As the year slowly starts to wind down, today we’re talking about both the new and the new-not-new with a smart set of records for your considerations.
Our Record of the Week is a really lush live recording, with Dean Wareham (founder of Galaxie 500) performing Live At St Pancras Old Church London December 2013. The LP is taken from recordings made over two nights, with solo material alongside songs by Galaxie 500 and Luna. It’s been mixed and remastered specially and the package is really something, with limited double Red and Green vinyl, including a screenprinting on the D-Side.
Eels So Good is the second volume of essential bangers from the vaults of Eels. The songs (recorded between 2007-2020) are inimitable, with there is plenty of movement across the set from the sad and fragile to the raucous and really funny. A Great band and they have done a really nice job on the packaging here too, with limited Transparent Green vinyl to match the sleeve.
Captured Tracks have produced a physical edition of Mac Demarco’s Some Other Ones, a summer 2015 collection of original instrumental recordings that DeMarco deemed his “BBQ soundtrack”. Why, we don't know, but we like it! Only previously available as a free download, this has long been in demand and we have limited Canary Yellow colour vinyl copies.
Supershy is the electronic alter-ego of Tom Misch and he releases Happy Music this week. Old soul and house hues with some flashes of disco too.
+ Pressed on limited Yellow & Green vinyl.
We didn’t have Sleaford Mods recording a charity cover of Pet Shop Boys in our 2023 bingo, but we are glad to have some limited copies of their excellent take on West End Girls. The profits go to the Shelter charity too, which is really excellent stuff.
Craft Jazz Essentials have made a 2023 pressing of The Miles Davis All Stars Walkin’, a series of 1954 sessions that charted the development of Miles Davis and also bop more generally.
Lastly this week, you’ve got to have some serious flex to declare your own music as incredible in the title, but The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery really is suitably incredible. Recorded in two days and originally released via Riverside in 1960, his speed and dexterity is dazzling, but his warmth and harmony are equally as formidable. Always been a favourite, this one.
- Drift