Apparently, I buy too many records

My wife Helen, like every other woman i've ever lived with, believes that I buy too many records.

Which, as every record-buying man knows, is a ridiculous belief.

I will concede, however, that I do indeed buy a lot of records and that I don't afford them the same amount of listens and attention that I did 20 or 30 years ago.

To this end, I have decided to blog about the records that I buy, in order to help my appreciation of them - and perhaps to show Helen that I don't buy that many records after all.

Because i'm crap with deadlines the blog posts will be sporadic and probably be about a month or 2 behind but that's just the way i am! The posts will not necessarily be actual reviews (most likely comments, at best) and will generally be pretty damn short due to the reasons outlined above. As a writer in a previous existence i have decided not to worry about writing as art in the pieces but, instead, to attempt to convey feeling over semantic (and often grammatic) perfection.

And 'OCRB'? It stands for 'Obsessive Compulsive Record Buying' - a little known mental health affliction that is potentially damaging to the bank account but ultimately life-affirming. It is sad.......but a nice form of sad.

Thursday 3 February 2011

Tangerine Dream: In the beginning (Jive)

6LP box set of the first 4 albums and the previously unreleased 'Green Desert'. I've bought quite a few Tangerine Dream albums in my time (and have already got a few of the albums here) but the mint condition vinyl and cheap price, coupled with my re-interest in modular synth music, made this too good to resist. Listening to 'Electronic meditation' again for the first time in years, i was surprised at how heavy it got towards the end of side one - like a teutonic Hawkwind (which is pretty much how a lot of the best Krautrock can be described) and it rocked out like a bad MF. The other 4 albums here are pretty much what you'd expect from  Tangerine Dream - synths cycling up and down, occasional rat-at-at percussion flourishes and, well, soundtracking your life (as long as your life is the life of a cyborg). I was walking up Barnstaple High St yesterday and i could hear the melody from the  title track of 'Alpha Centauri' in my head and i felt........metallic. This is what great music should do to you, infect your life.
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