under his own name, helped in no small way with the recruitment of ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to the group, alongside ex-Nick Lowe bassist James Eller and ex-ABC drummer David Palmer, as fully-fledged members. This line-up, plus guest singer Sinéad O'Connor, recorded the album 'Mind Bomb', which debuted at No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart and featured the band's highest charting single to date, with 'The Beat(en) Generation' peaking at No. 18 in the UK singles chart. Keyboardist D.C. Collard was added to the official line-up in 1989, after Steve Hogarth, who'd played on 'Infected', opted to become the new lead vocalist of Marillion, and this line-up embarked on a lengthy world tour in 1989/90 called the The Versus The World, which was filmed by Tim Pope during the three nights the band performed at London's Royal Albert Hall. The studio EP 'Shades Of Blue' was released in 1990, including cover versions of Fred Neil's 'Dolphins' and Duke Ellington's 'Solitude', as well as a new original song 'Jealous Of Youth' and a live version of 'Burning Blue Soul's 'Another Boy Drowning', and in 1993 the band released the 'Dusk' album, which debuted at No. 2 in the UK album chart, and which spawned three Top 40 singles in the UK. This was followed by another world tour, the Lonely Planet tour, after which Marr and Eller left, and were replaced by Atlanta-based guitarist Keith Joyner and New York bassist Jared Michael Nickerson, with the group having already lost Palmer partway through the tour, being replaced by ex-Stabbing Westward drummer Andy Kubiszewski. Now permanently relocated to New York, The The's next project was 1995's 'Hanky Panky', an album that consisted entirely of Hank Williams covers, and which was recorded by a new line-up consisting of Johnson, Collard, Fitting, ex Iggy Pop guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, ex David Bowie bass guitarist Gail Ann Dorsey, plus drummer Brian MacLeod. in 1997 the band recorded an experimental album called 'Gun Sluts', but it was so unlike their other records that their record label refused to release it, saying that it was too uncommercial, and so it was consigned to the vaults. Only the title track ever officially appeared, as an extremely rare promotional single sold on the NakedSelf tour, and the rest became a legendary addition to the bands discography, as well as causing the band to sever their eighteen-year relationship with Sony Records, and to sign to Interscope, on Trent Reznor's Nothing Records imprint. Johnson played one track from the sessions on his Radio Cineola internet podcast in 2010, and then in 2020 he released rough mixes of six recordings from the 'Gun Sluts' sessions as an official bootleg, in order to try to stem the sale of unauthorised pressings on the internet. By collecting together all the extant recordings from the 'Gun Sluts' sessions that have surfaced, we can approximate what the album might have sounded like, and although it might not be to the taste of some fans of the band, this all instrumental cacophony is just the sort of thing that I love, so I'm pleased to be able to post it here. 

Track listing

01 Gunsluts
02 Boiling Point
03 Love Lamp
04 Fuck Wit
05 Kid Killers
06 Echo Plasm
97 60 BPM
08 Psychic Sauna
09 Gunsluts (A Funkorelic Extension)

Kylie Minogue - Xtra (2007)

In May 2005, while promoting the 'Ultimate Kylie' album with the Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour, Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer, and so immediately cancelled the remaining concert dates and starred to undergo treatment. Her hospitalization in Melbourne garnered intense media coverage, and following her recovery, she worried about not having sung in some time and whether she could return to performing so soon after her treatment. However, she did reschedule the remaining dates of the cancelled tour for 2006, renaming it Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour, and traveled around Australia and the UK. In July of the same year it was revealed that she was in the studio recording new material, and once the tour ended in January 2007, she returned to the studio to complete the album, feeling that finalizing it was a personal goal she had set. 'X', as the album was to be called (being her tenth release), was the first album where she'd consciously prepared for the recording process, as up until then it was a cycle of record, release, and tour for much of her career. The production took a year and a half to finish, with more than 40 songs recorded, some of which were written about her experience during her recovery from breast cancer, but they were not distressing and were composed to a disco beat. However, most of these tracks did not make it to the record because she was not inclined to release too many songs about her cancer recovery. She worked with producer Eg White, and Jake Shears and Babydaddy of Scissor Sisters also co-wrote some songs with her, including 'Singing In My Sleep' and 'White Diamond', neither of which appeared on the final tracklist. 

