4AD original releases, re-prints and releases - Tips and Guide

Hello again. I have been spending a little time trying to put together a simple buyers guide to buying 4AD from the second hand market, particularly of course the first ten years of 4AD's existence. It can be very frustrating when you think you have found one of those lovely original 12"s, only to find out much later that it's a re-release or a second print and actually isn't that rare at all. So I have been going through what I have acquired so far to try and find some pattern in the releases from 4AD in the UK between 1980 and 1990.

It turns out to be a very interesting decade. I know because I was a new consumer in that decade and things were changing so very fast. I remember seeing a TV programme called "Tomorrow's World" that highlighted the newest technology. I saw the now famous episode that introduced the new format, the Compact Disc and demonstrated that you could eat your dinner off it and it still played afterwards. Of course, we now know that you can eat your dinner off a Compact Disc and it will play, but don't get a fingerprint on it or a dog hair becasue that will completely bugger it up!

In the eighties, the 12" remix became king. While it cost about £7 for a new vinyl album, it cost about £15 for a new CD and that was those fortunate enough to be able to afford a CD player in the first place. Cassettes became commonplace and the 8-track disappeared. Then the trend for everything see through came into fashion. Cassettes followed the trend of Swatches (or was it the other way around?) making the mechanisms of technology observable by changing whatever the tech was clothed in transparent. Plastic see through watches and plastic see through cassettes.

Strange represenatations of a zebra's back started appearing on products everywhere. The struggle to find a price at the checkout at the store was replaced with that annoying beeping sound as barcodes took over the world.

CD sales went up, taking vinyl sales down and loads of second hand record fairs became more popular as fair traders struggled to get rid of the masses of stock bought at rock bottom prices from people swapping their record collections for CD's. Folk didn't want their turquoise lettered Led Zeppelin LP anymore, they wanted it on crystal clear CD instead. You could buy masses of rare vinyl for next to nothing by the late eighties. Record companies must have really thought they were onto a winner as people took even less care of their CD's and cassettes than they did of their vinyl. CD's were bullet proof, you could eat your dinner off them and cassettes were very convenient. It was not until the nineties that folk realised that CDs didn't last forever and that they had lost all those albums on cassette becasue their Sony Walkman or in car cassette player had chewed every cassette tape up.

The portable cassette player was a bit of a joke. Adverts with joggers and their hip strapped portable cassette player were common place in the late eighties. The adverts failed to warn you though that the tape would also jog around inside the player and wrap itself around the pinch rollers that guided the tape across the playing head. Everyone had tapes where on a particular track the music would go all whirly and druggy as the previously crinkled tape had been pulled back in a botched repair attempt. Those cassettes were the lucky ones. Many times they had to be thrown away because the tape had unraveled so much you couldn't get it all back in, like some war wounded soldier with his intestines spilling out. If the cassette unraveled in a car stereo player, you had little chance of salvage. The tape would bounce around in the jossle of the car on the road and get stuck around those pesky pinch rollers and get wrapped around them so many times that if you were lucky enough to get the cassette ejected out of the player, there would be a black spaghetti like trail dragging back into the teeth of the machine, and like a dogs locked jaws, it was never going to give you your tape back. Portable in car cassette players were thrown away left right and centre because of mangled cassette tape around the pinch rollers becasue the players were so portable, you couldnt get inside them to remove the tape and sometimes the whole cassette without breaking the whole player. It's a miracle that any cassette tape survived the eighties at all.

So, I've scrutinsied the best I can of the stock I have so far and looked to see any patterns from the changes in that first decade of 4AD releases. Some of this info may be wrong and if I find it is, I will come back and update it from time to time. There are quite a few signposts that can help a collector figure out what's genuinely original and what's a re-release. It was a useful decade for collectors becasue of the many changes.

In the begining....

As we know, 4AD started its life as AXIS. So in 1980 the first four UK releases had the AXIS red labels on them, all 7" singles

For the rest of 1980, the blue and white 4AD square box was on the labels of all that years releases. This also meant that the Bauhaus Dark Entries 7" single that originally had the AXIS labels above was re-pressed again with the blue and white labels

All of the 1981 UK releases had this crumpled paper black and white picture label on one side of the label. So far I haven't found one that doesn't.

