Gresham Hotel/Jellyfish

A last gasp from the Atlanta Aquarium, just in time. I don't know why it goes with the Gresham but I can't help but feel it does. The Hotel is something of a landmark in what is a particularly unattractive bit of Nottingham, down by the station (I was there to meet Beck off the train from Heathrow.) The bridge it's on is the one East Midlands Today reporters shelter under when they have to report on proceedings at the courts across the canal and the weather's particularly vile.

A midweek Soul selection: Isaac Hayes' 'Shaft' soundtrack, from 1971. Again it's mostly instrumental and, apart from the famous 'Theme from...' it's less stridently funky than you might expect and much more of a lush, symphonic treat. Plus, as you might expect from the man who heard Jim Webb's 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix' and thought, "now there's a song that needs extending into a twenty-minute psychedelic-soul epic with a full spoken-word back-story...," Hayes re-recorded and extended his original soundtrack compositions to give a much fuller sense of the environment he was writing about (and indeed, in terms of the movie itself, providing.) Six minutes-plus tracks like 'Café Regio's' and 'No Name Bar' have a real sense of place that makes for a full, gritty but warm evocation of early seventies 'Soulsville.' There's a link to yesterday's choice, too, with the rhythm section here, as on Hayes' classic 'Hot Buttered Soul' album (that's the other IH album I own - I should probably look into picking up a copy of 'Black Moses' too) provided by the continuing Bar-Kays...