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Tracks you love – that maybe not everyone has heard….

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It’s a wide landscape but maybe we’ll discover a few gems we haven’t heard…..

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  4. Not quite sure how best to describe this, you won’t quite know what you’ve heard on first listen. After a second listen you’ll either be totally besotted or want to stab me in the neck for making you listen to it a second time.

    Or both.

    (“The New Sound” – The Capricorns)

      • Been meaning to respond to this for a while @walter-rego

        Glad you liked Matson Jones, they had a pretty unique sound that did – as you say – work.

        They only managed one self-titled album and an EP (“The Albatross Mates For Life…”).
        “New York City” isn’t on either of them though, it’s the b-side to “A Little Bit Of Arson Never Hurt Anyone” off the album, but it’s also on the 2005 Rough Trade “Counter Culture” compilation, which is where I heard it.

    • I do love Frightened Rabbit, despite them being a bit more folky than moreorless anything else that I listen to.

      I went through a definite phase around the time I first heard them that all the new bands I was getting into were Scottish. Some have been passing interests, but I still listen to The Phantom Band, We Were Promised Jetpacks and The Twilight Sad an awful lot from back then.

  22. I’d be surprise if many non-Canadians have heard this. The Tragically Hip – Leave, off In Violet Light.

    A canuck friend sent me the album years ago, and I shamefully ignored it for a long time. Then this track came up on random pay one day and I think I played it a couple of dozen times in one straight sitting.

      • This may spoil Leave for you, but if you play it loud on headphones repeatedly, you’ll eventually notice a car alarm going off somewhere in the distance during one of the quieter passages. That pisses me off no end. So much for the scientific method.

        The other one I really like off In Violet Light is “Silver Jet”, with an actual video and everything.

  23. Also, Tom Robinson “This Little Romance” off “Still Loving You”. Unfortunately not available as a single track, but the whole very wonderful album is on the tube

    and the track I’m most fond of kicks in at 36.24, with the very fantastic/caustic/sarcastic final track “The Wedding” just after it.

  26. This is a very dangerous thread. I could spend hours here listening to stuff and posting obscure faves. Like these two.

    Lake – Oh the places we’ll go

    Montevideo – El futuro sera lo que queramos

  32. Woke up with this stuck in my head the other morning & had to hunt it down for a listen. Always thought it was a Beck song, not being a huge Beck fan. Had no idea it was a mash-up. It’s now gone top o’ the pile as my fave mash-up. Always puts me in a good mood.

  35. Currently, I’m mesmerised by this version of Sister Ray recorded in 1969 live at The Matrix. It was released as part of the latest VU box set. It is a fantastic gig and it sounds as though there were only twenty people in the audience. The track lasts over 35 minutes but the band are tight!

  36. I say you can’t go wrong with Hannah Aldridge (as I’ve been banging on for months now to anyone who will listen).

    This is Parchaman from her Razor Wire album.

  38. A really nice dub album that you may not be familiar with is “Slum – Gregory Isaacs in Dub”.

    It’s absolutely vintage stuff from the golden age of dub, mixed by Prince Jammy at King Tubby’s.
    Here’s one track, called “Crofs”, but it’s basically all this good. If you’re generally a fan of the Tubby/Jammy/Scientist school of dubbing, and are not familiar with “Slum”, I’d say it’s a cast-iron winner. Personally, I prefer it to any of the Cool Ruler’s vocal albums.

  39. Anthony Holborne: The Fairie Round

    This is the first single off the album “The Teares of the Muses”, which came out in 1599.
    And a big thumbs-up to the guy playing the archlute.

  41. Had a wonderful couple of weeks in Madrid in the early 80s.

    The family I stayed with loved Mecano which was described as “techno”. This tune is simple and doesn’t sound groundbreaking now but I thought it was at the time.

  46. My favoritest track from my favoritest band, another probably-not-very-well-known-outside-Canada-band is Odds, “It Falls Apart”. Especially the breakdown at 2.50, I bloody love that.

  47. I used to subscribe to a US magazine called The Beat. Originally it covered reggae, but over the years also covered African, Latin and Caribbean music. They put out a compilation CD called The Sound Of The Beat, which was great and highly recommended to anyone interested in that stuff. It included this Prince Far I track:

    Here is a rare funk track. I know nothing about the band.

    This track is better known, but there must be people yet to hear it.

