After my fruitless search in Dalson Oxfam the other weekend I was put off going into charity shops for a while. Just don’t have the time to rummage these days. A shame, because I’ve scored some great stuff over the years. Last time I was down in the Dalston shop, I got the NERD album on promo CD for a quid, for example.

Outside of London is a different thing, tho. Had to whizz up to Chelmsford on Friday for work and then wandered around the town.

Usual story, lots of charity shops, lots of James Last and “Our 100 Favourite Tunes” dodgy comps. Probably enormous stereotyping on my part, but these are surely records for people who don’t actually like music very much. I’d be amazed if these existed anywhere other than charity shops now.

But… as luck would have it, I did turn up a Nonesuch sampler double LP for a quid, and…

Lone Ranger – Johnny Make You Bad So // The Taxi Gang – Outside (1982) Greensleeves 12″ in mint condition for 2 quid. Fair had me sweating when I saw that, I must confess 🙂

Buoyed up by that, I wandered in to the charity shop at the bottom of my road on the way home and discovered an incredible stash of old twelves from the Praxis label. Including the 3 and 4th releases and a promo of the excellent Society of Unknowns 12.

Praxis is the grandaddy of the whole DJ Scud breakcore biz and was tied in with the legendary Dead by Dawn parties at the 121 Centre in the mid 90s. It’s banging distorted stuff, but actually really interesting texturally (in the same way that tech-step was when it was good).

The earlier releases are a bit too 4 to the floor for my liking (I won’t call it gabba, but you know what I mean) whereas the later ones are more chopped up and varied. The mercenary in me says stick it all on ebay, but I have a hankering to do an insane noise mix at some point as well…

Also in the local stash, a warped copy of The Orb’s “Peace In The Middle East”, an Armagideon Sounds steppers 12″, and a the Horsepower do-over of “We Are I.E.”.

Sometimes you get lucky…