Anyway, to sum up, half of this list is old stuff that never got a CD release, the other half is RnB/Hip Hop releases that came out as mixtapes.
I carry on hoping and wishing....
As ever, in no particular order.
Leather Nun - Slow Death (Live)
I won a vinyl copy of this on the legendary Roger Hill's BBC Merseyside show in the 1980s and it immediately blew my mind. Side one comprised the original Slow Death EP - a jarring mix of hissing industrial music and the most abrasive, broken punk music. Side two held a live version of Slow Death with the band accompanied by Genesis P. Orridge and Monte Cazzara. This version stripped out the industrial hissings and brought something almost Sabbath-y to the mix. As ever 15 minutes of a dude muttering about dying over music that sounds like slowly moving slurry is irresistible. It has never been released on CD. Recently, Jonas Almquist has finally re-released a lot of old Leather Nun recordings on vinyl - perhaps he'll do a CD comp at some point...
In the video, it cuts in about 3 and a half minutes into the song... but all the sludgy nihilism is still there!
Bonnie Prince Billy - Bertrand My Son
I could fill this list with Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) releases. He is always releasing odd songs on vinyl that never see the light of day on CD. I have about half a dozen of these singles. Amongst them is a split 7" devoted to the songs of Larry Jon Wilson, who had recently passed. Oldham did a lovely cover of Wilson's tribute to his son, Bertrand, which is itself one of the most gorgeous songs about parenthood. Oldham plays it straight and it is, too, lovely.
Incidentally, I was tempted to pop Wilson's own albums on this list although strictly speaking they are available on CD, if you are willing to drop a crazy sum.
I could not find a youtube link of Oldham's cover, so here is the original...
Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
This dude is on his third album, but thus far none have had an official physical release. Not, I add, because there is insufficient business to be made. Chance has made a name for himself guesting with Kanye, Beyonce, Kendrick, and is regarded very highly. No, he has not released them simply because he hasn't wanted to.
And they are amazing. Coloring Book is his most realised album to date drawing in Hip Hop, RnB, Gospel alongside an incredible list of collaborations. The whole album is awesome but here's one track...
Spectral Display - Spectral Display LP
A Dutch electronic music project funded by EMI, led by Michel Mulders and Henri Overduin, Spectral Display have been more or less unjustly forgotten. I came across them via MIA's third album, where she covered It Takes a Muscle. It is an odd but compelling track. A sad slightly haunting earworm with a soft, plastic reggae beat. It is awkwardly sung, and yet the coming together of the various parts is lovely. The album is a 50/50 affair - a few tracks come close to Muscle, others less so. Either way, it is a tragedy that it has never been released on CD - currently it is only available on vintage vinyl or download.
Princess Nokia (Destiny Frasqueri) - Orange Blossom
Princess Nokia finally released her 1992 Deluxe debut on Rough Trade last year but she'd been releasing bits and pieces as mix-tapes for a long while. These are pretty ragged releases in all, but even though some tracks are little more than her singing over old records (or the Soul Train theme tune in one case), they are fun and deeply appealing. They also reveal an artist that is pretty determined to make her career under her own terms, refusing to fit in comfortably with any preconceived notion of what she should be like. Orange Blossom from her Honeysuckle mixtape, billed under her own name, is a perfect summer tune - warm, lazy, blissed out. Some people have made noise about her similarities with Kali Uchis (see below); James hears it, James don't care...
Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
Kanye, Oh Kanye.... (Now just Ye, of course). I feel like my appreciation of Kanye's music is pretty well documented at this point. He might have moments of profound idiocy, which may stretch the patience of even his most adoring fans - his recent proclamations re: Trump and slavery are cases in point, but his musical chops are unarguable. Either way, he is annoyingly obstinate at times and this is one of those times. Feeling a little harangued, I think, about the finalising of The Life of Pablo, his seventh solo album, he kept wanting to tinker with it. There was also something about who was going to release it, Tidal or whatnot...Anyway, I am not sure quite what happened but he decided - and has apparently stuck with it - that this album would never be released on CD. Frankly, it is not his best - but even Kanye on an off day is more interesting than most artists on a good. And whilst, as an album it is a little uneven, the highs are incredible: the gospel inflected opener Ultralight Beam (featuring Chance the Rapper), the Sister Nancy/Nina Simone sampling Famous, the Kendrick Lamar collaboration, sampling Junie's magnificent Suzie Thunderpussy - No More Parties in LA. Those three tracks alone are enough for me to want a CD release NOW!
