Pink Floyd - Forever And Ever (Remix) (2019)

Magna Qualitas Records have updated their brilliant 2014 work 'Forever and Ever'. Due to the 2019 release of additional outtakes from the 'Division Bell' sessions and }{eywood's acquisition of the 'Colours Of Infinity' DVD bonus tracks, they felt it was time to expand some of the suites on this album and update it. Here are their notes on the update:  
'Forever and Ever', a mashup of 'The Division Bell' and 'The Endless River - Rev A' was designed to make 'The Division Bell' less radio-friendly and 'The Endless River' less...well...cobbled together. It is intended as a true final Pink Floyd record, an alternate reality version of what should have been released in 1994. When we first listened to 'The Endless River' we were sadly disappointed by the lack of any sort of actual songs on the record. Other that 'Louder Than Words', there was nothing with a traditional song structure to it or lyrics on the record. We heard  many pieces of things we had heard before, either on bootlegs or on the 'Colours Of Infinity' soundtrack, even pieces of the soundscape used as an opening act on the 1994 tour and later released on the P*U*L*S*E cassettes. Being mostly recorded in tandem with 'The Division Bell' it also contained a lot of  similar or duplicated sounds compared to what's on that album.
We see 'The Division Bell' as one of Pink Floyd's better efforts, the first record to sound like a band (rather than a solo album) since 'Animals'. It was, however, a bit heavy on the pop songs. Both albums are flawed, but after just one listen }{eywood had about 22.6 ideas that led to one big design concept: if the two were combined to form a single long album they might balance each other. So he spent a couple of days investigating the issue, and this is what he came up with. Using a couple of bootlegs, the 'Endless River' tracks from the album proper with the bluray and bonus disc extras, the 'Colour Of Infinity' isolated soundtrack, a bit of the PULSE soundscape and, of course, 'The Division Bell', he edited, resequenced and crossfaded the tracks into a new album, one that still has "songs" but is also far more floyd-y sounding, with spacey sections and a great deal of instrumental tracks, sort of like how they used to make records before Roger Waters took over the group and made it more about lyrics (and lists. Don't forget the lists) and less about music. There were several more pieces of music available on bootlegs that were not used for 'The Endless River', but the sound quality wasn't up to the standard set by these albums, and many were incomplete fragments anyway.  In case some diehards out there are wondering, we also originally intended to throw some of 'La Carerra Panamericana' in there too, but it's too hard to remove all the documentary sounds and dialogue to reveal the music. Also, it was released in 1992, a year before the TDB sessions began, and therefore doesn't technically belong with this material. 
The recent discovery of the four isolated songs on a certain version of 'The Colours Of infinity' DVD bonus features was a gift for }{eywood, who wanted to include this music from the start, but like 'La Carerra Panamericana', couldn't separate it from the dialogue. 

Flash forward to 2019 and the release of 7 songs on 'The Later Years' box set that were not used for 'The Endless River'; these songs were instantly destined to be sequenced into 'Forever and Ever'.  As expected, these included most of the 'Colours' soundtrack in pristine quality. The work began anew the day after 'The Later Years' release. Our original intent when making this the first time around was not to alter the running order of TDB, just add to it, but once the whole project was assembled we decided it was better for the overall flow of the record to move the pieces around. Influenced by the four album sides approach taken by 'The Endless River', we put together six suites of varying lengths, each separated from the others. Why didn't we use all the bonus material from TER and all the other known pieces of music like the 'Surfacing Full Demo'? 'Nervana' has no ending, just an abrupt fade out, and it really doesn't fit here because it sounds like Black Sabbath. 'TBS14' has a really bad drum sound, just a mic open in a room near drums, and it's not produced to be used for an album.  It also had no true ending. The other songs are just alternate/early mixes of the stuff on the albums, or they are of dubious quality.  We did, however, use parts of 'Evrika (A)' to add some additional lead guitar to the end of 'Wearing The Inside Out'. This is essentially every song/jam available in RELEASABLE quality. Many songs have obviously had alterations, intended to facilitate better segues: 

