Sleeve Notes: making a noise for Record Store Day

There's a new album called Sleeve Notes, and I'm happy and delighted and cloud-nined to say that I am on it.

Sleeve Notes is a collaborative album between writers and musicians. A bunch of writers have written short fictional fluffy things, and then a load of talented musicians have set it into music. The full list of participants is listed below.

It's a response to Record Store Day, the annual indie record shop celebration which sees collectable vinyl being released. It's often something unusual, like The Proclaimers duetting with Extreme Noise Terror, or Radiohead featuring the Go Compare man, or an album of ballads by Elon Musk with backing vocals by the Genghis Khan.

The theme of Sleeve Notes is, naturally, records and record collecting. Which is good because I've heard of records, and I've even played them. My story is about record shopping, and it's called 'Sophie's Faves'. My musical collab bloke is the super-talented Fritz von Runte, and you can see his remixes, projects and tram tunes here.

We're going to launch the album on Record Store Day itself, which is on Saturday 12th April. The gig is taking place at the Burgess Foundation in Manchester. It will almost certainly sell out very soon, so snaffle your tickets now.

Have a listen to Sleeve Notes. It's available on Bandcamp (embed below), and for the cool kids, it will also be released as a limited-edition cassette. Our track is snuggled between The March Violets and the Hartley brothers, which is a nice place to be.

The Sleeve Notes artists
Nicholas Royle x John Foxx (formerly of Ultravox)
Vik Shirley x Billy Fuller of Beak>
Joe Stretch x Joe Cross of the Courteeners
Adrian Slatcher x Distant Listening (Andy Hodson of Warm Digits)
Rosie Garland x March Violets
Fat Roland x Fritz von Runte
Lauren Sarah Anne McLean x Tombed Visions
David Hartley x Rickerly
Sarah-Clare Conlon x Jez Dolan
David Gaffney x Minimums

Ultimate 90s number one: Everybody's Free (To Read This Blog Post And Wear Sunscreen But Mainly The Blog Post Thing)

Welcome to another edition of Ultimate 1990s Number One. In this long, long series, I trawl through every UK number one single of the 1990s and decide which is the best. There are over 200 number one singles of that decade, so I'm taking about ten at a time and choosing (possibly) one to go through to a final.

My judging criteria? The single has to be a banger. And the single has to be bleepy, i.e. it has to tickle my electronic music tentacles. I'm a strict judge, and my hammer is ready.

Let's have a look at another bunch of randomly-picked '90s number ones.

The contenders

Baz Luhrmann: Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) | Elton John: Candle in the Wind 1997 / Something About the Way You Look Tonight | Madonna: Vogue | Martine McCutcheon: Perfect Moment | Michael Jackson: Blood on the Dance Floor | Sinéad O'Connor: Nothing Compares 2 U | Various artists: Perfect Day | Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff: Dizzy | Wamdue Project: King of My Castle | Westlife: I Have a Dream / Seasons in the Sun

A load of old wind

When Elton John did away with Diana in 1997 in order to get to number one-- oh, wait, hold on, that's just a rumour I read on the internet. Let's start again. Elton's cathartic Princess Di tribute Candle In The Wind is the second bestselling single in history, behind Bing Crosby's equally morose Santa tribute White Christmas. It sold two-thirds of a million units in its first week of sales.

That is only impressive thing about Candle In The Wind '97. I see it as a sister track to Cliff Richard's Millennium Prayer or Wings' Mull Of Kintyre. A stately anthem with little artistic merit, with as much credibility as a retired Tory councillor taking part in a rap battle. Let's move on.

Of Michael Jackson's numerous number one singles, Blood On The Dance Floor is the one I remember least. Was it as Sophie Ellis-Bextor cover? Was it inspired by a night out at Jilly's Rockworld? It was a reject from his Dangerous from several years earlier, and sounds several degrees worse than any tracks from that album.

Not so perfect

I might have my figures slightly wrong. but Westlife had five billion number one singles. Their double a-side Have a Dream / Seasons in the Sun was a Christmas number one, and came while the band was at their at the peak of their powers. Their other powers were (a) being bland and (b) having no place in an Ultimate 90s series. Harrumph. 

What's better? Martine McCutcheon's Perfect Moment or Various Artists' Perfect Day? It's a tough question. Both songs claim to be perfect, but for varying lengths of time. 

Perfect Day is clearly the superior song. The Lou Reed version soundtracked the heroin antics of Danny Boyle's Trainspotting film. Duran Duran and Kirsty MacColl have done their own versions. The 1990s chart-topping version is probably the most iconic take on the song, starring Bono, Bowie, Boyzone and some people beginning with other letters.

