Like Breathing Statues – Cate Francesca Brooks (from ‘Lofoten’ LP) Sunrise – Ultramarine (from ‘Routine’ LP) Midsummer Boulevard – Ben Edge (from ‘Children of Albion’ LP) Téte Brec, the Twinkling Hoard – Milkweed (from ‘Remscéla’ LP) My Oh My – Dana Gavanski (from ‘Again Again’ EP) Air On My Skin – Karen Vogt (from ‘Haunted Woodland Volume Five’ LP) I Only Once Heard Them Singing – Firestations (from ‘Many White Horses’ LP) Summer Night on the River – David Lloyd-Jones & Royal Scottish National Orchestra (from ‘2 Pieces for Small Orchestra’ LP) Meadow Melting – The Balloonist (from ‘Dreamland’ LP) Plainsong – Joe Harvey-Whyte & Bobby Lee (from ‘Last Ride’ LP) All I Want to Know – Imagination (from ‘In the Heat of the Night’ LP) Don’t Be Scared – We Are KING (from ‘Ocean Child: Songs of Yoko Ono’ LP) This Perfect Friend – Tanita Tikaram (digital single) Dancing On Volcanoes – Gwenno (from ‘Utopia’ LP) 1000 Years – Typsy Panthre (digital single) Il Peggior Bar di Caracas – Molly Nilsson (from ‘Certe Notti’ 7”) I Scare Myself – Thomas Dolby (from ‘The Flat Earth’ LP) Praise Inverter – Spanned Canyons (from ‘The Only Perfect Way for This to End’ LP)
Multiplex – Mark Van Hoen (from ‘The Eternal Present’ LP) Scattering the Sand Elements – Cate Francesca Brooks (from ‘The Scissors Cut the Silk’ LP) Polyfusion (2025 Remaster) – Seefeel (from ‘Quique Redux’ LP) Harmonic Rain – Morgan Szymanski and Tommy Perman (from ‘Songs for the Mist Forest’ LP) The Spirit of the Trees – The Rowan Amber Mill (from ‘Never Meant to Displease the Fields and the Trees’ LP) Bird in the Bush – Anne Briggs (from ‘Sing a Song for You’ LP) In May You Sing All Day – Alison O’Donnell & Gayle Brogan (from ‘A Colloquy of Birds’ LP) The Triumph – Virginia and Florence Astley (digital single) Lark In the Clear Air – John Renbourn, Maggie Boyle, Tony Roberts & Steve Tilston (from ‘John Renbourn’s Ship of Fools’ LP) Children of Albion (Guest Vocals Elspeth Anne) – Ben Edge (from ‘Children of Albion’ LP) The Making – Lavinia Blackwall (from ‘The Making’ LP) Instead of a Heart – Andrew Rumsey (from ‘Collodion’ LP) Pro-Celebrity Standing Around – The Montgolfier Brothers (from ‘Think Once More’ anthology LP) Meet My Maker – Matthew Bannister (from ‘One Man Bannister: The Dark Backward’ LP) Searching For Lambs – Steeleye Span (from ‘Tempted and Tried’ LP) Hedgehog’s Song – Geoff Smedley (from ‘Before The Day Is Done: The Story of Folk Heritage Records 1968-1975’ LP) Flatbed Alfalfa Run To Pueblo, Colorado, Fall 1972 – Joe Harvey-Whyte & Bobby Lee (from ‘Last Ride’ LP) Magnolia Veil (In memory of David Lynch) – Birds In The Brickwork (from ‘Suburb Study #2’ LP) In Heaven – Princess Chelsea (from ‘Everything Is Going To Be Alright’ LP) Bourgeois Manqué – Dean Wareham (from ‘That’s the Price of Loving Me’ LP)
Dreaming – Blondie (from ‘Eat To The Beat’ LP) Union City Blue – Jesse Garon and the Desperadoes (7” single) I Go Ape (session) – The Vultures (from ‘Liz Kershaw session’ EP) On And On – Jeanines (from ‘How Long Can It Last’ LP) Scatterflats – Action Painting! (from ‘Scatterflats’ EP) One Of Those Dreams – The Bablers (from ‘Like The First Time’ LP) Helping Others – Painting (from ‘Snapshot Of Pure Attention’ LP) Computer – The Microbes (from ‘All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985’ LP) Cloudburst at Shingle Street – Thomas Dolby (from ‘The Golden Age of Wireless’ LP) The Relativity of Wrong – Jetstream Pony (from ‘Bowerbirds and Blue Things’ LP) Somersaults – The Loft (from ‘Everything Changes Everything Stays The Same’ LP) Tricky Questions – Allo Darlin’ (digital single) Same Drop – Lightheaded (from ‘Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming’ LP) Every Song On The Radio Reminds Me Of You – Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires (from ‘Sounds Made By Humans’ LP) Sundrenched Girl (Crazier) (Acoustic) – The Pale Fountains (from ‘The Complete Virgin Years’ boxset) Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste – The Soft Set (digital single) Sweetest Star – Robert Sekula (from ‘Asyd Mouse’ EP) Goldmining – DAVID CHRISTIAN (from ‘TEENAGE HIGHS! (Indie Pop Gems Recalled)’ LP) Bliss – The Pinefox Flat On My Back – The First Division (live at ‘Exeter Goes Pop!’) Seeing Stars – The Visitors (from ‘Miss’ LP) Loline – The Bats (digital single) The Tourist (feat. Barny Fletcher & Sugarfoot) – The Waterboys (from ‘Life, Death And Dennis Hopper’ LP) Welsh Coastal Towns – Theatre Royal (from ‘A Change Of Weather’ LP) Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit’sworldwouldfallapart – Manic Street Preachers (from ‘The Holy Bible’ LP)
I Don’t Know How I Made It (feat. Taylor Goldsmith) – The Waterboys (from ‘Life, Death And Dennis Hopper’ LP) Never Read The Signs – Ian M. Bailey (from ‘Lost In a Sound’ LP) New Memories – Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears (from ‘Head In The Sand’ LP) Back Home – Silver Synthetic (from ‘Rosalie’ LP) Listening To Bobby Charles – Gary Louris (from ‘Dark Country’ LP) Save Me Jesus – Bobby Charles (from ‘Bobby Charles’ LP) Hooded Crow – Andrew Rumsey (from ‘Collodion’ LP) No Sooner Here (Than It’s gone) – Matthew Bannister (from ‘One Man Bannister: The Dark Backward’ LP) Marigold – The Ocean Blue (from ‘Cerulean’ LP) ten years dialogue (from ‘Grosse Point Blank’) Ten Years – The Loft (from ‘Everything Changes Everything Stays The Same’ LP) Pictures Of Anna – Louis Philippe (from ‘The Road To The Sea’ LP) A Thing That Used to Be – Snails (from ‘Just Look Around’ LP) We Are Dreams – Peter Hall (digital single) Hang in for Us Both – Dana Gavanski (from ‘Again Again’ LP) The Magic Wasn’t There – Julie Covington (from ‘The Beautiful Changes’ LP) The Kick Inside – Kate Bush (from ‘The Kick Inside’ LP) I Nearly Forgot, But I Went Back – Julie Driscoll (from ‘1969’ LP) Alice – Joan Armatrading (from ‘Whatever’s For Us’ LP) Another Side – Nicolas Godin & We Are KING (digital single) I’ll Always Love You (But Don’t Look Back) – Imagination (from ‘Body Talk’ LP) Pictures of Adolf Again – Bill Fay (from ‘Time of the Last Persecution’ LP)
Idiot Wind – Bob Dylan (from ‘The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 : Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991’ LP) Not On The Radar – Mark Fry (from ‘Not On The Radar’ LP) 88 Seconds In Greensboro – Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark (from ‘Crush’ LP) On The Quarter Days (Radio Edit) – Prolapse (digital single) Papists F.C. Theme – Papists F.C. (digital single) In A Hole – The Jesus and Mary Chain (from ‘Psychocandy’ LP) Mynd I Lawr – Ffa Coffi Pawb (from ‘Dalec Peilon’ LP) Losing Your Grip (Censorship Sucks! Version) – Meat Whiplash (from ‘Collected/Contextualized’ LP) Good Thing (session) – The Vultures (from ‘Liz Kershaw session’ EP) THROWAWAYS – DAVID CHRISTIAN (from ‘HOMEMADE THROWAWAYS’ LP) And When You’re There – The Chills (from ‘Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs’ LP) Martin Scorsese – Cheap Feel (digital single) Room for Everybody (Never Let Go of the Joy) – Hachiku (from ‘The Joys of Being Pure at Heart’ LP) The Shape’s Gonna Shift My Way – Anna Hillburg (digital single) Reverence (Basic Design’s Reverent Roller Disco Remix) – numün (from ‘Opening (remixes)’ LP) The Open Fields – The Balloonist (from ‘Dreamland’ LP) Secret Place – da Googie + Cara Tivey (from ‘The Golden Thread’ LP) A Weight Starts To Lift – Firestations (from ‘Many White Horses’ LP) Crossbones Lament (Guest Vocals Angeline Morrison) – Ben Edge (from ‘Children of Albion’ LP) End Transmission – Micro Moon (from ‘Figure in a Landscape’ EP)
