This is a Recording

The Moonlandingz began as a figment in the imaginations of the Sheffield duo The Eccentronic Research Council, whose idea for a concept album about a fictional band by that name and an obsessive fan of theirs ended up with the no-longer-altogether-imaginary group recording some real songs. It helped matters no end that they were able to recruit Lias Saoudi and Saul Adamczewski of London-based reprobates The Fat While Family to take part. The first song to surface from the project, ' Sweet Saturn Mine ', knocked my socks off when I first heard it in 2015. In time there was a full Moonlandingz album ( Interplanetary Class Classics ), but before that there were a few EPs, including this one, Blak Hanz , a 10" record with four tracks issued in a limited edition of 500 copies in 2016. I'd missed out on the first couple of releases owing to lack of funds, but eagerly snapped this one up.  As well as the queasy psych-pop of the title track, there's ' Drop It Fauntlero...

Johann Sebastian Bach is widely revered as the best of all composers, and is frequently praised in the most extravagant terms. His second Partita for solo violin, and, in particular, the long 'Chaconne' which closes it, has further been singled out as one of his profoundest creations. In the unlikely event of this blog attracting any readers (even the bots have moved on elsewhere, it seems), they will find further confirmation here - if any were needed - that my taste is defective and not to be trusted: I don't much care for J.S. Bach's music. The BWV 1004 'Chaconne' is a partial exception to that rule: I have found it absorbing and impressive on the occasions I've listened to it, but those occasions have been few. I bought this 10" disc of a mid-'50s mono recording of it by Viennese fiddler Wolfgang Schneiderhan nearly twenty years ago, but have only seldom blown the dust off it. Other Bach pieces I don't mind include his Concerto for Two Violi...

At the PDSA charity shop in Thornbury a few years ago I spotted a 10" record with an orangey-red sleeve on which the title and artist (so I presumed) were spelled out in Cyrillic text. I recognised the Melodiya logo on the cover: that being the USSR's state-run record label. I already owned a few Melodiya records, and on the prior occasions when I'd bought LPs with titles in Russian it hadn't worked out badly: one being a fine performance of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony; the other an interesting compilation of balalaika music. My weak recollection of the Russian alphabet failed me in the moment, but, as the record was only £1, I thought I'd buy it anyway. This wasn't such a successful purchase: I'd acquired some performances of Государственный Гимн Союза Советских Социалистических Республик - that is, the State Anthem of the Soviet Union, and of 'The Internationale' (Интернационал). Side A begins with the Anthem sung by the Bolshoi Theatre Chorus,...