Perfect Moment was by an Eastenders actress. McCutcheon's character Tiffany has been cheated on, has disowned her own mother, has been gaslit, has been betrayed by her friends, has planned blackmail, and has been splatted by a car. "This is my moment," sings Tiffany as another flaming meteorite lands on her head.

The truth is, I'm not bothered by either song, and the last couple of paragraphs have been a waste of time.

And now we come to some genuine bangers. Let's allow the fresh breeze of good songwriting waft into the guff of this blog series.

A haddock that looks like Norway

A traffic cone on top of submarine! A walrus wearing a cravat! Erm... A ghost made of toenails? Yes, I'm being surreal, just like Vic Reeves' classic comedy series Big Night Out. Aside from this groundbreaking and brilliant show, Reeves was a musician and artist, so his bid for pop success with The Wonderstuff with Dizzy was no surprise. And it's great.

The shape-throwing fashionista anthem Vogue knocked Snap!'s The Power off the number one spot, so I'm conflicted about Madonna. But it's undoubtedly a banger. "Greta Garbo and Monroe, Dietrich and Fat Roland." Such great lyrics. She was knocked off number one by Adamski, which feels like Snap! karma.

The brilliant and missed Sinéad O'Connor deserved more than one paltry top ten single. On Nothing Compares 2 U, she stares into the camera like you've done something wrong. The song is double-tracked, so she's actually singing it twice at the same time, which is twice the work.

Dizzy, Vogue and Nothing are all bangers. But they are not bleepy enough for this competition, so they can all bog off. Sorry.

Bazzin'

The 1990s became known for leftfield chart-toppers. The leftest of the leftfields came when an essay called 'Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young' became the basis of a number one single by film director Baz Luhrmann. Which reminds me, if Martin Scorsese wants to have an electronica hit with my essay 'How to squeeze the last bit out of a toothpaste tube', then get in touch.

You would think that King Of My Castle would be a more straightforward hit, but even this one was based on Freudian theory. Something to do with the ego or the id or that kind of gubbins. Incidentally, Wamdue Project's song was nominated for a 'Best British single' Brit award, but then was immediately dropped because Wamdue Project is, as it turns out, American.

The Wamdue jam is bouncy, and a real banger. But I'm going to allow Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) through to the Ultimate 90s final. Congratulations, Bazzer, It's a perfect distillation of quirky 1990s electronic music. It's wistful, amusing, and I really like the part when he says "dance". Go on, listen to it. "Dance." There. I like that bit.

Is there more to come in this series? Oh yes. This never ends. It's a moebius strip but made of words.

See more Ultimate 90s number ones 

How I unlocked a withering memory of Wuthering Heights

There's an old phrase which goes like this: "The past is a something-or-other, they thingummy differently there." I can't quite remember the quote. Which is ironic considering the topic of this blog post.

I have grown up with a particular memory of watching something on television. Something that deeply impacted the child Fat Roland because of its stark, haunting style. I recall a shimmering ghost of a woman singing in darkness. Echoes of her image rippling around her like a hall of mirrors. I have never been able to pinpoint what the video was, but it stayed with me.

The title of this blog post is a spoiler. The video was a promo for the UK release of Kate Bush's 1978 single Wuthering Heights. In it, she dances like an apparition amid a haze of filters and fog. I was a wee bairn, and I would have been staring hypnotised at the moving images, with little concept of who Kate Bush was, nor indeed what pop music was. And since then, I think I've only seen a different promo video, produced for the US market, with Bush in a red dress fannying about in a field.

It was perhaps the first pop video I ever paid attention to, despite its details eluding me until now. For years, I had misremembered it as a video by Mary Wilson from the Supremes. I'm sure she sang in spangly costumes in dramatic stage lighting, a similar effect for a child's mind – but it never felt quite right.

It was 808 State's Graham Massey talking at a book launch that helped unlock the memory. He also was impacted by the song, and it was while he was describing the images that the memory of the video finally properly resurfaced. We won't be the only people awed by the video: it spent four weeks at number one, after all. The single was replaced at the top of the charts by Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs, a song which ruffles the same nascent memory feathers as Bush.

So there you go. This is a blog post about nothing much. I remembered something. Big deal. But it goes to show the power of the pop video, and there's a bigger thinkpiece to be written about the loss of that culture in a world of streaming. But no-one comes to this blog to do thinking. That would be silly.

Now if I could only recall where I put my house keys and/or remember to use WeTransfer links before they expire and/or call to mind my purpose in life, then I'd be sorted.

