Mammane Sani et son Orgue

Mammane Sani was a keyboard player and composer, creating short continuity pieces for TV and Radio, before obtaining an Italian Orla organ and eventually recording 'La Musique Electronique Du Niger' in 1978. The album was distributed on cassette only in hen's teeth like quantities and, 35 years later, was rescued from oblivion by the good people at Sahel Sounds. The music is hypnotic, minimal and, quite frankly, not the kind of stuff you'd initially expect to have come out of late 70's West Africa. Think 'Dignity of Labour' period Human League transposed from Sheffield to Niamey. Remarkable.

Mammane Sani - Lamru

I Can't Believe You Said That

Incredibly, it's now over a year since I shared 'No Sign' by the Serafina Steer led trio Bas Jan (here), a song that would go on to be one of my favourites of 2017. Now, finally, after considerable line-up to-ing and fro-ing within the ranks, comes the band's debut long player, 'Yes I Jan'. It's a sparse, spiky, post-punk affair that deals in the mundanities of everyday life and has more brilliantly quirky pop songs than you can shake a stick at. If you find that 'Argument' hits the spot, check out the whole album over at the Lost Map Bandcamp page.

Cowboy Nation

From 1977 to 1980, brothers Chip Kinman and Tony Kinman were the backbone of radical Californian punk band The Dils. Following a relocation to Austin Texas in 1981, the pair joined forces with guitarist Alejandro Escovedo to form Rank and File, whose music contributed to the short-lived Cowpunk movement. Rank and File dissolved after three albums and the Kinmans performed a sharp left turn next, in putting together Blackbird, an electronic post-punk outfit, who put out a number of records between 1988 and 1994. In 1997 the brothers reappeared as two thirds of the minimal three-piece Cowboy Nation, whose self titled debut is a model of country restraint.

Cowboy Nation - Cowboy Nation 

Cowboy Nation - Cowboy Way

Cut to the Quick

Back at the beginning of December, I shared 'Takes One to Know One', the first preview track from the debut Olden Yolk LP, due for release on February 23rd - and it appeared to go down rather well with all and sundry (it's here if you'd like to refresh your memory). I actually pre-ordered the album on the strength of that one tune, though another two tracks have been unleashed in the past couple of months that have only served to whet my appetite further. Have a listen and see what you think.

The Triffids at T(N)VV

Two days short of what would've been David McComb's 56th birthday, our mutual friend JC has done me the great honour of posting my Triffids Imaginary Compilation Album over at The (New) Vinyl Villain (here). As always when attempting to choose just ten tracks from a favourite artist, the final selection proved excruciatingly difficult to whittle down. In the end I tried for a representative mixture of the band's lighter and darker moments, sequenced into what I hope is a really balanced listen. Among the many other great Triffids songs that came under consideration as I fiddled and faffed with the final running order, was epic live favourite 'Field of Glass', which eventually only failed to make the cut by the smallest of margins. So imagine, if you will, that this is the hidden bonus track on the CD version of the compilation.

The Triffids - Field of Glass

The Builders and the Butchers

Mrs S & I are back at home, warming our extremities in front of the wood-burner at Swede Towers, after a few days spent in the freezing metropolis. Our proposed visit to Oxford was unfortunately reduced to the briefest of stopovers this time around, but we liked what we saw and hope to return for a longer stay one of these days. Before we hit the road, I grabbed a fistfull of CDs to soundtrack our jaunt, the first of which, pulled from the glove compartment at random as we sped out of Norfolk, was the 2007 debut album by Portland's The Builders and the Butchers. 'Bottom of the Lake' is a cautionary tale of what might transpire if you fail to settle your debts.

'...I had one outstanding loan I couldn't pay,

oh, but I will pay

'cos my life they stole away...' 

The Builders and the Butchers - Bottom of the Lake

Version City #68 - Micah P. Hinson sings The Carter Family

I'm somewhat surprised to find that I haven't featured anything from 'Micah P. Hinson Presents The Holy Strangers' on these pages before today, as the LP was one of my favourites of 2017. Mrs S & I have followed Micah's career ever since his 2004 debut 'The Gospel of Progress', where he was backed by much missed English folk-psych merchants par excellence, The Earlies. 'The Holy Strangers' is, whisper it, a concept album - or as Hinson himself would have it '....a “modern folk opera.” Telling the story of a war time family, going from birth to love, to marriage and children, to war and betrayal, murder to suicide – spanning all of the strange and glorious places life can lead.' The album stretches over two pieces of vinyl and not a minute of the hour long running time is wasted. It's an absorbing piece of work from a truly unique artist and comes highly recommended from all the gang at Swede Towers.

Micah P. Hinson - Lover's Lane 

The Carter Family - Lover's Lane

The Hippy Posed Engrossment

                                                         Steve Treatment pictured with Marc Bolan in 1976

A Marc Bolan & T.Rex obsessive who became fascinated by the DIY ethic of punk rock, Steve Treatment's early musical interests ran in parallel to my own. Steve's friends in the mid-seventies included post-punk noisemakers The Swell Maps, who played on his debut '5 Sided A Side' EP in 1978, albeit hidden behind the outrageous pseudonyms of Matilda Tank, Amphibious Landing Craft, Edrun Kübelwagen and RJ Half-Track. Two further Steve Treatment singles followed in 1979, each in a glorious home-made, photocopied sleeve crammed with photo montages, typewritten info and handwritten in-jokes. I bought all three of those singles at the time and I treasure them still. If I'd have had even one ounce of musical ability in 1978/9, I'm certain that I would've made a similarly glam infused, naive punk racket as Steve.

Steve Treatment died of pneumonia in 2015, at the tragically young age of 57.

Steve Treatment - The Hippy Posed Engrossment

Steve Treatment - Heaven Knows

She Had a Dark and a Roving Eye

Mrs S & I are out of town for the next few days, so the halls and corridors of Swede Towers have fallen silent. In fact, all being well, as you read these words we'll be in Oxford checking out the dreaming spires, plus the odd pub, gallery and coffee shop, before heading down into London's East End later in the week to visit my elderly Aunts. I'm a fairly regular visitor to Cambridge, that other great seat of learning, but have only ever been to Oxford once before and that was 45 years ago, so I don't recall an awful lot about the place. I'll report back with our impressions next week.

Here's the great Shirley Collins with 'The Oxford Girl', an ancient murder ballad that has appeared in many guises over the centuries. Shirley apparently heard this particular arrangement as 'The Wexport Girl', performed by Suffolk singer Phoebe Smith on a Topic Records LP. Shirley's reading of the song is taken from the 1970 record 'Love, Death and the Lady', made with her sister Dolly, a phenomenal album that remained on constant rotation in my car for well over a month late last year.

Shirley Collins - The Oxford Girl