Brian Eno - Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks [12", LP]

I've been playing this APOLLO: ATMOSPHERES & SOUNDTRACKS album by BRIAN ENO really a lot over the past weeks. It's always been one of my favourite Eno albums, but i found it very hard to get my hands on a copy on vinyl. A few weeks ago i did, and since then it's been on heavy rotation. Eno's younger brother ROGER ENO and DANIEL LANOIS collaborated with him on this project, which was inspired by the Apollo moon missions. The result is a beautiful serene, ethereal, and sometimes a bit eerie and spooky ambient album. If you close your eyes and imagine yourself floating in space, this is the perfect soundtrack. Since it's such quiet music, it's important that your vinyl copy is in perfect condition - and mine is, fortunately. My favourite track of the album is without doubt the astonishing An Ending (Ascent). I learned it's a popular "funeral tune" these days, and that doesn't really surprise me, but i'm not loving it less because of that. It's simply other-worldly.
Fun fact: Slowdive always have a tape playing with Deep Blue Day before they go on stage, and And Ending (Ascent) when their show is over. It makes their wonderful live shows complete.

Label: EG
Cat.nr.: 813 535-1
Year of release: 1983

SIDE A:
01. Under Stars
02. The Secret Place
03. Matta
04. Signals
05. An Ending (Ascent)
06. Under Stars II
07. Drift

SIDE B:
01. Silver Morning
02. Deep Blue Day
03. Weightless
04. Always Returning
05. Stars

Cocteau Twins - Sunburst And Snowblind [12"]

One of the two COCTEAU TWINS releases that i bought at the Utrecht record fair last November (Peppermint Pig being the other). The song Sugar Hiccup on this SUNBURST AND SNOWBLIND EP is a single taken off the Head Over Heels album; the other 3 songs are non-album tracks. Hard to realise that this great music is already over 30 years old.

Label: 4AD
Cat.nr.: BAD 314
Year of release: 1983

SIDE A:
01. Sugar Hiccup
02. From The Flagstones

SIDE B:
01. Hitherto
02. Because Of The Whirl-Jack

Cocteau Twins - Peppermint Pig [12"]

Another nice find at the record fair in Utrecht recently: the PEPPERMINT PIG EP by the COCTEAU TWINS. Although it is one of my least favourite releases by them: it's pretty much uptempo with heavy use of keyboards. I like their more slow-paced dreampoppy songs much better. Like most of the ones on the other 12" (Sunburst And Snowblind) from the very same year that i bought in Utrecht as well, for example. Anyway it's nice to add this EP to my Cocteau Twins collection which is steadily growing.

Label: 4AD
Cat.nr.: BAD 303
Year of release: 1983

SIDE A:
01. Peppermint Pig

SIDE B:
01. Laugh Lines
02. Hazel

Soundtrack - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence [12", LP]

The soundtrack for MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE is one of the first soundtracks i ever bought. On CD, that is.This vinyl edition i only bought this year, in May at Camden Market to be precise. It didn't cost much and i had been looking for it for a while because i wanted to have that great song Forbidden Colours on vinyl. So now i have it. Obviously this was the first time for me as a young David Bowie fan back in 1983 to get to know both Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian. Bowie, pictured on the sleeve but furthermore not involved with this soundtrack, was of course the reason for me to see the movie and buy the soundtrack. I bought some other Sakamoto stuff later on, and i do like his soundtrack for The Last Emperor especially, but David Sylvian as an artist was -and is- more my kind of thing. So i started to discover his work with Japan, and also his later solo releases. Brilliant stuff of course. Sylvian has such a great voice. Oh, and it was even so that i had the book that this movie was based upon, The Seed And The Sower by the South African writer sir Laurens Van Der Post, on my books list for English at highschool. Anyway, a great soundtrack for one of the best movies i think Bowie has ever played in.

Label: Virgin
Cat.nr.: V2276
Year of release: 1983

SIDE A:
01. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
02. Batavia
03. Germination
04. A Hearty Breakfast
05. Before The War
06. The Seed And The Sower
07. A Brief Encounter
08. Ride Ride Ride (Celliers' Brother's Song)
09. The Fight

SIDE B:
01. Father Christmas
02. Dismissed!
03. Assembly
04. Beyond Reason
05. Sowing The Seed
06. 23rd Psalm
07. Last Regrets
08. Ride Ride Ride (Reprise)
09. The Seed
10. Forbidden Colours

David Bowie - Stage [12", 2LP]

STAGE is a double live album by DAVID BOWIE that was originally released in 1978. It was one of the first Bowie albums i bought in 1983 when i became a massive fan after i had bought the Let's Dance album, and in that way it introduced me to the variety of his back-catalogue at the time. Side A/B almost chronologically covers the first 6 years of the 70's, and side C/D has songs from Low and Heroes. The album captures live performances from a few USA shows of his Isolar II World Tour (1978) and is pretty polished, in that there's little crowd to be heard in these recordings. Also the running order of the setlists was changed, and there are fades between the songs. So it sounds a bit sterile for a live album. Like said, i bought my copy in 1983, and that's the one pictured below here on black vinyl:

The yellow version as showed on top is a copy i bought second-hand somewhere a few years ago. It is a limited edition of the first UK pressing from 1978. In Holland the album also has come out on blue vinyl at the time.


Label: RCA
Cat.nr.: PL 2913 (reissue: PL 89002)
Year of release: 1978 (reissue: 1983)

SIDE A:
01. Hang On To Yourself
02. Ziggy Stardust
03. Five Years
04. Soul Love
05. Star

SIDE B:
01. Station To Station
02. Fame
03. TVC 15

SIDE C:
01. Warszawa
02. Speed Of Life
03. Art Decade
04. Sense Of Doubt
05. Breaking Glass

SIDE D:
01. "Heroes"
02. What In The World
03. Blackout
04. Beauty And The Beast