In 1982, the folded paper picture was done away with and the three picture types below were all used instead. The female wrestlers in black and white in both positive and negative and a male wrestlers in negative. So far the compact disc didn't exist commercially and the barcode zebra hadn't made it to the shores of the UK. The tape cassette was also not on the format list for 4AD in 1982

In 1983, another three types of black and white picture labels were used grass, grit and lights. That's a daft naming convention I know, but look at the samples below

At the end of 1983, 4AD issued their first cassette format release. This compiled an album and an EP together of the Cocteau Twins' Head Over Heels and Sunburst And Snowblind. The cassette was made of white plastic with labels glued on. From the end of 1983 to the end of 1986, only albums appeared on cassette tape. The see through clear plastic cassette tape wasn't introduced until 1985 by the record label Warner. There is an interesting site about the history of the compact cassette tape
here

In 1984, 4AD went full colour on their labels. Still no barcodes, still no clear cassettes and still no CDs from 4AD

In 1986, 4AD began issuing releases on CD. They also went through some of the back catalogue and re-issued some earlier releases again on CD. For the next couple of years from 1986 to 1988 they re-issued a number of albums.

I hoped that by looking through the CDs released in those two years, I would be able to find a pattern of some sort that would help distinguish the years specifically, but that seems a task too far at the moment until I get my hands on a few more releases. There are some distinct CD print styles from 1986 to 1989, all silver CDs with varying print styles from sparse amounts of text to band logo fonts and then text which shoots off in all directions on the CD. From the CDs I curently have, I can't seem to find any clues to get them down to any time frame. The first few CDs of 1986 were French made CDs and have a small ring on the inside of the outer CD, here (below) it shows black, but on the actual CD is a goldish hue. I suspect that the original batch of CDs made in 1986 where manufactured in France where a lot of the vinyl was also cut, but a very short time later, 4AD could have started to use a manufacturer in the UK either alongside or instead of the French manufacturer. As yet I can't make a judgement, if this did happen, the change was very quick

The same can be said for the re-issues made of pre-1986 albums onto CD. The design of the CD print changes quite quickly over the next couple of years

During 1987, 4AD issued its first video cassette for the label compilation Lonely Is An Eyesore

Also in 1987 was the first cassette single from 4AD Throwing muses Chains Changed, still on black plastic cassette with paper labels

Originally I suspected that the first CD single issued from 4AD must have been for the chart topping No 1 single from M/A/R/R/S Pump Up The Volume as there is a CD version of the single, but the copy of the CD I have is also the one showing on discogs, which is an English made black CD, which doesn't fit in with the style of the other CDs printed during the same period. I reserve judgement on this one for now, as the black print on the CD could be a clever use of text print in negative, where the text is clear showing the silver CD underneath and the rest of the non text part of the CD is black. Full coloured CDs weren't introduced by 4AD until 1989

The first clear cassette from 4AD appears to be in mid 1987 for the Lonely Is An Eyesore compilation. As of yet I haven't seen a cassette of this compilation on a coloured plastic. As with the next release from 4AD on cassette, which was Dead Can Dance's Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun, there are non paper label versions with red text printed directly on the cassette and no paper labels. At this moment in time, I suspect that these are later re-prints.

All the releases up to the end of 1987 can be found without any barcodes anywhere on the artwork. Sometimes you can find a release with a stickered barcode attached, most likely added by the retailer. The first release of 1988 from 4AD suddenly appeared with a zebra strapped to it's back.

In a decade obsessed with size, technology just had to get smaller and smaller. The CD was the way forward, or so the industry thought, smaller, compact, but annoyingly for them still not as portable as the cassette tape which could fit into a small player you could go jogging with. Mobile CD players at the time where useless and wouldn't stop jumping everytime you breathed. Out of this industry obsession came the DAT tape, carrying on the myth that digital sound was superior but packed into a tiny little cassette tape like the type you used in an office dictating machine. The biggest problem was for the industry was that you could record onto them. The Compact disc must have been a dream for the record industry. It was smaller, so a lot less needed to be spent on packaging, the average man on the street could easily be duped into thinking that the quality was so much better than vinyl, it could be sold at many times the price of vinyl just because it was amazing futuristic technology and best of all, it was a format that couldn't be recorded on. The record industry hated cassettes because of home copying. They even had a massive campaign in the eighties to try and make the public ashamed of copying music and sharing with their mates. Remember this?