The intro to Cluster One has been extended by using the crackling earth noise and some voices from opposite ends of the PULSE soundscape.  
Allons-y has been extended by splicing in the first verse (without the 2014 overdubs) and the middle 8 (unused on the album version) from 209, a bootleg that Lordsnooty circulated around the time Pink Floyd began work on 'The Endless River'.   
"Autumn 68" has been renamed "Spring '69" because our research shows that is the correct date when Rick recorded himself playing the RAH organ.
Poles Apart has had the anomalous middle "carnival" section removed and Surfacing inserted in it's place. This is certainly the original middle section, sped up for use on 'The Endless River' so the fans don't notice the similarity (we did anyway). We slowed it back down and put it back in it's proper place.  
David's Blues has been added to the start of the (previously too short) 3rd suite. The scat vocal sections of this have been cut as they are reference vocals of a vocal melody and show the otherwise decent recording to be a demo. Removing the vocal verses un-demos it.
The Day Has Come, the 'One Of These Days' sounding jam from TCoI has been inserted before Wearing the Inside Out.
Wearing The Inside Out, as mentioned above, has additional lead guitar in the middle 8 and at the end, also taken from 'Evrika (A)'. The cymbal swell that cues it in is from 'Evrika (B)'
The final note of Night Light was reduced to just bass frequencies, stretched, and used to add low end to the first minute of Keep Talking.  
Stephen Hawking dialogue was added to Looking Forward (one of the unnamed pieces on TCoI) to connect it thematically with the songs around it.
The sounds at the end of Talkin' Hawkin' were moved from the end of the song to the beginning.  
Slippery Guitar, a piece from TCoI that I named Back to Basics, and  Rick's Theme were added to the start of Suite 4. 
A nature sounds montage extracted from the PULSE soundscape was laid into the segue between Rick's Theme and Take It Back in line with the theme of the following song. 
The extended ending for Take It Back from the 12" single was used to make a bridge into Sum.  
First In Space is a track we created out of parts of the PULSE soundscape and named after the "still first in space" slogan used on 'The Division Bell' Tour shirts. We included this because small fragments of it were used throughout The Endless River, noticeably at the start of the track Sum, but on Sum the keyboards that appear after the soundscape are from the end of Take It Back. We therefore joined Take It Back and Sum using those keys, leaving the soundscape portion of the track with an uncertain destiny. We then extended it and used it elsewhere.  
Carnival Relations is the middle section that was removed from Poles Apart, given a new home...and a new pitch. 
The Colour Of Infinity is the blues jam from TCoI, named as such because (obviously) the color of infinity is blue(s).
A bonus band quote has been added to Things Left Unsaid, this time by Roger Waters (we reunited the band virtually for their final record).  
It's What We Do has been removed from in between Things Left Unsaid and Ebb & Flow and placed elsewhere.  
TBS9 has had some extraneous drum sounds removed to clean up the start a bit, and a couple of small edits to remove sloppy playing. Although not a properly produced recording, it was recorded well enough that it could be used for this album with a few little fixes.
Blues 1 was re-edited and rearranged and added to suite 6. It was an unfinished wandering jam. We kept the guitar solo verse.
And finally, the end of High Hopes fades into the crackling earth noise again as it fades out, giving the endless-loop wraparound that all the best Floyd albums have. There's also a surprise if you crank it up.
Although we weren't trying to remix the songs, we did have to address Louder Than Words.  The vocals were too loud in this song, and conspicuously lacking in reverb. This made it stand out from the rest of the vocal tracks. Using phase manipulation we separated the vocals in the verses from the rest of the mix and added some effects, then put them back.
Influenced by the way 'The Endless River' is broken into four album sides, this is made up of six suites. Each is separate from the others with the pieces making up each being interconnected. It's sort of like 6 album sides, although not as short as the ones on 'The Endless River'.
By the way, we've taken great pains to keep Wearing The Inside Out as the centerpiece of the album. It still ends the first half just like TDB and our previous version of this album. So roll up The Big Spliff and check out what we've done to improve our already amazing upgrade of Pink Floyd's final studio album.

Track listing 

Suite One:
Cluster One
Allons-y 1 
Spring '69
Allons-y 2
What Do You Want From Me?
Unsung
Anisina
Poles Apart / Surfacing

Suite Two:
The Lost Art Of Conversation
On Noodle Street
Night Light
Keep Talking
Looking Forward
Talkin' Hawkin'
Lost For Words

Suite Three:
David's Blues
Calling
Eyes To Pearls
The Day Has Come
Wearing The Inside Out

Suite Four:
Slippery
Slush
Rick's Theme
Take It Back
Sum
Skins
Coming Back To Life

Suite Five:
First In Space
Carnival Relations
The Colour Of Infinity
Louder Than Words
Things Left Unsaid
Ebb & Flow
A Great Day For Freedom

Suite Six:
TBS9
Blues 1
It's What We Do
Marooned
High Hopes

Jackson Browne - Funny You Should Ask (1967)