London group Kish Mauve re-produced two of their own songs for Minogue, 'Lose Control' and '2 Hearts', and she loved '2 Hearts' the first time she heard it, recording several takes on the verses to make it sound more effortless and lazier, with it eventually opening the album. Danish producers Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg forwarded a demo of 'Like A Drug' to Parlophone and later flew to London to record the track with Minogue within a day, and while there they also recorded 'All I See' and 'Rippin' Up The Disco', although only 'Like A Drug' made the final cut. Minogue collaborated with her longstanding co-writing team Biffco, including Richard Stannard, Julian Peake, and Paul Harris, and together they wrote 'Stars' (which made it) and 'I Don't Know What It Is' (which didn't). Sessions in Stockholm with songwriter Karen Poole and Swedish producers Bloodshy & Avant resulted in the tracks 'Speakerphone', 'Nu-di-ty', and 'Cherry Bomb', and although they also attempted to work on 'No More Rain', their production-heavy style did not work well with the song. On a trip to Ibiza with Karen Poole and producer Greg Kurstin, they set up a studio booth in a villa to put the final touches to the album, and they also recorded demos for new songs that they wrote there, including 'Wow', 'King Or Queen', 'Carried Away', 'Do It Again' and 'Magnetic Electric'. Several tracks with other songwriters and producers were rejected during the production process, and Scottish musician Mylo was shocked when his recorded tracks with Minogue were scrapped, despite being told that 'Spell Of Desire' and 'In The Mood For Love' were being sent off to be mixed and would be on the final record. 

Shortly before the album was due to be released, two songs were leaked online, with 'Excuse My French (French Kissing)' originally being incorrectly labelled as Kylie's new comeback single. As soon as Parlophone found out about the leaks they panicked, and informed all parties questioning the song that it was actually an 'old demo', and that in fact it wasn't Kylie singing, claiming that it was a session singer used to sound like Kylie for demo purposes. This does happen, but the leaked 'Excuse My French' is very much Kylie's vocals, and it was a new demo, recorded in 2006, and not an old one as Parlophone were saying. A day after the leak of 'Excuse My French' came another leak in the form of clip of a song entitled 'When The Cat's Away', with Parlophone repeating the same denials, compounding this with a statement on 9th March 2007 referring to 'Excuse My French', saying that 'Kylie is not singing on the track and she has never recorded a song by that name', which completely contradicts their earlier statement that the song was a 'old demo'. You can make up your own mind when you hear it. When 'X' was eventually released it garnered generally favourable reviews, with Sharon O'Connell of Yahoo! Music describing it as a "savvy, shiny, slyly sophisticated set of thoroughly modern dance floor exercises" that Girls Aloud might make, and BBC Music's Chris Long calling it "a fine selection of pop gems" that captured the trend for electro music. Over the years nearly 50 demos and early takes have found their way online, and this collection features most of them, many of which have been mentioned above, along with a few choice b-sides, which make up a companion to 'X' which to my ears sounds the equal of it's parent album. As with 'Excuse My French', there are some major online disputes over whether Kylie is actually singing on some of these demos, so it's up to you to make up your own mind when you listen to 'To The 9's', 'Give Up To Love', One To One' and 'Never Be Lonely', but to be honest, 'To The 9's' is such a great track that I don't really care. 

Track listing

Disc One
01 Spell Of Desire (demo with Mylo) 
02 King Or Queen (b-side of '2 Hearts')
03 Lose Control (demo with Kish Mauve)
04 Magnetic Electric (demo with Greg Kurstin)  
05 Sexual Gold (demo)
06 White Diamond (demo with Jake Shears and Babydaddy) 
07 Excuse My French (demo.....or is it?)
08 In The Mood For Love (demo with Mylo) 
09 Do It Again (b-side of 'Wow')
10 Something 2 Believe In (demo)
11 Rippin' Up The Disco (demo with Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg)

Disc Two
01 To the 9's (demo)
02 Down Down (demo)
03 When the Song Comes On (demo)
04 Ooh (demo)
05 Cherry Bomb (b-side of 'Wow')
06 My Love is Real (demo)
07 Classical Transit (demo)
08 I Can't Help That (demo)
09 Acid Min (demo)
10 Osmondosis (demo)
11 Fall For You (demo)
12 Never Be Lonely (demo)

Disc Three
01 Guess Who's Back (Interlude) (demo)
02 Carried Away (b-side of 'Wow')
03 Ruffle My Feathers (demo with Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg)
04 What's It Gonna Take (demo)
05 Thing Called Love (Right Here, Right Now) (demo)
06 I Don't Know What It Is (b-side of '2 Hearts')
07 Hold On (Like Love) (demo)
08 Simple Boy (demo)
09 One to One (demo)
10 Come Down (demo)
11 Extraordinary Day (Taprobane) (demo with Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg)
12 Give Up To Love (demo)
13 Love Attack (So Safe) (demo)

Al Stewart - Helen And Cassandra (1998)

