if there's a better compiler than Bob Stanley out there, I'd sure like to know...

ps hiya arthur!

I have to say, though, that the Finders Keepers releases I own do not get into the rotation as much as, say, The Trip or Velvet Tinmine...

Mind you, I'm glad they do. The St Et The Trip comp is exceptional (will somebody tell me more about Mandy More?) and the Selda album which Votel's recently reissued is a thing of wonder.

Can't tell you anything about her, but here's a few titbits online about her LP:

- from a Q&A with Bob Stanley @ saintetienne.com:

"Ember Glance asks who the hell is Mandy More. Well, her mindblowing If Not By Fire appeared on The Trip. It's from an album called But That Is Me on Philips in 1972 (which includes a great cover of God Only Knows, an almost impossible feat!). I know she did a few equally intriguing non album singles including Coffee Cups which is very proto Kate Bush. Most of the album is, too."

- review @ the vinylvulture.co.uk forum:

"Mandy More – But that is me, Philips 1972
A beautiful and moving album, one I know nothing about. On playing it through I discovered that ‘If Not by Fire’ was familiar – featured on St Etienne’s Trip compilation. This is one of the 2 tracks which features some great electronic / moogy effects (freaking out at the end) and is mighty fine. But the album is so not a 1-tracker, it is one of those perfectly formed complete albums. A little like Melanie’s earlier LPs, but IMHO so much better. Mandy More has a great voice and the arrangements are gloriously baroque – strings, harp, layers of voices, piano – and great songs too. Highlights, if I must pick them are: ‘But That is Me’ (almost a single – catchy uplifting song), ‘Listen Babe’ (gentle grooving number), ‘Come to me Jesus’ (lush complex orchestral, with a great twisting and swelling ending); ‘If I smiled on Saturdays’ (catchy uptempo number featuring congas and melodica). For me the best is the closing number – a fantastic cover of ‘God only Knows’ – the moog comes back (or it might be guitar through effects) and the drums are funky even has a harmonica solo from Mandy! Produced by a certain Tony Hall, if that means anything to anyone.... Find this album if you can, you need it!"

related to xposts: can anybody tell me more about Esther Williams (not the swimmer who turned up on the cover of the first Blur LP, but the soul singer whose "Last Night Changed It All" appears on The Trip)?

I liked that Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word comp Votel did, and the welsh one he did with Gruff Rhys, but thought the prog one was just dreadful. Though I'd probably have dug the song selection if I was out at a club and those were the records a dj was playing. It didn't work so well as an at home listening experience for me.

those 2cd Virgin compilations were so beautiful.... i'm the only fan of "monster, robot and bugmen" compiled by simon hopkins and "jazz satellites" by kevin martin )and "kosmic kuruschi monster (vol.1, sigh....))? wish kevin martin would/could compile more...

Was going to say a similar thing but wanted to articulate *how* and not sure i can right now.

I've been waiting for eons for Vol. 2. Jazz Satellites Vol. 1 was a life-changer. Some key person at Virgin must've got sacked, because it seems like all those amazing comps stopped issuing forth about 5 years ago.

Check out this lineup for the unreleased second volume: http://wlt4.home.mindspring.com/adventures/articles/satellites.htm

talking of wire/tony harrington compiled comps, the wire 3cd box on Mute i think is really good, but have never seen reviewed or talked about. Check the tracklist:
http://www.discogs.com/release/125213

Anyway bored that downloading will actually be a pain for little (or big) records companies that will decide so that to issue comps, and the problems about it (licensing), it's no long useful and profitable (even if of unavailable music).

The Garbarek-Coltrane-23 Skidoo-Melle stretch on Jazz Satellites is one of my favorite sequences.

big list of comps here:
http://www.saintetiennedisco.com/compile.html

that there website is a great source, thanks to whoever is doing it!...hopefully, it will be updated over time...(off the top of my head, I can think of two omissions: The Bobbie Gentry Capitol Years comp and the liner notes for the Jasmine Minks Soul Station Creation comp...I think Stanley/Wiggs also did a Dusty Springfield comp)...

yeah, it's actually far from complete. anyone got something better?

psyched 2 read

http://thequietus.com/articles/13523-bob-stanley-yeah-yeah-yeah-interview

Yeah, mine arrives tomorrow.