The DAT may have been the next big format, but the industry hated it and the equipment cost put the public off buying it. Still, in 1988 4AD released their one and only DAT release, Cocteau Twins' Blue Bell Knoll

In 1989, after a couple of initial CD releases on the usual silver disc, the UK CD releases from 4AD went full colour! Well, black to start with anyway with Pixies album Doolittle

4AD soon moved onto coloured and picture CDs at the end of 1989 and into 1990. This pink beauty is Lush's Scar

Then in 1990 with Pixies Velouria came the totally clear cassette with no paper labels from 4AD. This may be the period that the afore mentioned red text printed Lonely Is An Eyesore and Dead Can Dance's Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun were re-printed.

Later in the 90's, 4AD went on another re-releasing spree on CD, but at least had the courtesy of labelling them with new catalogue numbers which helps collectors no end. These were labeled with a GAD number and started to appear around 1998. A GAD catalogue number is a sure sign that the CD is way after the event of it's original release, at least as far as the first decade releases are concerned.

Well, I hope that is a lot of useful information for you collectors. May I remind you all that none of it is definitive and so far just an observation from the releases I currently have and may be changed in future. In fact scrub that, this is very likely to change in the future as there are a lot of 4AD knowledgeable folk that read this blog. At some point in the future, I will have a go at observing the other major countries releases and try and ascertain any patterns from those too

Thanks for reading

Get the wish list below 900 by the new year (Check back Regularly) Part II

I've decided to start a new post for December as the November one was starting to fill up. Come back for regular updates as I try and attempt to get my wantlist down to 900 releases by the years end....

30th December 2014

There is nothing I can do now. The ability to get my wantlist down to 900 items by the year end is in the hands of fate. All I can do is watch the post coming in and hope that there are enough items to finish off the seven needed to make 900. The post doesn't get delivered at my house until about noon and today each hour in the morning was spent listening for any noise at the letterbox. My wife decided to take the dog for a walk at around 11am, it felt silly sitting in for the postman just in case he was early, so I went along. On the way back the postman was making his way down the street in front of us. I was tempted to hassle him as we slowly caught up with him and consequent lost him as he turned into an industrial complex of buildings.

I needn't have bothered, as as usual there was nothing in the post except spam mail from every holiday company we have ever booked with in the last twenty years. No post again, nothing off the wantlist and only one day left, one last post. There is no way that I'm getting seven items in the morning, I have missed the target!!!

Let us see if it will be any closer tomorrow.

29th December 2014

I wasn't sure if Royal Mail posted on a boxing day or not, I still don't know whether or not they do as there was no post. Neither was there any on Saturday. The days count away and I feel helpless to even try and accomplish anything. There was some hope today as there was a record fair about 15 miles away, which produced a single compilation album called The Beggars Banquet File, but later today I also found a Cocteau Twins test pressing that I had to add to my wantlist. So the wantlist is still at 907. There was nothing in the post again today and I have two days left. It's looking like a fail for the end of the year, which is really upsetting. Maybe everything will turn up tomorrow morning, I can only wait and see

25th December 2014

No post at home yesterday, on my birthday as well. Of course there's no post on Christmas day either. So the count stays at 907, even though I visited a record store in Chesterfield yesterday...and found nothing of course. Anything bought now online will not likely be posted and received before the year end, so it's down to what will get delivered from already purchased stuffies. There is a small hope on the horizon. There is a record fair on Monday and a really nice trader chappie that I passed my wantlist to, says there might be a couple of things for me when I see him there. I will keep my fingers and anything else crossed. This is going down to the wire. Enjoy your day, I will be back.....

23rd December 2014

Every time everything looks terrible, no deliveries at home or at work, suddenly everything turns up at once. I managed to find a few awful pop compilations that once again features that persistent single Pump Up The Volume. I also had the exciting opportunity to acquire an item that wasn't on my wantlist, mostly because it's as rare as rocking horse poo found with bits of hen's teeth in it. Today I had a test pressing of Dead Can Dance's album Aion, not the UK release, but the Italian release on Contempo. The standard Italian LP is rare enough, the test pressing will obviously be even more rare.

Work is now over until the new year, so no more post from my workplace, I am now relying on post to home. This is getting so very close. Wantlist = 907, days left = 8

17th December 2014

No delivery yesterday and none today. There are quite a few items on their way but then it is Christmas and the post slows to a crawl. I have 4 work delivery days left, and 12 post to home days left and a wantlist count of 912. Again I lost one from the list as I found another compilation that was now listed as released in 1991 and so was outside my ten year inclusion (don't get me started on the fact that actually its eleven years, starting in 1980 means that the inclusion of 1990 is actually the eleventh year, it's the Roman lack of zero's and the 1st Century all over again). I need one a day, which is do-able, but with the postage issues, is quite a task. I'm not giving up though...