On 7 January 1967 Jackson Browne booked some time in the studio to make some demos of his songs for Nina Music, with the label's idea being to showcase his songs to various artists on the Elektra roster. For some reason, Nina Music pressed thirty of Jackson's songs, along with ten of fellow musician Steven Noonan's, onto two LP's, although only about 2/3 of the songs were from the 1967 recording session at Jaycino Studio in New York, with the rest coming from a Columbia session from October of the previous year. One hundred copies of this unorthodox showcase LP, packed in plain white jackets, were distributed around the music community, and for fans of the singer these records, which came to be known collectively as 'The Nina Demos', are a treasure. Comprising virtually every demo-able song in Browne's repertoire at the time, they tell an enlightening tale of an eighteen-year-old doing his conscientious best to pin down his life as well as his art. The songs don't stray too far from Browne's own experience, with a favorite, and convincing, theme being that of the earnest, motivated and optimistic young man on the threshold of discovery and growth. From the 1967 sessions we have 'Holding', where he writes of holding his door open to the wind, while 'Love Me, Lovely' advises his girl in tried-and-true folk-song style to make the most of today with him because tomorrow he's out that door. The eighteen-year-old Browne was not shy about making his points, and the best is yet to come, he informs his going-through-the-motions friend in 'You've Forgotten', while a youthful preachiness pervades 'Someday Morning', and 'Somewhere There's A Feather' reads like a teen Sermon on the Mount with its exhortation to live, learn, and love. In sharp contrast to these songs are 'Melissa' and 'It's Been Raining Here In Long Beach', the fruit of Jackson's brief stint as a ragtime writer. For this second of the two posts I've used the 1967 recordings, with this second post being a bit longer than the 1966 one, so just one extra track, being another co-write with Greg Copeland, later covered to fine effect by Nico on her 'Chelsea Girl' album. As mentioned before, this is mostly just Jackson and his guitar, so will probably appeal more to his committed fanbase rather then the casual listener, but the sound quality is excellent for the year and circumstances of recording, so it's perfect for when you're in the mood for some gentle acoustic singer/songwriting from a budding star in the making.   

Track listing 

01 Holding (Browne) 
02 Somewhere There's A Feather (Browne)  
03 I've Been Out Walking (Browne)  
04 Funny You Should Ask (Browne) 
05 Love Me, Lovely (Browne) 
06 You've Forgotten (Browne) 
07 Someday Morning (Browne) 
08 Cast Off All My Fears (Browne) 
09 In My Time (Browne) 
10 Melissa (Browne) 
11 It's Been Raining Here In Long Beach (Browne) 
12 You'll Get It In The Mail Today (Browne) 
13 Shadow Dream Song (Browne) 
14 The Light From Your Smile (Browne) 
15 The Fairest Of The Seasons (Browne/Copeland)  

Comments on the songs taken from 'The Story Of A Hold Out' by Rich Wiseman; 

Dolphin Books.

Birth Control - Nostalgia (1976)

Birth Control formed in 1966 in West Berlin from the ashes of two other bands, the Earls and the Gents, with an original line-up of Bernd Koschmidder (bass), Reinhold Sobotta (organ), Rolf Gurra (saxophone, vocals), Fritz Gröger (vocals), Reiner Borchert (guitar), Hugo Egon Balder (drums), and Klaus Orso (guitar). In those early years they played a hybrid of jazz and rock compositions, and in January 1969 the band sailed to Lebanon, playing sold-out nights in Beirut night-clubs for three months, before five members returned to Berlin, losing Borchert, who stayed behind in Lebanon and was replaced by Bruno Frenzel. By late summer 1969 the band were recording original material, and they released their first single 'October' on the Amadeo label. Their fist album soon followed for the Metronome label, bringing to the fore their penchant for humour, both both their name and with the album cover illustration. In 1970 they released their second single 'No Drugs', followed quickly by the local hit 'Hope', and apart from the song 'No Drugs', none of these tracks appeared on their albums. When their second album 'Operation' was released in 1971, some record shops refused to stock it as the cover showed the Pope together with a baby-eating monster, and so the UK issue changed this to feature two huge condoms, which resulted in a strike of the female British packers. This was the best publicity that the band could hope for, and the album  was voted the second best record of the year by the readers of Musik Express. 'Operation' was a great improvement on their debut, adding a heavy rock sound to the subtle jazzy arrangements. 1972 saw some changes to the line-up, with Sobotta leaving the band for health reasons, and being replaced by Wolfgang Neuser. They also left Ohr and signed to CBS, who released the bands third album 'Hoodoo Man' in 1972. This record became a milestone in the history of German rock, with tracks such as 'Gamma Ray' becoming a cult song of the Krautrock era, and this song was also released as a two-part single in an edited version. In 1973 they released another non-album single in 'Nostalgia', and then followed this with their fourth album 'Rebirth', which was another successful progressive heavy rock album. In 1974 Steffens left the band, and so they carried on as a quartet, releasing the 'Plastic People' album in 1975, but in 1976 'Blackdoor Possibilities' was a commercial failure due to a more mainstream sound, and the inclusion of more jazz elements. They released a few more albums on the Brain label over the next few years, but following the death of Frenzel in 1983, the group disbanded, although they did reunite in 1993 with only Noske remaining from the previous lineup. Birth Control were one of the very best, and most popular in the UK, of the German progressive rock bands of the 70's, and they left behind a number of hard to find recordings from their stand-alone singles, so here they are all gathered up in one place, to remind us of what a great band they were. 

