Sunday 7 August 2011

GARY NUMAN - THE MIX


During the mid-late 90s and the early 2000s, there seemed to be a Numan renaissance. Tons of new (or nu!) Numan product were released: new albums, re-issues, remastered editions, tribute albums and remixes. The latter is where Numan's comeback really kicked in with a whole host of djs from around the world started tinkering with the Numan back catalogue (although often it was still usually "Cars"!). 1998's The Mix is one such collection but with a difference. This collection - aimed at the US market - mainly seems to rehash the vocals Numan provided for the earlier Techno Army album. It's no bad thing. Most of the tracks on here are excellent with two really great techno remixes of "We Are Glass" along with "I Die You Die", "We Are So Fragile", "A Question Of Faith" and "She's Got Claws", amongst others. Oh, yes, and of course the collection wouldn't be complete without numerous versions of "Cars" and "Are Friends Electric?"...! The Mix is a must-own for fellow Numanoids.


GARY NUMAN - THE MIX
1998
320 kbps
129 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

DAVID BOWIE - LONDON BYE TA-TA


Excellent early boot of a Bowie performance recorded - not really in Paris (don't be fooled by the title!) - but for The Sunday Show at Paris Cinema Studios, London, February 5th 1970. A lot of people seem to complain about the sound quality. In my opinion, the quality is entirely listenable given the archive nature and rarity of this particular performance. Capturing Bowie mid-phase between his folky Space Oddity era and the far heavier, darker and rockier The Man Who Sold The World era, Paris Bye Ta-Ta is a total must-own. The 13-track playlist is a great mix of mid-late 60s Deram-era gems and early 70s Bowie classics and obscurities that include "London Bye Ta-Ta", "Fill Your Heart" (later recorded for Hunky Dory), "Karma Man", "The Prettiest Star" (originally released as a single in 1970 but magnificently flopped then re-recorded for 1973's glam rock classic Aladdin Sane), "Buzz The Fuzz", "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud", "Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed" and the roaring rocker "Width Of A Circle", amongst others.


DAVID BOWIE - LONDON BYE TA-TA
1990
320 kbps
93 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

Saturday 6 August 2011

TERRE THAEMLITZ - REPLICAS RUBATO


Experimental piano versions of Gary Numan songs by the unique Terre Thaemlitz. Includes "Cars", "Down In The Park", "Cry The Clock Said", "Praying To The Aliens", "Please Push No More" and many others. Great thing about this tribute album, besides the fact that it's brilliant, is the fact that it focuses more on the obscure Numan album tracks than the more popular hits everybody knows.


TERRE THAEMLITZ - REPLICAS RUBATO
1999
320 kbps
105 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

DARKNESS AND DISGRACE - DES DE MOOR & RUSSELL CHURNEY PERFORM THE SONGS OF DAVID BOWIE


Superb and uniquely different approach to the songs of David Bowie from cabaret theatre artists Des De Moor and Russell Churney. Beautiful stuff and way beyond the constant and ever lacklustre compilations of Bowie cover versions by bands who usually lack imagination, it has been appraised by the "Thin White Duke" himself. Adapted from their critically acclaimed theatre show of the same name, Darkness And Disgrace is no Stars In Their Eyes tribute show (as someone quite rightly put it) and beams new and refreshing light into the legendary Bowie's back catalogue. Thankfully, many of the song choices are the more obscure and exceptionally brilliant and classic songs that Bowie fanatics like myself know inside out and non-Bowie fans should really hear such as "All The Madmen", "The Bewlay Brothers", "Look Back In Anger", "Always Crashing In The Same Car", "Station To Station" and "I Have Not Been To Oxford Town".


