LIST 204 - 27/05/2016

Hello again,

Okay, okay, it's maybe slightly cheaty to do a Then and Now feature for The Julie Ruin, in so far as the older track is taken from a Kathleen Hanna solo record of that name and the newer one is the lead single from the Kathleen Hanna-fronted band of that name's first album. But still. Both are too good not to share.

The temptation to follow the old track by the UK dance act known as Screaming Trees with one from the more familiar US rock act of the same name was avoided, just. How very unlike me...

J xx



STREET CHANT – Insides (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBBVvETVxAQ

WOODPIGEON – Faithful (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30DJ-i0TTpE

STEREO MCs – Fade Away (1992) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll-zHR52wFc

FIELD MUSIC – Indeed It Is (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wan_CAgBddQ

NINEBARROW - For a Time (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhClWuLAAkM

RED MONKEY – This Medium Is Not The Message (1999) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHHCEAaC_fU

ODD NOSDAM – Sisters (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exsGTbIoZyQ


THEN AND NOW: The Julie Ruin
THE JULIE RUIN – I Decide (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja0bpkNxSVY
THE JULIE RUIN – Radical or Pro-Parental (1998) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY0mCOg5yZY


ZONE OUT – Inside (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi54Ulz7hpU

PITY SEX - Pin a Star (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3QBu5B8TLQ

THE WEDDING PRESENT – I’m Not Always So Stupid (1988) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAa7oezE-mo

KANE STRANG – What’s Wrong (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKArUi6LtJ8

THE EXPLORERS CLUB – California’s Callin’ Ya (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe0RESujmqM

SCREAMING TREES (UK) – Tangiers (1988) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga5tnBUriTU

SEPTEMBER GIRLS - Heartbeats (2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbXlkmZzUu0

THE RITZ CLUB - Walk Away (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzay3dtrpKw

THE GOSSIP – Take Back (The Revolution) (2002) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNKMCquIzOo

LIST 203 - 20/05/2016

Hello again,

Another last song dedicated in loving memory in this List, alas, following the passing at the age of 61 last weekend of Marlene Marder, guitarist with trailblazing Swiss female post-punk act Kleenex / LiLiPUT.  Die Matrosen is a fairly obvious choice of tribute song, I concede, but it's also a terrific one.

School Of Seven Bells would, in contrast, be a band to suffer tragedy whilst still a going concern, founder member and co-guitarist Ben Curtis having died of lymphoma in 2013.  His final demos and ideas have since been fashioned into the final SVIIB album by sole remaining member Alejandra Deheza, and the single included this time is one of many highlights of a superb, if inevitably highly poignant and emotionally charged collection of songs.

The promo for Cupid by The Big Moon, meanwhile, is surely the latest in a long line of candidates for the title "if Tiswas did videos, would they be like this?", even if the off-camera exhortation to go again does appear to be a bit of a copy from Lisa Hannigan's even messier Knots video from 2011 - go back to List #71 and see what you think.

J xx



THE BIG MOON - Cupid (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6t3vNfl85E

THE CHURCHILL GARDEN – Orange Tree Blossom (2016)
https://soundcloud.com/churchhill/orange-tree-blossom

THE MEMBRANES – Kafka’s Dad (1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i81FG9rhos

ELISABETH LIKE A DREAM – Shadow (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzS0tp0lZc0

AG COOK ft HANNAH DIAMOND - Drop FM (2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=645r40YSNa4

DAVID DEVANT & HIS SPIRIT WIFE – Ginger (1997)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWCi7Xg7UeQ

VLIVM – Looking for a Day (2016)
https://soundcloud.com/discosdekirlian/vlivm-looking-for-a-day

FIELD HARMONICS – Heron (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gptSpApjZlw

LUNA - Rhythm King (1995)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3cn5ddoHRQ

THE FURROW COLLECTIVE - I'd Rather Be Tending My Sheep (2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utHPUSvUJNw

SÉBASTIEN TELLIER – Lune de miel IV (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c62SeKXYNbM

FRENTE! - Cuscutlan (1992)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl1uIcZfcIY

KATE JACKSON – The End of Reason (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua_fxY_9W5Q

THE POOH STICKS – On Tape (1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b2MaOG2Vj8

KONONO N°1 MEETS BATIDA - "Nlele Kalusimbiko"(2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdBiWxHS2F4

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS – Ablaze (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPWJ0MreHeg

BLOOD SPORT - The Woodcutter (2013)
http://bloodsportband.tumblr.com/#music


IN LOVING MEMORY: Marlene Marder
KLEENEX / LiLiPUT - Die Matrosen (1980)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uTvxUiDbac

LIST 202 - 13/05/2016 (a second Eurovision special)

Hello all,

So enjoyable did compiling a Eurovision List prove last year, I thought I'd see if I could assemble another mix of personal song contest favourites and related tracks ahead of tomorrow night's 61st edition of the continent's favourite musical extravaganza. Here are the fruits of those labours.

As with last year's efforts, not everything here actually appeared in the contest proper. The tracks from Pussyfoot and Labi Siffre (yep, that one, of Something Inside So Strong and It Must Be Love fame subsequently) were both unsuccessful attempts to win through A Song For Europe; whilst the cover versions by Edwyn Collins, Saint Etienne and Terry Hall/Sinead O'Connor all appeared as part of Channel 4's 1998 A Song for Eurotrash song contest special. 

