Various Artists - 'Def Beats 1'

It's funny the crap you find in your record collection.

This reminds me of a couple things. The first is working in the printroom at Georgina von Etzdorf, with a guy called Ellis. He was bang into his hip hop, and sort of got me into it. I remember him telling me how to 'transformer scratch' (look it up), and I went home to learn how to do it. Of course, I didn't have Technics and a mixer, I had a crappy belt drive turntable and a tape dub button, but you can get a pretty good approximation of the effect with a Jesus & Mary Chain record and plenty of enthusiasm.

It also reminds me of an early trip to New York, staying at my friend Dave's place on Hoyt Street, Brooklyn. Being a music obsessive, I used to travel with tapes all the time, even though I'm not sure that I ever had a walkman to play them on. I guess I would show up and ask to put a tape on, which seems quite rude in retrospect.

Anyway, I remember Dave and his then girlfriend Leslie looking through my tapes. Leslie found the one that said 'Def Beats Vol 1' on it and said 'yayyy Def Beats'. Dave looked at her shocked and said 'you know this?'. Of course she didn't - she was just being nice.

This record is tripe - a sort of futuristic Ronco compilation deigned to exploit the current trend. It's one redeeming feature is that it features the late Derek B. Even he's crap on here, but we all know how great he became, right kids?

Various Artists - 'Soul of Jamaica'

I could listen to reggae til it comes out of my ears. Hang on, that's a weird thing to say about something that goes into your ears. I could listen to reggae all day. That's a much better, if slightly more prosaic, declaration of enjoyment. I love the warmth of the production, and the humanity of the music. But there's something odd going on here.

Every track on this compilation album seems to be suffused with sadness. I don't know why that is - maybe there's a lot of minor key arrangements here, or maybe this is one of those records that I played on repeat at a low point in my life. Even the uptempo arrangement of 'Dream Lover' seems to be played briskly so as to get it over as quickly as possible. It reminds me of the saying 'the blues ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad', except this is reggae, and it's spookily mournful.

Despite loving it, I may never play this record again.

Catalogue Number: HELP15

Tracks: This is Reggae Music. Funky Kingston. Starvation. Concrete Jungle. UFO. The World is Upside Down. Hey Mr Yesterday. Chapel of Love. Guava Jelly. Dream Lover.

Various Artists - 'The Singing Detective'

I have no idea when, where or why I bought this. I'm not sure I've ever played it, sampled it or danced to it. Although it's a perfectly nice collection of jazz standards, compiled from original period recordings, it doesn't move me.

I watched a couple of episodes of 'The Singing Detective' a few years back. Despite remembering it as being groundbreaking and a bit creepy, I wasn't crazy about that either.

Sorry, not a fan.

Catalogue Number: BEN 608

Tracks: Peg o' my Heart. Limehouse Blues. Blues in the Night. Dry Bones. Rockin' in Rhythm. Cruising Down the River. Don't Fence Me In. It Might As Well be Spring. Lili Marlene. I Get Along Without You Very Well. Do I Worry? Accentuate The Positive. You Always Hurt The One You Love. After You've Gone. It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow. Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall. The Very Thought of You. The Teddy Bears Picnic. We'll Meet Again.

Various - 'The Deer Hunter'

I'm pretty sure that this is one of a few records I bought in a thrift store in Brooklyn, when I lived there in the early 1990s. I was sharing an apartment in a brownstone on South Portland Avenue, and had walked to the Silver Spoon on Flatbush for breakfast and a spot of bargain hunting. The walk over took in a fair number of run-down and vacant lots,a sort of urban wasteland. It was OK in the daytime, but you wouldn't want to be there at night. The discarded crack vials made that quite clear.

It's a nice-enough record, although a bit of a mish-mash - it doesn't really make sense without knowing the film. Strings, acapella folk, acoustic guitars, then a bit of polka, then some helicopters and machine guns. It's evocative, but it's hard to say of what - a forgotten America, maybe?

The helicopters sounded great sampled and played back as part of a track when we played a Speakerfreaks gig at The Warehouse in Leeds, late 90s, probably at 'It's Obvious'. I drew the line at machine guns - the KLF had a monopoly on that.

Did I really bring a load of second-hand vinyl home on a plane from New York? Madness.

Catalogue Number: SOO-11940

Tracklist: Cavatina. Praise in the Name of the Lord. Troika. Katyusha. Struggling Ahead. Sarabande. Waiting His Turn. Memory Eternal. God Bless America. Cavatina (Reprise)