15th December 2014

In the post today was a UK 12" of Xmal Deutschland's Incubus Succubus II. I can't believe that I didn't have this already, but there are the odd Uk releases still to get, though they are very few in number. I have the time to do this, I don't have many delivery days left though and I just can't find the stuff to buy. I will keep looking though....wantlist down to 913

13th December 2014

Yesterday morning I had a delivery of a cassette bought through ebay. The item is the Colourbox album called Colourbox. The ebay page showed a chrome cassette and a virgin label and catalogue number. This wasn't on my wantlist and I hadn't seen it before, so I was quite excited to get my hands on it. In the post though was the standard UK cassette which I already own that looks completely different to the photo shown and has a completely different catalogue number. I also won a French 7" single of Cocteau Twins Love Easy Tears single a few days ago, then got a message from the seller saying they can't find the item.

Ebay does get on my tits. The failure rate is appalling. It doesn't matter if I get an apology, money back etc, it just grates on me that people can't get a simple thing right. That's two items I could have added, one of which would have reduce my wantlist count.

BIG ARSE!!..oh well, count still 914

11th December 2014

After 2 months on likely the slowest ships on the Atlantic ocean, a package from Canada arrived. Land mail as opposed to airmail is about half the price and for a reason, it seems to take forever to arrive. When buying from Canada it's a must as the the postage costs can be a killer.

Inside was a M/A/R/R/S - Pump Up The Volume Canadian 7" single, Modern English - After The Snow Canadian vinyl album, a pop compilation vinyl LP called On Top and finally a Canadian CD version of the soundtrack to the film Pump Up The Volume. I found out that the CD was a club version. I had noticed these club versions popping up on CD releases in a few places and wondered what they were, until my wife reminded me about the 80's and 90's Brittania music club. This was a club a person could join by agreeing to buy so many CD's a year. The CDs were slightly cheaper than the ones to be found in the high street shop. Of course the club was making money out of a guaranteed per year quota from buyers that may not have bought that many in the year. The clubs were sometimes run by record labels and the CDs were sometimes made especially for the club market and slightly different to the high street shop versions. There was even doubt over the quality of the club versions and accusations of them being of lower quality because of their guaranteed sale. See this article from around 1994 about the audio quality conspiracy.

I was always envious of the music clubs, I could never afford them at the time and just drooled over the vast selection of music, although a lot of it was pop tat.

Another good haul today and I also noticed on discogs that I had two entries in my wantlist that were obviously the same and should have been merged together. That has reduced my wantlist down to 914.

10th December 2014

Today brought me Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares US CD of A Cathedral Concert. This was in my wantlist, but then realised today that this version was released in 1992 and therefore outside my collecting criteria. This is the nature of such a fluidic and dynamic wantlist that struggles to keep up. There was another version of this album that I also had on my wantlist, but I was fortunate enough to notice this time before I bought it that it also was from 1992. At least taking that version off my wantlist reduced the count a little.

I also received today a VHS video of the alternative collection series Indie Top...As you can see it was the Indie Top Video Take Two compilation. This was obtained for the inclusion of the Wolfgang Press track Raintime. My boss at work first asked if had a video cassette player, to which my answer was "Nope". He then asked what the point of having it was, wouldn't it just have been worthwhile having the empty case?

This is the funny side of such a collection. I suppose I'm being a completest. But at some point I may find the time to convert it to digital, although I wouldn't be surprised if it ain't on youtube already. It's a peice of history and a relevant one to the collection as well. To have it and preserve it is the whole point I suppose.

Wantlist now down to 918. Wow what a difference in just a couple of days

9th December 2014

Thursday nothing, Friday nothing, then the weekend, so no post. Then yesterday and today there was much rejoicing...yeah.
Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas - Japan CD
Cocteau Twins - Blue Bell Knoll - Canadian cassette
Cocteau Twins - Tiny Dynamine/ Echoes In A Shallow Bay - Canadian CD
Cocteau Twins - Victorialand - Canadian CD
Dead Can Dance - Serpents Egg - Canadian CD
Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares - Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares - Canadian CD
M/A/R/R/S - Pump Up The Volume - Spanish 12"

There was to be a US Promo version of Pump Up The Volume, but the seller sent the wrong item. It happened yet again, instead I got the standard US 12" which I already have. I'm starting to get quite the collection of releases that are duplicated. I feel another give away coming, although not Pump Up The Volume, I don't think anyone would take it off me. I also had an item on my wantlist that isn't 4AD related (there aren't many of them).