Track listing

01 All I Want (b-side of 'No Drugs' 1970)
02 October (single 1969)
03 Freedom (b-side of 'October')
04 Hope (single 1970)
05 Rollin' (b-side of 'Hope')
06 The Work Is Done (single 1971)
07 What's Your Name (single 1972)
08 Believe In The Pill (b-side of 'What's Your Name')
09 Nostalgia (single 1973)
10 Gamma Ray parts 1&2 (single 1975)
11 Fall Down (single 1976)
12 Laugh Or Cry (b-side of 'Fall Down')

Yandex update

Yandex finally reduced my storage on Tuesday, but it did give me an option to renew it monthly rather than annually, and so I can do that until the end of the year. For now, then, things are back to normal for downloading, and hopefully by December I'll have managed to move some funds over to renew for 2023. 

Porgy And The Monarchs - Magic Music Makers (1968)

Porgy Williams and his Monarchs recorded a handful of singles in the mid-sixties on a variety of labels, with their debut appearing in 1963 on Mala Records, before moving to Musicor where they scored two singles: 'That Girl'/'If It’s For Real Baby' and 'My Heart Cries For You'/'Think Twice Before You Walk Away'. All four sides were produced by Teddy Randazzo, all four are excellent, but incredibly didn't they see any chart action at the time. Fortunately all was not lost and, almost a decade later, 'My Heart Cries For You' became a much cherished dance floor anthem in the U.K. When it was re-issued in 1975 to cash in on this popularity, the intended b-side was accidentally replaced by an otherwise unheard track 'Hey Girl (It's A Dream I've Always Had)' which had been recorded in 1968 and left in the vault. The Musicor single 'My Heart Cries For You' is probably their best known 45, where Teddy Randazzo turned a fairly mediocre middle of the road Carl Sigmun & Percy Faith ballad, recorded by many singers such as Dinah Washington, Guy Mitchell, Dean Martin, and Connie Francis, into a stomper. The 1975 resissue gave it a new lease of life, especially with the mis-pressed b-side, and as it was withdrawn once the mistake was spotted, it's also now their rarest release, changing hands at up to £100.00. 'That Girl' is probably one of the hardest to find Porgy And The Monarchs singles, and this is because both sides are in-demand items as Northern Soul dancefloor fillers. Presumably, as 'My Heart Cries For You' wasn't a success, they were dropped by Musicor and their next release appeared on Sylves, with 'That's My Girl'/'The Girl And The Boy', followed by 'Love Chain'/'Magic Music Makers' and then a reissue on Verve of 'That's My Girl' with the slightly re-titled flip of '(That) Boy And Girl', which was a strange sounding tune that starts off as if it's going to be a psych/garage tune, but then stomps along with a double-time beat. A couple of previously unreleased tracks have since appeared, with 'Congratulations' being a Bell Sound acetate that was a popular sound at Northern Soul nights in the 80's, but certainly sounds like it was recorded in the mid 60's, possibly being an unreleased Mala recording, as Mala was a Bell subsidiary. In 1968 Porgy Williams tried his hand at a solo career, and released the 'Lonely Man's Hum' single on Sylves Records, which was one of only three releases on Sylves, which was distributed by Chess. The single was re-issued in 1975 with added strings on the vocal side and an instrumental version on the flip. This post collects together all the band's recordings, plus the solo Porgy single, for a great 40-minute collection of future Northern Soul stompers from a band who managed to stay together for five years and release half a dozen fine singles, and yet still slipped between the cracks when obscure soul groups of the 60's are mentioned.   

Track listing

01 Stay (single 1963)
02 Somebody Said (I'd Cry Someday) (b-side of 'Stay')
03 That Girl (single 1965)
04 If It's For Real Baby (b-side of 'That Girl')
05 My Heart Cries For You (single 1966)
06 Think Twice Before You Walk Away (b-side of 'My Heart Cries For You')
07 That's My Girl (single 1968)
08 The Girl And The Boy (b-side of 'That's My Girl')
09 Love Chain (single 1968)
10 Magic Music Makers (b-side of 'Love Chain')
11 Hey Girl (It's A Dream I've Always Had) (b-side of 1975 re-issue of 'My Heart Cries For You')
12 Keep A Hold On Me (previously unreleased)
13 Congratulations (previously unreleased)
14 Lonely Man's Hum (single by Porgy Williams 1968) 
15 Let's Form A Committee (b-side of 'Lonely Man's Hum')

Thanks to Fredrick for the suggestion, after he heard about the band on the Dogpatch podcast.

Jackson Browne - Sing My Songs To Me (1966)

