jazzy_dave | Jun. 6th, 2006

My arm had been acheing due to the heavy load of the Croydon survey,so beeen spraying the old Deep Heat on it. If someone says its my age i will thump them!!

Received a mystery shop from Viewpoint - haven't heard from them for at least 3 years. Strange game this market research thing.

The discovery of old sounds still comes up with surprises and new revelations,the most recent is a Sudanese collection on World Circuit by Abdel Aziz El Mubarak ,Abdel Gadir Salim and Mohamed Gubara,and Ali Farka Toure "The River" on the same label. World Circuit have produced some fine stuff over the years since the Sudanese set i bought back in 1990,the most famous and biggest selling being The Buena Vista Social Club.

That Bing Selfish one is brilliant too - must play it more often - the lyrics are great.Up ther with Billy Childish and Jad Fair of low-fi self expression.

Another highly recommended label is Rune Grammofon.The recently bought Susanna and The Magical Orchestra set is so beautiful and strange,produced by Deathprod it is also quite weird. Rune Grammofon are responsible for some of the most twisted Norwegian new jazz and electronica on th planet. Kim Horthøy's graphics and designs for the way the label looks - all CD's come in digipaks - are extremely minimalist - even right down to the CD label.It puts on a par with the cool looks of the ECM label with its austere black and white photography.

Another label for different reasons is Load Rrecords for their loud heavy rock,metal and noisy electronica. Here we are talking about Noxagt,Lightning Bolt,Excepter,Sightings,and similar quirky stuff.An American independent label that goes more for technicolour overkill on their designs,Very bright and in your face and tends to suit the music too. Very psychedelic somtimes esp. the ones for Lightning Bolt.

Below is the covers for the Sounds of Sudan,Rune Grammofon artist Alog "Duck-Rabbit",Supersilent "1-3",Arne Nordheim"Electric",and Load's Lightning Bolt's latest and Sightings "arrived In Gold".