Uncle Monk
(2006)
320
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13 June 2026
Various Artists
The Many Faces Of AC ∕ DC
[3 cds]
(2012)
320
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12 June 2026
Japan - 1983 - Oil On Canvas (Remastered 2003)
Japan - 1983 - Oil On Canvas (Remastered 2003) @320
First of all: the cover. As a teenager, I was instantly intrigued by Frank Auerbach’s artwork, and then the music very definitely lived up to the packaging.
But, though billed as such, it could hardly be called a ‘live’ album. In the recent band biography ‘A Foreign Place’, Jansen reports that the only ‘live’ elements on the album are his drums – everything else was replayed in the studio. Three excellent new all-studio tracks were added too. But Oil On Canvas was released six months after the band’s break-up and proved a near-perfect farewell from one of the key groups of the early ’80s.
The fact that it ended up as Japan’s highest-selling album (shifting over 100,000 in the UK and hitting #5) must have really irked manager Simon Napier-Bell – after year of toil, the band were calling it a day just as they were getting some commercial success (read ‘A Foreign Place’ for a full explanation of the split).
Tin Drum was great but who knows what they might have come up with as a follow-up given the giant strides they had made as musicians, songwriters and arrangers since ’81. Sure enough, within a few months of their split, Duran Duran were taking their sound and image to the bank.
There is so much to enjoy on Oil On Canvas. The Tin Drum tracks have added heft and a bit more air. David Sylvian’s vocals are warmer and more expressive than on the studio albums (though he has since virtually disowned this early singing style), and his Satie-esque title track prefigures the triumphs of his solo career.
‘Ghosts’ is extended with a superb Stockhausen-meets-serialism intro/interlude thrown in while ‘Canton’ becomes a mighty parade of musical colours, with clanging synths, whip-lashing china cymbals and the late great Mick Karn’s increasingly insane bass embellishments.
There has never been a rhythm section quite like Karn and Steve Jansen (drums) and probably never will be again. They revel in open spaces and ‘non-rock’ textures, typified by the deceptively simple and downright spooky ‘Sons Of Pioneers’.
Karn sounded like no one else on fretless bass, exploring Middle Eastern concepts and weird intervals to produce a sound both complex and hilarious. Jansen came up with several of the most ingenious backbeats in pop history while always making them danceable.
Together, they produced classic grooves like ‘Visions Of China’, ‘Cantonese Boy’ and ‘Still Life In Mobile Homes’, and Richard Barbieri’s creative keys playing always emphasises texture and mood over technique. His closing instrumental ‘Temple Of Dawn’ bids a fantastic album farewell first with a chill and then with a brief shot at redemption.
Sylvian escaped to a successful, innovative solo career, Karn also went solo and hooked up with collaborators including Midge Ure, Peter Murphy and, most memorably, Kate Bush. Barbieri and Jansen teamed up regularly in various projects and recorded together as The Dolphin Brothers in 1987 but didn’t enjoy much commercial success. Against all odds, they all got together again at the end of the ’80s for the intriguing Rain Tree Crow project. (Moving the River)
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(A thankyou is always appreciated)
The Chesterfield Kings - The Berlin Wall Of Sound 1990 Wav
* Another great submission to Vibes from friend of the blog Moezeke, many thanks for another great share. *
* Enjoy, Reb 😎 Link 👇 *
Various - From the Ground Up - Vol 1 - Roots of Electronic - Belgium and France 2026 320
From the Ground Up
An earwitness account of the electronic dance music revolution on Belgian dancefloors from 1984 to the mid nineties.
By Captain Crash
If you actually wanted to lose yourself on the dancefloor before 1984, you know, moving until your mind goes blank and you're just operating on instinct, you basically had ... no real options. Either you ended up in clubs playing Barry White mixed with slow jams like “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” or in new wave venues where the music was marginally better but the main thing was looking cool, not dancing your head off.
Everything began to shift in 1984, the year Prince released Purple Rain. But while the world was captivated by his sound, Belgian club DJs were charting a different course, introducing a new style that would soon reshape dance floors across Europe. When the club owner left for a bathroom break or a short rest, they would suddenly drop heavy psychedelic rock tracks, hypnotic Section 25 beats, or other records with a mesmerizing rhythm that pushed you to switch off your mind and let your feet take over. DJs started digging through crates for these trance-like grooves. Obscure records were sometimes played at 33 RPM instead of the normal 45 RPM, making the sound stranger, more exotic, more forward-moving.
But after half an hour of musical experimentation they switched back to Barry White again, because the club owner feared the new sound would drive away regular customers and attract the wrong crowd.