It seems quite appropriate to dig out a few tracks from that, given a one-off episode of Eurotrash has just been slated in to coincide with next month's European Union referendum. If you don't want to know the results, look away then.

European unity, of course, was the very reason for Toto Cutugno's 1990 contest-winning song to exist, and that rallying cry ends this List as part of a double-header of (by Eurovision standards) overtly political tracks; Jamala's 2016 effort, as much of a railing against Russia for previous indiscretions (here: the deportation of the Crimeran Tatars in the 1940s) as current Eurovision song-content rules permit, is the other.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 15/05/2026).

Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

LAURA TESORO - What's the Pressure (2016) 

SOPHIE ET MAGALY - Le Papa Pingouin (1980) 

EDWYN COLLINS – Ding a Dong (1998) 

POLLAPÖNK - No Prejudice (2014) 

SÉVERINE - Un Banc, Un Abre, Une Rue (1971) 

PUSSYFOOT - I Want to Be Me (1980) 

GAITANA - Be My Guest (2012) 

DANIEL - Džuli (1983) 

SAINT ETIENNE – La La La (1998) 

SERHAT – I Didn’t Know (2016) 

WIND - Laß die Sonne in dein Herz (1987) 

LABI SIFFRE - Solid Love (1978) 

LOïC NOTTET - Rhythm Inside (2015) 

FRIZZLE SIZZLE - Alles heeft ritme (1986) 

TERRY HALL & SINEAD O’CONNOR –All Kinds of Everything (1998) 

THE COMMON LINNETS - Calm After the Storm (2014) 

MATT MONRO - I Love the Little Things (1964) 

SAMRA – Miracle (2016) 

RIVA - Rock Me (1989) 

PEARL CARR & TEDDY JOHNSON - Sing Little Birdie (1959) 

BANANARAMA – Waterloo (1998) 

JAMALA - 1944 (2016) 

TOTO CUTUGNO - Insieme: 1992 (1990) 

LIST 201 - 06/05/2016 (The Many Guises of... Bobby Wratten)

(Trembling Blue Stars - Strange Fruit, Upstairs at the Garage, London 10/02/2001. Pictures are author's own)

Hello again,

The latest The Many Guises of... tribute feels less like a List, and more like an expression of gratitude. 

It's just north of a quarter of a century since I heard The Field Mice for the first time, and since then no single songwriter has soundtracked so much of my adult life, or filled so many of my hours of listening pleasure, as Robert "Bobby" Wratten.  

Whether that be helming The Field Mice, Northern Picture Library, The Yesterday Sky, Trembling Blue Stars or present project Lightning in a Twilight Hour.

Whether that be with some choice, pithy, lovelorn, poignant words or else an expansive, imaginative soundscape.

Whether that be in the guise of any of the many affectionate covers of examples from his sizeable back catalogue.

Whichever, there's always Bobby.

Skywriting by The Field Mice, as I'm sure has been mentioned on these pages more than once already, will probably always endure as my favourite album of all time.  Trembling Blue Stars' 1996 debut Her Handwriting is also top five in my personal list.  Numerous other Bobby-penned longplayers pepper my personal tops 20 and 40.  Depending on how I feel, either Clearer or Of The Perfect Kind by the first-named band would count as my single favourite song of all.  

I've felt the pain of the Bobby's ultimately doomed relationship with the then Annemari Davies as played out over a succession of albums, and have been able to reach into the messages, portents and counsel they offer when faced with splits of my own.  Not, however, that falling out of or indeed in love is a prerequisite to enjoying such as Her Handwriting, as unflinchingly and unremittingly about the end of a presumed perfect love as it may be.

I've shared Bobby's anger over social and societal ills and injustices.  The awfulness of many men in tracks such as Song 6.  The inherent and sadly still not eradicated homophobia which informs tracks such as This Love is Not Wrong and A Statue to Wilde.  The imposing of religious will as railed against in such as Ancient Fiction, included in today's selection. 

Bobby's erstwhile Sarah Records bosses Matt Haynes and Clare Wadd were determinedly of the opinion that one shouldn't have to shout to be left wing.  Bobby never has shouted, and his convictions burn no less brightly for that.

Selections in previous Lists have already taken out quite a few potential candidates for today's tribute, but I'm very happy with the selections below all the same, and the deeper cuts would have made it on in any event.  In truth, I could have filled this List two or three times over.  Now there's an idea...

J xx



THE FIELD MICE - The World to Me (1990) 

TREMBLING BLUE STARS - For This One (1996) 

BUDDHA ON THE MOON - Norfolk Windmills (1997)

(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

LIGHTNING IN A TWILIGHT HOUR - Ancient Fiction (2015) 

THE FIELD MICE - White (1989) 

TREMBLING BLUE STARS - Never Loved You More (1998) 

NORTHERN PICTURE LIBRARY - Lucky (1993) 

THE FIELD MICE - A Wrong Turn and Raindrops (1991) 

THE OCCASIONAL KEEPERS - The Life of the Fields (2008) 

LIGHTNING IN A TWILIGHT HOUR – The Sky Beyond the Sky (2016) 

TREMBLING BLUE STARS - This Once Was an Island (2007) 

THE YESTERDAY SKY - A Winter's Dawn (1992) 

FUTURE CONDITIONAL ft BOBBY WRATTEN - We Don't Just Disappear (2007) 

THE FIELD MICE - Indian Ocean (1990) 

ANGIE HEATON & THE GENTLE TAMERS - Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise (2007) 

NORTHERN PICTURE LIBRARY - Untitled No. 3 (1994)