TROJAN BRITISH REGGAE BOX SET

BOTH TROJAN/SANCTUARY

As described in Tony Rounce’s entertaining notes, U-Roy’s 1970 Version Galore was, in reggae circles, “the Pet Sounds of its day”. Exemplifying the DJ subculture of toasting hysterically over contemporary hits, it’s still a fine work, rich in melody and now richer still in umpteen extras and a bonus disc of the un-toasted backings (including The Paragons’ 1967 “The Tide Is High”). Meantime, Trojan’s three-disc box set salutes the island’s ex-pats working in England from ’69 to ’72: merrily mischievous covers of everything from “Tears On My Pillow” to a skanked-up “Tchaikovsky Piano Concert No 1”.

THREE MANTRAS

THE VOICE OF AMERICA

RED MECCA

2

Does anyone listen to throbbing gristle any more? They are cited as an influence on everything from industrial to techno, though after listening to these 24 hour-long CDs, which document most of their live performances between 1976 and ’80 and which first came out in cassette form 21 years ago, there is a very strong case for arguing that music has hardly progressed beyond what Genesis P-Orridge and Co achieved in their brief lifetime.

Of course, they were influential at the time, in non-musical ways. The concept of a self-sufficient group, with its own ideologies and strategies, inverting and subverting the structure of capitalism, would soon be adopted and commercialised by PiL and New Pop entryists the British Electric Foundation.

Formed in ’75 out of the Hull-based COUM Transmissions performance art troupe, TG were post-punk even before punk got started. Just listen to the first track on CD1, an electronic squall of a ballad called “Very Friendly” about Hindley and Brady, to hear how current and confrontational this music?somewhere between Cale’s Velvets and AMM?is a quarter of a century on.

Neil Megson aka Genesis P-Orridge’s flat vocal delivery was ideal for TG: cajoling, snarling and seducing, almost childlike in its taunting and its insecurity, fighting against being drowned out by the deceptively freeform barrage of sound produced by keyboardist Chris Carter, guitarist Christine Newby (aka Cosey Fanni Tutti) and tape manipulator Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, be it abstract post-Stockhausen ambience, primitive electrobeats or cut-up TV/radio samples. It’s fascinating to view TG’s progress from being booed by Pistols fans (CD3, CD4) to the point where audiences cheered for encores (CD20). From 1978, more recognisable song structures make themselves known, while something approaching a prototype techno sound becomes evident from 1979 (CD17).

Throughout it all, P-Orridge plays agent provocateur, rubbing our noses in unpalatable truths about death, sex and money, while TG never take the easy way out. The extraordinary performance on CD22 is this box set’s highlight. Starting with a sampled phone sex come-on, it evolves into what may be the most violent, uncompromising music ever committed to tape.

Although his early days were spent as a Terry McCann to “Coxsone” Dodd’s Arthur Daley during Kingston’s musical turf wars, Jamaica’s first true pop star was soon leading ska’s ’60s assault on UK dancefloors with a clutch of singles that were the equal of anything on offer from Detroit or Liverpool. Such is its enduring popularity, since this album’s original release it’s had more re-pressings than an old man’s suit?and it’s easy to see why. This is a piece of history that needs telling time and time again.

Subtitled “Adventures In Modern Music”, independent music magazine The Wire champions avant-garde music of all persuasions, be it rock, pop, ethno-industrial, electronic or jazz. To celebrate The Wire’s 20th anniversary, Mute are releasing an audio edition of the magazine. Beautifully packaged and annotated, this 42-track collection compresses two decades’ worth of quarks, strangeness and charm, including Sonic Youth, Coil, This Heat, Fela Kuti, Terry Riley, King Tubby and Suicide. Can’t fail, can it?

Sam Cooke was with the top gospel a cappella group The Soul Stirrers between 1950 and 1956, before leaving Specialty to join the Keen label and record his first secular hit, “You Send Me”. The 84 tracks assembled on this fine three-disc collection represent everything Cooke did with The Soul Stirrers, including a 20-minute live set at LA’s Shrine Auditorium in 1955. Prime gospel, many of these tracks are classics. With an excellent sleevenote by Daniel Wolff, this is an historic anthology.

