Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - The Love I Lost

Great Teddy Pendergrass vocal backed by MFSB on this 1973 Gamble & Huff tune. The secret architect here is legendary veteran arranger Bobby Martin with superior strings.

The Exciters - Movin' Too Slow

The Exciters - Movin' Too Slow (1969)

We all know their ubiquitous hit Tell Him from 1962 but here's a later one from the same era as their single Blowin Up My Mind that's very fucking cool. This deep cut from the Caviar & Chitlins LP moves along at quite a pace and it's a hell of a satisfying ride. Pop perfection innit. I mean...just press play. Sometimes talking about music is dumb.

Sons Of Robin Stone - Got To Get You Back

Sons Of Robin Stone - Got To Get You Back (1974)

The Philly soul sound goodness is so good on this Bobby Eli production. Melodies in the 70s were just way more expansive and forthright weren't they? Conga, string and horn extravaganza! 

The Dynamics - Yes, I Love You Baby

The Dynamics - Yes, I Love You Baby (1966)

This is such an inspired weird little jam. I'm pretty lost for words on this one...it just seems so instinctual, like it just came out like this and there was nothing they could do about it. It's fun raw off kilter minimal funky soul with a hint of rock'n'roll or just old school unreconstructed rhythm & blues. Whatever it is, it's pretty bloody infectious. Some absolute magic is captured right here on this platter. 

Rewind.

Gwen Owens - Just Say You're Wanted (And Needed)

Gwen Owens - Just What You Wanted (And Needed) - (1966)

This on the surface sounds like just another Detroit mid 60s soul-pop number but it's also pretty insane. What is going on with the band? Sometimes it sounds like there are two bands playing and they're coming in and out of phaze. The drums are so unhinged they sound like they've dropped in from outer space or the studio next door or another song entirely. The bass also seems to be quite unruly, it wants to run off and do its own thing. It's all so deliciously spirited, I can't stop playing it. On top of all the crazy is Gwen's incredible voice. Like one of the great soul voices ever. Her timbre coupled with her restraint put her in an outstanding class. She could have been a huge star. 

The Spinners - I'll Be Around

The Spinners - I'll Be Around (1972)

ALL of the Philly soul goodness. I mean this is just perfection innit. THE INTRO: Best ever! The ecstatic keys. Congas, congas, congas! Sweet soul vocal sounds of Bobby Smith. The toe tappin' tempo. That bassline. The ladies doing back-up. The guitar. The brief but brilliant string and horn sequence. The little organ swirls too. Everything. Written and produced by Thom Bell, thank you very much.

The fact that Bell uses all those elements and I'll Be Around sounds uncluttered and deceptively lean is genius. 

Rewind!

2010: The last official year of hypnagogia

Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti - Menopause Man (2010)
I'm deleting instagram. It has become way too toxic particularly in the dysphoric state I'm in. It has to go. Anyway at one stage during the lockdowns I started doing music blog type things on there that never transferred to this here blog, so I thought I'd selvage some things before I obliterate the fucking thing.  

"2010: The last official year of hypnagogia. What a finale. The last great year in music? You can argue amongst yourselves whether these albums belong here or not.

Hypnagogia was a fairly amorphous term. It encompassed radio pop, tv noise, psych, industrial gunk, cosmic synth, obsolete genres like goth, new age, glam, dubby post-punk, electro-pop, ethnological forgeries & quirky one hit wonder new wave, Lo-fi tape hiss, ambient, woozy disco, 80s Soundtracks, pop culture detritus & a whole lot more sonic debris so long as it was all shrouded in a trippy sonic hypnagogic fog.

These aren’t ranked except for the first one as it was a game changer. Almighty leader Ariel Pink burnt off the hypnagogic fog & went spectacularly hi-fi to reveal massive glorious pop anthems worthy of FM radio’s airwaves.

1. Ariel Pink - Before Today
2. Rangers - Suburban Tours
3. Sun Araw - On Patrol
4. James Ferraro -Nightdolls With Hairspray
5. Outer Limits Recordings - Foxy Baby
6. Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal
7. Emeralds - Does It Look Like I’m Here
8. Dylan Ettinger - New Age Outlaws
9. LA Vampires & Zola Jesus - Meet
10. Motion Sickness Of Time Travel - Seeping Through The Veil Of The Unconscious"

[timspacedebris Instagram - 13/7/20]

*I know, is this worth saving? Hardly...but hey instagram was all about the pictures of the album covers and I guess that's still an exceptional lil' list of good recordings though.