In October 1966 Jackson Browne booked some time in Columbia studios, and spent two hours recording demos of his songs for Nina Music, with the label's idea being to showcase his songs to various artists on the Elektra roster. For some reason, Nina Music pressed thirty of Jackson's songs, along with ten of fellow musician Steven Noonan's, onto two LP's, although only about a third of the songs were from the 1966 recording session, with the rest being recorded at Jaycino Studio in New York on 7 January 1967. One hundred copies of this unorthodox showcase LP, packed in plain white jackets, were distributed around the music community, and for fans of the singer these records, which came to be known collectively as 'The Nina Demos', are a treasure. Comprising virtually every demo-able song in Browne's repertoire at the time, they tell an enlightening tale of an eighteen-year-old doing his conscientious best to pin down his life as well as his art. The songs don't stray too far from Browne's own experience, with a favorite, and convincing, theme being that of the earnest, motivated and optimistic young man on the threshold of discovery and growth. From the 1966 sessions, we find that water, specifically running water, is a favorite image for more aggressive striving, and in 'We Can Be' he declares himself to be as reckless as a mountain stream, whereas in 'And I See' he juxtaposes his perception of the open door with the river running relentlessly to the ocean. He also affords a lighthearted touch on his mythic tributes to friends and lovers, such as 'The Painter' and 'Marianne', as well as 'Lavender Bassman', written in honor of Jimmy Fielder, another Paradox regular who went on to play with Blood Sweat And Tears. If there is an issue with these demos, it isn't his folk/pop-flavored melodies, which are alternately bright and catchy, and with enough surprises to keep a listener's interest. Rather, the problem is how Browne himself sounds...like a singer in search of a voice. He's mechanically proficient, and knows how to hold his notes, and he seems to have done a noble job of ridding his voice of obvious cops from other singers, but his singing reveals that he hadn't learned a far more important lesson yet...how to feel with his voice. His vocals, dragging and wooden, tend to turn his more plaintive songs into dirges, and to sabotage his upbeat tunes. In short they illustrate why Browne, for all the Nina Demo evidence of his young genius, was signed to a songwriter contract instead of recording contract with Elektra Records in 1967. He wasn't particularly happy with the demo's, as he didn't see the purpose in bunching so many of his songs on long-playing records when artists and producers were typically plugged with only one or two tunes at a time for a given recording project. In fact he was so upset with Nina's decision that he personally hunted out and destroyed nearly half of the copies. I've split the original double album into two posts, one for the 1966 recordings and one for those from 1967, with this first one being a shortish 32 minutes, and so I've fleshed it out with a couple of co-writes, one with Greg Copeland and the other with Pamela Polland. As mentioned before, this is mostly just Jackson and his guitar, so will probably appeal more to his committed fanbase rather then to the casual listener, but the sound quality is excellent for the year and circumstances of recording, so it's perfect for when you're in the mood for some gentle acoustic singer/songwriting from a budding star in the making.   

Track listing 

01 Sing My Songs To Me (Browne)  
02 Lavender Windows (Browne)  
03 The Painter (Browne)  
04 Fourth And Main (Browne)  
05 Bound For Colorado (Browne)  
06 We Can Be (Browne)  
07 And I See (Browne)  
08 Ah, But Sometimes (Browne)  
09 Marianne (Browne)  
10 Tumble Down (Browne)  
11 You Didn't Need A Cloud (Browne)  
12 Lavender Bassman (Browne)  
13 She's A Flying Thing (Browne)  

14 Gotta See A Man About A Daydream (Browne/Copeland)   

15 Time Travel Fantasy (Browne/Polland)  

Comments on the songs taken from 'The Story Of A Hold Out' by Rich Wiseman; 

Dolphin Books.

Gina Thompson - If You Only Knew (1999)

Gina Thompson was born Lugenia Thompson in Vineland, New Jersey, on 10 November 1976, and began singing at an early age, signing her first recording contract with Mercury Records shortly after graduating high school. Her first album was 'Nobody Does It Better', which was released in 1996 and was produced by Missy Elliott and P Diddy, and featured appearances by Elliott, Diddy, and Craig Mack, among others. The first single from the album, 'The Things That You Do', peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and number 12 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, although the follow-up 'You Bring The Sunshine' stalled at number 53 on the Hot 100. In 1996 she added background vocals for the song 'Cold Rock A Party' by MC Lyte featuring Missy Elliott and Puff Daddy, and also appeared on Lyte's 1998 album 'Seven & Seven'. Later work included 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love', a re-imagining of the 1955 Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers hit of the same name, and she also appeared on Missy Elliott's second album 'Da Real World'. By the latter part of 1998, her debut was certified Platinum by the RIAA after an estimate of one million copies were sold. Thompson's second album 'If You Only Knew' was all set to be released on 21 September  1999, on Elektra Records through Missy Elliott's The Goldmind Inc. imprint, and two singles were released in advance of the album's anticipated release date: 'Ya Di Ya', featuring Elliott, peaked at number 38 on the R&B chart, while 'Caught Up', featuring rapper Beanie Sigel, failed to chart, and so Elektra added the album to its growing list of cancellations, mainly in the urban department of the roster. After the album was shelved, Thompson asked to be released from her contract, and she left the label in 2001, continuing to perform as an independent artist, and beginning work on a third album in 2008. In July 2008 she released the song 'We Don't Talk No More (Dancehall Remix)' as the lead single for her official third studio album, 'Missing You', which appeared in February 2009. You wonder what the label were thinking after that first album went Platinum, but it's all about the money with these corporations, and one flop single can ruin a singer's career. Give this shelved album a listen and see if you think it deserved its fate. 

