Planxty - Cold Blow and the Rainy Night

In case you're not already aware: all Planxty albums are great.

Things I love about this, their third LP, recorded in 1974:
- It was recorded in Whitechapel, a place close to my heart. (Although Bohemian Rhapsody was recorded in the same studio and I think that's wank.)
- The cover has a cartoon portrait of the band, which is...unflattering.
- It has a killer version of one of my favourite folk songs - the title track. What a timeless tale of humanity's flaws and mistakes that is?

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Thundercat - Drunk

Yesterday, my granddaughter and I watched Yo Gabba GabbaLand!'s NPR Tiny Desk Concert, which features Thundercat. It reminded me to sit down and give this a rare spin.

Now, I love Thundercat's music. His playing is simply beautiful, and who doesn't love a falsetto vocal?

This box set of four 45 RPM 10" singles on red vinyl, each in its own double-envelope cardboard sleeve, is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, it's such a ballache to play that I never touch it. A format only good if you want to get your steps up.

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Charles Mingus - Pre-Bird

I borrowed this album from the library when I was about 13 and really enjoyed it. It was the first jazz album I had really listened to and I remember reading the sleeve notes, learning about contrapuntal arrangements and being blown away. I was a bit of an odd teenager, at times.

Got myself a mint 1961 mono copy a few years ago off discogs and promptly (literally) dropped the needle onto Prayer for Passive Resistance, making a big old skip in the middle of Eric Dolphy's amazing alto sax squawking. Oh well.

This album is a stone cold 10 and I'm playing it twice.

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ZZ Hill - A Man Needs a Woman

Mid-8Os blues was where 60s soul went out to pasture.

The first side of this LP is structured as a 'blues opera', with clunky dialogue between the tracks, playing out a tale of relationship discord. A precursor to hip hop's awful skits, I suppose.

ZZ Hill has a classy voice, and I love blues from this period.

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The Headhunters - Survival of the Fittest

A Herbie Hancock produced Afro-space-funk project.

If You've Got It...takes me back to listening to pirate radio in London in the late '80s.

Alas, this is just a reissue.

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#funk
#vinyl