Black Sea
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| Cover of "Black Sea" by XTC. |
Black Sea is an album from 1980 by the Punk Rock/New Wave band, XTC. They are sort of quirky. In a way, a punk/new wave Kinks (i.e., lots of melodic, acclaimed work but not as popular as they deserved). I love just about every track on this album. I have all the original singles. One of my favorites is "Generals and Majors" (click on video below to hear).
The closing song on the album, Travels in Nihilon, is a stunner. It is sort of like a Tibetan drum piece mixed with the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows. Another track that came out around this album (and so I included on my CD) was about a sleep walker, The Somnambulist. It is very ethereal, with a slow heart beat and dreamy synthesizer. I find it quite calming (look for it on YouTube).
NME/ROUGH TRADE C81
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| Cover of cassette of C81 |
C81 was a cassette album from 1981 that was FREE from the English music paper/magazine, New Musical Express which I subscribed to at the time. I clipped whatever was required and sent in for my copy which eventually arrived. This was only available on cassette (which was the hot medium at the time). It contained tracks from various artists, many from the record label Rough Trade. I was familar with several of the bands on the this collection: Pere Ubu (from Clevo), The Specials, Buzzcocks, Essential Logic, and The Raincoats. One of my favorite tracks became, "Born Again Cretin" by Robert Wyatt (click on the video below to hear for yourself). I don't know what it's about but I find it calming to listen to.
This is a very eclectic collection with many pieces that took me countless plays to be able to sit through (and some that I still skip past). Almost all the tracks (but not everything) can be found on YouTube.
So many memories.I can't believe this stuff goes back so many years (35!). It was weirder then because it was so different. Now everything is weird or rap/hiphop and this stuff almost sounds quaint.
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Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_(XTC_album)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCdxDh5D-1U
http://chalkhills.org/articles/XTCFans20080629.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Knows
http://chalkhills.org/reelbyreal/s_TheSomnambulist.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C81_(album)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NME
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Trade_Records
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pere_Ubu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Specials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzcocks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Logic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raincoats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wyatt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKyo-oZKu_4
Written Thursday 19 March 2015