I was just reading someone’s account of going to a birthday party as a kid and one of the parents brought over ‘Tiger Feet’ by Mud and said, ‘You’ve got to play this, nobody has a party without playing the current Number 1!’

Oh, I was actually that kid!

Tiger Feet was the Gangnam Style of 1974 I guess.

and then the Cat crept in.

Got this for my birthday!

Happy birthday!

Yeah, yeah. (yeah)

only skimmed it so far (it seems like a book that warrants skimming really), but yeah yeah yeah, his history of pop seems interesting, though it seems to have zero interest in recent pop, and its all a bit too much of a flash through pop, never really getting deep into it. inevitable i know, but, it felt like a very post-internet way of writing about music history (should probably sit down with it a bit longer first, its just that after all the amazingly positive reviews, i think i expected something a bit better. the faber book jon savage and hanif kureishi did seems a slightly better approach to what stanley is trying to do, if more skewed towards rock, stanley is more open minded, and more equal in his appreciation of diff genres).

That looks pretty solid!

Yeah, these things just keep getting better and better. Wonder if Ace has a Bob Stanley Plan you can sign up for.

Looks amazing.

Is there a site where all these Saint Etienne/Bob Stanley comps listed? It's tough to keep up!

Here you go: http://www.saintetiennedisco.com/index2.html

he's got a new Bee Gees bio out which sounds quite good

Various Artists
Latin Freestyle New York / Miami 1983 - 1992
Ace

Another stunning compilation compiled by Bob Stanley. Latin Freestyle was a dizzying, passionate, ultra- modern music. It was the aural equivalent of a can of thirst-quenching Quatro or a Spanish Harlem dance-off, and it became the electronically constructed bridge between disco and house. Freestyle grew out of the electro sound of the early 80s, combined clean staccato rhythms with morse code synth hooks, and topped them off with emotive, usually female, frequently Latina vocals. There was plenty more going on besides: proto- house piano lines, Cuban percussion, high emotion and synth hooks to die for. Put together and annotated by Bob Stanley (who also compiled the acclaimed The Daisy Age and Fell From The Sun), Latin Freestyle is the first compilation to cover the whole gamut of Freestyle from its early 80s breakthrough to its early 90s revival. So many classics... Lisa Lisa made the UK top ten with the 808 joy of ‘I Wonder If I Take You Home’. Stacey Q’s cosmically great ‘Two Of Hearts’ came out in 1986, while 1987 saw the likes of Company B’s ‘Fascinated’ and Exposé’s ‘Point Of No Return’ become huge UK club hits. Today, Freestyle is a scene with a solid collector’s market, and rarities like Janelle’s ‘Don’t Be Shy’ sell for hundreds of dollars. It’s a classic summer soundtrack, finally condensed in one Ace Records compilation – Latin Freestyle.

I approve. Some good choices in there. Interesting that he went with "Let's Go" by Nocera which is slightly less known than her "Summertime, Summertime," but I love both. He went with all female singers, which is a choice. There are two or three Cynthia tracks I'd pick before "Thief of Heart," but there are no losers here.

I would have a hard time choosing only that number of tracks for an all-encompassing freestyle comp, even going with just one track per artist.

Looking again at his 16 selections on this comp, I think my own freestyle comp would include exactly eight of those 16 tracks. And then I could come up with eight better ones.

Alfred to thread. I know he’s posted a best of freestyle list here.

How's the Bee Gees book?

I was kind of thinking "It's Bob! Maybe I've just not really got the Bee Gees and this might convince me otherwise?" but the excerpt in the Guardian didn't convince me to part with money.

I enjoyed the Bee Gees book a great deal, their story is unusual and interesting, sometimes bewildering and sometimes sad. I thought I knew a bit about the Bee Gees but didn't know the half of it. IT looks like a thick book but it skips along at a pace, there's a lot of Bee Gees to get through. I am pleased that he gives proper attention to the brothers' production work in the 80s.

Bob observes at the start that the Bee Gees have never really been a fashionable name to drop, haven't been the subject of much of a critical re-evaluation (compared to The Beach Boys or The Kinks, both of whom have had periods in and out of fashion). He doesn't ever really get to why he thinks that is, aside from a few observations about how they never really fitted in to the pop world, and often seemed to shy away from any kind of cutting edge. I'm quite glad the book doesn't give a direct answer to that question, but I'd pay to read Bob music on why the Bee Gees seem immune to being a cool name to drop.

