Welcome to the second edition of The Long Player. For newcomers, here’s the deal: I listen to and write about one LP every day. These are posted on my Instagram page and collated each week into this newsletter. This is an evolving process for me; as is the case with a lot of my creative endeavours I tend to jump into them and figure out how I’ll actually make them work later on.
One thing I’ve decided to try this week is to not post to my IG on Sundays, instead adding a few thoughts about whatever it is I’m listening to while I write up the newsletter exclusively for you on Substack. Let’s see how it goes…
This morning I’m listening to ‘Soul Is…Pretty Purdie’, Bernard Purdie’s 1972 LP on the excellent Flying Dutchman imprint. Purdie is one of those names I’ve been aware of for years, without ever diving into his solo work. His list of credits is unimpeachable; jazz greats Nina Simone, Herbie Hancoock and Yusef Lateef have called on Purdie as well as Steely Dan, Al Green, Todd Rundgren and even Michael Bolton across his 60 year career. When you have a drum pattern named after you it’s safe to say your place as one of the all-time greats is safe, although it’s probably for his work with Aretha Franklin (notably on Rocksteady) that he’s most revered.
Aretha looms large on this record, with a slinky cover of Day Dreaming and Purdie’s own tribute to the Queen of Soul ‘Song For Aretha’ closing out the LP. I love that this isn’t obviously a ‘drum’ record; he values groove over virtuosity which makes for a better album. I suppose when you’re the best in the game you don’t need to prove anything to anyone.
I only picked this up last year and it gave me one of my favourite moments of listening from recent times. As the stuttering backbeat of ‘Good Livin’ started up I was transported back 25 years to my schooldays and ‘Music For The Jilted Generation’ from The Prodigy. Until that moment, I didn’t know that Liam Howlett had sampled the hook for one of my favourite tracks on the album, the looping ‘3 Kilos’. I discover a lot of great records through tracking down samples but it’s always better when they find me - it never fails to bring a smile to my face. I may have to give The Prodigy record a spin this week….
January 8th • The Staples Jr Singers - When Do We Get Paid?
Sometimes sweet soul music is what you need, and today was one of those days. I cycled through a few records before settling on this relatively new arrival from The Staples Jr Singers. I picked this up at the end of 2022 when it was featured in Bandcamp's Essential Releases round up for the year.
This reissue from Luaka Bop is the first time the record has been widely available even though its coming up on half a century since it was originally released. I'd assumed the band was connected to the more famous Staple Singers, but it turns out that they have no connection to the legendary Chicago group. A group of teenage siblings who traversed the Bible Belt playing gospel shows, the name apparently was given to them by audiences who saw them as a younger version of the wildly popular group.
The record itself is a perfectly loose 13 track set of deeply soulful gospel; it's remarkable to think that they were children at the time of recording, such is the fervour and grit that they give in their delivery.
There are a couple of great quotes from the Bandcamp feature about the group last year that stuck with me. First, this from Edward Brown, who now, hopefully is receiving an answer to his prayer:
“I prayed every night for this to happen. I said, ‘Lord, let me do something that will touch this whole world and let the world know that I’m trying, I’m working hard trying to do something for you."
and this from his sister Annie:
“It wasn’t hard back then to sing those songs, because it seemed like everybody was saying the same thing and going through the same stuff. With so many people hating one another, we need to get together.”
Amen to that.
January 9th • Andrew Wasylysk - Fugitive Light and Themes Of Consolation
I've listened to this record three times in the last 24 hours: twice last night and again this morning, which is quite a rarity for me these days. I was put onto this by my friend Dave who picked it out as one of his favourites from the last few years, and I think I'd have to agree with that assessment.
As the record blurb states 'Fugitive Light And Themes Of Consolation is the third in a trio of records by Andrew Wasylyk which unearth and reshape the landscape of Eastern Scotland as shimmering and inventive instrumental music.'
It is without question a record that creates the sense of a particular space around it, through subtle motifs, carefully used field recordings and a rich musical palette. The word it brings to mind most of all is one I learnt only recently; apricity, a now out of use term to describe the warmth of the sun in winter.
This feeling is augmented by the booklet of photographs that accompanies the record, a series of images with light (and shade) as the focus. Musically there are elements of Axelrod and Dorothy Ashby as well as more contemporary ambient influences. None of that really occurs to me while I'm listening though; it's a record filled with feeling, delicacy and love.