In The Beginning – Hannah Peel (from ‘Bring Them Down (Original Film Soundtrack)’ LP) Winged Sages – Alison O’Donnell & Gayle Brogan (from ‘A Colloquy of Birds’ LP) Staying Here (Je3’s Appendix EDIT by slauson Malone) – Astrid Sonne (from ‘Great Doubt EDITS’ LP) AI, Absolutely! – Painting (from ‘Snapshot Of Pure Attention’ LP) Running for your life – Iraina Mancini (digital single) Yr Gonna Be Happy – Silver Synthetic (from ‘Rosalie’ LP) Andy (A Guy Like You) – The Waterboys (from ‘Life, Death And Dennis Hopper’ LP) Faces And Names – Lou Reed & John Cale (from ‘Songs For Drella’ LP) Through the Moss – Snails (from ‘Just Look Around’ LP) The New Design – Mirrored Daughters (from ‘Mirrored Daughters’ LP) Song From The Heart – Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears (from ‘Head In The Sand’ LP) By Your Side – Gary Louris (from ‘Dark Country’ LP) Bonnie Lass (feat. The Proclaimers) – Linda Thompson (from ‘Proxy Music’ LP) God Help Me – The Jesus and Mary Chain (from ‘Stoned And Dethroned’ LP) Be Alarmed – Matt Berry (from ‘Heard Noises’ LP) Piano Interlude – Sun Ra (from ‘Toward The Stars’ LP) Senza Un Perchè – Emma Tricca & Ronin (digital single) The death of Phyllis Paul – Ghostwriter & Michael Paine (from ‘Morrow’ LP) Lunar Orbit – HERE (from ‘The Totality Of Existing Things’ LP) The Sprawl – Andy Fosberry (from ‘Darker’ LP)
Mistery & Imagination – 30 Door Key (from ‘A Warning To The Curious’ LP) Corporate Road – Birds In The Brickwork (from ‘Business Park Study #1’ LP) Broken English (Long Version) – Marianne Faithfull So Long Marianne – Straitjacket Fits (from ‘Hail’ LP) Wasn’t It You? – The Action Pyramid Scheme – Hurray For The Riff Raff (digital single) Dear Stephen – Manic Street Preachers (from ‘Critical Thinking’ LP) What She Said – The Smiths (from ‘Rank’ LP) Set the House Ablaze (Live At The Hammersmith Palais, London / 1981) – The Jam (from ‘Dig the New Breed’ LP) What A Good Boy! – Sorrows (from ‘Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow’ LP) Bubblegum Nothingness- Jetstream Pony (from ‘Bowerbirds and Blue Things’ 7” single) Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love – Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires (from ‘Sounds Made By Humans’ LP) Lands Faraway – Ginnels (from ‘The Picturesque’ LP) What´s So Good About The 60´s? – Matthew Bannister (from ‘One Man Bannister: The Dark Backward’ LP) Yes It Is (Mono) – The Beatles A Million Years Or So – Roger Miller I’ll Be There To Save You – Ian M. Bailey (from ‘Lost In a Sound’ LP) Cosmic Concerto (Life Is People) – Bill Fay (from ‘Life Is People’ LP) Theme From Walking Home – The French Impressionists (from ‘A Selection Of Songs’ LP) Evening Guitars – Vetchinsky Settings (from ‘Underneath The Stars, Still Waiting’ – deluxe edition LP) An anchor sets down on their home – david a jaycock (from ‘Well & Sea (Cornish Folklore)’ LP) You’ll Have To Put An End To Them – McCarthy (from ‘Banking, Violence And The Inner Life Today’ LP)