DARKNESS AND DISGRACE - DES DE MOOR & RUSSELL CHURNEY PERFORM THE SONGS OF DAVID BOWIE
2003
320 kbps
140 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

SWANS WAY - THE BEST OF SWANS WAY


Swans Way (or Swansway - whatever the preference) were an excellent but very short-lived Brummie trio from the early 80s with their own distinctive sound comprising of dance, lounge, synth-pop with a slight twist of avant-garde Art Of Noise/Propaganda-esque off-kilter experimentalist pop. This 1997 "best of" album is basically their one and only album The Fugitive Kind from 1984 - boosted up with some bonus tracks. Their best song and biggest hit "Soul Train" - featured here in album and extended 12" versions is, in my opinion, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece and worth getting for that alone (but the rest of the album is also rather good). After the band split in 1984, two of the members - Rick P. Jones and Maggie De Monde - went on to form the equally excellent Scarlet Fantastic (who released the classic and often-played radio fave "No Memory" - remember?).


SWANS WAY - THE BEST OF SWANS WAY
1997
320 kbps
126 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

LINIENTREU - STERNENKINDER (PROMO)


Linientreu are - or were - an obscure German electro-pop band from the early 2000s who I predicted were going to be "the next big thing" but instead seemed to go nowhere. They released two excellent singles which garnered much radio play at the time and one great album which barely anyone took notice of. Those two singles are on this album: The storming "Wir Leben Für Immer" and "Sind Freunde Elektrisch?" - a very good German language cover of the Gary Numan classic "Are Friends Electric?". This album I'm sharing is a very rare non-retail 10-track promo edition from 2000 called Sternenkinder. For reasons unknown to myself, the retail version was released the following year with the title changed to Sind Freunde Elektrisch?.


LINIENTREU - STERNENKINDER (PROMO)
2000
320 kbps
106 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

KALEEF - 53RD STATE OF MIND



Kaleef (formerly Kaliphz) released this entertaining Pete Waterman-produced hip-hoppy pop album in 1997. Stand-out track is undoubtably the rapped up cover-stroke-remix hit single of The Stranglers' "Golden Brown". Pete Waterman was most likely to blame for the god-awful and ill-advised idea/attempt at doing a rap cover of Petula Clark's "Down Town" (steer clear of that one)!


KALEEF - 53RD STATE OF MIND
1997
320 kbps
142 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

Friday 5 August 2011

AN EVENING WITH DAVID BOWIE



Superb bootleg release of a BBC Radio broadcast from 2002 featuring Bowie at his best with a stunning selection of tracks including "Look Back In Anger", "Alabama Song" and "Survive", amongst others. Bowie's Hunky Dory surreal masterpiece "The Bewlay Brothers" gets it's first ever live performance. A must-own for Bowie fans. Bonus tracks including "Life On Mars", "Fashion" and "Ziggy Stardust" taken from the British tv shows The Michael Parkinson Show and Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.


AN EVENING WITH DAVID BOWIE
2002
320 kbps
198 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

Thursday 4 August 2011

THE WEBB BROTHERS - BEYOND THE BIOSPHERE



Chicago rockers The Webb Brothers - the sons of the legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb - released this superb and tragically obscure "demo" album in 1999 featuring the awesome single - and one of my favourite tracks of all-time - "I'm Over And I Know It".


THE WEBB BROTHERS - BEYOND THE BIOSPHERE
1999
320 kbps
62 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

COVER CLASSICS [volume two]



Excellent compilation of rather good and unique cover versions of classic pop tracks including Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Distain!, Gary Numan's "Down In The Park" from Girls Under Glass, the ever nutty Laibach with their unique twist on "Jesus Christ Superstar", Desireless' "Voyage Voyage" from La Floa Maldita and Erasure's hit ABBA cover "Lay All Your Love On Me", plus many more.


COVER CLASSICS [volume two]
2000
320 kbps
147 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

TECHNO ARMY featuring GARY NUMAN



Decent remakes of classic Numan tracks including "Cars", "We Are Glass", "I Die You Die", "She's Got Claws" and "Are Friends Electric?" courtesy of little known Techno Army with the legendary Numan himself providing the vocals. Also includes two excellent bonus techno remixes of "Cars". 


TECHNO ARMY featuring GARY NUMAN
1996
320 kbps
122 mb


Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

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