In 1992 Al Stewart followed up his 'Last Days Of The Century' album with his second live release, the acoustic 'Rhymes In Rooms', which featured only Stewart and Peter White, and the same year he self-released a companion album titled 'Live In Rooms', which again featured Peter White, and included an extra CD of live music to 'Rhymes...'. 1993 saw the release of 'Famous Last Words', which was dedicated to the memory of the late Peter Wood, who co-wrote 'Year Of The Cat', and who had died in 1993. After parting ways with Peter White, his longtime collaborator of almost 20 years, Stewart joined up with former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber to record the concept album 'Between The Wars', which was released in 1995, and which covered major historical and cultural events from 1918 to 1939, such as the Treaty of Versailles, Prohibition, the Spanish Civil War, and the Great Depression. In 2000 another concept album appeared, and this time 'Down In The Cellar' was themed around wine, following Stewart's love affair with wine that started in the 70's, when he'd admitted that he had more money than he knew how to spend, and so started investing in fine wines. In 2005 he released 'A Beach Full of Shells', which was another of his 'history' albums, set in places varying from First World War England to the 1950's rock 'n' roll scene that influenced him. This third collection of rarities covers the years from 1977 to 1998, and includes a demo of the 'Last Days Of The Century' instrumental 'Ghostly Horses Of The Plain' but this time including lyrics, a live version of Elvis Costello's 'London's Brilliant Parade/Caroline, Goodbye', his take on the Greek myth of Helen and Cassandra, a live recording of 'John Barleycorn' with Jim Capaldi, and another of his 'history' songs, with 'The Coldest Winter In Memory', referencing the fall of Charles XII of Sweden and the loss of the East Anglian city of Dunwich to the North Sea.  

Track listing

01 Life In A Bottle (previously unreleased 1977)

02 The Hollywood Sign On St. Stephen's Day (previously unreleased 1977)

03 Helen And Cassandra (previously unreleased 1988)
04 Ghostly Horses Of The Plain (with vocal) (previously unreleased 1988)      
05 London's Brilliant Parade / Caroline, Goodbye (previously unreleased live recording 1992)
06 The Coldest Winter In Memory (previously unreleased 1993) 
07 Blow Your Mansion Down (previously unreleased 1993)
08 In The Dark (previously unreleased 1993)
09 Mixed Blessings (previously unreleased 1993)
10 The Bear Farmers Of Birnam (previously unreleased live recording 1995)
11 Curtains (previously unreleased 1997)

12 John Barleycorn (previously unreleased live recording with Jim Capaldi 1998)

Thanks again to Private Beach for the suggestion of more volumes of Stewart rarities.

The Weeknd - The Noise (2009)

Abel Makkonen Tesfaye is a Canadian singer, songwriter and record producer, known professionaly as The Weeknd, who began his musical career in 2009 by anonymously releasing music to YouTube. The following year he met Jeremy Rose, a producer who had an idea for a dark contemporary R&B musical project, and after initially trying to pitch the idea to musician Curtis Santiago, Rose played one of his instrumentals for Tesfaye, who freestyle rapped over it. This led to the two collaborating on an album, with Rose producing three songs, 'What You Need', 'Loft Music', and 'The Morning', amongst a few others that Tesfaye had sung on, but the sessions were ultimately scrapped. Rose let Tesfaye keep the tracks he had produced under the condition that Rose would be credited for them, but in December 2010 Tesfaye uploaded the three afore-mentioned songs to YouTube under the username "xoxxxoooxo", with the posts subsequently receiving coverage from various media outlets, including Pitchfork and The New York Times. Before adopting the stage name The Weeknd, Tesfaye recorded with production group The Noise in 2008/2009, but before the results could be released he split with them and founded his XO record label in 2011, releasing the critically acclaimed mixtape 'House Of Balloons'. The Noise were justifiable annoyed by this, and leaked snippets of their tracks in 2011, before leaking the whole session in 2016. The sessions with The Noise were intended to be a darker sound to what fans might know, with plentiful use of auto-tune, and although these are only demos, I'm sure fans will still want to hear them to get a feel for what Tesfaye was doing in those early years. 

Track listing

01 Birthday Suit  
02 Do It 
03 Through Her 
04 Material Girl 
05 Rescue You 
06 Appointment 
07 Xray 
08 Cure 
09 In The Mood (Bulleez'n'Nerdz)
10 Superhero

Gemini - I Am The Universe (1987)

With ABBA returning from a 40 year hiatus with a new album, their name is everywhere at the moment, and this blog is no exception. After releasing their masterpiece 'The Visitors' in 1981, followed by the singles 'The Day Before You Came' and 'Under Attack', the band broke up in 1982, and both Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstag launched solo careers. But what happened to Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus? Well, they carried on making music, but in a much more low-key manner, taking established brother and sister duo The Glenmarks under their wing and writing and producing two albums with them. Karin and Anders Glenmark, together with their aunt and uncle, had been recording since 1972 and had released four albums before Anders left for a solo career. There was already a connection to ABBA, as Anders had provided backing vocals on Faltskog's 1975 solo album, as well as playing guitar on Lyngstag's 'Ensams' from the same year, and so when Bjorn and Benny were looking for a pair of vocalists to replace the girls, the Glenmarks were the obvious choice. After contributing backing vocals to the soundtrack album of Bjorn and Benny's collaboration with Tim Rice on their 'Chess' musical, they were encouraged to change their name to Gemini, and they signed to the Polar label and started recording at the Polar studio in Stockholm, using many of the musicians who'd played on ABBA's albums. Their first single was the unreleased ABBA composition 'Just Like That', and it was promoted in the UK with a live appearance on The Terry Wogan show in 1986, but ABBA were considered a bit passe by then, and even a high profile appearance on British TV couldn't launch the group to an apathetic UK audience. They were reasonably successful in their native Sweden, however, and so a second album 'Geminism' appeared in 1987, and as with the first one, the songs were a mix of Andersson/Ulvaeus originals and songs written by Anders Glenmark and Ingela Forsman, and while Anders' songs were perfectly acceptable pop fare, the quality of Bjorn and Benny's easily eclipsed them, and so it is those songs that we really want to hear. As it happens, if we extract the Andersson/Ulvaeus songs from both records we end up with a great 46-minute album, played on and produced by Bjorn and Benny, and therefore being the nearest thing to new ABBA music in the mid-to-late 80's that we'll ever get to hear.