Track listing

01 If You Only Knew
02 Caught Up (feat Beanie Segal) 
03 Ladies' Anthem 
04 Ya Di Ya (feat Missy Elliott) 
05 It Hurts 
06 Don't Take Your Love Away 
07 Take My Number Down
08 Calling You
09 He'll Do It Again (Interlude) 
10 Up All Night (feat Jon B)
11 Turn Around 
12 Coolin' Out W/U 
13 As Long As God Allows 

Yandex files update 2

I don't really know what's going on with Yandex, as my subscription ran out on 19th July and yet I still have all the storage, so I'll carry on uploading for now. I've been corresponding with a visitor to the site who lives in Russia to see if he can help get some money to Yandex to pay for the subscription, but we had no luck today. I'm now in contact with Yandex themselves to see if they have any suggestions, but for now just keep using the site if you can't use Soulseek, and if the storage does get reduced I'll let you know how it will work.   

pj

The Fatima Mansions - Suicide Bridge (1994)

After the split of the criminally under-rated Microdisney, the band's acerbic and political frontman Cathal Coughlan surfaced with a new group and an uncompromising vision. The Fatima Mansions, named after a run-down Dublin housing estate, was to be a vehicle for his world-view, and Andrias O'Gruama (guitar), Hugh Bunker (bass), Nick Allum (drums) and Zac Woolhouse (keyboards) were enlisted for the supporting roles. Coughlan's lyrical fixations of religious bigotry, imperialism and death was spelled out in parables of increasing hysteria and black humour, while the safety of Microdisney's rock arrangements was abandoned in favour of an all-out aural assault, leading to the band becoming a cult favourite in the 90's. They introduced themselves in 1989 with the album 'Against Nature', which was lauded as a startlingly well-rounded debut, establishing a broad territory from the driving single 'Only Losers Take The Bus', to the synth-pop pastiche of '13th Century Boy', and the occasional brooding ballad like 'Wilderness On Time'. There was a new-found power and urgency in the vocal delivery, and an incisiveness to the sound, driven by Andrias's raw guitar lines. The single 'Blues For Ceausescu' followed in 1990, and took the band on to a higher level of ferocity and invention, heralding in the eighteen-track onslaught of the second album 'Viva Dead Ponies' later that same year. Meanwhile, regular gigging quickly built their reputation as an extraordinary spectacle, with Coughlan hurling his hulk around the stage like a man possessed while the band drove him on. 

In early 1991, Coughlan performed some acoustic gigs billed as 'Fatima Mansions Singular', and some of these more restrained songs emerged on 1991's 'Bertie's Brochures', including covers of Scott Walker's 'Long About Now' and Richard Thompson's 'The Great Valerio', and a barely recognizable dismemberment of R.E.M.'s 'Shiny Happy People'. Normal service was resumed with the release of Valhalla Avenue in 1992, which contained the customary doses of rancour and strident guitar riffing on tracks like 'Evil Man' and 'Go Home Bible Mike', but the album's ferocious tone did not prevent it from becoming their biggest seller yet, reaching number 52 on the UK albums chart. They even had a surprise Top 10 single later that year with a near-psychotic reworking of Bryan Adams' 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)', although this was largely due to the Manic Street Preachers' flip-side cover of the M*A*S*H theme song 'Suicide Is Painless', with both songs coming from the NME tribute album in aid of the charity, the Spastics Society. While their uncompromising style may have ruled out any greater commercial success, their standing as a live act secured a support slot on a U2 tour, and Coughlan continued his prolific output by releasing '20 Golden Showers' in 1993 under the name Bubonique, featuring compatriot comedian Sean Hughes, followed by a new Fatima Mansions album, 'Lost In The Former West' the next year. Once again this was not for the faint-hearted, tackling international affairs with the usual rage and humour, and became the swansong for the band, as they went on hiatus while Coughlan worked on a new solo release. As well as all the superb music to be found on their albums, they also treated their fans to previously unheard tracks on the flips pf their singles, some of which never made it onto their albums either. This two-disc set gathers them all together for a double album of hard to find recordings from this uncompromising and much-missed band, made all the more poignant by Coughlan's death on 18 May 2022 after a long illness; he was just 61 years of age.

Track listing

Disc One
01 What? (b-side of 'Only Losers Take The Bus' 1989)
02 Dear Dad (from the 'Edward Not Edward' compilation 1989)
03 Blues For Ceausescu (single 1991)
04 On Suicide Bridge (b-side of 'Blues For Ceausescu')
05 Lady Godiva's Operation (from 'Heaven And Hell' tribute album to The Velvet Undeground 1991)

06 Hive (single 1991)
07 Stigmata (b-side of 'Hive')
08 The Holy Mugger (b-side of 'Hive')
09 A Singer Must Die (from 'I'm Your Fan' tribute album to Leonard Cohen 1991)
10 Paper Thin Hotel (b-side of '1000%' 1992)
11 1,000,000% (b-side of '1000%' 1992)

