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Butternut's Top 100 Albums


Mr Butternut Squash

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95

Exuma - Exuma

1970

Freak Folk/Caribbean Folk

Best tracks: 'Seance In The Sixth Fret', 'The Obeah Man', 'Dambala', 'You Don't Know What's Going On'.

 

Stoned voodoo vibes from the Bahamas. Exuma came to this Earth through a lightning bolt, bringing with him his old folk tales of zombies and sorcery and a record that pretty much invented freak folk. It's an effortless mash of calypso, Caribbean folk, soul, blues and whatever else is in the medicine bucket. A haunting, funny and darkly magical lost record. All Captain Beefheart fans should check this out. In fact - and I'm not going to make a habit of saying stuff like this as I realise music is a personal thing - I don't see how anyone could not dig this. Succumb to the Obeah man.

 

The Obeah Man

Dambala

 

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94

Madness - Absoulutely

1980

Ska pop/2 Tone

 

Best tracks: On the Beat Pete, Disappear, Baggy Trousers, Embarrassment, E.R.N.I.E.

 

"The essential singles band" they call 'em. Bollocks to that. I've always seen that as a hacks way of saying a particular group has never produced a quality album, lest they upset the sacred cows. Madness did release a lot of great, memorable singles, but no Madness hits collection holds a candle to One Step Beyond or the follow up Absolutely. The ska-tinged stuff is what they thrived at and the later, 'not mad' sombre stuff lacked the personality and likeability of the earlier hits.

 

Absolutely is up there with The Clash, Boy In Da Corner, Up The Bracket and Black London Blues in terms of possessing the SPIRIT OF LONDON. Absolutely is that dishevelled old geezer at the end of the bar in the Ship, Anchor, Hope and Henry IV Albert Arms, his eyes darting every which way, marked by the occasional flash of violence. His skin of old leather creases around a cheeky, perverted grin as he relives his past of vespas, petty crime, daddy - done - left - me angst, tits and current buns. Then pearly hints of loss fill each eye as the wistful 'Disappear' blasts through the pub jukebox;

 

Organ tinkling organ

Marriage planning, children

Spinning round and round

Rusty swings and roundabouts

Disco's full of layabouts

Nowhere to be found

 

A stab in the back, the smoke and the black

As it smoulders to its grave

Disappear with the fun and the fear

Another chance to misbehave.

 

 

The city was once alive and full of colour - its decaying beauty and graffiti ("Walls signed with autographs, ceilings full of echoed laughs") and the aimless energy of youth ("Let's go to the local ash tray, let's see if we can be happy"), all gone and replaced with a mortgage and a beer gut. 'Disappear' may be Madness's most underrated and beautiful moment.

 

We go from dodgy Camden boozers to smoky jazz bars ('Overdone'), bingo halls and betting shops ('E.R.N.I.E') the school playground ('Baggy Trousers') and tacky sea side towns ('Return Of Los Palmas 7') on a cheap bumpy ride around Blighty. But yeah, mainly it's a London thing. The albums best moment, 'On The Beat Pete', is a garbled rush of finger snapping cockney joy. 'Baggy Trousers' and the three minute sigh, 'Embarrassment' ("YOU'RE an embarrassment". . . . DUN DUNNNN.) bring the hits, the weird time signature of 'Take it Or Leave It' brings awkward dancing and there's even time for a bit of the ol' existential despair with 'Shadow Of Fear'.

 

Their fun loving, wacky videos were great but ensured that people often overlook what great musicians they were and are. Here they play an array of styles - ska, motown, rock n' roll, jazz, boogie, and whatever "Take It Or Leave It'' is - all with their boyish charm.

 

Singles band my pipe and drum.

 

On the Beat Pete:

 

Disappear:

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93

Kool and The Gang - Best Of Kool and The Gang 1969-1976

1993

Funk

Best tracks: Give it Up, Chocolate Buttermilk, Hollywood Swinging, Funky Stuff, Summer Madness.

 

Vintage Gang, vintage funk. 'Funky Stuff', 'Jungle Boogie', 'Summer Madness' and 'Hollywood Swinging' have rightfully become standards, and for me in particular, 'Swinging' is an infectious blast of how it feels to be young, black and lost in the possibilities of the big city (even if 'London Swinging' sounds slightly less glam). 'Summer Madness' is every car journey I've spent watching the setting sun blend in to the neon of the metropolis while the city's animals roam in search of the nights perfect excess. 'Funky Stuff' is hard as nails. The two most funkalicious funktastic funking tracks though are the lesser known 'Give it Up', which I CHALLENGE YOU to sit still to (fucks sake, it's been taken off youtube), and the chirpy but tough 'Chocolate Buttermilk', whose sax saunters and swaggers at the same time, always sure. And then there's the drums. AHH, them drums . . I'll happily lay here with a ditzy smile while you pummel at my skull.

