Selective

OK, this one's all about some music I was talking about with someone and then I just happened to pick up one of three old compilation tapes that are sitting near me in a 'to do' pile and the track that we were talking about is actually on the tape that I'd picked up, from April 1997. Coincidence.

So, although I'd always done compilation tapes since I was a teenager, 1997 was the year that I sat down to systematically do one a month encompassing all the types of music that I was listening to, and I titled these 'Eclectic Selective For January', then '...February' and so on. So by the time me and my partner left the country to go travelling in the Autumn we had a bunch of these cassettes to go with us to play in various hire cares in various parts of the world. And by the time we'd eventually left a set of these cassettes with my pal in Bangkok that we'd been staying with, well, I knew this music backwards and I was more than glad to not hear it again for a while. Until now, what is it, sixteen years later.

So, I thought that I'd put together an itunes playlist of one of these old tapes, re-creating it digitally if you like (most of it was all originally taped off my vinyl which has now long gone). Except of course the dynamics of a playlist are fundamentally different to those of a 90 minute cassette where you've obviously got the split into 'A' and 'B' sides. Do you come in with a killer opening track or build it gradually. Do you finish Side A on a bang or a whimper, an audio full stop or more of a sonic comma? Does Side B act as a continuation of Side A or a separate 45 minutes in its own right, metaphorically as well as literally a mix of two halves? Like I say, this is on the 'to do' pile which may well turn into the 'never to be done' pile, but just for interest's sake here's the tracklisting for the cassette in question (and the track that started all this off is cunningly titled 'the track that started all this off' and it'll be in a different colour to click on as well so, you know, if you want to listen to it, you know what to do). Here goes...

ECLECTIC SELECTIVE FOR APRIL 1997

SIDE A

Dimitri From Paris - Sacre Francais
Funki Porcini Vs Jerry Van Rooyen - Great Train Robbery
Anita Lane & Nick Cave - I Love You...Nor Do I
Tom Waits & Crystal Gayle - This One's From The Heart
Bob Dylan - Lay Lady Lay
Tricky - Suffocated Love (acoustic)
Sugarcubes - Birthday (Icelandic)
Orbital - The Saint
Lamb - Merge (Jimster's Jam Mix)
John Cale - Hallelujah
Aphex Twin - Untitled (edit)

SIDE B

Laurent Garnier - Deep Sea Diving
Sabres Of Paradise - Tow Truck
Future Sound Of London - Papua New Guinea
New Order - Procession
A Certain Ratio - Do The Du
DJ Krush - Kemuri
Gang Starr - Jazz Thing
Mekon feat. Schoolly D - Skool's Out
The Track That Started All This Off
Pavement - Shady Lane
Palace Brothers - I Am A Cinematographer
PJ Harvey - Plants And Rags








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