Disc Two
01 Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (split single 1992)
02 The Scarecrow (b-side of 'Evil Man' 1992) 
03 John The Gun (from 'Peace Together' charity album 1993)
04 As I Washed The Blood Off (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
05 Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
06 It's So Cold.... I Think (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
07 Into Thinner Air With The Loyaliser (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
08 Gary Numan's Porsche (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
09 Arnie's Five (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
10 Sleep Of The Just (b-side of 'Popemobile' 1994)

Yandex files update

This is just a heads-up for people who download the music from the blog via the Yandex hosting site. As you may know, Yandex is based in Russia, and so I had to make a decision about whether to carry on using it once countries started imposing sanctions on the country, but as I'm committed to them by the fact that they host all my albums, and I can't really start all over again with another service, even if I could find one that worked, I stayed with them. However, my subscription expires tomorrow, and because of the sanctions I can't purchase another year's storage, and I really don't know what's going to happen when that runs out. There was mention of my storage being frozen after 44 days of inaction, but I do have another subscription which doesn't expire until December, so I'm hoping that this will keep the files live.  All we can do is wait and see what happens on Wednesday, and if the files get locked then there won't be much point in updating the download list every week. I'll post another update on Thursday, once I can see what's happened. 

pj

Ayshea - Golden Oldies (1976)

Ayshea Hague was born in Highgate, London, and educated at Arts Educational School, London, training in ballet, music, drama and dance. She made her film debut at the age of nine as an uncredited extra in the 1958 film 'Tom Thumb', and at sixteen she was signed to her first record label Fontana, who released her debut single 'Eeny Meeny in 1965, and she continued to release singles throughout the rest of the decade. During the 60's she made appearances on television shows such as 'Thank Your Lucky Stars' and 'Discotheque', and in 1969 Granada TV's producer Muriel Young hired her to host her own pop show 'Lift Off With Ayshea'. The series ran for 141 episodes lasting until 1974, but in a particularly distressing accident, every episode was wiped while they were being digitally transferred, robbing us of classic performances from David Bowie, Slade, T. Rex, The Bay City Rollers and David Cassidy. After being romantically linked with Steve Winwood, Chas Chandler and Rod Stewart, she married Cat Stevens' record producer, Chris Brough (the son of ventriloquist Peter Brough), who acted as her manager and also produced her records. She was a regular on quiz shows such as 'The Golden Shot' and 'Celebrity Squares', and as an actress she appeared in 'Jason King' and had a recurring role in 'UFO', the Gerry Anderson live-action series. After starring in pantomimes and summer shows all over the UK, Ayshea then built up a large following for her live cabaret performances. In 1975, she represented Great Britain at the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo with a song written for her by Elton John, entitled 'The Flowers Will Never Die', which was released as a single the following year, and following an engagement to Roy Wood, who had written and produced her 1973 single 'Farewell', she  married Steve Alder who had the lead role in the London stage production of the musical 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. She later moved to Los Angeles and appeared in the movies 'Gotcha' in 1985 and 'Demolition Man' in 1993, before moving back to Britain in 2000 to be close to her mother, Rose. Ayshea is perhaps better known for her TV appearances in 'Lift Off With...' and 'UFO' than as a singer, although she did release two albums in the early 70's, but her singing career spans a dozen years from 1965 to 1977, and covers a variety of genres, so here is a selection of some of her non-album songs from the singles that she released during that time. 

Track listing

01 Eeny Meeny (single 1965)
02 Keep My Love (b-side of 'Eeny Meeny')
03 Celebration Of The Year (single 1968)
04 Only Love Can Save Me Now (b-side of 'Celebration Of The Year')
05 Who's Gonna Rescue Jesus? (single 1970)
06 Flowers Are Mine (b-side of 'Who's Gonna Rescue Jesus?')
07 Both Sides Now (b-side of 'Master Jack' 1971)
08 Farewell (single 1973)
09 Don't Wait Till Tomorrow (single 1975)
10 The Flowers Will Never Die (single 1976)
11 Golden Oldie (promo single 1977)

The Chemistry Set - Sounds Like Painting (1989)