Track listing

01 T.L.C.
02 Slowly
03 Too Much Love Is Wasted
04 Mio My Mio
05 Slow Emotion
06 Just Like That
07 Ghost Town
08 I Am The Universe
09 Have Mercy
10 I'm A Bitch When I See Red
11 Another You, Another Me
12 Nearly There

Joe Satriani - ...and on guitar (2020)

Joseph Satriani was born in Westbury on 15 July 15 1956 and raised in Carle Place, and he started playing guitar at 14, after being inspired by hearing of the death of Jimi Hendrix, and later taking lessons from jazz musicians Lennie Tristano and Billy Bauer. He enrolled in Five Towns College and also began teaching guitar, taking his first notable student in Steve Vai, a musician who would soon be credited with "stunt guitar" on Frank Zappa records. Satriani headed out to Berkeley, California in 1978, supporting himself through teaching, and beginning to gig with local bands, and over the next few years he racked up what would prove to be an impressive roster of pupils, including Kirk Hammett (who would join Metallica), jazz fusion guitarist Charlie Hunter, Larry LaLonde (later of Primus), Kevin Cadogan (who joined Third Eye Blind), and David Bryson (Counting Crows). During this period he started to be noticed as a musician himself, landing his first notable steady gig in The Squares, and then joining the Greg Kihn Band in 1986, just as the hits started to dry up for the power popper. Satriani has said that as Kihn was desperate for a replacement guitarist, he was paid far too much money, and he used that, along with his credit cards, to finance his full-length debut album 'Not Of This Earth', released on the Relativity label in 1986. At the same time, his student Steve Vai was hired by David Lee Roth, pushing him into the national spotlight, and Vai often tipped his hat to his old guitar tutor. This helped set the stage for the 1987 release of 'Surfing With The Alien', which received rave reviews from guitar publications, and it rocketed Satriani to mainstream stardom almost overnight, eventually being certified platinum, which was an almost unheard-of feat for an instrumental album. 

As a result of this notoriety, he was offered the chance to play with Mick Jagger on his solo tour of Japan in 1988, which he readily accepted, and he was also asked to guest on 'Blue Öyster Cult's latest recording. The following year saw the release of his next album 'Flying In A Blue Dream', which included a couple of cuts where he sang lead vocals, possibly at the request of his label, but it did help propel the album into the upper reaches of the charts. Before he started work on his next album, he played on four tracks with Alice Cooper, and appeared with Spinal Tap on the 'Break Like The Wind' album. 1992's 'The Extremist' was his highest-ever chart position on Billboard, and a year later he joined Deep Purple, taking over the lead guitar slot from the absent Ritchie Blackmore on a Japanese tour, after which he was offered a full-time position, but he turned it down and the gig went to Steve Morse. The next big event in his career arrived in 1996 when he teamed up with Steve Vai and Eric Johnson for G3, a tour designed to showcase the three guitar virtuosos, and it was captured on the 1997 live CD/DVD set 'G3: Live In Concert'. More solo albums followed, with 2003/2004 being particularly productive, not only for him personally, but he also guested on tracks from the reformed Yardbirds, Stanley Clarke, and Jordan Rudess. Satriani's next project was the supergroup Chickenfoot, with ex-Van Halen rockers Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, plus Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and they released their self-titled debut in 2009, while at the same time he was keeping his solo career afloat with 'Black Swans And Wormhole Wizards' appearing in 2010. A year later Chickenfoot released their second album 'Chickenfoot III', while an overview of his work was issued as 'The Complete Studio Recordings' box set in 2014, followed by yet another new release with 'Shockwave Supernova' in 2015. A couple times a year Satriani joined other artists in the studio to add his blistering guitar runs to songs by artists such as Frost*, Don Felder, Todd Rundgren, and just last year on the latest release by Ayreon. This collection shows the huge variety of artists that have benefited from Satriani's fiery guitar-work over the years, and if you aren't already a fan then I hope in inspires you to check out his many solo releases.  

