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

i'm about 100 pages in. the bit about The Everly Brothers is incredibly exciting, shaping up to be the best music book i've read since Rip It Up And Start Again.

This one's up to date I think: http://www.cherryred.co.uk/label/croydon-municipal/

i liked yeah yeah yeah a lot - it's insanely ambitious but it's a really easy read and it pointed me in the direction of lots of stuff i'd never heard before

Thanks, definitley getting that "Songs For A London Winter" thing!

http://acerecords.co.uk/bob-stanley-and-pete-wiggs-present-english-weather

The autumnal sound of Britain at the turn of the 70s, looking out through wet window panes to a new decade with a mixture of melancholy and optimism for what might come next. With the Beatles gone and the pound sinking, a new and distinctive sound emerges, led by flutes and mellotrons. Available in 18-track CD and 19-track double LP formats. The LP version is pressed on 180g clear vinyl in heavy-duty gatefold sleeve.

http://acerecords.co.uk/cache/images/EnglishWeatherCD_72d_1_383_383.jpg

Nice. I spent a lot of last year getting a slew of his/their old comps so great to see a new one surface.

English Weather comp is so great, that moment right at the beginning of the 70s, the tipping point just before psychedelia turned into prog, is probably my favourite era of music I know very little about.

got the vinyl of that coming this week

For me, the timing of this comp is extraordinary. I'm currently selling a large collection of 45s, mostly from 1970 to 1974, and featuring a lot of this kind of stuff. In fact, a friend, when looking through the list a couple of months ago, commented that parts of it read like a shortlist for a Bob Stanley compilation. And now, here it is! Four of my collection are on there - Belle Gonzalez, Offspring, Camel, Prelude - and I'm already familiar with the Daevid Allen and Matching Mole tracks, too. (Shame he faded out the Allen just as it got to the three-minute Gilli Smyth "space whisper" outro, though!)

The T2 vocalist sounds a lot like Ray Davies.

Van Der Graaf Generator's "Refugees" is gorgeous. Also "Caroline" by Matching Mole, been a long time since a love song touched me that deeply.

The Daevid Allen track could work in a Balearic set I reckogn.

https://about.sainsburys.co.uk/news/latest-news/2017/01-11-2017-vinyl

I was totally ready to roll my eyes at this, but these compilations are great - as they would be, being Stanley compilations. Got the only copies I found in Camden Sainsburys - I gather they're selling pretty fast. I find it appealingly mad that Sainsburys' debut record release includes Sequent C by Tangerine Dream.

Tracklistings:
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Coming-Into-Los-Angeles-A-Taste-Of-West-Coast/release/11098234
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Hi-Fidelity-A-Taste-Of-Stereo-Sound/release/11098310

I asked Sainsbury's themselves where to find the stores that have these in stocks, they didn't know.

I asked a grain of sand where to find the beach; she didn't know.

Well, I've seen them in Heyford Hill (Oxford). I realise that might not help much.

Xpost that's beautiful man.

Nonxpost more useful than the message before yours..

Corporations are people, my friend.

Yes. I asked if there were 'vinyl stockists' (shud) in my locality, the person who replied said no. But if I was to try further afield, I should ring the particular store.

If you're really desperate message me.

Thanks, but I'm not too worried.

I'm a bit confused about these. I figure Stanley's usual target audience will already own, say, Forever Changes, let alone "Dedicated To The One I Love" or "What A Fool Believes", but a more casual type would be lost at sea with some of these other selections?

isn't the point that they'll be listening to similar sounding artists in the context of ones they know and like

Yeah, I guess that makes sense, and is good.

i'm guessing a 15 year old gifted with these by an uncle wouldn't know any of it? or not much at least.

i wish he'd do 80s and 90s comps as i find the 60s and pre punk 70s dull as owt. a Bob Stanley 80s synth-pop/indie-pop comp would rock.