Indians in Moscow - Indians in Moscow
Indians in Moscow were a short-lived synth-pop band from Hull. They broke-up just before they gained some proper recognition with an opening slot on The Tube. They were most well known for two properly stupid songs, Naughty Miranda and Jack Pelter and his Sex-Change Chicken. They are stupid, but charming and slightly deranged. On the album that was posthumously released, they display a richer range of styles and reveal themselves a band that, had they taken a deep breathe, resisted their stupider urges, and most importantly, not broken up, had a properly interesting career. The album, incidentally, was reissued on Russian label, Other Voices a few years ago along with a bunch of extra tracks. It's worth a listen.
Missing from the release, however, is this eponymous track. It is moodier and heavier than the album. Again, I don't want to sell it as some kind of lost genius or anything, but I think it has some nice touches and suggests that they could have offered more. Despite its limitations I enjoy listening to this album now and then, and I really wish that this was on it....
Kali Uchis - Drunken Babble/Por Vida Mixtapes
I've been raving about Kali Uchis for months now and I don't think I have successfully converted anyone. No mind - I think she's awesome. Part of the reason that I feel this way is the story that precedes her. Childhood musical chops gave way to rebellion and getting kicked out of home. She sorted herself out and recorded a bunch of stuff in her bedroom. This is what became the mixtape Drunken Babble. Predictably it is rough but it leaves no doubt that she is anything less than talented. It straddles pop, RnB, hints at her Columbian heritage, and allows reggae influences to sneak in from time to time. This track, 'Never Be Yours' is a gem, riding an old Delegation sample perfectly and has become the summer jam in our household. Babble was followed by a slightly slicker, but no less charming, Por Vida in 2015. This year, at last, saw her debut album proper. Have I mentioned how much I love it?
Ganzheit - Brains To the Wall EP
This was another record I acquired via Roger Hill. I know nothing about them at all. Super independent label. As is often the way, the band don't really know who they are or what they want to be. Most obviously, they want to be an early industrial electronic band like Front 242 or Nitzer Ebb. But they also have more typical 80s indie elements, not out of place in C86 scene. There are also elements that remind me of some Siouxsie B-sides. Anyway, is it a mess? A little, but yet I find it compelling.
But it is the third and final track, Harmony, which takes a step away from the first two tracks and towards something quite different and makes it ache for proper recognition. It is almost African, but then again, not quite. A persistent tom rhythm with a repetitive percussive bass pattern, flute samples and a guitar sample that could have been lifted from the Bhundu Boys. Above the fray are samples, I assume, of singing, which again, to these ears, sound African. Such as it is, though, that I could be wrong about it all. If someone has better points of reference and wants to have a shot at describing it, please chip in.
Nightmares in Wax - The Birth of a Nation EP (and early Dead or Alive singles)
Sadly, Pete Burns is known primarily for one song. It is incredible and I hope that 'You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)' kept him in biscuits until his untimely passing in 2016. A few people may know one or two others - perhaps his first major chart hit, a cover of K.C. & The Sunshine Band's 'That's the Way (I Like It)'. What few people know is that hit represented the second phase of his pop career. There were five singles/EPs released between 1979 and 1982. I only know a couple of them - 'I'm Falling' was on a compilation 'The Indie Scene 1981' and 'The Stranger' appeared on the Sophisticated Boom-Boom reissue on Cherry Red. Both are fantastic. But neither of them compare to Nightmares in Wax who released only one EP, entitled The Birth of a Nation. Side A contained the magnificent 'Black Leather', while side B had 'Girl Song' and 'Shangri-La'.
In truth, like so many tracks here, they are pretty ragged. But they hiss and spit with life and energy and passion. I find them both thrilling and weirdly hilarious. I have the Birth of a Nation EP, but I would pay very good money for a decent compilation covering the whole period up to their signing with Epic.
Strictly speaking I cannot include Black Leather on this list as it was included on the awesome Revolutionary Spirit box-set, but check out any others...
An update for anyone who ever finds this article and shares my concerns - most of the Dead or Alive singles, plus the Nightmares in Wax EP are included on Cherry Red's Birth of a Nation 3 disk compilation. (And very good it is too!)
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