  54. Cuba – Furtive Winks
    https://youtu.be/tpbnbSXdlU8
    I bet nobody here has heard this track before. It is the only single they released on Ariola Records. I accompanied a mate to a meeting in London where we met with Simon Napier-Bell to discuss a possible second single. I surprise myself with some of the things I have done but forgot about in the mists of time.

    • And expensive! Thanks to @retropath2‘s recommendation I’ve totally fallen in love with 9Bach. I had to buy their two albums and EP (and have been listening all day). Exactly my sort of music. Fantastic! And in Welsh, no less.

  57. Well I’ve never managed to find a version of this to post before but luckily someone has uploaded a version to youtube. It’s not the version that’s become my fave- that one exists on a Glitterhouse compilation called Silos & Utility Sheds I bought years ago in a secondhand recordshop in Bristol but it’s still pretty good. The version I like is more sparse. Just her & a guitar. This version comes from her album Citron, which I doggedly tracked down to have more of Cheralee. I didn’t like it 🙁 But this is still one o’ my favourite songs ever.

  61. A track from one o’ my top 3 albums of last year. I bloody love it. The whole album. Hard to pick one track, but this is the opener. Full of joy & love of life. Stick it on headphones on my way into work & I practically dance into work. I even forget myself & smile at strangers sometimes!! Some of it almost makes me want to laugh out loud. It’s ludicrous, naive & lovely, quirky & doesn’t take itself too seriously; a balm for the soul. It’s great to hear a bunch o’ musicians having fun making music & they sound like they’re all having a ball. I don’t know what it is I like about Danielson so much as normally I have no time for born again christians but I can’t help but love ’em, & they’re a good foil for Jad Fair, reigning in some of his more “out there” moments. I have some of his other albums & there’s a few that are nigh on unlistenable. Even for me. Hope somebody here likes it. Or is it just me? Oh well….
    http://danielson.bandcamp.com/track/go-ahead

  62. Lots of interesting stuff here to investigate on my next day off.

    One from me – my current favourite Japanese act, Kinoku Teikoku (not completely unknown here, as I discovered them via @deviant808). This is the penultimate track off their latest album Fake World Wonder Land, which has seen them move away from their shoegazey roots to a more direct rock sound. Earlier this year, I went through a phase of playing this several times a day for weeks on end

  63. Another one of my very favourite bands that don’t get talked about here, although @harold-holt might well know them – Winnipeg’s The Weakerthans. The come from a activist punk background, but play a kind of indie folk. They haven’t made a duff record, but Left & Leaving is their masterpiece. I can’t decide which song to highlight, so you can have two.

    My Favourite Chords:

    This Is A Fire Door, Never Leave Open:

    and a bonus track from their first album, Fallow, the gorgeous None Of The Above:

    I flew from Dublin to London to see them the first time they played over here, and to hear a (small!) room of people all sing the opening verse to that one when for years I’d been the only person I knew who liked them was a real goosebumps gig moment I’ll remember for a long time.

  65. Great thread. I started to scroll down, hoping that no one else had posted this. Halfway down, I laughed, out loud, realising that, not only had no one heard this track, no one has even heard of the band (adopts confident, bring it on, face.) I adore the band, own everything that they recorded, and this track was my favourite to play drums to. Loping, lazy, languid, luscious. This is Rare Bird and House In The City.
    http://youtu.be/PZxJR0OWLOU

  66. This thread is so full of interesting stuff. And some great stories!

    Must squeeze in the Walkabouts from their wonderful album Devil’s Road. It’s the strings that really make it something extra special.

    • If you love Walkabouts, go back 2 years from Devils Road to 1994’s Setting the Woods on Fire. Still stinking after all these years. No strings attached, but bleached, spare american
      And what do the Walkabouts always remind me of?
      Why, it must be Tindersticks.
      KFD, if you love the strings on Devils Road you will love ’em

  68. The version of this I know and love is an electric version by Orchestra Marrabenta Star De Moçambique. This acoustic version, by their singer Wazembo, has a grittier, more genuine feel, but lacks the fantastic crescendo of the leccy version:

  69. Baka Beyond’s brilliant Meeting Pool album is mostly influenced by music from Cameroon, but on this one track they get all Celtic, beautifully so:

    • This is the only song/artist on the list so far that I have heard of, @gary. One of my favourites too. Martin Craddick (along with Justin Adams one of my favourite guitarists) used to be in a group called Outback – marked by the use of a didgeridoo – fantastically danceable nights under canvas at Glastonbury to them.