Track listing   

Disc One
01 Love And Rock And Roll (from 'Love And Rock And Roll' by Greg Kihn 1986)
02 Montery (from 'Aquamarine' by Danny Gottlieb 1987)
03 The Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle At Weisseria 

                                                                                (from 'Imaginos' by Blue Öyster Cult 1988)
04 Flow My Tears (from 'Radio Free Albemuth' by Stuart Hamm 1988)
05 Burning Our Bed (from 'Hey Stoopid' by Alice Cooper 1991)
06 Break Like the Wind (from 'Break Like The Wind' by Spinal Tap 1992) 
07 Ellipsis (from 'All Sides Now' by Pat Martino 1997)
08 Labios De Fuego (from 'Soy' by Alejandra Guzmán 2001)
09 Train Kept A Rollin' (from 'Birdland' by The Yardbirds 2003)

Disc Two
01 Hair (from '1,2, To The Bass' by Stanley Clarke 2003)
02 Screaming Head (from 'Rhythm Of Time' by Jordan Rudess 2004)
03 Hang Me Out To Dry (from 'Gillan's Inn' by Ian Gillan 2006)
04 River Of Longing (from 'Collection' by Jason Becker 2008)
05 Nail Grinder (from 'Clean' by Martone 2008)
06 Hold On To The Vision (from the soundtrack of the 1986 film 'No Retreat No Surrender' 2010)
07 Falling Awake (from 'What Lies Beneath' by Tarja 2010)
08 Gaia Tribe (from 'Elemental Journey' by Sonny Landreth 2012)

Disc Three
01 Closer To The Sun (from 'Falling Satellites' by Frost* 2016)
02 This Is Not A Drill (from 'White Knight' by Todd Rundgren 2017)
03 The Healer (from 'Borrego' by Marco Minnemann 2017)
04 When Did Men Rock (from 'Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing)' by Derek Smalls 2018)
05 Power Drunk Majesty (Part II) (from 'Volume II: Power Drunk Majesty' by 

                                                                                                              Metal Allegiance 2018)

06 Rock You (from 'American Rock 'n' Roll' by Don Felder 2019)
07 Tears From A Glass Eye (from 'Old Lions Still Roar' by Phil Campbell 2019)
08 Get Out! Now! (from 'Transitus' bu Ayreon' 2020)

Madeon - Celine (2017)

Hugo Pierre Leclercq is better known by his stage name Madeon, and is a French musician, DJ, record producer, singer and songwriter from Nantes, currently based in Los Angeles. He started composing music at the age of 11 under the names of Daemon and Wayne Mont until 2010, when he began producing house music under his current name, Madeon. He went on to remix tracks by other electronic artists the following year, but it was a 2011 Youtube clip that propelled him to widespread public attention, with his recording of 'Pop Culture', where he performed a mash-up of 39 different popular songs in real-time using a Novation Launchpad. It received six millions of hits in its first few days of release, and paved the way for the release of his debut single 'Icarus', and his first EP 'The City' in 2012. He toured with Lady Gaga as an opening act during her Born This Way Ball, and later worked on three tracks from her 'Artpop' album. The 'Technicolor' single was released in 2013, and the following year he made an old track called 'Cut The Kid' available for a free download on his website. In September 2014, Leclercq released 'Imperium' as the lead single from his debut studio album, which was followed by more singles in the form of 'You're On', 'Pay No Mind', and 'Home', and the parent album came out on 10 March 2015. In August 2016, the new gameplay trailer of EA Sports' FIFA 17 was released, featuring Madeon's remix of 'Song 2' by Blur, and in November 2017 he announced that he would be releasing his next project in 2018. However, in reality he'd been hit by writers block, and he wasn't happy with the music he was putting out, so on 12 December 2017 he recorded some music 'made out of anger', taping six tracks of dark and disturbing electronica in just 24 hours. Years later the pieces were pressed up as a 6 track EP, in a limited run of 200 vinyl copies, and you can feel the anger in them, and ultimately his state of mind whilst writing them. In 2019 Leclercq announced that he would be releasing a new song in May, and 'All My Friends' appeared in stores on clear 7" vinyl, followed in November by the release of the 'Good Faith' album. Leclercq later revealed that it was based on his relationship to joy and his mental health, showing that his dark period in 2017 was now over, and that it actually helped to shape 'Good Faith'. Having been a fan of harsh electronics such as Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle for many years, it's the dark stuff that I'm drawn to, so this EP is right up my street. 