Intro – The Social Icons Year of the Books – The Green Child (from ‘Look Familiar’ LP) Dumb – da Googie + Cara Tivey (from ‘The Golden Thread’ LP) Promise To Never – Ginnels (from ‘The Picturesque’ LP) In My Head – Scott Fagan (from ‘South Atlantic Blues’ LP) Pass The Time Away – Cian Nugent (from ‘Cian Nugent’ LP) Until You Find Me (Song For Margaret Hardman) – John Canning Yates (from ‘The Quiet Portraits’ LP) Liquid Mercury – The Wild Swans (from ‘The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years’ LP) Dr. Clarke – The Loft (from ‘Everything Changes Everything Stays The Same’ LP) People Ruin Paintings – Manic Street Preachers (from ‘Critical Thinking’ LP) You Were the Ones I Had to Betray – Dean Wareham (from ‘That’s the Price of Loving Me’ LP) Terrapin – Syd Barrett (from ‘The Madcap Laughs’ LP) Luminous Rose – Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians (from ‘Globe Of Frogs’ LP) Cantata on Old English Texts: A Lyke-Wake Dirge – Versus I (Prelude), “This Ae Nighte”- Igor Stravinsky, Columbia Chamber Ensemble & The Gregg Smith Singers (from ‘Stravinsky Conducts Cantata, Mass, In Memoriam Dylan Thomas and Other Works’ LP) Moose – Jackie West (from ‘Close To The Mystery’ LP) This River Will Never Run Dry – Moose (from ‘. . . Xyz’ LP) Looking Back At The World – The Gentle Spring (from ‘Looking Back At The World’ LP) The Queen of Mousehole – The Hit Parade (from ‘Pick Of The Pops (Vol. 1)’ LP) If Tomorrow Comes – Alpaca Sports (from ‘Another Day’ LP)
Lully Lullay – Myriam Gendron (from ‘Mayday’ LP) Our Wounded Landscape – dakota suite & quentin sirjacq (from ‘Forever Breathes the Lonely Word’ LP) Viola Sonata (Version for Cello & Piano): I. Impetuoso – Christian Ihle Hadland & Natalie Clein (from ‘Rebecca Clarke: Viola Sonata’ LP) Engelchen – Alison Cotton (from ‘Engelchen’ LP) The Recidivist (Theme For Imagined Simenon Novel) – Ghostwriter (from ‘The Continuing Adventures Of The Strange Sound Association’ LP) Abubua – Randomcat (from ‘EP1’ EP) Yesterday’s World – TV Girl & George Clanton (from ‘Fauxllennium’ LP) Vicky’s Chimes – Gibson & Toutant (from ‘On The Green’ LP) Unfocus – Tacet Tacet Tacet (from ‘Fickle’ LP) Almost – Astrid Sonne (from ‘Great Doubt’ LP) Business of the Attitude – Dana Gavanski (from ‘Again Again’ E) Irreversible Damage – The Weather Station (from ‘Humanhood’ LP) Passing Thing – Devon Williams (digital single) Words First – The Winter Journey (from ‘Graceful Consolations’ LP) Hills of Greenmor – Anne Briggs (from ‘Sing a Song for You’ LP) Dogs and Ferrets – Steeleye Span (from ‘Commoners Crown’ LP) Sosban Fach – Cerys Matthews (from ‘Tir’ LP) The Porter Rose At Dawn – Helen McCookerybook (from ‘Showtunes from the Shadows’ LP) Easy Street – Curtis Miles (from ‘What Could’ve Become Of’ LP) Let It Go feat. Lonny & Sam Genders – cabane (from ‘Comme on murmure’ LP)
Interplanetary Twist – Screemer (from ‘Teenage Glampage – Can The Glam 2’ LP) Late to the Disco – Jill Lorean (from ‘Peace Cult’ LP) Neon Signs – The Weather Station (from ‘Humanhood’ LP) Forest Fires – Lalitree Darnielle (from ‘Forest Fires’ LP) Wondrous Love – Carson McHone, Daniel Romano, Andy Aquarius (digital single) Words First – The Winter Journey (from ‘Graceful Consolations’ LP) City Song – Mirrored Daughters (from ‘Mirrored Daughters’ LP) Let Me Get Close To You – Skeeter Davis (from ‘Tribute To Goffin & King 1961-67’ LP) Age Of Victoria – The Secret History (from ‘Americans Singing In The Dark’ LP) Save a Prayer – Duran Duran (from ‘Rio’ LP) Always On My Mind – Alpaca Sports (from ‘Another Day’ LP) Butterflies – TV Girl & George Clanton (from ‘Fauxllennium’ LP) Birds – Sev Ka (digital single) Ghost Town – Sofie Royer (from ‘Young-Girl Forever’ LP) The Hill – The Muldoons (from ‘We Saw The View’ LP) Glastonbury – Rodney (from ‘Whole Wide World Vol.2’ LP) Bad Friend – Gruff Rhys (from ‘Sadness Sets Me Free’ LP) Confetti – Debbie Campbell (from ‘About Time’ LP) Girl In A Beret – Grant McLennan (from ‘Horsebreaker Star’ LP) Comments In The Streams – The Gentle Spring (from ‘Looking Back At The World’ LP) East Of The City – Gravenhurst (from ‘Flashlight Seasons’ LP)