The two Johns, Flansburgh and Linnell, might be an acquired taste, but they are one acquired by people ranging from Malcolm In The Middle and Austin Powers types to cheery collegiate cats. These modern vaudevillians fit the Boston-goes-to-Brooklyn stereotype well enough to amuse a fan club who will always holler for “Birdhouse In Your Soul” and singalongs like “She’s Actual Size”. This anthology traces them via answerphone novelties to collaborations with Holy Modal man Peter Stampfel.

St Albans’ fab five had a bizarre career where superstardom only arrived after the band had split acrimoniously in 1967. Their output had been recorded in mono, and shoddy, half-baked stereo mixes were rushed out in 1969 to meet commercial demands. The stereo version of “She’s Not There” played incessantly on ‘oldies’ radio stations actually misses several of the key elements that made it such a huge mono hit in 1964. Painstakingly remixed on vintage analog equipment, the original multi-tracks have given the keyboard flourishes and guitar textures a lustrous clarity, and afforded the three-part harmonies new depth.

When you’re fighting comic aliens one day and Joe Frazier the next, it can’t be easy to focus on your pop career: this may well be Will’s part(y)ing shot. His stardom took off with such free-flowing grooves as “Summertime”; then for a golden moment his rise to global fame coincided with irresistible nuggets like “Getting Jiggy With It”. It’s downhill from there, but for a while he was as cool as he thought he was.

Aficionados of “deep soul” (or, as those of us over 12 call it, “soul”) should flock to score these seminal, rare recordings from a criminally neglected pairing. Edgar Campbell and Ernest Johnson met in Phoenix, then throughout the ’60s made astonishingly emotive music for several labels, together and solo, their scorched, passionate vocals matched only by their unerring ability to avoid a hit. By 1970, after another bad-luck business balls-up, Eddie died of drink and Ernie sank into depression. The angst can be heard in their art: try “It’s A Weak Man That Cries” and “Outcast”. Tender, troubled, textbook torch songs.

Celebrity lothario and clarinet virtuoso Artie Shaw stuck to his principles and stepped away from the limelight while still ahead of the game. Prior to this, the rebellious Shaw kicked hard against segregation by employing black stars including Billie Holiday (“Any Old Time”). Now in his nineties and still razor sharp, Shaw assembled this anthology, which features his jukebox hits?”Begin The Beguine” remains one of the biggest-selling instrumentals ever?plus unreleased studio, concert and radio performances from his private collection. The ultimate example of swing when you’re winning.

Recorded in the bedroom/attic of future Fall engineer John Brierley’s parents and first released on John Peel’s Dandelion label in 1972, the eponymous debut from Rochdale trio Jim Milne, Steve Clayton and Dave Addison was remarkable both for its musical fluidity and scattershot imagination. Savage Sabbath riffs crackled alongside trippy psychedelia from weird reverb units and quasi-mystical space rock. Though at least two numbers have aged badly (the fairy queen mythology of “Watcher” and Peel-dedicated “Ravenscroft’s 13 Bar Boogie”), the rest is still genuinely thrilling, particularly labyrinthine excesses “Shubunkin”, “Hope In Favour” and epic closer “Make The Journey”. Extras include demos and live tracks from the reformed duo of Milne and Clayton.

Described as “mood-demolishing” by Peel himself, this mix CD sees him assemble a magnificent patchwork of his favourite tracks. The range spreads from the sentimental (The Kop Choir) to the sublime (Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”) to the sublimely ridiculous (The Kingswoods’ hillbilly version of “Pretty Vacant”). The remaining selections are a disparate coalition of excellent reggae, Afrobeat, funk, drum’n’bass, marred solely by the inclusion of neo-rockers The Datsuns. Six quid by subscription and it’s yours.

Alongside Bill Monroe, for whom he began serving apprenticeship as a Bluegrass Boy in 1944, Scruggs’ pioneering three-finger banjo style, and subsequent career with Lester Flatt, guaranteed him immortality within the genre. Dylan, Baez and The Byrds all borrowed a snifter of DNA, ensuring him cult status with Newport disciples. These recordings?partly with Hylo Brown’s Timber-liners, partly reunited with Flatt?make for classic hee-haw hootenanny, not least hoary old Beverly Hillbillies theme, “The Ballad Of Jed Clampett”.