NINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS - 20 KICKINGS OF THE CORPORATE ARSE

Sampler of 7" inchers from indie label Fierce Panda. 20 tracks altogether. Worth picking up for China Drum's cover of "Wuthering Heights", Pullover's cover of "Last Christmas" and an early version of Placebo's "Bruise Pristine", amongst many other obscure pearls.

NINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS - 20 KICKINGS OF THE CORPORATE ARSE

1999

VBR kbps

92 mb

Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.

LOVING THE ALIEN - ATHENS GEORGIA SALUTES DAVID BOWIE

Being a lifetime Bowie fanatic, I'm forever a sucker for Bowie tribute albums! I purchased this some years back when there seemed to be a whole load of Bowie tribute albums coming out at once (I bought them all, of course!). This one is definitely one of the better ones featuring as it does a great batch of unknown bands/artists all hailing from the great Athens, Georgia. Featuring 10 tracks and not one of them actually being "Loving The Alien"(!), Loving The Alien flows very nicely from start to finish. The decidedly REM-ish Robert Lurie Collective do a brilliant cover of Bowie's obscure classic "I Can't Read", The Quiet Men superbly rendition "Big Brother" (although sadly don't end it with "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" so the song feels a bit sudden when it reaches the end), Mime has a refreshingly unique take (which might not be everyone's cup of tea!) on one of my all time fave Bowie songs - the Bowie standard "John, I'm Only Dancing", Ceiling Fan do a superb, grungy and ever-so-faithful version of "Hang Onto Yourself" (one of my favourite tracks on this abum) and the same goes for Slackdaddy's excellent version of "Starman". Don't Analyse really does something (I'm not sure what but I like it!) to the Low instrumental "A New Career In A New Town". Ultimate fave track on here though is Simultaneous Discs' unique, epic, downbeat take on Bowie's upbeat pop classic "Modern Love". What makes Loving The Alien a winner is the way each artist has covered the song with an obvious passion for the material but injecting it with something fresh/different without taking away what made the original what it was in the first place. In other words, they haven't ruined a good song - they've just added another flavour to it. A must own for Bowie fans.

LOVING THE ALIEN - ATHENS GEORGIA SALUTES DAVID BOWIE

1999

VBR kbps

64 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.