M6 North (motorway) – BLACK ZEPHYR (digital single) Careful In Career [Demo] – Simple Minds (from ‘Silver Box’) Mistery & Imagination – 30 Door Key (from ‘A Warning To The Curious’ LP) We Get To Be The Sky – Loula Yorke (from ‘A Man On A Galloping Horse Wouldn’t See it’ LP) Cartesian Percussion Pattern – Sam Annand (from ‘Cupar Grain Silo’ LP) Faces in the Trees – The Hardy Tree (from ‘Stagdale EP Part 3’ EP) Northern Counties – Saint Etienne (from ‘The Night’ LP) Machine for Living – The Attendant (from ‘Unit’ EP) Birds In The Bay – Open Swimmer (from ‘Two Songs’ EP) Sleep Will Come – The Durutti Column (from ‘The Return Of The Durutti Column’ LP) Deity – HERE (from ‘The Totality Of Existing Things’ LP) Rubens’ House – Emma Tricca (from ‘Aspirin Sun’ LP)
Past present future – Jet Set Willy vs The Shangri-Las (Tied Handsdigital) Saturdee Nite – Sofie Royer (from ‘Young-Girl Forever’ LP) Living In My Limousine – Bill Nelson (from ‘Quit Dreaming (And Get On The Beam)’ LP reissue) Art Is A Disease – Peter Perrett (from ‘The Cleansing’ LP) HeyDay – Dot Dash (from ‘There Must Be A Hole In Your Memory Vol. 2’ LP) Larkin – Boyracer (from ‘Seaside Riot’ LP) Can’t Stop – Stick In The Wheel (from ‘A Thousand Pokes’ LP) Torn Up Pieces Of Paper – D´Animal (from ‘Hedonistic Pillow’ cassette) Bands I Barely Spoke With – Patois Counselors (from ‘Limited Sphere’ LP) No Gold Watch – The Attendant (from ‘Unit’ EP) Kaspian (session) – Saloon (from ‘Peel sessions’ LP) The Greater The Love – West 11 (from ‘Atlantic Coast Highway’ LP) Clarity (Outerlude) – Nubya Garcia (from ‘Odyssey’ LP) Young Lion – Sade Adu (from ‘Transa: Selects’ EP) Too Young To Go Steady – Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib & Dylan Day (from ‘Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, and Dylan Day’ LP) All or Nothing At All – John Coltrane Quartet (from ‘Ballads’ LP) Business of the Attitude – Dana Gavanski (digital single) Behind Closed Eyes – Sam Blasucci (from ‘Real Life Thing’ LP) Good Vibration – Darren Hanlon (digital single) Finistere – The Lilac Time (from ‘Astronauts’ LP reissue) Little Brown Birds / 茶色の小鳥たち – Sun Drawing + SEA LEVEL (from ‘Afternoons At The Library’ LP) Arndale Dawn – Xqui & Dogs Versus Shadows (from ‘Dwell Time’ LP) Luminous (Plymouth Market) – david A jaycock (from ‘Music for Space Age Shopping’ LP) Hymn of Warnings – Mark Brend (from ‘Clarion Mixture’ EP)
Metallic Spheres In Colour – Round Side (2024 Edit) – The Orb featuring David Gilmour (from ‘Orboretum: The Orb Collection’ LP) A Modern Retail Environment – Carlisle City Council (from ‘The Lanes Re-Development‘ LP) December (Snow Fell On The Scrapyard) – Birds In The Brickwork (from ‘Twelve Months / Volume Three’ LP) I Want It To Snow – Bell Monks (from ‘Watching The Snow Fall’ LP) Blackthorn Winter – Lalitree Darnielle (from ‘Forest Fires’ LP) The Crimes of the Wintertide – The Rowan Amber Mill (from ‘The Wolves are Running in the Wildwood’ LP) In Dreams that Snow In Dream – MacGillivray (from ‘In My End Is My Beginning’ LP) Deep Snow – The Hardy Tree (from ‘Stagdale’ Part 3 EP) Jura – Robin Guthrie (from ‘Astoria’ ’ EP) Christmas 1936 – Saint Etienne (from ‘Asleep At The Wheels Of Steel’ LP) Christmas Chimes – The Chills (from ‘The BBC Sessions’ LP) If We Make It Through December – Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom (from ‘A Peace of Us’ LP) String Lights and Hold On – Blake Jones & The Trike Shop (from ‘and still…’ LP) A Good Xmas – Animals That Swim (from ‘I Was The King, I Really Was The King’ LP) (I Wanna Wear A) Mirrored Hat Like Slade) – Swansea Sound (digital single) Reaching For Hope – Helen McCookerybook (from ‘Showtunes from the Shadows’ LP) Island State – David Lance Callahan (from ‘Down To The Marshes’ LP) Paradise – Jill Lorean (from ‘Peace Cult’ LP) Change Is in the Form – Rosali (from ‘Bite Down’ LP) Arrow – Withered Hand, Kathryn Williams (from ‘Willson Williams’ LP) Little Consolation – The Winter Journey (digital single)