  70. A few Americana earworms.

    And wow! It’s not every day the Grenna Bluegrass festival appears on the Afterword!

    Ellen Sundberg from Jämtland.

    Zoe Muth from Seattle

    Eilen Jewell from Idaho

    Poco from the vaults. Many of you probably know Rose of Cimmaron but I’m posting it anyway.

  72. Ismaël Lô is a singer Roger Waters used on his Ça Ira opera. He’d previously recorded a song with Marianne Faithful (Without Blame – lyrics by Waters), but this is my favourite of his:

  73. Glad to hear you are enjoying the playlist @sewer-robot.

    The reason that the quality is better than your average Word covermount is that one one is trying to sell anything. We are just sharing favourites old and new.

    Several bands and artists mentioned here are either defunct or pushing up daisies. But here they can live on and gain new fans.

    I would be delighted @lunaman, if you ran this thread every three months or so. We are nowhere near the bottom of this wonderful barrel and in the meantime we will all discover new things anyway.

    It’s a fine chance to give slightly less-known songs and artists an airing.

    • I’d be pleased to run this from time to time. I mentioned earlier finding new(to myself) music to listen to has always been the main highlight of The Word/The Afterword blog for me. I’d have to listen to a an enormous amount of radio/spotify to filter down what I can gleam from recommendations on this site and the bar is always high when it comes to quality. The one thing we never have enough of to find great new music is time.

  76. Another old, old fave. I just played it this morning & my Last fm tells me I’ve played it 99 times. I could play it 9,999 times & never tire of it. It gets me every time, mostly cos I’ve made up a little story in my head about it. The music outro at the end sounds very like the intro to an old song I remember of Crystal Gayle’s called Dreaming My Dreams & as these boys seem to know their country musical chops I reckon they’d know it too & in my head I reckon it’s there as he knows he’s never going to see his love again & he’s just singing of how he hopes it could be & not how it will ever be. That old unrequited love story. Beautiful & sad. Sigh! https://open.spotify.com/track/34NrBo8itBN7nIPIWV8Qah

  78. Now a Norwegian earworm.

    The title means Delight but I really don’t understand the lyrics very well. Something about delight waiting just round the corner. I should ask @locust

    But I love her voice and the guitar sound and the tune.

  79. This is another little gem that I probably wouldn’t have heard but I did through the old Word blog. Sorry I can’t remember who posted it originally but thanks to whoever it was, a haunting tune from King Creoste & Jon Hopkins – Bats in the attic’ from the Album Diamond Mine.

    • Oh, I’m a longtime KC fan. Track down his KC Rules Ok album, which this is from, 678. With Johnny Lynch aka The Pictish Trail on bv & The Earlies on musical accompaniment. Ye can’t get better than that. For me anyhow.

      • Another Scottish band that I’m absolutely besotted by is Monoganon, a band led by Glaswegian John McKenna, though he is now based in Sweden. Their album Family from 2013 is well worth a purchase if yer so inclined. This is All You Need Is Now from that selfsame album. Hope you enjoy.

    • Herbie Hancock re-recorded Watermelon Man for the Headhunters LP, you would hardly believe it was the same song.

      Oscar Brown Jr had a different song with the same title.

  82. Are there any Afterworders listening to Young Fathers? They are young, modern and innovative. They are somewhat tenuously categorised as hip hop. White Men Are Black Men Too is brilliant, a step up from their excellent debut.

    Shame

      • It’s a depressing list. I can’t say that I listen to many post 1996, although The Klaxons stand up well!

        1992 Primal Scream – Screamadelica
        1993 Suede – Suede
        1994 M People – Elegant Slumming
        1995 Portishead – Dummy
        1996 Pulp – Different Class
        1997 Roni Size/Reprazent – New Forms
        1998 Gomez – Bring It On
        1999 Talvin Singh – Ok
        2000 Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour of Bewilderbeast
        2001 PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
        2002 Ms. Dynamite – A Little Deeper
        2003 Dizzee Rascal – Boy in da Corner
        2004 Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
        2005 Antony and the Johnsons – I Am a Bird Now
        2006 Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am
        2007 Klaxons – Myths of the Near Future
        2008 Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
        2009 Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy
        2010 The xx – xx
        2011 PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
        2012 Alt-J – An Awesome Wave
        2013 James Blake – Overgrown
        2014 Young Fathers – Dead

  86. Looks like the youtube good fairy’s looking out for me this week. Someone lovely’s just uploaded another old fave for me to post on here. Grace Braun – It Won’t Hurt Found it on a Loose records compilation 18 years ago.