One item had to go onto the wantlist though. I found that there is a Canadian cassette version of Pump Up The Volume. But great progress has been made. The count is now down to 921 which I am very pleased and relieved about. The downside is that there is little in the pipeline at the moment and time is quick to pass.

3rd December 2014

Another package today filled with mixed blessings. A German pop compilation album was today's delivery, a release I needed because of the inclusion of MARRS Pump Up The Volume single. The rest of the compilation is pretty dire. But it would mean another notch off the never ending wantlist. Unfortunately I also found another cassette, this time a French single called Velouria by the Pixies. One down and one back up again. So the count stays at 928 for today

There are a few things in the pipeline, but not the amount I need to be getting for the end of the year.....

2nd December 2014

At last, a time to rejoice...I had post.

A French Colourbox album on Virgin and two Various artists records, both with MARRS single Pump Up The Volume on them, both Italian. That would have meant that I had 10 of the 12 versions of the Colourbox album, until I realised that there seems to be a Canadian cassette release that I hadn't previously known about. Bum!

Oh well, three ticked off and one added back on. That takes the current tally down to 928... in the right direction at least

1st December 2014

My wife is going to need room in the spare bedroom for studying, a room full up with records, cassetttes and CDs for selling to fund my 4ad collecting habit. The problem has always been finding the time to run the sales along with everything else. The time taken, finding stock, listing it and then selling it, packaging and posting it for very little return, has been better spent recently hunting for stuff to reach the 900 milestone. The need for room for my wife and the time that I need has meant that I have reluctantly decided to stop selling. That meant a trip down to second hand record shop on Langley Mill about 7 miles away with a car full of stock selling to a guy that really doesn't need a few hundred more pop items to add to the thousands and thousands that he already had.

While at the record store, of course I had to do a bit of shopping as well, even though I got practically nothing for all the stock I had accrued. I picked up a Wolfgang Press album, then realised when I got home that I already had it. I also picked up a great christmas album by a punk band called The Yobs, a record I recommend highly, especially at this time of year, you will never sing those christmas carols the same ever again.

There was one more album I bought which was an album I loved from my childhood and one that got my mind thinking about 4AD. I always wondered why 4AD released the Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares albums, which were Bulgarian folk songs recorded decades before. I could see the connection with Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance. Her vocal style borrowed from many cultures. When I was young, I saw a BBC documentary about the Condor and the wildlife living in the Andes. It became very popular and spawned a chart topping single and album of the folk music of the people's of the Andes and their panpipe music. What I didn't realise until recently, was that the music was released by the Beggars Banquet label, an independent label similar to Rough Trade that used to part own 4AD. The album was by a group of musicians going by the name of Incantation and was very popular in 1982. It was buying the album today that made me realise how it likely paved the way for 4AD to release the Bulgarian folk music after seeing the success of the South American folk music. With success from one independent label releasing unusual folk music, it wouldn't have been that unusual for 4AD to do something similar a few years later.

Wantlist count at 930

Album Listening Clubs...Somebody set one up please

I very much like the thought of a new concept that has been sweeping the music world these last couple of years. It involves getting a group of like minded people together, which means lovers of music, not any genre specific grouping and devoting the evening to playing a couple of albums in their entirety and without interruption. The choice of album played is decided by an attendee in advance and there are strict rules applied about respecting the music and listening to it without talking, without other distractions and solely devoting attention to the album being played. Some clubs are taking this a little further and playing only vinyl, on top quality record players and amps.

I love this idea. It's unfortunate these days that the majority of people don't devote time to listening to music without any other distraction. I find myself listening to music when I can fit it in, while driving the car mostly, which is a real shame. When I was younger, I had a lot more respect for music and devoted more time to listening to it. I would decide in an evening that the TV wasn't going to be switched on, loads of incense would get burned and fill the room, the lighting would be dimmed and I would just listen to the music while at most studying the album sleeve and contents. When you listen to music that way, one studies the intricacies, the twists, turns and little nuances that make up the whole palette that otherwise would be missed. Also an album is put together without distraction. An artist doesn't record an album while watching the television at the same time or doesn't record vocals while driving down the motorway. All the structure of an album is also carefully thought out and put together as a single piece of artwork with a specific running order. Listening to it in any other way, other than with total attention and in proper running order is missing the point I suppose. We can't say we have seen a Rosetti painting if we just saw little close ups occasionally or if we saw a black and white photocopy from a magazine.