How many 15-year olds do you know with a turntable to play them on?

those crosley portable turntables were all tha rage a couple of years ago

I don't know many 15 year olds but I'd guess half the teenagers I do know (NB: not many) have access to a turntable. Sample size: my friends' children. Other consideration: such children also have access to my friends' record collections, poor blighters.

yeah these are nice comps but i'm also wondering how 'useful' they are and who would want them, especially in the age of Spotify recommended playlists etc

These look like v. good compilations full of stuff that will sound great on vinyl and a good balance of familiar and unfamiliar stuff. Obviously the really familar stuff will be in lots of people's collections (probably on CD) and virtually all of it will be available on streaming services but that's not really the point is it?

i guess it's a bigger question of what purpose compilations serve in the age of streaming. I like having things on vinyl for all the usual reasons, so that's one thing. The familiar stuff has obvs been included to hook shoppers in with the hope of introducing them to the other stuff, but still it's an interesting thing to market through a grocery supermarket. I hope it works.

As a once-prolific buyer of physical-format music, I find that compilations are mainly what I look for these days, in the record store. (And lavishly-packaged box sets/reissues too, of course.) If I want to hear the latest album by, whoever, I can probably find it on Spotify, but the tracks on the more obscure comps (esp. the Stanley/Wiggs ones like English Weather, Tea & Symphony, Songs for Mario's Cafe, etc.), I'd be hard-pressed to find them all on any streaming service.

Yeah, I think it's possible to over-think this. They're nice compilations - had the LA one on at the weekend, it's a good end-to-end listen with some unfamiliar stuff (to me) in there alongside the familiar classics - clearly not meant to be a Soul Jazz / Light In The Attic-style archival deep dive. The design's nice, and Stanley's essay inside ties it all together very pleasantly.

Sainsburys clearly shifts enough vinyl for this to be worthwhile for them - but given that I suspect they're mainly selling either Mumsnet fare like Rag & Bone Man and Adele or expensive reissues of very very overexposed classics, this is a surprising toe in slightly more adventurous waters.

i like the cover designs.
very library styled.

I guess the target market is people who have just got their first turntable and are in an enthusiastic early buying phase + older people who have just bought a turntable again after keeping all their vinyl in the loft for a decade. They'll sell enough to people who are doing the weekly shop and just buy them on the spur of the moment, I guess.

> yeah these are nice comps but i'm also wondering how 'useful' they are and who would want them, especially in the age of Spotify recommended playlists etc

Merry Christmas, i got you a spotify playlist...

Yeah, I don’t really buy the argument that the comp is redundant in the age of the Spotify playlist, given that Spotify also has *whole albums* too and no one (on this thread at least) is saying these are obsolete too.

Don’t want to overstate the case for these Sainsbury’s albums, but a physical compilation can be a lovely thing.

you guys have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME about 15 year olds not having access to turntables?

http://theday.co.uk/arts/teenagers-are-leading-the-vinyl-revival
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/why-does-my-teenage-daughter-want-a-22-vinyl-record/
https://www.seeker.com/are-teenagers-keeping-vinyl-records-alive-1862002918.html
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/21/crosley-generation-record-player-has-the-kids-spinning
http://www.nme.com/news/music/various-artists-598-1200543
http://www.nme.com/news/music/various-artists-496-1198503

That somehow ties into my slightly snarky theory that a lot of teenagers will go crazy for vinyl until they actually have to move it all into/away from college.

So many Spotify playlists, even useful ones, are 250-tracks long with entire albums shunted in there and no thought to flow or confluence or anything else. Curation matters.

Spotify also has *whole albums* too and no one (on this thread at least) is saying these are obsolete too

*bursts in sweating*

For those looking for more Stanley curation goodness, I'm listening to his Soho Radio show on mixcloud, and it's pretty fucking solid (though the discrepancies in volume between the songs and his voice can annoy).

http://acerecords.co.uk/when-the-day-is-done-the-orchestrations-of-robert-kirby

New Robert Kirby comp compiled by Stanley.