Track listing

01 Heir
02 Homicide
03 Turbomegafast
04 Celine
05 Pomme
06 Absolu

Al Stewart - Merry Monks (1988)

After the release of 'Modern Times' in 1975, Al Stewart's contract with CBS Records expired, and he signed to RCA Records for the world outside North America, and with Arista in the US. His first album for the new label, 'Year Of The Cat', turned out to be his breakthrough record, and the change in style paved the way for his future releases, with Stewart commenting when he'd finished recording that he thought "If this isn't a hit, then I can't make a hit. We finally got the formula exactly right." He followed 'Year Of The Cat' with 'Time Passages' in 1978, and both albums reached the top ten in the US, with 'Year Of The Cat' peaking at No. 5 and 'Time Passages' at No. 10, and with both albums producing a number of hit singles in the US. In 1980 he released '24 Carrots', and the following year saw his first live album 'Live/Indian Summer', with both featuring backing by Peter White's band Shot In The Dark. Despite '24 Carrots' producing a No. 24 US single with 'Midnight Rocks', it actually sold less well than its two immediate predecessors, so Stewart was dropped by Arista, and his popularity declined. Despite his lower profile and waning commercial success, he continued to tour the world, record albums, and maintained a loyal fanbase, and his next album was the highly political 'Russians And Americans' in 1984, followed after a four-year gap by the upbeat pop-oriented 'Last Days Of The Century' on the small DRO/Enigma labels in 1988. As with his previous recording sessions, extra tracks were left off the finished albums and later turned up on expanded re-issues, although some were still kept hidden, eventually appearing on the 1996 fan-made bootleg 'Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time'. For this second volume of Stewart rarities I've collected the unreleased songs from 1976 to 1988, including an unused demo of the title song for the 1982 Robin Williams film 'The World According To Garp', and two 1988 co-writes with Tori Amos in 'Ten Cents' and 'Dreaming'.   

Track listing

01 Belsize Blues (previously unreleased 1976)
02 The Ringing of Bells (previously unreleased 1980) 
03 Tonton Macoute (previously unreleased 1980)  
04 The World According To Garp (previously unreleased 1982) 
05 Candy Came Back (previously unreleased 1984) 
06 In Red Square (previously unreleased 1984)
07 How Does It Happen (previously unreleased 1984) 
08 Merry Monks (previously unreleased 1988) 
09 Ten Cents (previously unreleased 1988) 
10 Dreaming (previously unreleased 1988) 

Thanks to Private Beach for the suggestion of more volumes of Stewart rarities.

The Vibrators - We Vibrate (1978)

I've had this set ready to go for a couple if years now, but it was a small sidebar in the new issue of Record Collector which told me that now was the time to post it. Apparently, The Vibrators are ripe for the collector's market, with copies of their early records going for big bucks, so this post shows exactly how they got there. The Vibrators were founded by Ian 'Knox' Carnochan, bassist Pat Collier, guitarist John Ellis, and drummer John 'Eddie' Edwards in 1976, and first came to public notice at the 100 Club when they backed Chris Spedding. On Spedding's recommendation, Mickie Most signed them to his RAK Records label, and he produced their first single 'We Vibrate', which was released in 1976, with the band also backing Spedding on his single 'Pogo Dancing, which was issued the same year. They quickly became favourites with John Peel, and recorded sessions for him in October 1976, June 1977, and February 1978, but although they were one of the pioneering punk bands, headlining London's Roxy Club in 1977, some people wrote them off as being bandwagon-jumpers, as their sound was more pop-punk than the The Damned or The Clash, and it was mentioned more than once that Knox was too old to be a punk at 32. The band signed to Epic Records in early 1977, and their debut album 'Pure Mania' reached the top 50 of the UK Albums Chart, another stick to beat them with by the true-blue punks. Their follow-up album 'V2' narrowly missed the UK top 30, although 'Automatic Lover', taken from the album, was their only single to reach the UK top 40. A lack of further chart activity, and with only one UK top 40 single to their credit, saw The Vibrators join the list of indie one-hit wonders, alongside The Flying Lizards, Jilted John, 999, The Radio Stars, and The Rich Kids, and so they quietly broke up in 1980. Following the break-up John Ellis recorded with Peter Gabriel, as well as recording and touring frequently with Peter Hammill, then subsequently The Stranglers, who he eventually joined full-time in the 1990's. Pat Collier went on to work closely with the Soft Boys, producing their seminal album 'Underwater Moonlight', before he decided to get the old gang back together, putting out a call to fellow original members Ellis, Knox, and Edwards, and the reformed band released the 'Guilty' album in 1982. This collection of early singles and demos clearly shows their influences, with some of them sounding way more pub-rock than punk, and confirming that the 'too old for punk' insults had some truth in them, but it's still a great collection of raucous rock from these under-rated pioneers of punk.    