The idea of these book club style album listening groups just sound like the very thing for me. I love to listen to other peoples music (as long as it's an educated taste) and this kind of arrangement gets you listening to music that you may not naturally veer towards. Unfortunately, nobody for miles and miles around is doing anything like this at the moment. Yes, yes, I can hear you say "so why don't you do something yourself". I'm one of those sort of people that comes up with ideas, but for some reason has no idea how to execute them. In the past I've tried a couple of alternative music club nights myself with a couple of friends which died a death. I just don't understand people in the main, so when it comes to getting people together, I fall flat on my face. In my head I'm a leader, in reality I'm a loner with daft ideas, like this collecting crusade I suppose. I don't drink and I look like most younger people's dad nowadays, and because of that have no interest in dancing. If an evening doesn't involve drinking or dancing, that's 99.9 percent of the population disinterested.

If only the "build it and they will come" dream would work in that scenario, but I'm too realistic to realise that it wouldn't.

What started this train of thought? I spent last Tuesday evening, with myself and the dog listening to Dead Can Dance's two albums Within the Realm Of a Dying Sun and Spleen and Ideal, on vinyl, with the mood lights on, incense burning and no interruptions and it was fantastic. My problem when experiencing something wonderful on my own, is the pity I feel for those missing out on such an experience. But then you can't force anyone to appreciate something wonderful.

I am surprised when looking at the Album Listening clubs around the world, how many 4AD albums spring up such as This Mortal Coil or Pixies, mixed with the obvious classics such as Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin and Bowie. It just shows the influence of 4AD worldwide, punching far above it's weight.

Well the sabbatical month of April is well behind me and the collecting has carried on where it had left off. I picked up a nice Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgare CD recently. I hope soon that I can get everything on a many variants release. Some of the Dead Can Dance or This mortal Coil releases have tens of variants and would be good to show. Maybe sometime soon. For now thanks for reading

4AD Top Ten Albums

So after I gave you my all time top ten albums, you lucky people, I thought I would share the pick of my top ten 4AD albums. In rough order of release, these are the albums that have led me to want to collect 4AD. They show a great diversity of style for release from the same label.

So here goes -

Bauhaus - In the Flat Field

One of the enjoyments I get from music, is finding something different, something new that is totally different to anything I have heard before. Most of these albums did that for me. I discovered Bauhaus in the late eighties, by which time they had completely gone as a band and split into their separate projects. The first Bauhaus album I discovered was Mask. Mask was led by David J’s bass, a sound at the time I was obsessed with. Bauhaus did it differently to everyone else though. In time I appreciated this debut album more than Mask. It has an eccentrically English feel to it, unhinged and steeped in a old world of perversion behind closed doors. Steampunk?

The Birthday Party - Junkyard

Junkyard hurt your ears. It was loud, unapologetic, raw, and wonderfully disjointed. The birthday party were a rip off of The Pop Group, but took the idea further. In a similar way to Siouxsie Sioux’s vocals, all the instruments sounded out of tune and yet together somehow worked. It sounded ,on first passing, as though a bunch of 5 year olds were playing punk, until you notice interesting time signatures, mad silences, and complicated runs. The more you listen, the more you enjoy and love hating it at the same time.

Clan of Xymox - Medusa

Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares - Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares (Volume 1)

I started listening to this only recently as I continued to pick up more pieces to the collection. Two things seem amazing about this album. On the first few plays, you can hear some of the sounds that must have influenced Lisa Gerrard as she heard the folk music of many cultures as she grew up. The second surprise is the picture that forms in your head of the quite young choral singers that must be making up this choir, the voices sound so youthful and alive. I got quite a shock to see the photo’s of the general choir member, generally middle aged and showing faces of wisdom and experience. Hardly the angelic innocence that washes over you as a listener. You can only be impressed that this sound is the countries folk music. It’s a reflection of the geographic place Bulgaria finds itself, stuck between East and West mixed with Baltic influences with a disregard for the 12 note western standard.