I Wanna Go With Dignity – Peter Perrett (from ‘The Cleansing’ LP) Salt On My Tongue – Boyracer (from ‘Seaside Riot’ LP) Toxic Energy – Swansea Sound (digital single/cassette) Death Of A Dog – The Great Divides (from ‘I’m Sure’ LP) Through My Hands – Greg Williams (from ‘Stone On Stone’ LP) Pet Sematary – RVG (digital single) Grim Symmetry – Ducks Ltd. (digital single) Pumpkins – New Starts (from ‘More Break-Up Songs’ LP) How Long Is Now – Pale Blue Eyes (digital single) I Only Bleed feat Eva Cord – Quietly Into The Night (digital single) I Don’t Want To Know – the Poppermost (digital single) The Return – Fell (digital single) The Girl Doesn’t Get It – Belle & Sebastian (from ‘How To Solve Our Human Problems’ LP) Right In the Socket – Shalamar (from ‘The Ultimate Best of Shalamar’ LP) Estelle (AMCA’s Censer Remix) – A Man Called Adam (from ‘Estelle Special Edition 2024’ EP) CHROMA 007 STEALL – BICEP, Hammer (digital single) Bleached Skull in the Desert Moonlight – Filthy Huns (from ‘Alley Of The Sun’ LP) Remote Substation – The Balloonist (from ‘Landnotes. 1’ LP) Jonah – Lone Bison (from ‘Mechanical and Electrical’ LP) Eyelid Movie – Trem 77 (from ‘Eyelid Movie’ EP) Often Forfeit – Ghostwriter (from ‘Tremulant’ LP)
Autumn Melancholy (Daw) – Kitchen Cynics / Margery Daw / Grey Malkin (from ‘Weeping Stones’ LP) Juno-6 Chord Progression – Sam Annand (from ‘Cupar Grain Silo’ LP) Flowers At The Border – The Leaf Library (from ‘The Long Dead King’ EP) Mother’s Son – The Declining Winter (from ‘Last April’ LP) Dim The Lights – Bell Monks (from ‘Watching The Snow Fall’ LP) IDWTGO – R.KENEDY (from ‘LIVING ROOM DEMOS’ LP) Trees And Flowers (Peel session) – Strawberry Switchblade (from ‘Peel session Oct 1982’) Fear Becomes You – Sorrow (from ‘Sleep Now Forever’ LP) Seascape – Tracey Thorn (from ‘A Distant Shore – Remastered 2022 – Deluxe Edition’ LP) Sugartown – The Gentle Spring (from ‘Looking Back At The World’ LP) Afterlove – Peter Hall (digital single) Witching Hour – Sam Blasucci (from ‘Real Life Thing’ LP) Simple Days – The WAEVE (from ‘City Lights’ LP) The Train – The Aerovons (from ‘World Of You – The Complete Recordings’ LP) Sweet And Tender Romance – The McKinleys (from ‘The McKinleys Singles Compilation’ LP) Young-Girl (Illusion) – Sofie Royer (from ‘Young-Girl Forever’ LP) Ceramic – Death And The Maiden (from ‘Uneven Ground’ LP) Kiss Chase – David Lance Callahan (from ‘Down To The Marshes’ LP) Burnt Walk – Stick In The Wheel (from ‘A Thousand Pokes’ LP) Rainmaker – Jill Lorean (from ‘Peace Cult’ LP) The Road Home – The Revolutionary Army of The Infant Jesus (from ‘The Dream We Carry’ LP)
In the film ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’ there is a scene where two old high school friends meet for the first time in ten years. The dialogue is simply one character repeating the phrase ‘ten years’ in a variety of different inflections as if in disbelief. The disbelief is of course a mixture of surprise at seeing his friend again and at the realisation of time’s passing. It goes like that, doesn’t it? We blink and suddenly time has escaped from us. Where did it go? Heaven only knows.