The Chemistry Set formed in 1987, with an original line up of Ashley Wood (rhythm guitar/ vocals), Paul Lake (lead guitar/vocals), Henry Taprell (bass) and Dave McLean (drums/vocals), with Neil Pond on harmonica and percussion joining them onstage and in the studio. Wood and Lake had met at secondary school in south east London and had previously played together in other bands, and they set about recording their songs for release on cassette on the Acid Tapes label in 1988. This was followed by several flexi-discs between 1988 and 1990, which received international attention, and the band were featured in fanzines in the UK, Spain, Italy, Holland, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Japan, USA, Australia and New Zealand, with some of their songs being included on various compilation albums around the world. The band gigged on the London circuit, playing venues such as The Camden Falcon and The Mean Fiddler, and built up their reputation until they were able to support Hawkwind at Brixton Academy, and tour with Robyn Hitchcock. In 1990 they released the '(Don't) Turn Away' 12" single on Imaginary Records, and followed that the next year with another 12" single 'The Candle Burns'. Around this time they recorded an album entitled 'Sounds Like Painting', but it was only ever issued as a limited edition in Spain, and so it soon became extremely hard to locate a copy outside of that country. Following the limited release of their only album, the band carried on playing and were signed to Polydor Records, but it was the worst experience of their musical careers, with the Head of A&R constantly rejecting their songs, and trying to mould them into a Brit-Pop band. With one argument with the label following another, the band had had enough after two months of fighting their corner and they called it a day, taking an extended hiatus in the mid 90's. Around 2006/2007 the band heard that their elusive 1989 album had been uploaded onto numerous blogs and downloaded over 5,000 times, and this led to the band reforming as a duo of McLean and Wood, and starting a second phase of their career. Since then they've released four albums, a number of CD/EPs, and four vinyl singles for Fruits de Mer Records, as well as seeing a remix of their version of 'See Emily Play' appear on a three-CD box-set tribute to Pink Floyd, 'The Many Faces Of Pink Floyd', in 2013. I've been a fan of this band since they started, and still have both their cassette albums from 1988, as well as the new record which came out last month, so now is the time to make that hard to find 1989 album more readily available for fans and newcomers alike, with a unique colour cover, and the addition of a 1989 recording of 'Wake Up Sometimes'.   

Track listing

01 Some People Never Learn
02 The Candleburns
03 The Look Inside
04 Acacia Gardens
05 Sittin' On Top Of The World
06 Orange Juice Sun
07 Living Alone
08 The Dreams That I Saw Yesterday
09 Minas Tirith
10 Under The Valley
11 Wake Up Sometimes

Tupac Shakur & Boot Camp Clik - One Nation (1996)

In the spring of 1996 Tupac Shakur announced that he was working on a new project called 'One Nation', which was to be an East Coast/West Coast collaboration. Although the rapper certainly had his differences with other artists, this unreleased and unfinished record was intended to show the rap industry, and perhaps the world, that rappers from opposite coasts could work together. The album's inception began with a meeting between Shakur, members of his Outlawz crew, and the Brooklyn rap collective, Boot Camp Clik, who were made up of the groups Black Moon, who were spear-headed by rapper Buckshot, Smif-N-Wessun, O.G.C. (also known as Originoo Gunn Clappaz) and the newly-formed duo Heltah Skeltah. The collective had the unique position of not being signed to a major label, but instead they had formed their own label, Duckdown Records, the previous year, which many say Shakur admired as he was trying to start a label himself. Boot Camp Clik were ferried out to California to begin work on the project, staying at Shakur’s new home in Calabasas while recording his proposed new album. A familiar face also helped ease any discomfort, with Buckshot's old friend Snoop Dogg showing up at Can-Am studios, where they were eventually joined by the aforementioned Outlawz, Daz Dillinger, Nice & Smooth’s Greg Nice, The Luniz’s Numskull, and New Jersey natives Asu and Capital LS from the group Rumpletilskinz. Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel also supposedly stopped by at some point during Boot Camp Clik’s week-long stay in California. Those closest to Shakur say the media had spun the whole East Coast versus West Coast beef out of control, and the idea of the album was to not only end the animosity between them, but to show that they could actually work with the people he was beefing with just days prior. 'One Nation' was intended to be the first of a number of volumes, with Vol. 1 coming out on Shakur's label Makaveli, while Vol. 2 would appear on Duckdown Records. After the initial recording sessions, Boot Camp Clik and the rest of the non-L.A.-affiliated groups never recorded with Shakur again, although he did meet up with Buckshot in New York some months later at an awards show. No one knows for certain how much of the album was actually completed, with estimates ranging from just four or five songs to 70 percent of it being finished, and although unofficial versions of the project have been released over the past 20 years, none have been confirmed by Shakur's estate. To my ears this bootleg seems like one of the best reconstructions of the album, featuring contributions from all of the artists that we know recorded at the sessions, and so enjoy this joining together of East and West Coast rappers working together in harmony, and imagine what this could have kick-started had Shakur not been shot and killed just six months later.   

Track listing

01 Lets Fight (feat. Yukmouth)
02 Tattoo Tearz
03 My Own Style (feat. Greg Nice)
04 Secrets Of War
05 Where Ever You Are (feat. Big Daddy Kane)
06 They Don't Know (feat. Snoop Dogg)
07 Struggle Continues (feat. Big Syke)
08 Brothaz At Arms
09 World Wide Dime Piece (feat. Greg Nice & Snoop Dogg)
10 Military Minds
11 Thug Nigga (feat. Greg Nice)
12 Just Watching (feat. Snoop Dogg)
13 Immortal (feat. The Outlawz)
14 How Do You Want It (feat. The Outlawz)
15 Where Will I Be (feat. The Outlawz)
16 Thug Pound (feat. Tha Dogg Pound)
17 The Money (feat. Daz Dillinger)