Tamaryn - The Waves [12", LP]

THE WAVES is the debut album by TAMARYN from 2010. And what an excellent record it is! I bought this one shortly after Tender New Signs, somewhere last year. Tamaryn Brown creates her own distinctive type of dreampop/shoegaze, and i love it. Great guitar work, hallucinating effects and Tamaryn's seductive husky vocals finishing it off. Definitely one of the best new shoegaze acts of the past 5 years.

Label: Mexican Summer
Cat.nr.: MEX 057
Year of release: 2010

SIDE A:
01. The Waves
02. Choirs Of Winter
03. Love Fade
04. Haze Interior

SIDE B:
01. Sandstone
02. Coral Flower
03. Dawning
04. Cascades
05. Mild Confusion

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Higher Than The Stars [12"]

This is the 12" version of the HIGHER THAN THE STARS single by THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART. While the 7" edition has a remix of the song on the B-side, the 12" has 3 songs that are not on any of their albums. The song Falling Over isn't really my cup of tea, but 103 and Twins are more like it. I wonder if they'll finally release something new this year, because it's been a while. Their latest album Belong was from 2011...

Label: Fortuna Pop
Cat.nr.: FPOP87T
Year of release: 2009

SIDE A:
01. Higher Than The Stars
02. 103

SIDE B:
01. Falling Over
02. Twins

Smashing Orange - My Deranged Heart [7"]

I wasn't too familiar with the band SMASHING ORANGE, i must confess. I bought this single some time ago, to save on the postage for some other things that i bought online. They were an American band that was described in the NME as "Mudhoney meets My Bloody Valentine". Indeed it's an interesting mix of grunge and shoegaze, leaning a bit more towards the shoegaze side. Besides My Bloody Valentine i hear some influences from fellow Americans Medicine. This MY DERANGED HEART single was their debut release, and wah-pedals were probably their favourite gear since they were used abundantly. A pretty cool release!

Label: Ringers Lactate
Cat.nr.: RL 02
Year of release: 1991

SIDE A:
01. My Deranged Heart

SIDE B:
01. Only Complete In You

The Jam - Beat Surrender [7"]

Typically a single that i came across in a second-hand bin, and thought "why the heck not". Couldn't go wrong with a classic song like BEAT SURRENDER of course, and i liked the cover. It's actually the first vinyl by THE JAM that i own, and might as well be the last since i'm not such a big fan of mr. Weller's work. But who knows... This song is great, though.

Label: Polydor
Cat.nr.: POSP 540
Year of release: 1982

SIDE A:
01. Beat Surrender

SIDE B:
01. Shopping

Whirr / Monster Movie - Split [7"]

Just like the Eternal 10" that i wrote about earlier, this release is part of the Graveface Charity Series. The proceeds for this split 7" went to a venue called 924 Gilman in Berkeley, California. It features a beautiful dreampop tune by WHIRR and a pretty poppy one by MONSTER MOVIE. Great stuff.

Label: Graveface Records
Cat.nr.: Grave085
Year of release: 2012

SIDE A:
01. Whirr - Color Change

SIDE B:
01. Monster Movie - Flatlining

David Bowie - Waiting In The Wind [12", 2LP, Unofficial]

 

 I bought this bootleg some 27 years ago. I was in high school and had just witnessed my first DAVID BOWIE concert ever (and actually even first rock concert and first stadium concert at the same time), a few months earlier. Even though -looking back at it all- the Glass Spider Tour was certainly not Bowie's best period, i was still thrilled that i finally managed to see my musical hero of the previous four years of my life with my own eyes. The tour's kick-off was in Rotterdam where he played two nights in a row and i was at the very first one on May 30th, 1987. I still lived in the area of Apeldoorn at the time in the middle of Holland, and there was this great record store called Plato. The store has closed since a few years, unfortunately. A few months after the concert i finally dared asking the question that i always wanted to, but never got the courage to do so: did they by any chance have bootleg recordings of Bowie shows? Then they showed me this double LP called WAITING IN THE WIND from under the counter. It was on coloured vinyl, which i had never seen before in my life, and it was a recording of a show in Italy that had taken place only two weeks after that historical event in Rotterdam. Recorded at Stadio Flaminio in Rome, June 15th 1987, to be precise. Obviously, i just had to buy it.

The album is on a label called Cinthia Records of which i never heard before, nor after. The sound quality is actually pretty OK. Which was a relief, because it had cost me a fortune; I spent a few months of pocketmoney on it. It's a shame though that some songs of this show are not on the album. Apparently there was a 3x7" singles box called "Demanding Billy Dolls" released by the same label, which had the songs Fashion, All The Madmen, Big Brother, Heroes, Fame and (obviously) Time, from which lyrics the title for the box was taken. I asked the shop if they could get it, but unfortunately they couldn't, and so i never found one. I wondered for a while if it even existed, but i found some traces on eBay so it really does.
So this is my first ever Bowie bootleg (or even first ever bootleg in general) and my first ever coloured vinyl. Bowie had a lot of premieres in many different aspects of the musical side of my life, it seems ;)
I'm still very happy that i never sold this album. I did that with many of my Bowie vinyls back in the early 90's - to my deepest regret now, as you might understand.

Label: Cinthia Records
Cat.nr.: DRJ 490/491
Year of release: 1987

SIDE A:
01. Up The Hill Backwards
02. Glass Spider
03. Up The Hill Backwards (Reprise)
04. Day In, Day Out
05. Bang Bang
06. Absolute Beginners

SIDE B:
01. Loving The Alien
02. China Girl
03. Scary Monsters
04. Never Let Me Down
05. '87 And Cry

SIDE C:
01. Time Will Crawl
02. Beat Of Your Drum
03. Sons Of The Silent Age
04. Dancing With The Big Boys
05. Zeroes

SIDE D:
01. Let's Dance
02. Blue Jean
03. Modern Love

The Fauns - Fragile (Clint Mansell Remix) [12"]

This special 12" was released (in the UK only) for Record Store Day 2013. Been trying to get my hands on one, but without any success. Until recently when THE FAUNS launched a Kickstarter fundraiser for their tour with Alcest, which is currently taking place. They were selling a few of these 12" remix singles and also signed them, for this occasion. So i ordered one to help them out a bit and got this long-desired piece of vinyl in return. That's what i call a win-win situation ;)
The song FRAGILE is my favourite of their debut album, and this remix by film music composer (and former lead singer for Pop Will Eat Itself) Clint Mansell is a really good one. So is actually the re-worked version of The Sun Is Cruising by Invada label manager Redg Weeks.

Label: Invada
Cat.nr.: INV 121 LP
Year of release: 2013

SIDE A:
01. Fragile (Clint Mansell Remix)

SIDE B:
01. The Sun Is Cruising (Redg Weeks Re-work)