Must have!

Love that Keith Christmas track. Had no idea Kirby was involved.

Comp looks great.

New Bob and Pete comp soon

A new project from @rocking_bob & @petewiggs due in May. More details shortly 👇 pic.twitter.com/7l7bAeIwXx

— Ace Records (@AceRecordsLtd) March 20, 2018

Ooooh!

wow at that sleeve.

Fantastic sleeve and title, yeah -- we have details:

http://acerecords.co.uk/bob-stanley-pete-wiggs-present-paris-in-the-spring

The events of May '68 are seen as a turning point in France's social history - pictures of the barricades are still potent images. Lines were drawn politically, culturally, socially, and pop music was not exempt.

“Paris In The Spring” is a collection of the new music, put together by Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, that emerged from France between 1968 and the mid-seventies, an extraordinary blend of several previously independent strains – French chanson and yé -yé, American jazz and funk, British chamber pop - shot through with the era's underlying mixture of optimism, uncertainty and darkness. This is the first collection of its kind, released on the 50th anniversary of the Paris uprising.

Serge Gainsbourg – a jazz pianist with a chanson past and a pop present – was in a position to play a key role in soundtracking France in flux over the next five years. His “Histoire de Melody Nelson”, with its heavily atmospheric arrangements by Jean-Claude Vannier, was the acme of this new, unsettling French sound. “Paris In The Spring” includes other equally dazzling Vannier arrangements (for Léonie) and Gainsbourg compositions (for Jane Birkin and Mireille Darc).

Prior to 1968, sixties French pop had been dominated by yé -yé, the country's unique brand of upbeat pop, a world of primary colours, mini-jupes and discotheques (a French invention, after all). Its stars either faded fast after May '68 or adapted to the new era: Jacques Dutronc (‘Le Métaphore’) and France Gall (‘Chanson Pour Que Tu M'aimes un Peu’) discovered a moody side that they had previously kept hidden, and Françoise Hardy released the Brazilian-influenced, after-hours classic “La Question”, from which we have picked ‘Viens’.

New bands like Triangle emerged, influenced by Soft Machine and Gong who became regulars on the Paris club scene. French library music from Janko Nilovic and film soundtracks (François De Roubaix, Karl-Heinz Schäfer) reflected the era's edginess. All are represented on “Paris In The Spring”, making it a continental cousin to Stanley and Wiggs's 2017 Ace compilation “English Weather”.

01 La Victime (Part 1) - Karl Heinz Schäfer
02 Hélicoptère - Mireille Darc
03 Les Aventures Extraordinaires D'Un Billet De Banque - Bernard Lavilliers
04 Roses And Revolvers - Janko Nilovic
05 L'Élu - Ilous & Decuyper
06 La Métaphore - Jacques Dutronc
07 Dommage Que Tu Sois Mort - Brigitte Fontaine
08 Les Gardes Volent Au Secours Du Roi (Alternate version) - Jean-Claude Vannier
09 Looking For You - Nino Ferrer
10 Chanson D'Un Jour D'Hiver - Cortex
11 Viens - Françoise Hardy
12 Couleurs - Léonie
13 Leslie Simone - William Sheller
14 Litanies - Triangle
15 Baleines - François De Roubaix
16 Encore Lui - Jane Birkin
17 Evelyne - Serge Gainsbourg
18 Le Bal Des Laze - Michel Polnareff
19 Lilith - Léonie
20 Ystor - Ys
21 Chanson Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Un Peu - France Gall
22 La Victime (Part 2) - Karl Heinz Schäfer
23 La Chanson D'Hélène - Romy Schneider & Michel Piccoli

great cover, will buy

Awesone! I'd been picking up stray moments of this kinda stuff - that Nino Ferrer album that got spotlit in Aquarium Drunkyard, Léo Ferré's 1970 record w/ a rock group - and really welcome a curation of it. Roubaix is an all-time fave, too.

WANT