 

1976 is a perfect cut off point by the way, hinting at a sleazy Sly Stone/George Clinton direction but cutting off before their dodgy disco adventures began.

 

Hollywood Swinging

 

Funky Stuff

 

Chocolate Buttermilk

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Slowly on . . .

 

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92

Peter Brotzmann - Machine Gun

1968

Free Jazz/Improv

Best tracks; Machine Gun, Music For Han Bennink, Responsible

 

Loud, reckless free jazz. It's the sound of German saxophonist Brotzmann turning a gatling gun into the direction of the jazz scene and blowing it to smithereens. It's the sound of a band in a state of non-stop tension, from twitchy unease to full on ruckus. It's like they've been locked inside the studio with the violent chicken from Family Guy. Except this one's LOUD, and its panicked screams and squawks fill the room as it tumbles over the drum kit, fists flying. Machine Gun is far more visceral than any other 'noise' record I've listened to. Yet there's these wonderful, fleeting moments where the fists drop and the musicians band together. They are battered and bloody but you feel that the chaos is finally over. The session ends and they ride home like brothers, into the sunset.

 

 

 

Nightfalls, and the silence of the studio is eerie. The chicken lies torn an twisted inside the bass drum.

 

 

. . . . Its eyes open.

 

(How the fuck are you supposed to write about jazz)

 

'Machine Gun'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27CpT79NMhQ

 

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91

Silver Apples - Contact

1968

Psychedelic Rock/Early Electro

Best tracks; A Pox On You, I Have Known Love, Ruby, Fantasies, You're Not Fooling Me.

 

I couldn't put it any better than some bloke from Wire magazine, "a four-track recording fusing layered oscillators, sustained chords, frantic skitterings of unearthly insects and Dan Taylor's metronomic drumming. It is the sound of the American dream dissolving into a nightmare."

 

But more importantly, it's one of the few albums that brings out my trusty set of air drums. And if I close my eyes tight enough during 'Water' - I swear - I can actually teleport across my living room. And that wibbly wobbly thing during 'You're Not Fooling Me' gets me shaking my head from side to side until my neck's sore. In fact there's a lot of wobbly oscillator bits and it's luvly jubbly. The hypnotic drones of Contact set the foundation for fellow pysch/electro adventurers Suicide, Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and virtually everyone that made the early seventies so exciting. It's also funny and funky and pretty and spooky. Now, let me join you gadgeteers!

 

'A Pox On You'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzLF-LpQw4M

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90

Bob Marley and The Wailers - Trenchtown Rock (Anthology 1969-78)

2002

Reggae

Best tracks: 'Mr Brown', 'Keep On Skanking', 'Trenchtown Rock', 'Lively Up Yourself', 'Sun Is Shining', 'Duppy Conqueror', 'Jah Is Mighty' , 'Back Out', 'Fussing and Fighting' . . impossible to limit to five!

 

It's a bit sad that the sterile sounds of Legend and Exodus are what Marley's most famous for. This is how any good music snob should get their Marley fix. This compilation of the Wailer's non-Island, largely Lee Perry produced work is simply one of the most joyful collections of music there is. It's warm and rough around the edges and has the most impassioned vocals that Marley ever laid down. I tend to skip half of the tracks on it to be honest, but there is over 50 of the damn things! Something I should tell you before we continue . . I struggle to get through an LP that's over 45 minutes. You won't see many other comps or double albums on my list. I'll always take a concise, very good album over an occasionally great long album.

 

But what highs! 'Back Out' is a stern but upbeat plea to that person who often turns up to the party. You know, the one that brings unnecessary tension, shifty eyes and a whiff of violence to dampen the fun. The person that is "making things go slow" as Marley wonderfully puts it. 'Duppy Conqueror' is an impossibly pretty sounding thing that has the Wailer's making bird coo noises for backing vocals. 'Sun Is Shining' isn't the summer pop smash you think it is. It's the sound of a storm brewing in a spooky shanty town. There might be a shootout tonight. The glorious fairground skank of 'Mr Brown' contains the greatest chorus I've ever heard. (The cruelest too. You only get to hear it one and a half times). Bunny Livingstone's 'Dreamland' is a ballad so touching that it isn't even ruined by its association with an ex-lover, even if the "surely we'll never die" fadeout is a challenge. That's the good thing about music. When it hits you, you feel no pain.

 

'Back Out'

 

'Sun is Shining'

 

'Mr Brown'

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