Various - Lonely is an Eyesore

This album is a 4AD legend. It nicely wrapped up 4AD at a point just before the introduction of a new direction for 4AD with the signing of The Pixies. The whole album flows like a concept piece, which is remarkable to say each artist is different in their own way and yet the album feels as though it keeps a constant theme running through it. It changes mood from a sampled covered opening track from Colourbox which wakes you up and pulls you straight in into This Mortal Coil’s mellow Acid, Bitter and Sad. Yet the transition seems seamless. The Colourbox track may be brash, but it still retains enough calm within it to allow This Mortal Coil to follow. This sums up the whole album, nothing is out of place. This also came in several formats, the original LP had a wallet like sleeve, with all the 4AD releases so far, listed on the inside with a key as to whether still available or deleted. There was also a limited edition release, which had a 4 sleeve foldout inner and 12” colour book all in a card box sleeve. Then there was the ultimate 4AD release, some would say, a wooden box version of the album. Limited to 100 copies, 70 of which were given to 4AD band members, staff and the like and only 30 sold to the general public. This was a wooden box containing the LP, cassette, CD and video of the album, along with individual pieces of artwork unique to every box.

Lush - Scar

This was only a mini-album, but still an eye-opener for me. At the time, Indie music was taking off in a big way in the UK and hidden within this surge was a style called shoegazing. I personally never liked the shoegazing scene. For me it had too much of a fixation with the beat generation of the sixties, which never did anything for me, yes, even the Beatles. Although Lush were kind of lumped in with the rest of the shoegazing crowd, I heard something strangely new. This was the first time I had heard loud fast guitar music mellowed with a soft slow and sensual female vocal floating along the top of the white noise. There was also a track called Etherial, and to me this title summed up the music completely. Now the term Ethereal is used to describe even Dead Can Dance, which I still class as world music. Ethereal still conjures up for me what Lush introduced me to, the musical battle of noise and angelic harmony. They never did this again and got sidetracked into Britpop

Pixies - Doolittle

In 1990 in the UK, everyone was going Pixies mad. This was their fourth album, but this one got them a lot of attention in the UK. I had never heard anything like this before, it was completely new, had a sexual depravity akin to Bauhaus and was also mentally unhinged. Doolittle was a revolution in music for me like punk was more than a decade before, yet it took nearly two decades for everyone to slowly realise it. When you heard Nirvana a couple of years after this, Nirvana sounded like very poor, quick fix imitators to me. I never rated Nirvana either. In the UK, this had a special release at independent record shops which had the LP with a 12” book, a set of 12 postcards all in a Pixies Doolittle plastic bag. Very nice

Dead Can Dance - Aion

This Mortal Coil - Blood

I listened to this constantly in 1992. This album can keep you gripped musically, but it’s also fascinating as a project. There’s so much to find out about This Mortal Coil. The session musicians are from all over 4AD and beyond on this album and many of the songs are cover versions. The track that always leaves me close to tears is the cover of the Byrds “I Come and Stand at Every Door”. An individuals musical history of discovery is always interesting. I heard this version years before I heard the Byrds original version. This Mortal Coil’s interpretation of this song is incredibly moving and powerful. The original version is very good, but very much of its time in a sort of hippy, preachy way. So I prefer This Mortal Coil’s version. But is that because I heard that one first??


Lisa Gerrard - The Mirror Pool

Lisa Gerrard works on a level unlike no-one else. A true independent and individual artist. She has a way of expressing music that is deeply spiritual and beautiful without having to use any traditional language. To see Lisa perform live is a opportunity not to miss. This was Lisa’s first solo album after a career as one half of Dead Can Dance. Originally released on CD, it was later possible to get the album on vinyl, which is a real treat. The Mirror Pool is possibly less accessible to a pop fed audience, even less so than Dead Can Dance possibly are. But as with all great music, time devoted to it is paid back in multitudes. I always wonder when I hear music like this, how can anyone that says they love music, not be swept away with an album like this?

Most of these albums are from the first decade. Although many believe the nineties were 4AD’s best decade, I feel the nineties were the turnaround in music, where the number of artists shot through the roof, but the diversity fell dramatically. This was typified even in 4AD.

I would recommend any of these albums, the Lonely Is An Eyesore compilation would be fine introduction though.

Until the next post, thanks for taking the time to read through a man’s dribbling fondness.