    Found this one by her – Liftin’ Up Me – on a Slow River comp around the same time. Can’t decide which one I like more.

  87. “Play some old . . . . ”
    A late saturday afternoon in the Hare and Hounds, Kings Heath. Waiting for the band to start. The DJ (I think he’s Steve Gibbons’ son, Dylan) – playing 7″ vinyl – gives us this . . . . how had I never heard it before?

  88. This is a very recent love. I always have time for some of MF Doom’s quirky humour. “My kids are rough. They eat iron candy. My girl is tough. She wears iron panties.” Hehe. Prefer this remix version. Cannibal Ox (Feat. MF Doom)- Iron Rose (Skylab 3 remix)

  89. Finally made time to listen to all this great stuff – thanks everybody!

    Here’s something from the wonderful Sylvie Lewis. I’ve raved about her before, but she doesn’t seem to have become world famous in the meantime…

  91. Here’s something a bit different. If you know pre-war blues you will probably know this (although it isn’t blues). I was rather late to this particular party (about 80 years late). It is one of the strangest, haunting and most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.

  93. More Canadians anybody?

    I nearly put The Organ into that “One Album Wonder” thread we had a while back, but they also fit here too as I don’t know too many people familiar with them, which isn’t likely to change significantly as they’ve been defunct for nearly ten years.

    They had a troubled history, taking them three years to reach the point of releasing their first EP, and then another two before the “Grab That Gun” album came out. Even then, they’d scrapped the first version of the album, and it was still only just over an hour long!

    Their track “Brother” is probably their best-known as it got used on “The L Word”, but this track – “Memorise The City” – is where I first heard them, and it’s the one that I would recommend as being worthy of your consideration.

    (“Memorise The City” – The Organ)

  95. What a great thread!
    Here’s my two pennyworth – not new at all,mI found it on a cheap Rockabilly compilation in Fopp.
    The wonderful Huelyn Duval ( less than 2 mins of pure swinging bliss)

  97. This one suddenly came to me…I heard it on the radio when it came out, knew it was by the Poppy Factory but wasn’t sure of the title – only the “Call me Charlie Bubbles” refrain. Now a mere 24 years later, thanks to the wonder of YouTube I’ve learned it was called 7×7. I was right though.

  99. I love this track.
    Didn’t know anything about them until I bought the Fac Dance compilation.
    Stood out instantly for me.
    Brilliant music to accompany my evening jogs and as a result is my most played i-pod track

  100. Mentioning above that Poppy Factory only managed three singles, reminded me of Intaferon who were equally short-lived. “Steamhammer Sam” and “Baby Pain” were good, but this is the one that you *need* to hear.

    Early eighties high-octane, high-velocity urban paranoia with hedgehogs.

    This always reminds me of a friend-of-friend who also introduced me to Shriekback and Cabaret Voltaire. OK, he did also nick my girlfriend, but it was probably a fair swap.

    (“Get Out Of London” – Intaferon)

  103. Thanks all,there’s been a great response to this thread and I’ll probably try it again in a few months and see where it goes. I’ve been working my way through and there are a few tracks that have been on repeat for quite a while before I’ve moved on. I’m in that great position when people ask you have you heard anything good lately and I can confidenty rattle off a few little gems that maybe they wont have heard of….yet.
    I thought I’d take the liberty to finish off with another contribution. Until next time here’s a cover of ‘Love Vigilantes(New Order) by Iron & Wine –

  105. I’ve given up trying to get the Reply function to work so @retropath2 and @gary I shall resort to this… I have been banging on and off about 9bach for ages. Tincian was one of my favourite albums of last year. Look out for the mini album of remixes called Tinc. You should enjoy that also give The Queen of the Council Estate our Cerys Matthew’s Welsh language disc Tir a go. It’s lovely.

  107. Try this Scottish gem.

    https://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=SUNKISSED+FRIENDS+AGAIN+youtube&vid=a0fbdc45fca1d90e81958edaa190abb1&l=4%3A24&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DWN.Td6utYQZmr%252bXmiAmSdYyIQ%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dx2PKttjMHt0&tit=FRIENDS+AGAIN-SUNKISSED%7BEXTENDED+VERSION%7D%5B1984%5D&c=0&sigr=11bhtd8n5&sigt=11fvl1gi3&sigi=121nmr001&ct=p&age=1321425596&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&fr=mcafee&tt=b

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