This is a Recording

Among a small cache of late '80s/early '90s singles that turned up in one of the St. David's Hospice charity shops in Chepstow (when there were still two such outlets) were a couple of De La Soul 45s: 'Say No Go' and 'A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"'. Having owned Three Feet High and Rising on cassette once upon a time, I picked them up. At the time they felt like a breath of fresh air: serving up a joyous & wildly inventive bricolage in day-glo colours. I though it would herald a flood tide of similar music, but mostly, of course, it heralded decades of legal problems for the trio. In general it may well be "better to ask forgiveness than permission" but that didn't seem to work out so well for them. While the A side of my copy is in decent shape, the B-side - the cumbersomely titled 'They Don't Know That the Soul Don't Go for That ("Potholes" Instrumental)' - is in much worse condition. I can on...

I've only owned Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star (and its companion-piece Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines ) for a couple of months, and have only listened to them a half a dozen times apiece and am still getting to know them, so I don't have well-formed opinions to express about them except that I love the sleeve art for the former (the work of London-based artist Isvald Klingels ). Both albums were CDs bought very cheaply from an ebay seller. My ears perked up to the sound of the track 'Moon Whip Quäz' when it came on the radio back in 2017, its melody line very reminiscent of that of Kraftwerk's 'Das Model'. From there I checked out more of their music on YouTube (including the remarkable video for ' Shine a Light ' - also on the album), but I didn't follow through and spend a little money on the music until this year. I've seldom connected with rap or hip-hop, despite it having been part of the cultural background for forty-odd years. Am...