VINYL OF THE MONTH
Rattle Encircle (Upset! The Rhythm)
Stereo Instrumental Music was recorded in July 1976 and originally issued only on cassette. The release was organised by what was credited as the “Sun Shine Music Shop,” an enterprise which seems to have left no additional imprint. No further “Sun Shine Music Shop” albums are known.
It’s quite ironic that the Royal Northern College of Music should have invited, as director of this, Britten’s avowedly pacifist opera, Orpha Phelan – whose version of his Billy Budd for Opera North nearly 10 years ago contained one of the most thrilling battle scenes ever staged.
The sticker on the front cover says “The heaviest proto-metal compilation ever released.” And considering the label behind Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy is Rise Above, founded by former Napalm Death and Cathedral frontman Lee Dorrian, this is not idle hubris.
After scoring a hit in 1966 with the distinctive folk-pop of her jazz-inclined debut single "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog," US singer-songwriter Norma Tanega (1939–2019) seemed to melt away. Three follow-up 45s weren’t hits. Her album wasn’t a strong seller. Latterly, though, one of its tracks, “You're Dead,” has been heard as the theme of the TV and cinema versions of What We Do In The Shadows.
“German space rock group is already shooting up the charts with their debut US LP. One of few continental groups able to make this musical mode attractive in the US.” That, in full, in its 1 March 1975 issue, was US music business paper Billboard’s review of the single of Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn.”
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an inanimate clay figure, brought to life when a magic word is placed inside its mouth. Piotr Szulkin’s dark 1979 film debut makes reference both to this legend and to Gustav Meyrink’s unsettling 1914 novel, moving the action forward from the latter’s fin-de-siècle Prague to a geographically non-specific dystopian future.
Genius doesn't always tally with equal opportunities, to paraphrase Doris Lessing. Opera houses have a duty to put on new works by women composers; sometimes an instant classic emerges. But to revive a music drama that hardly made waves back in 1977? Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots has some strong invention, and whizzes you through historical bullet points so quickly that there’s no chance to get bored. But does it deserve a company giving it their all?
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the band spilt in 1974. A 2017 reunion album featured former Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums. “Sophistication,” from Sharks' 1974 second album Jab It In Yore Eye, had an insistent riff Mick Jones repurposed for The Clash's “Should I Stay or Should I go.”
On its own, the second session The Lurkers recorded for the BBC’s John Peel show on 18 April 1978 is arguably a curio, a footnote. Four tracks of bracingly straight-ahead Brit-punk with a headstrong freshness undiminished by time. But whatever the impact, The Lurkers were never a main-agenda band, and the Peel session was an adjunct to their discography.