The real breakthrough came in 1985 when the owner of the new Boccaccio club near Ghent, Belgium, decided to fully commit on Sunday nights. At midnight it started: DJ Olivier Pieters opened with “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins, lasers turned on (still new at the time), and the crowd reacted intensely to the new style of music. It felt like a giant wave hitting the dancefloor, carrying everyone into a unified ecstasy.
The tracks DJs played up to that point were mostly obscure recycled material from different genres and eras, but soon music from Detroit and Chicago was added, forming new styles built around the same principle: repetitive beats aimed at instinct rather than analysis. Music was no longer something you listened to with your head.
Of course the music press dismissed it. Electronic dance music? Just a passing hype, they said.
By 1988, Belgium already had several clubs fully dedicated to electronic music. Boccaccio drew people from everywhere: France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany. Partygoers traveled long distances just for this new sound. Weekends ran from Friday straight through to Tuesday evening. Car convoys moved from club to club, when one closed, another opened. In the UK, the acid rave scene took shape. In Germany, the Love Parade was launched, and the Mayday festival, one of the first major raves on the mainstream circuit, became a key event.
By 1994, the first real subgenres began to form: jungle techno, Goa, and others. That is where this collection ends.
In total, there are 476 tracks in 16 crates.
I start with music from before 1986, which I called “Roots of electronics.” There is no Kraftwerk or Vangelis, only the tracks played by Belgian DJs on dancefloors.
Next are early releases, newly created or specially made tracks for this emerging scene, followed by early US releases from Chicago and Detroit.
In 1988, Belgian New Beat exploded onto the scene, followed by releases from the UK, the US, and other countries. Each country still had its own sound at that time.
By 1990 the scene had matured and techno was established. From 1992 onwards a more unified sound emerged. Releases from different countries began to converge, a precursor to the next phase where distinct genres in electronic music started to rise, each with its own party culture and differentiated sound.
After that, the founding clubs declined, marking the start of a flourishing underground party scene, long before music conglomerates like Live Nation became involved and long before the rise of the superstar DJ and commercial electronic music events. But that's for another collection.
Vol 1. Roots of Electronic - Belgium and France
11 June 2026
The Only Ones – Darkness & Light (The Complete BBC Recordings) 2002 320😎
* Enjoy, Reb 😎 Link 👇 *
The Only Ones were an influential British rock and roll band in the late 1970s who were associated with punk rock, yet straddled the musical territory in between punk, power pop and hard rock, with noticeable influences from psychedelia.
They are best known for the song "Another Girl, Another Planet"
Formed in London in 1976. Disbanded in 1982. Regrouped in 2007.
2007 - Improvisators Dub - Rrumble I - Chapitre 1
2007 - Improvisators Dub - Rrumble I - Chapitre 1 (Flac)
To celebrate their thirteenth year of dub activism, the Bordeaux-based Improvisators Dub are releasing a new album. Pioneers of the French dub scene and its undisputed godfathers, Improvisators Dub have managed in ten years to build a bridge between Kingston, London, and Bordeaux. Always deeply rooted in their roots, their shows are utterly captivating and warm.(FNAC)
A Thankyou is always appreciated
Von Südenfed – Tromatic Reflexxions 2007 320😎
* Enjoy, Reb 😎 Link 👇 *
Von Südenfed is a collaboration between Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner of Mouse On Mars, and Mark E. Smith, leader and vocalist of The Fall. This has been in my to post folder for far to long, time to set it free!! This was the only album that emerged from the project.
10 June 2026
Doctor & The Medics
Laughing At The Pieces
(2003)
320
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09 June 2026
2008 - Improvisators Dub Meets Iration Steppas – Inna Steppa Dub
2008 - Improvisators Dub Meets Iration Steppas –
Inna Steppa Dub (Flac)
Inna Steppa Dub (Flac)
The originally Jamaican art of sound manipulation called dub has expanded enormously from its original concept and it has been adapted and adopted in many different ways in many different kinds of music - from punk to dance - over the last couple of decades. This set teams up Leeds, England, based Iration Steppas - one of the country's leading dub outfits, formed in 1993 and always working in a modern yet thoroughly traditional based style, with Bordeaux, France's, Improvisators Dub. Much modern dub can be clichéd, pompous, self-important and navel-gazing, but that is definitely not the case here - these dozen numbers are eminently listenable, possibly tinged with psychedelia, forward-looking and, if you want, mind-expanding. If you are only going to check out one dub album this year, then this is the one to go for. (Amazon review)
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(A thankyou is always appreciated)
U2 – The Joshua Tree 2007 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition 320😎
* Sorry but it's just the two CD's, I don't have a digital copy of the DVD *
* Enjoy, Reb 😎 Link 👇 *
Doctor & The Medics
Instant Heaven
(1996)
320
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