Further Fats: The 7 best moments in Ryan Wyer's video for Aphex Twin's CIRKLON3 [ Колхозная mix ] (2016)

Further Fats: Eight tracks that deserve a Running Up That Hill revival (2022)

Number 1 best electronic music album of 2024: µ-Ziq – Grush

 

µ-Ziq: Grush (Planet Mu Records)

Mike Paradinas's μ-Ziq outfit has been troubling our delicate china for over 30 years. His first album, Tango N' Vectif on Rephlex Records, was released in November 1993, when Meatloaf's I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) was at the top of the pop charts. Aphex Twin had only released one album at that point.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Meatloaf has had 500 more number one singles. We've had 52 prime ministers. Everybody has flying cars. Probably. I haven't really been paying attention. He now brings us Grush, his 17th µ-Ziq album.

This is, he says, a "back-to-first-principles", an album to put the "dance" back into "intelligent dance music". This is indeed an adventure in rhythm, with all the delightful effect of having several entire drum kits thrown at your face for the best part of 56 minutes.

Hyper Daddy is spidery rave awash with sad chords, its viscous piano reminiscent of a early Aphex Twin. Over skipping drums, Magic Pony Ride (Pt.4) teases us with a simple music box melody. Windsor Safari Park is all anticipation, a tiny insectoid rave, that then melts into a Cosmic Baby-sized melodic hug. His ability to hold tension then transport a track into a new melodic direction keeps the album vying for our attention.

He nails the small stuff. The slurpy arpeggios of Imperial Crescent. The clonking woodblocks of Belvedere. The trip hop drum-play of Hastings. The vocals on Manscape, a spiritual successor to Belfast. A distant squeal. An opening gasp. All those little details, those tiny (g)rushes of delight.

As with Squarepusher's album, he invokes structure using quieter with a softer melodic palate, each connected by the word "Reticulum". Despite sounding like a medical instrument designed to go up your bum, these are welcome sorbets to lighten the meal.

Paradinas has had plenty of opportunities to top my annual best-album list in the past. I'm saying it like it's his fault. Challenge Me Foolish barely made the cut in 2018, same for his Secret Garden in 2021, his "sad cry emoji" collaboration with Mrs Jynx.

Chewed Corners came closest, with 8th place in 2013. Scurlage made the top ren in 2021, although I wasn't numbering specific positions that year. Hello registered 10th place in 2022 ("Paradinas being Paradinas at his most Paradinas").

So congratulations to the µ man. I guess. He has the best electronic music album of 2024 – official. I was convinced that Kelly Lee Owens or Squarepusher would claim the 2024 top spot, but I think there's a reason why Grush resonated with me harder, deeper, wider, longer, and oh crap I've run out of dimensions.

Last year's stroke changed things. I can no longer entirely trust my vision because of the damage to a bit of my brain. What I see on a day-to-day basis is a little less certain, so I make up for the sight loss through habits, technology and stubbornness. Full disclosure: I walked out in front of a car the other week because my knackered neurons made that car momentarily disappear. Life is a few percentage points more precarious than before.

µ-Ziq has been around for almost all of my adult life. I have known this music act longer than I knew my own parents. During my recovery, I wonder if there's a part of me that needed to connect to something that felt like certainty. To music that had soundtracked my life for a very long time. A second disclosure: Grush is the only album this year that made me tear up. That alone merits a number one position.

I bet the psychologists among you are loving this, you weirdos. I realise I'm posting this blog series the 'wrong' side of new year, but thanks for reading in 2024. We're gonna grush– er, I mean– crush 2025.

This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.

2nd best electronic music album of 2024: Kelly Lee Owens – Dreamstate

Kelly Lee Owens: Dreamstate (dh2)

For the second time, Kelly Lee Owens comes second in my annual albums list, the previous time being when Inner Song was pipped to the post by DJ Python in 2020. As the old saying goes: always the bridesmaid, never the teasmaid. At least I think that's right.

Dreamstate is her most accomplished album yet. Firstly there's the delicate happiness. Higher is caramel sweet stadium techno that stays at the edge of the dancefloor. Love You Got is a pulsating energy rush that never allows to escape her pillow-soft vocals. Air is spacey dub techno that ascends into ambient sunlight.

And then there's the hurt. It's an odd thing to focus on for a silly blog like this, but this is KLO's break-up album. A highlight is the aching Time To: her voice breaking over melancholic echoes; she pleads for us to "find a greater peace of mind".

Get a load of the title track. Dreamstate could be early Fluke, when they had six wheels on their wagon, and belly flops into a chunky acidic sprint, Lee Owens squealing the track title in increasing ecstasy. There's nothing else like it in my entire top 95 albums.