In Wasylysk's own words, it's “simultaneously about knowing loss and accepting love, the optimistic and the downhearted, where the lightness and dark gather together.”
On a chilly January morning it's all those things and more.
January 10th • Thee Sacred Souls - Thee Sacred Souls
I played football today for the first time in months. I've had sizeable gaps in playing before but this time I had a real worry that I wouldn't be able to play properly. Some perspective: I've never been very good, so it's not like I was concerned I wouldn't be able to hit precise 50 yard passes like I used to. This time I was genuinely not sure if I'd be able to run around or keep with the pace of a game of football, let alone execute a rudimentary 5 yard pass.
I'm not totally sure where this feeling came from - I've been one of the older players in our game for some time so am continually aware of my advancing years, but in the event it was fine. We lost and I got soaked by the rain, but there was a joyous familiarity about the damp east London air that felt good for the soul.
Bringing my aching body back to South London and pouring myself onto the sofa I reached for a record that would give me a similar experience, albeit with less immediate physical danger attached to it.
I pulled for this 2022 record from Thee Sacred Souls, which despite being a very recent addition to my collection, has a feeling of familiarity about it that was just what I needed. Daptone has been crafting records of remarkable quality and consistency for over 20 years now, and seeing the names of Sugarman and Roth on a record sleeve is as close to a quality guarantee as you're going to get in modern music.
Across 12 tracks the Californian trio offer variations of warm, sweet soul music, with just enough grit in the kick drums to give it some hidden depths to lose yourself in.
Daptone make records like this seem effortless but that undervalues just how hard it is to get this sound right. Thinking about it I really take their output for granted - and like my days on the astroturf pitches of London I'll miss them when they're gone.
January 11th • Various Artists - Down & Out
I often earmark albums for specific listening environments. Some are headphone listens, some work in clubs, some in the car and so on. In case you were wondering, my favourite personal sub-genre is albums to listen to on a night bus. I don't get to explore that last one too much these days, but if you're interested I'd put Brand New Second Hand by Roots Manuva and the 2nd Burial album right at the top of the list.
Anyway, I digress. I listened to this record today in two parts, firstly on a long-ish walk down the side of Peckham Rye and then back home on the hifi. The park listen encouraged me to wallow in the wintery bleakness that runs through the record but back home I dug into the delicacy and lo-fi instrumentalism that characterises many of the songs on this loose collection.
Some background here; this is a compilation from London radio station NTS and takes their 'Don't Assume' maxim into previously unexplored territories. A selection of outsider folk songs recorded between 1968 and 1980, it features tracks from the US and UK that loiter in the far reaches of the post revival folk scene. As the title 'Down and Out' suggests it's not exactly a laugh a minute, reaching its logical conclusion with Bill Clint's 'Sometimes Angels Don't Need Friends' which ends with several minutes of him crying over a melancholy guitar progression.
Gloominess aside, it's a fascinating set of tracks and it strikes me how true to the original spirit of folk music it is. As the wikipedia definition states folk is 'music transmitted orally, with unknown composers, played on traditional instruments, about cultural or national identity, associated with a people's folklore'. This album ticks all those boxes and more, and as is often the way with compilations of obscure music I get a kick out of these long-forgotten dreams getting a second life long after their performer's aspirations of acclaim have passed.
January 12th • Saint Etienne - Fairfax High
I've been thinking about box sets a little bit lately (it's a thrill a minute here!) and wondering how many of the ones on my shelves ever get listened to. It's a nice idea right? There's an album you love and a multi-disc set is released, including unheard mixes, dub versions and unused tracks plus fulsome sleeve notes.
This is great, in theory. In practice, how often do these actually get listened to? I have a number of these on my shelves and most of them remain unopened, sealed monuments to my love of a particular artist or record. If I want to listen to OK Computer, I'll listen to OK Computer - I'm not quite sure what mood I'd need to be in to listen to 5 hours of offcuts and retakes.
It's an odd one really, as I'm genuinely interested in the stories and music around my favourite records (as made evident by these posts). However that passion rarely translates into listening in the way that box-sets encourage.
I think that Saint Etienne may have found a way round this conundrum, as evidenced by this record that was released solely via their website at the end of 2022. A companion piece to their 1998 record Good Humour (without doubt my favourite LP of theirs) it was a bonus CD on the US version of the album but has never been released on vinyl until now. The band have added their notes and memories of the recording, including how close certain tracks came to making the final cut and why some didn't (Alan McGee laughed at a lyric referencing Holloway Road on one).