If you are familiar with ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’ you will appreciate that it is the greatest high-school reunion/hired killer movie ever made, with a fabulous line for every occasion. I’m looking forward to trying some of them out next week at my own 40-year high school reunion, particularly the one about everyone still being the same only having swelled. This may be harsh, yet a glance in the mirror assures me it is nevertheless true. Naturally we will temper the realisation that we have all ‘swelled’ by saying to each other “oh, you haven’t changed a bit”, yet as time passes, the first (unspoken but implied) part of the line by Joan Cusack’s character seems to become less and less accurate. These exchanges seem to me to be charming and interesting because perhaps they capture the idea that we see people from our pasts as if we are all still in that distant moment, time doing strange slips and slithers around our perception and manipulating memory. And even as we tell ourselves that we recognise ourselves and others held in fragments of amber we simultaneously feel bewildered by it all. Threads may straggle through the fractures in time, but they often seem barely attached to our present selves. Gossamer thin, they waft in the breath of a half-remembered embrace, an illusory once-wished-for kiss. Where did it go? Heaven only knows.
It is now forty-two years since the release of Tracey Thorn’s ‘A Distant Shore’ LP but it remains the record that, more than any other perhaps, contains the essence of my own 1983 into 1984 experiences. I wrote about it just twelve years later for my e-zine ‘Tangents’ and re-visiting that piece now I feel the same kind of curious feeling described above. Everything oscillates between recognition and ignorance, a peculiar fluctuation between embarrassment and pride. Interestingly, Tracey Thorn writes something similar about her own feelings on revisiting the record for this expanded Cherry Red reissue, noting in her sleeve notes that: “I’m not sure if I’m still that same girl, or if I totally remember what it felt like to be her, but she slightly breaks my heart, and I’m proud of her.”
It would be overstating the truth to suggest that Thorn’s sleeve notes may be the most appealing thing about this reissue, but not by much, for they really are extraordinary. Carefully avoiding the trap that so many artists seem to fall into of disowning their earlier, less mature works, Thorn instead holds her nerve and admits to the success of these songs and recordings. “There is passion here” she writes, “and a kind of romanticism, which is tempered by an awareness of the riskiness of being romantic. I can hear a complicated mix of self-revelation and self-preservation. And what an extraordinary kind of unearned confidence it takes to write a lyric like “I’m old enough now to know there’s no such thing” at the age of 19.” There is something about this last observation that, I think, cuts to the heart of what makes the songs on ‘A Distant Shore’ just so remarkably, elegantly classic Pop mementoes. They capture, I think, that sense of peculiar self-assuredness (hovering in an awkward manner so perilously close to arrogance that it can be misconstrued by those who fail to spot an inherent vulnerability) of artists in their late-teenage years. Something of the sense of rejecting the ‘wisdom’ of one’s elders whilst having cherry-picked just enough knowledge to assume an air of fragile adulthood; simultaneously seeing and being ignorant of the complexities in situations and being blessed with the ability to cut through everything and to express simple truths in the bold, bare, romantic language of youth.
Thorn then is rightly proud of the record her 19-year-old self made for the grand sum of £138, and the songs continue to reverberate with the brittle romantic confidence (the “steely toughness” as Thorn herself describes it) that made them so appealing forty years ago. Are they of their time? From an objective perspective I suspect they are, for there is something in the connections out to the likes of contemporary music by the likes of Young Marble Giants, Vic Godard and Durutti Column (all of whose records Thorn admits to having in her bedsit collection at the time) that root the recordings to 1982, if such historical contextualisation is your bag. Objectively too I suspect there is a strong case for adding that as well as being of their time they are also timeless, (not so) simply because they do such a remarkable job of capturing the nature of being that particular, peculiar age, regardless of any arbitrary dot dropped on the linear narrative of time.
The bonus materials on the CD reissue are every bit as good. ‘Lucky Day’, recorded at the same time as the rest of the album did not make it onto the original release but would certainly have made a terrific flip-side to the ‘Plain Sailing’ single in place of the (admittedly great) cover of Monochrome Set’s ‘Goodbye Joe’ (which does not feature as an extra on this reissue, incidentally). The remaining four songs, meanwhile, will be familiar to any fan of Everything But The Girl for they all appeared on the group’s debut ‘Eden’ set in 1984. These unadorned versions, recorded at some point after the release of ‘A Distant Shore’ are still (delightfully) very much in the vein of that album, whilst hindsight and familiarity with the more polished ‘Eden’ recordings lends them too a sense of being bridging elements through a period of remarkable artistic development.