Side-note: Lee Owens is not alone. The album has producer-writer credits for Bicep (featured in best-album countdowns of 2017 and 2021), Tom from the Chemical Brothers (best-album countdowns of 2010, 2015 and 2019), and George from The 1975 (I would never feature them here: I'm not daft. Although to his credit he does run dh2 Records, so he's probably a good egg).

This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.

3rd best electronic music album of 2024: Squarepusher – Dostrotime

Squarepusher: Dostrotime (Warp Records)

More than one friend has told me that I cannot possibly object so strongly to jazz music when I appreciate the work of speed bassist and jazz fiend Tom 'Squarepusher' Jenkinson. And to those friends, I say... er.... eeerm..... [runs out of the room, drives off in car, gets on a plane]

The Square dancer's previous album Be Up A Hello was written through adversity, when an accident forced him into a new approach. I learn that in my 2019 interview with him. For this album, he swapped one battle with another, writing this sixteenth Squarepusher album during the long isolation of Covid lockdown.

The melodic Enbounce sounds like Mozart leading an army of bewigged robots. He lets the clouds part on the tense Stromcor only to loosen up into slappy bass noodles. The starched march of Wendorlan falls apart wildly: snare drums out of sync, drum machine on def con one.

Whereas Be Up A Hello lightened its mood with the simplicity of Detroit People Mover, this time Squarepusher adds in a series of numbered "Arkteon" pastoral interventions. Passing daydreams before we get back to the frenetic stuff. They're placed at the start, middle and end. The 'pusher comes across as chaotic, but he really knows about album structure.

And yes, there's a whole bunch of jazz bass. Slappy, flappy-fingered jazz bass. Look, let me address the jazz thing for one final time. A last word on the matter. My exact precise opinion about jazz music is-- oh look over there! [walks slowly backwards into hedge]

This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.

4th best electronic music album of 2024: Sakura Tsuruta – GEMZ

Sakura Tsuruta: GEMZ (all my thoughts)

I'm always blinged up. Diamonds on my fingers, amethyst on my toes, opals in my ear-holes. I never leave the house unless I'm jangling like a thousand windchimes in a hurricane. Which is good. Because the next album in my 2024 countdown is inspired by precious stones.

The blurb says Sakura Tsuruta's album cannels the "radiant light and vibrant colours" of precious metals. That promo waffle is indeed correct, for a change. The music's gleaming polygons of sound could only have been crafted through some mystic light-to-audio alchemy. It's enchanting.

Onyx coalesces into a complex techno roller with a kaleidoscope of light-touch percussion. The donking brashness of Push & Pull sounds like someone mining into a rock face with a tiny hammer. Violet Sun is dramatic and moody, with a thicker bass beat, and then Obsidian comes along with its clattering junglist rhythms and smashes everything to pieces.

Sakura Tsuruta's work is as smoothly animated as Detroit techno, as flowing as ambient dub, as geometric as early rave, and yet it is none of those things. A refreshing record that somehow has pinged towards the top of my annual list. Shiny.

I'm amazed I was able to type any of this, what with all the rubies on my fingers. Dozens of them, I've got. On each finger. I have very heavy hands.

This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.

5th best electronic music album of 2024: Donato Dozzy – Magda

Donato Dozzy: Magda (Spazio Disponibile)

He sounds like a muppet. "Donato Dozzy" is not a muppet. He sometimes has a furry face, and his glasses are very neat and round, and he did do an album named after the letter K, but, for the final time, Donato Dozzy is definitely not a muppet.

He is in fact a DJ with a long history of putting out tunes, and once made a super brief appearance in my Best Albums countdown back in 2015. And now, out of the blue, he suddenly drops into my top five with a selection of tracks full of electronic drama.

The first thing that stuck me about Magda was its sheer stubbornness. The first track Velluto finds its loop of a bleepy snore circled by ditzy electronics and, defiantly, stays there. Franca does a similar thing, soft pneumatics chugging to a gauze-thin ambience, gently waxing and waning.

The title piece Magda has more shape. Ripples of filtered-down see-saw synths are shadowed by a murmuration of botanical keyboard loops, and it gets more and more humid as it crescendos into.... nothing. He has the confidence to let it all drift away into a haze. 

More than its production, more than its themes of the Adriatic sea and family, there's something healing about Magda. Is there a healing muppet? I suppose The Count might be a doctor, and he knows numbers and stuff. I bet Big Bird knows first aid: he's the kind of smug yellow featherball that would brag about that kind of thing.

This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.