Monday 30 April 2012

10 Favourite Albums: #1 "Weird & Wonderful Natural Sounds" (BBC Wildlife Magazine 199?)

Inspired by a recent pub conversation about a previous pub conversation I have decided to do something I promised myself I would never ever use this blog for: That being using it to show the 3 or 4 people who stumble across this thing every month what good taste in music I have...

I found this cassette in Hyde Willow Hospice Shop about 3 years ago, paid my 25p and took it home to languish on the shelf until I bothered playing it a month or so later.

Big mistake.

Like many a British charity shop scavenger (and even after my most recent attempted vinyl cull) I still have literally dozens of BBC LPs, 7"s, Cassettes, CDs and a couple of 12" of variable quality and interest lurking in the, often lesser loved, corners of my collection, heck I even already have the odd BBC wildlife sounds LP (this one, this one and this one for example), but this one is something else.

This is one of the few recordings I own where I can't really make any audio connection between anything else in my collection, sure it's a magazine freebie (cheapie?) but that don't stop it being in my opinion the greatest nature recording album of all time. Yes, even better than the marvelous and rightly famous Smithsonian Folkways: Sounds of North American Frogs LP from 1958.

Of course that is also a problem in that I am piss poor at descriptive writing (I shalt never be no Lester Bangs) and as this album has no Google footprint whatsoever it's impossible for me to find the actual mp3s for your enjoyment. Sorry about that.

However while my next review will come complete with sound and video clips you'll have to make do with me telling you that with tracks averaging out at a hypnotic 1min 20sec (bare in mind many sounds heard are 3 to 5 second cycles) this often very odd album is one to let wash over you.

Lastly the people I was with accused me of being deliberately obscure and arcane for the sake of trying to be different. Bullshit. Just because this was the first album to come to mind when choosing my faves doesn't mean it's necessarily my all time favourite. Having already chosen the other 9 records for this list I can guarantee that most readers will have heard, or at least be aware of, a good 70% of the artists featured.

Next time: My considered defense of "nothing special"

Sunday 29 April 2012

Another Track Finished

Here's a new track called "The Five Ways (Maccelsfield Road)"

It took me 70 minutes to make last night. It's really stupid and pointless.

Here's a free download.

Enjoy.