‘1972’

Last night, doing a bit of a sort out of my singles, I came across a few sleeves worth of flexi-discs. A ragged selection of objects mostly saved for their flexi-ness rather than their content (an edited version of ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery that came free with the NME in 1973 might be the nadir. Fac 28, a free flexi of Joy Division material from 1980 is considerably more interesting). In amongst this stuff I found ‘1972’:Poking around on the web I discovered that ‘Monitor’ was a magazine produced by, amongst others, Simon Reynolds. This is his commentary on its production.

And here is a recording of this overlooked gem:

The Curse of Zoltar

Visiting the pier at Clacton-on-Sea, I thought I had a made a video of Zoltar. But such is the power of the soothsayer that my attempts failed.

Birthday Wishes

For Emiliano Zapata. Born August 8th 1879 in Anenecuilco, Morelos, Mexico.

Little White Lies

The audio is optional…

Palindrome

1. Locate obscure lounge album on vinyl…preferably with ‘erotic’ overtones (and in this case with rain effects and bells).
2. Digitize Track 3, Side 2 (Il se fait tard).
3. Copy track and reverse copy.
4. Add echo.
5. Slow the whole thing down by 50%.
6. Fade to silence.

Tramway (No One is Lost)

Because, now I can… Here, in part, is what I wrote last year about this: ‘I made a ‘film’ on my phone as I crossed between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island on the tramway. Then I re-shot the film through a mirrored box that I found one night on the King’s Road in Chelsea. I looked for songs that were exactly the same length as the footage (4’46”) and tried out various combinations. The juxtaposition of ‘No One is Lost’ by Stars (a kind of disco-rock crossover number) with a kaleidoscopic view of New York, the Williamsburg Bridge and the East River worked…it looked like a proper pop video.’

With apologies…

to Duke Ellington, Juan Tizol, Bunny Berigan and James Last (RIP).

I can’t get started

I might have bought this just for the cover but I forgot to look at the record condition before I handed over 59p at my favourite local charity shop. Just about any version of ‘I Can’t Get Started’ is worth a listen but when I slipped this disc out of the sleeve I found that someone had made a fairly determined effort to render the A-side unplayable.

I tried some mild solvent but this adhesive tape glue was ancient and immovable. I had just changed the stylus on my deck so still had the old one…it seemed like too good an opportunity to waste…

Return to the Found Tapes

I was thinking about making a mix from the cassettes that I photographed in a previous post. The first box I lifted out was this one. According to the notes on the sleeve, one side has 5 tracks by Free (+ Layla) and the other is a selection of songs by Brian Ferry and Roxy Music. I wasn’t sure of my strategy for making a mix but thought I would just listen and work it out as I went along. The ‘Free’ side – Side 1 – has a couple of songs then the music cuts out to be replaced by what follows. This is an edited version. I have taken lots out (including a burst of the aforementioned Layla) but I have not put anything else in. I have not yet listened to all of Side 2 though it begins with ‘Where do you go to my lovely’…

From a distance

The last time I posted a sound file it was from Prague via New York and I thought it benefitted from a bit of intervention in the form of added echo. This one has its origins in Romania but needs no effects. Recorded some time in the 60s (I think) and put out on the state record label Electrecord this seems to be a folk song from the Cindrel Mountains and is sung by Ana Pop-Corondan. There are 4 tracks on the record but the others are swamped in orchestration and sound banal in comparison to the sparse arrangement of this song. Listening to it, the music jumped out at me as something quite unlike anything else I have heard. The title (Cînd Era Badea-n Cindrel) comes out in various forms using online translation tools and none of them make sense: ‘He was Uncle-n Cindrel’, ‘When was Badea-n Cindrel’ and ‘When was B-n Cindrel’.

The copy I bought in Oxfam came with this cover:

On Discogs it is shown with this rather more exciting sleeve:

Ana Pop-Corondan died in 2005 and there is not much information about her on the net.