**Listening back to Before Today it really wasn't spectacularly Hi-Fi like I claimed, more like just a notch above his usual lo-fi. But it's th0se 4AD sessions videos that sounded most epic sound-wise. I think there was another four tunes in the set but they seem to have been scrubbed from the net...surprise surprise. 

 

Outer Limits Recordings - Smoke Opera (2010)

This is classic hypnogogia. Hypnotic lo-fi woozy glam synth fuzz smeared with trademark haze & fog. Sadly Outer Limits Recordings aka Sam Meringue died a few years back when he was only 31 years old.

Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal (2010)

I forgot how much I loved this at the time. This is more on the neo cosmic drone tip rather than the pop hypnogogic of the the likes of Ferraro's Night Dolls With Hairspray. It was like there was a glimmer of hope for music and society back then. Sure Returnal was in the tradition of great 60s, 70s & 90s innovative music but you felt that at some point they might go beyond the exquisite retro-pastiche motifs of Returnal and Rifts. However OPN kinda annoyed me with their following records so I dunno if they ever got there. Perhaps don't start with the uncharacteristic noise track that opens the album, skip to track 4 which is the title track but hey it's all good.

*I might come back to the other records in the top ten tomorrow...

Karen Marks - Cold Café

Hearing this on Ash Wednesday's compilation from 2012 I thought hey that sounds familiar. It turns out it was. Apparently she mimed Cold Cafe on Countdown in 1981 but the video footage remains elusive, which is a shame. Probably heard it on Melbourne community radio over the years too. Anyway this is still really insidious pop perfection all these years later.  

*All these history revisionists with their coldwaves and minimal waves and oz waves and minimal synths and blah blah, it's like they come in and take over this music and possess it and wear it like an identity and pretty soon music from your childhood and entire life doesn't feel like it belongs to you anymore. They are the arbiters of the waves and they're going to tell you about it and yet they often have it so wrong. The only wave this was in 1981 was new wave. As a ten year old it wasn't even that. It was just pop music. This has made me realise how history is very quickly removed from the objective reality of its actual time and rearranged inaccurately. How many inaccurate increments does it take until you're reading fiction? 

Tone Set - He's Got A Little Dog

Tone Set - He's Got A Little Dog (1982)

Dystopian electro from Arizona in the early 80s. The synth tone they set here is very good. Perfectly recorded analogue synthetic goodness containing a good fun rhythmic sensibility.

 

Tone Set - Cal's Ranch (1982)

The tape the above tune came from. Cal's Ranch mainly consists of synths, drum machines and reel to reel tapes of radio and telly dialogue. Who made better home recordings in 1982?

*The Mutant Sounds Blog really changed our lives (well mine at least). A lot of stuff we'd only mythologically heard of finally got to be heard. And stuff we'd also never heard of. It all happened in a very short space of time and our computers and minds were at full capacity. In their peak year 2007 they uploaded two thousand files of seminal and hard to find records. I mean they were the reason I ever bought a hard drive. There are blogs out there now pretending they have awesome collections of tapes and records but we all know they're just re-uploading Mutant Sounds files. And even vinyl on demand based the catalogue of their entire absurd rip off of a reissue record label on Mutant Sounds posts.   

Ed Kuepper - Honey Steals Gold/Friday's Blue Cheer Libertines Of Oxley

Speaking of the early and mid 90s what I love about Kuepper here is that he really is untethered to any international or local trend. He riffs on a Bo Diddley riff and salutes Blue Cheer here but it is in no way retro vomit. He's creating innovative music and this is a peak in an astounding purple patch of creativity.

  

I'm pretty sure this is some kind of new music that somehow became beloved by Australian radio and public alike in 1991. I mean what actually is going on here? How is this mammoth atmosphere achieved. What is propelling this drone? I always assumed there was some kind of cello or string instrument making that all encompassing reverberation. Ex-Laughing Clowns and Necks keyboardist Chris Abrahams is in the band for this record and I'd say he's probably responsible for the surreal air on this tune. He's credited as contributing piano and organ. But I'm still none the wiser as to what the origins of that mysterious chugging ambient sound are or am I just bad at identifying instruments. 

Early 90s Australiana innit.