Been listening to:

v/a The Biggest Dancehall Anthems 1979-1982 (comp 2002) Completely excellent Greensleeves compliation of early dancehall stuff. Some classics I was already aware of, and some that had passed me by – not surprisingly seeing as I was 10 in 1979. Excellent Junjo/Radics crisp and hard backing. It can be a bit much to take in at once in terms of “analysis” but you’ll definitely have your immediate favourites and some that grow on you (me and Paul disagree about which are which…)

The Congos – Heart of the Congos (originally mid 70s, but the Blood & Fire edition is mid 90s). Look, just get this if you haven’t already, OK?

Mighty Diamonds – Right Time (1976) Just fantastic close harmony stuff from Channel One. Gorgeous and more substantial than the half hour running time would initially suggest. Also been listening to my “Stand up to your judgement” 7″ which is just as good:

the whole wide world is in such a disgrace
all mankind can do is to mess up the place
stand up to your judgement
don’t you run away
stand up to your judgement
do you hear what I say?

It’s not all reggae reggae reggae, tho. (Despite what the better half would have you believe: “It’s been ages since I heard any James Brown! Do you EVER want to listen to anything except dub?”)

Also got the ~scape “showcase” v/a compilation CD with The Wire. The warm bubbly tracks are great (even the one with a jazzy sax in – blimey!) but the abstract tracks are just too all over the place for me. Maybe I just need a bit of Order in my life these days or something. As ever there’s nothing there which makes me want to check out the tracklist to see who has done what, but it’s alright, certainly great for a cover CD. Did leave me with a vague feeling of “oh well, that’s pretty interesting stuff, but it’s not something I have to check out in detail for a while…”

On the other hand Thisco sent me a copy of their new Thisoriented CD compilation. This acts as a kind of mirror of the ~scape one, in that the “flowing” tracks aren’t that interesting – indeed some of them sound like they are designed for the dancefloor but you wouldn’t dance to them. (Actually one of the tracks sounds like hard acid trance circa 1995 which was a bit of a blast from the past and had me thinking about some good nights out then). On the other hand, the more abstract stuff here just seems to “click” (heh heh) with me, possibly because it isn’t mentalist structureless random barking, but rather more laid back, errrrr ambient (new genre: ur-ambient?) interesting/involving music.

I need to do a new “proper” CD reviews page on the site ‘cos there’s a load of other stuff too.