Track listing

01 Say Mama (demo 1976)
02 We Vibrate (single 1976)
03 Pogo Dancing (single by Chris Spedding & The Vibrators 1976)
04 The Pose (b-side of 'Pogo Dancing')
05 Young Lust (demo 1976)
06 He's A Psycho (demo 1977)
07 I Can See It In Your Eyes (demo 1976)
08 Stitch You Up (demo 1977)
09 Frontline Europe (demo 1977)
10 City Of Mirrors (demo 1977)
11 Still Not Over You (demo 1977)  
12 Dong (demo 1977)
13 I Loved Her (demo 1977)
15 Eye Witness (demo 1977)
16 Judy Says (Knock You In The Head) (single 1978)

Kylie Minogue - Always And Forever (2001)

In 1997 Kylie Minogue released her sixth studio album 'Impossible Princess', representing a drastic change in her musical direction, incorporating elements of electronica and alternative music. The British public was unimpressed, viewing it as a trend-chasing attempt, and failed to identify with her new intimate image as "IndieKylie", with the backlash resulting in 'Impossible Princess' having little impact on British record charts, and ultimately resulting in her leaving Deconstruction Records after a six-year relationship. Following the split, Minogue took a break from recording music to focus on her acting career, although she did perform Duran Duran's 'The Reflex' on the tribute compilation 'Undone: The Songs Of Duran Duran' in 1999, and she also collaborated with the Pet Shop Boys on a duet entitled 'In Denial' on their 1999 studio album 'Nightlife'. This prompted the band's label Parlophone to sign Minogue in June 1999, and in an early meeting with the label to discuss which direction she intended to pursue, she decided to return to her pop roots, as she realised that this was the kind of music that people wanted from her. Her team approached PWL owner Pete Waterman to be involved in the project, as the pair had worked together earlier in her career, but the collaboration did not happen. Instead she felt that working with different producers would help the album have a diverse feel, and so she recorded the songs in Sydney, London, and finally Los Angeles, where she put the final touches to the album. Former Take That member Robbie Williams contributed three songs with his songwriting partner Guy Chambers, 'Loveboat', 'Your Disco Needs You', and 'Kids', with Minogue sharing the songwriting credit on the first two, and she found Williams to be her ideal male counterpart based on their similar musical output. 'Spinning Around' was released as the lead single from the 'Light Years' album in June 2000, with two previously unreleased tracks on the flip, the alternative dance number 'Cover Me With Kisses' and the acoustic 'Paper Dolls'. The second single was 'On A Night Like This', and once again it had a new track on the b-side, being the ballad 'Ocean Blue', whereas the next release was the duet with Williams, with 'Kids' having four original tracks by Williams on the b-side, and Minogue only appearing on the A-side. The fourth single 'Please Stay' was the final release from 'Light Years' in the UK, and was backed by two exclusive b-sides, being a cover of 'Santa Baby' (omitted from this post as it didn't really fit with the other tracks) and the previously unreleased 'Good Life'. One last single was released just in Australia and Germany, and fans who bought 'Your Disco Needs You' were treated to specially commissioned re-mixes of the A-side plus album track 'Password'. 'Light Years' received generally positive reviews from contemporary music critics, and in retrospect is generally considered to be one of Minogue's strongest releases, and so a companion record of b-sides, film soundtrack work, collaborations, and the theme to the UK soap/drama 'Night And Day' should be equally strong, and it turns out to be just that, so enjoy some rare Kylie at her poptastic best. 

Track listing

01 Cover Me With Kisses (b-side of 'Spinning Around' 2000)
02 Paper Dolls (b-side of 'Spinning Around' 2000)
03 Ocean Blue (b-side of 'On A Night Like This' 2000)
04 Physical (bonus track on Australian edition of 'Light Years')
05 The Reflex (with Ben Lee, from 'UnDone', the Duran Duran tribute album 1999)
06 Good Life (b-side of 'Please Stay' 2000)
07 Always And Forever (theme to the TV series 'Night And Day' 2001)
08 I Feel Love (Donna Summer cover)
09 Bury Me Deep In Love (with Jimmy Little, from 'Corroboration', the Australian comp. 2001)
10 The Real Thing (from the soundtrack of the film 'Sample People' 2000)
11 G-House Project (from 'When Young Terrorists Chase The Sun' by Gerling 2001)

Jan Akkerman - ...and on guitar (2001)