What's great about this approach is that it works as a standalone record, and as a counterpoint to the main LP, adding texture, context and trivia without overwhelming the listener with sixteen *slightly* different takes of a single track.
Highlights include Hit The Brakes, which reminds me a little of Split Screen from the original album, and the bubblegum bounce of Zipcode. This was a limited run that is now sold out (and pricey on Discogs) but if you're a fan of the band and can find I copy I'd highly recommend it.
January 13th • Aaron Choulai - Raw Denshi
I picked this up last spring via a piece in the Bandcamp Daily about the Tokyo Beat Scene. Raw Denshi is by Aaron Choulai; a Papua New Guinea-born, Tokyo-based pianist and beatmaker who runs a label and collective called Namboku Records.
As the Bandcamp piece outlines, he is part of an emerging Tokyo scene intent on blending different elements in pursuit of their sound. Hip hop meets jazz, sampling meets live instrumentation; even the raps on this LP are in a mix of English and Japanese.
Reading the quotes from Aaron about experimentation, community and creativity puts me in mind of our early forays in music with First Word. When we emerged at the turn of the millennium this type of cross-genre collaboration was exactly where we found our groove. Leeds (where the label was founded) has always produced incredible musicians, with the College Of Music bringing through countless world class jazz players. These musicians were then given a platform through an unending series of venues and promoters. Clubs like The Underground, Hifi Club, Wardrobe, Sela Bar, Atrium and Faversham plus promoters like the legendary Dig! Family nurtured that talent and gave it a focus.
It's heartening to see how many of those artists I used to see regularly back then are still in music today, from international acts like Corinne Bailey Rae to cult experimental artists like Matthew Bourne, I sometimes forget how lucky we were to have all this talent seemingly lurking on every street corner.
This record puts me in mind of those days although we found it much harder to replicate this kind of sound on record to begin with (we got there eventually). There's a looseness to it that is so recognisable to anyone who's hung around the right kind of venues and watched bands come through week-by-week with a rotating cast of guests and deps. Capturing that on record is no mean feat; making order out of the chaos, wrangling melodies and textures to create a focussed if rambling work. It's very much my jam, and if I ever make my long-pondered trip to Tokyo I'll be seeking out Aaron and the scene around him. I'm sure it'd feel just like home.
January 14th • Gary Bartz - Music Is My Sanctuary
While putting this onto the turntable this morning I wondered if I'd ever listened to it in full before. The price label on the sleeve is from a shop called Soul Alley that set up in an arcade in Leeds for a brief period in the early 2000s. If memory serves they also had a pop-up in the middle room of our New Bohemia club night for a while, next to the stall selling lollipops (no really - I used to go to the Haribo outlet in Pontefract and buy them in bulk).
Given that I bought it at Soul Alley it must have been around 2004/2005 when pretty much all of my vinyl buying was for DJing. Without question I would have picked this up for the title track, which still sounds as rich as it did the day I first heard it. It's up there with the greatest productions that the mighty Mizell brothers put their hands to. What's most impressive is that they've made the song *sound* like a sanctuary: it feels like safety and comfort in musical form. What I didn't realise until today is that the vocal is by Syreeta, whose version of 'I Love Every Little Thing About You' is an all-timer for me.
Beyond that most of the tracks here were new to me; I particularly enjoyed the cover of Love Ballad and the grooving jazz-funk of Carnaval De L'Esprit. It notably pulls off the feat of not descending into a noodle-fest in the way that lesser records in this genre sometimes do.
Listening to this reminds me of warming up for Gary Bartz at We Out Here a few years back. I played 'Think Twice' about two tracks before he was due to take the stage, and Gilles Peterson tapped me on the shoulder to let me know (in a nice way) that Gary would be playing the track in his set. My stomach dropped a couple of inches and I brought the next tune in a verse or two earlier than planned. I hadn't realised that it was Bartz who had played on the iconic Donald Byrd track back in 1974. Hopefully no one noticed. You live and learn...
I know that it’s still fairly early in the series, but this was my favorite The Longer Player post yet! Reading about these LPs makes me want to dive in to each of them, and I love that they’re mostly all ones that I somehow missed last year, aside from the ones by Andrew Wasylyk and Thee Sacred Souls. Oh and that story at the very end about playing ‘Think Twice’ in ur set at WOH and having Gilles tell u that Gary was about it play it in his set shortly, my heart would’ve sank too.