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.

DJ Krush - 'Meiso'

God this is a great record. I bought this around the same time as I bought DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing', and at the time, it seemed as though we - them and us, the producer and the consumer - were reinventing hip hop.

This is a sort of music that is totally stripped back to basics - a simple rhythm, some weird ambience standing in for a topline melody, and a vocal, a willing sacrifice of technical musicianship, an atavistic return to basics. The irony is that it takes a lot technology to make something sound so simple. Of course, you could argue that everything Mo Wax did was just James Lavelle selling a beautifully packaged lifestyle ideal, and you'd be right. But it was such a cool lifestyle that it was hard to resist.

This reminds me of Luke, who married my friend Bekki. He was a real Mo Wax junkie, and sort of still is - he's certainly still got lots of their first editions and box sets. I'll have to have a poke through his shelf next time I'm at their place, as we attempt to arrange a marriage between our children. I guess that makes us grown-ups, right?

Tracks: Only the Strong Survive. Anticipation. What's Behind Darkness. Meiso. Bypath 1. Blank. Ground. Bypath 2. Most Wanted Man. Bypath 3. 3rd Eye. OCE 9504. Duality. Bypath - Would You Take It?

Catalogue Number: MW039LP

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)

Deadly Avenger - 'King Tito's Gloves EP'

Sprawling, groovy breakbeat of various tempos. Nicely produced, and although I was going to dismiss this as the sort of thing everyone with a sampler and a keyboard was doing in 1999, it's a notch above the usual cut-and-paste dross.

'Live at the Capri' starts with the theme from Superman, and then a couple of really great vocal rap loops over a fat-ass beat. I've used it to kick start a DJ set before now, but you've only got about 45 seconds of good stuff before it all gets a bit cheesy nu-disco funk. By the time the meandering piano breakdown kicks in halfway through, people will be leaving the dancefloor, so use the first 45 seconds to good effect, then get the hell out. Rob Overseer did something similar with this very record for a Mary Anne Hobbes DJ set that was studio-recorded in Leeds. I remember it took hours to get the set right - I went to the pub, watched a football match, had a couple of pints, came back, and he and engineer Dave were still arseing about, adding snippets to it. The DJ set sounded great on Radio 1 (this was probably in 2000), but I'm not sure it was worth all the hours of recording toilets flushing (in stereo!), multitracking and overdubs.

I'd be amazed if Damon Baxter (for it is he) isn't now writing movie soundtracks. Anyone know?

Tracks: King Tito's Gloves. In Pursuit of the Pimpmobile vII. Live at the Capri (Supermix). Lopez Part 2.

Catalogue Number: ILL-002

Brian Eno - 'Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks'

Like the Eno ambient album a few days ago, again I've no idea when I got this. It might have been a charity shop find - the cover's a bit torn, as you can see.

I've probably only played this a few times. Looking at the credits, it turns out this is an accompanying soundtrack to a collage of films from the moon missions. I'm at a loss as to quite how the slide guitar on a few of tracks evokes the majesty of space travel.

Perhaps the most notable thing about this album is that Daniel Lanois is credited as playing and arranging elements of it. The year after this was released, Eno and Lanois produced U2's 'The Unforgettable Fire', and you can certainly pick up elements of that production here, notably the layers of keyboard washes. This isn't really music, it's sound to fill a space and create a mood, which is the sort of ambient music I really love. But put it on as a background for pudding at a dinner party, as I once did, and everyone rolls their eyes and says 'Uh-oh, it's all gone a bit Gong'. Philistines.

Catalogue Number: EGLP53

Tracks: Under Stars. The Secret Place. Matta. Signals. An End (Ascent). Under Stars II. Drift. Silver Morning. Deep Blue Day. Weightless. Always Returning. Stars.

Mellowtrons - 'Rhythmwide / Resolution 9'

This is a double A side piece of vinyl by Lee, an old mate from Salisbury. Lee is a bit of a dark horse - when you meet him, he seems slightly scatty and hyper, but underneath that slightly mad disorganised outer shell is a slightly mad but much more organised inner being. I know he's more organised then his outer persona suggests, because he's toured as a techie with Orbital, and I don't imagine you get to do that unless you really know your stuff.

I have lots of vivid memories of time spent with Lee: we turned up at the house of Jack Dangers (of Meat Beat Manifesto) and he played us the final mix of their latest album 'Satyricon' live off his home studio desk: he introduced me to Phil Hartnoll (of Orbital) just before their Manchester Academy gig in 1995 - Phil just said 'awright mate' as I stood there overawed at meeting this colossus of techno. He seemed a bit smaller than I expected, although to be fair to him, he'd have had to have been an eight foot tall robosonic cyborg to have actually lived up to my expectations.

My favourite memory of hanging out with Lee was a night out in London - I forget when, but it may have been the night before I attended the cut of the first Speakerfreaks EP. We were heading to a club with a bunch of his vegan mates, and I realised that I hadn't eaten enough for a night out. I stopped and grabbed a hot dog from a street seller, which sent a couple of his vegan mates a bit nuts. I remember one of them getting right in my face, going 'that's right shove it in', and generally making me feel bad about eating a tube of mechanically recovered meat, with onions and ketchup.

Musically, this is all over the shop. Lee was great at building soundscapes from obscure samples, slapping a funky beat over it (that's funky as in 'on the one') for 90 seconds, then breaking it down into slightly too much sprawling ambience, before hoofing a beat back in again. But give him his due - Chill Out were THE label to be on in 1995.

Tracks: Rhythmwide. Resolution 9.

Catalogue Number: CHILL12010