Trans Europa Express

My cousin Jeff, three years my senior, had an extensive record collection. Plenty of what he liked, I didn't, but our tastes did intersect. I distinctly recall him playing the first three tracks on side B of Trans Europe Express to me one Sunday; assuming, correctly, that I'd be interested - it certainly wasn't like anything else I'd heard up to that point. That would have been a few years before I started buying music of my own: nevertheless, it planted a seed.

What we have here is a 1994 German CD issue of Kraftwerk's sixth album, with the original monochrome cover design. It has unkindly been said that Germans prefer the English-language versions of the band's songs and English-language speakers prefer the German ones: in any case, that is generally true for me. I'd had Autobahn on cassette since the '80s, and then later on CD, but had dithered about buying any others until my German music phase of '07/'08, when I acquired this disc and Radio-Aktivität.

I find their sharper-edged later work less appealing: this album, however, hits the spot rhythmically, melodically & thematically. There's not a bad track on it.

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All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo

In Heat

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Bananas Are Not Created Equal

I knew Jay Berliner's name from his contributions to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady , so when I saw this curiously-titled LP at the local charity shop I was intrigued, and bought it even though I had no idea what kind of music it might contain. This was after the days when one could still buy records there for a pound apiece, but I don't think I paid more than a fiver for it. The music turned out to be an all-instrumental blend of funk, soul & jazz. Berliner's virtuoso lead guitar is only one of many attractions here. The band of first-rate session musicians behind him are all uniformly excellent too, and, crucially, sound like they're having a blast. Cornell Dupree's supporting guitar work, while less showy than Berliner's, is beautifully-judged, and the rhythm section is terrific. Arranger/conductor Wade Marcus was no slouch either, judging from the way everything comes together. Two of the funk

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