A fairly typical journey to / from work:
In the car on the drive to the station
Talking Heads Sand In The Vaseline (disc two). The second part of their comprehensive retrospective includes selections from Stop Making Sense, through Little Creatures and their swansong, Naked. Aside from the usual favourites ('As She Was', 'Road To Nowhere', 'Nothing But Flowers') you also get two comparatively little known gems, 'Sax And Violins' and 'Lifetime Cracking Up', plus the final Talking Heads track, 'Popsicle', which joins together all their various facets – weird lyrics, clipped funk grooves and eighties keyboards.
On the train to work
Neu! Neu! 75. A bootleg bought in about 1997 from a charity shop in Colchester. At the time this Krautrock album was out of print, hence the need for a bootleg CD. I remember at the time being really pleased at having found this album, but actually quite disappointed when I listened to it. After it had launguished for a decade in the loft, I took another listen and thought it was... okay. Just okay, nothing special. 'Hero' is a good proto-punk track though.
On the Tube
Kraftwerk Radio-Activity. A conversation at work about how Coldplay ripped a section of 'Computer Love' drove me to dig out and dust down my Kraftwerk CDs. 'Radio-Activity' finds the Germans on the cusp of perfecting the electronic beats that would propel much of their later work, and has a much more concept-y, experimental feel than their subsequent albums. I still think the updated version of 'Radioactivity' from The Mix is far superior to the melancholy original available here.
On the train home
Throbbing Gristle The First Annual Report AKA Very Friendly. Another bootleg, and a purportedly mythical lost first album. Grainy sound quality, edgy and unsavoury at times (the first track, 'Very Friendly', is about the Brady / Hindley murders), if this really is the first utterances of the nascent post-Coum Transmissions TG then they set their uncompromising industrial art-punk stall out very early on.
Walking back to the car
System 7 Alpha Wave (Plastikman Acid House Remix). The hippy-tinged System 7 original I can live without; Richie Hawtin's twenty-minute 303-dominated mix is essential. If you only own one acid house track from the period after 1988, make it this one. The track length may seem quite challenging, but its subtle changes and minimal techno purism mean it could easily last double the time without remotely sapping at your energy.
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