Week 29: 26/08/97 - 17/05/98

Hmmmm. A 2 hour week again - I have an internal rule that if the playlist is 2 hours I only listen to it once a day, if it's less then I do two. So I got in a lot of Kermode and Mayo and a small dose of the Fall. I start with a few odds and sods from Northern Attidude  - a bunch of randos on a random label. Nothing outstanding but a confirmation that Mr. Pharmacist is a staple live show thing now. This is a good thing.

Then Levitate. I have a lot of time for Levitate - I kind of agree with the bible in that it feels half baked sometimes but overall it's pretty strong. And it's one of the few Fall records which really gets that blend of hard electronics and their Rockabilly sound, and Mark's sounding great finally. I like Hurricane Edward, with it's Mr Hughes was right in retrospect intro.

AND THEN OMG! I'm A Mummy - surely one of their best songs of all time and possibly one of the great covers of all time. Taking that twee I'm a Mummy from Bob McFadden and For and turning it up to 11. The other half of Bob McFadden was born in Oakland and Bob was responsible for the Medium is the Massage LP - it's a total joy. Then Doc Shankley: If, like me, you are a complete and utter pranny you know what I mean when I say recipe. No idea what this is about but it's great. 4 1/2 Inch is effectively Inch (next week for that one) but is great. Jungle Rock is another good cover, not quite I'm A Mummy though. And they close out okayish Levitate, Everybody But Myself. It's a melting pot. There's some bonus tracks on the CD but these are pretty forgettable.

Masquerade single b-sides are okay but nothing outstanding. Then a Peel session with Touch Sensitive! And it sounds nothing like the resulting single: it just goes to show that adding a "Hey Hey Hey" really lifts a song.

This being the late 90s, there also has to be a vinyl version of "club" type remixes. And the Fall never disappoints. You want a "Mr. Natural" Funked up remix of Masquerade? You got it. It sounds like incidental music from the club scene in Spaced - like I can't ever imagine any kind of DJ actually playing this out and I can't imagine any Fall fan playing this regularly. I couldn't find this on CD so I shelled out for the 10". Not even coloured vinyl. Amateurs. On the Flip side things get serious: PWL Remix time. The album was recorded at PWL which might go some way to explain the super punchy sound they got on this one.

Remember that time that the Aphex Twin got asked to do remixes and he just claimed to always give them a tape of whatever was lying around at the time. Well the PWL mix sounds something like the Fatboy Slim approach to remixes: Let's change the speed and tweak the drums. Thus it's the most pointless remix ever. Any they adjusted the speed in the wrong way - it's slower than the original. NUTTER VAINS.