I've already covered Jan Akkeran's early years in my 'Minstrel' post, which took him up to the solo albums that he released in 1972 and 1973, so this collection of guest appearances follows on nicely from that one, as it starts in the early 70's and includes his collaborations with fellow musicians over the next 30 years. His solo career actually dated from 1968, though his attempt at a solo album, later titled 'Guitar For Sale', and which contained his covers of numbers such as 'What'd I Say', 'Ode to Billy Joe', and 'Green Onions', was so primitive by the standards of the time that it was deemed unreleasable until Akkerman started topping reader surveys as best rock guitarist in the mid-'70s. Although it's unlikely that it would have been heard much in the UK, you can hear his early prowess on 'The Morning After The Third' by Hans Dulfer & Ritmo Natural from 1970, which came out two years before his first real solo album, 1972's 'Profile'. The music on that album was actually recorded in 1969, while he was still a member of Brainbox, and so it wasn't util 1974's 'Tabernakel' that the music reflected his interests at the time, which included the lute. Having finally acquired a medieval lute of his own, he taught himself to play it, and the results comprise more than half of the album, with authentic medieval music mixed with originals composed in a medieval style. After leaving Focus in 1976, Akkerman began releasing a stream of solo albums, beginning with the concept offering 'Eli', and this also gave him more time to offer his services as a guitarist for hire, mostly appearing on records by fellow Dutch artists such as The Tielman Brothers, The Joachim Kuhn Band, Mark Nauseef, and André Hazes. His own albums frequently embraced classical, jazz, and blues, and much of his work during the 1980's wasn't released officially outside of Holland, but in 1990 he issued the album 'The Noise Of Art' in the US on Miles Copeland's I.R.S label, and this revitalized him in terms of releases, becoming more active than he had been in over a decade, although this caused the guest appearances to slow down as a consequence. When he did show up on someone else's album his guitar-work was as fluid and emotive as ever - just listen to him on Ange's 'Autour D'Un Cadavre Exquis' from 2001. Akkerman's first two albums of the new century, 'Jazzah!' in 2000 and 'I'm In The Mood' in 2002, were self-released, but gained much acclaim from critics and the public alike, and 2003's 'C.U. On Coast To Coast' even earned him a place in the Dutch charts. He continues to record and release albums to this day, and I mentioned 2019's 'Close Beauty' in the last post, so enjoy this celebration of his contribution to Dutch music over the years, both as a solo artist, with his bands, and with these collaborations with his fellow countrymen. 

Track listing

Disc One
01 The Morning After The Third (from 'The Morning After The Third' by Hans Dulfer 

                                                                                                                 & Ritmo Natural 1970)
02 The Sky Has Called Us Out To Dance (from 'Scarecrow's Journey' by Robin Lent 1971)
03 Get Out Of My Fridge (from 'Two Sides Of Peter Banks' by Peter Banks 1973) 
04 Be-Bop-A-Lula (from 'Rock And Roll, Our First Love' by The Tielman Brothers 1976)
05 Orange Drive (from 'Sunshower' by Joachim Kuhn Band 1978) 
06 Don't Want Nobody (from 'J.D. Drews' by J.D. Drews 1980) 
07 Doctor Marathon Parts I & II (from 'Personal Note' by Mark Nauseef 1982)
08 Volgens Mij Ben Ik Getrouwd (from 'Dit Is Wat Ik Wil' by André Hazes 1989) 

Disc Two
01 Atlantis (from 'Atlantis: Bilder Från En Ö' by Björn J:son Lindh 1983)
02 I Lose Again (from 'The Talisman' by Forcefield 1988)
03 Stealth (from 'Guitar Speak II' by Various Artists 1990) 
04 Blij En Bang  (from 'Mijn Hart Slaapt Nooit' by Henny Vrienten 1991)
05 Soul Detective (from 'Soul Detective' by Bernard Oattes 1995)
06 Autour D'Un Cadavre Exquis (from 'Culinaire Lingus' by Ange 2001)

Opal - Early Recordings Vol. 2 - (1991)

I'm a big fan of the Paisley Underground genre of the early 80's, as you might have gathered by my posts from The Dream Syndicate, but there were others bands that were just as good, most notably The Rain Parade, Green On Red, The Three O'Clock, and even The Bangles, and in this case Clay Allison. Clay Allison was an offshoot band composed of David Roback and Will Glenn of The Rain Parade, Kendra Smith of The Dream Syndicate, Sylvia Juncosa of The Leaving Trains, and Keith Mitchell of Monitor, and they released one single before changing their name to Opal and releasing some of their old recordings on the 1984 'Fell From The Sun' and 1985 'Northern Line' EPs. In 1987 they issued their only album 'Happy Nightmare Baby', but Smith left the group during the Happy Nightmare tour after a show in Providence, Rhode Island, and so Roback continued with vocalist Hope Sandoval, playing shows as Opal and planning an album to be titled 'Ghost Highway'. In 1989 they decided on a name change and became Mazzy Star, and 'Ghost Highway' was presumably released as their debut album 'She Hangs Brightly' in 1990. In 1989 the 'Early Recordings' album was released, collecting some songs from their EPs, a couple of Clay Allison tracks and some previously unreleased recordings. It showed what a great band they were, and what a shame it was that they didn't stay together longer. As further proof of this, here's a second volume of early recordings, mixing some songs from a 1984 promo sampler by Clay Allison with some great unheard tracks by an early Opal. Kendra Smith released a number of solo singles, EPs, and one album before retiring to the woods of northern California, and David Roback died in Los Angeles on February 24 2020 from metastatic cancer, at the age of just 61. 

Track listing

01 My Canyon Memory
02 Sisters Of Mercy
03 Sailing Boats
04 Vespers
05 Lisa's Funeral
06 This Town
07 Freight Train
08 Wintertime
09 Little Bit Of Rain
10 What You've Done
11 Cherry Jam
12 Indian Summer