Forty years, then. Forty YEARS. FORTY years. FORTY YEARS. Where did it go? Heaven only knows. For Tracey Thorn of course we know that it went to a string of remarkable records both by herself and with Ben Watt in Everything But The Girl. It went into eloquent books full of astute observations and poignant reflections, plus a lot more besides. For the rest of us? Maybe something less visibly memorable, but no-less valuable in our ways. And whilst there are surely more pleasures in store for all of us (some of them, one hopes, in the form of more work from Tracey Thorn) it can occasionally be worthwhile opening those portals into the past and enjoying the surreal envelopment of memory. There are certainly few finer portals than ‘A Distant Shore’.
harvest home – sproatly smith (from ‘the yew and the hare’ LP) Ardchattan Bliss – Barnaby Brown (from ‘Oran Bagraidh’ LP) Anam Cara – Blind Yeo (from ‘Echoes/Anam Cara‘ LP) Can You Feel The Wind – Bell Monks (from ‘Landnotes. 1’ LP) Ghost Orchid (Lomond Campbell Remix) – Dot Allison (from ‘The Entangled Remix’ EP) Philip Larkin – Ghost Orchid (from ‘An Introduction To EVP’ LP) Hooked Paw – Seefeel (from ‘Everything Squared’ LP) Night Drive – Pulselovers (from ‘Northern Minimalism 1 & 2’ LP) Raver tears (Instrumental) – Castles in Space Subscription Library (digital single) Flowers Start To Cry – Karl D’Silva (from ‘Love Is A Flame In The Dark’ LP) The Things That Make Me Happy – Greg Williams (from ‘Stone On Stone’ LP) Samson and Delilah – Middle of the Road (from ‘The Best of Middle of the Road’ LP) Angel in Disguise – Earl Thomas Conley (from ‘Don’t Make It Easy’ LP) Love In the City – The Turtles (from ‘Turtle Soup’ LP) Mary In the Rain – The Junipers (from ‘Imaginary Friends’ LP) Let Me Hear The Music – The Tyde (from ‘Season 5’ LP) Challenge – A.R. Kane Come On, Come On – Cheap Trick (from ‘Tell Me If She Laughs Or Cries’ LP) Heaven’s Falling – The Half-Cubes (from ‘Pop Treasures’ LP) I Just Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye – Sandy Salisbury (from ‘ Sandy’ LP) What Happened to the Love We Knew? – Denise James (from ‘Promises’ LP) Sky – Katy J Pearson (from ‘Someday, Now’ LP)
Harvest Home Big Country (from ‘The Crossing’ LP) The Pan Within – The Waterboys (from ‘This Is the Sea’ LP) Walk Away – Sisters of Mercy (from ‘First and Last and Always’ LP) Shelved – The Mountain Goats (from ‘Goths’ LP) How Ghosts Affect Relationships – His Name Is Alive (from ‘Livonia’ LP and on ‘How Ghosts Affect Relationships‘ boxset) Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down – Ghostwriter (from ‘Tremulant’ LP) Flowers Rising Into The Black – Pictish Trail (from ‘Follow Footsteps’ EP) Crushing the Campsies – Jill Lorean (from ‘Peace Cult’ LP) Hungry For God – Marlaena Moore (digital single) Intact – Office Dog (from ‘Doggerland’ LP) message102 – Rockford Files Answerphone Tunnel Song – Pulsars (from ‘Pulsars’ LP) Double Shift – Tsunami (from ‘A Brilliant Mistake’ LP and ‘Loud Is As‘ boxset)) Sourires – Mayfly Two (from ‘Whatever Works’ LP) 23rd Birthday – The Softies (from ‘The Bed I Made’ LP) Lucky Day (Home Demo) – Tracey Thorn (from ‘A Distant Shore – Remastered Deluxe Edition’ LP) Just For a While – Love, Burns (from ‘Blue’ LP) Trains in the Night – The Clientele (digital single) Punching Above Our Weight – Loch Ness Mouse (digital single) Girl Of The Endless Night – The WAEVE (from ‘City Lights’ LP) Nancy – tindersticks (from ‘Soft Tissue’ LP) Vacations in the Past – Robyn Hitchcock (from ‘1967: Vacations in the Past’ LP) Lunarmouse – Jodie Lowther (from ‘Long Dreaming’ EP) Attic Owl Dream – GNAC (from ‘Elegant Contact’ LP)