Thanks Tim.

Thanks Tim.

London A To Z is great grey sky listening. The blurb on the John & Beverley Martyn track unpleasantly flippant if you've listened to the Andrew Hickey podcast ep on the artists tho.

A friend recently gifted me Tribal Rites on CD. It’s excellent, particularly the second half. As I’m currently working on a project with the veteran DJ Greg Wilson, I told him about it and he was v.excited by the track listing, particularly for the Sons Of Robin Stone track. So that’s a strong expert endorsement for you there!

Man I've been slack on catching up on the various comps in general. Had missed London A To Z for instance.

Meantime, the other day I'm shopping in Amoeba and I noticed these two comps from him that I had missed completely! (Which of course I bought immediately.)

https://acerecords.co.uk/folk-funk-beyond-the-arrangements-of-john-cameron

https://acerecords.co.uk/incident-at-a-free-festival-1

The latter one is in series with English Weather and Occasional Rain, this time being 1972.

Next up is a Cafe Exil sequel:

https://acerecords.co.uk/fantastic-voyage-1

Plus a really interesting one to me, a Lou Christie comp focusing on 1967. (I keep being very surprised at how Christie barely factors into wider 60s retrospections -- was he too much of a flash in the pan in the end?)

https://acerecords.co.uk/gypsy-bells-columbia-recordings-1967

Thanks for the head's up, Ned! I too have lost track of these comps, which is a shame because I almost invariably enjoy the hell out of them.

I own 76 In The Shade, Occasional Rain, Three Day Week, English Weather (my fave), Paris In the Spring, Tears of Technology, and State of the Union. Aside from this latest batch, are there any other crucial ones I'm missing, aside from Cafe Exil (which I can never seem to find)?

Having gotten them all I can't be truly objective but per the new John Cameron one, gotta give credit to his very interesting producer/arranger overview choices -- the Thom Bell and Norman Whitfield comps arguably work in more familiar territory but they're solid overviews (Bell's own thoughts in the liners are great), but the Robert Kirby one was really striking, a way to open up a view into a lot of 70s UK folk-and-related work I wouldn't have really assayed otherwise.

Meantime I've just now noticed that that 'A Taste Of' series he did for Sainsbury's, which I thought was vinyl only, did have at least some CD issues as well so I may have to start tracking those down.

They sure are coming in thick and fast these days. My hometown record store always has a great compilation section, and when I was just back for the holidays I picked up the Cameron and Free Festival ones, as well as Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night. Still on the hunt for London A-Z and the Latin Freestyle one. Also got the new Bobby Gillespie weepy ballad comp, also on Ace.

Meantime I've just now noticed that that 'A Taste Of' series he did for Sainsbury's, which I thought was vinyl only, did have at least some CD issues as well so I may have to start tracking those down.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, December 30, 2023 6:14 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Curious. I've never seen the CDs (and only fleetingly saw the vinyl) despite shopping in Sainsbury's regularly. I don't recall the track listings for the ones I saw being that interesting??

(I might be being unfair/grumpy in that assessment).

"Cafe Exil" is my favorite comp of the last number of years, such a great ride. Very excited about the sequel even if its tracks are far more familiar than CE.

The Sainsburys releases were basically "here's a basic ass selection with a few hidden gems snuck in", which is honestly very fair considering the target audience (it ain't us). Would still have picked them up if they had them at my local ofc.

Sounds a reasonable assessment.

"Fell From The Sun" is decent though shocked to discover that One Dove's Fallen wasn't as good as I remember (at least in the version on here).

Compiling some tracks recently [the ones on the Tarwater thread] and being a bit indecisive on the track-listing, I found myself wondering "What would Bob Stanley do??"

"Fantastic Voyage" is another top tier compilation, lives up to the title!

Here's the next one: Thom Bell - Didn't I Blow Your Mind? The Sound Of Philadelphia Soul 1969 - 1983

https://acerecords.co.uk/thom-bell-didnt-i-blow-your-mind-the-sound-of-philadelphia-soul-1969-1983

That’s…weird. He already did a Thom Bell comp a few years back! Hell it’s linked on that page. Is this a complementary set?

This is the sequel to “Ready Or Not”, Ace’s first acclaimed compilation of the late Thom Bell’s productions and arrangements.