This weekend we’ve done lots more digging!
We got another bed dug (bed #9), took a trip to some garden centres and did more digging! Bed #7 is also looking good now. The piles of drying weeds is growing bigger and bigger.
We’ve done some digging! We’ve drawn some diagrams and portioned our allotment up into a number of beds. We’ve marked some of them out with pegs and string. And now we’ve dug the first one over.
What a lot of dandelion roots! This is bed 8. Not sure yet what its going to have in it.
It starts today! After roughly a year on the waiting list for Burley Model Allotments we’ve been invited inside and offered a plot. Plot number 119a is ours!
As might be expected, I hadn’t really got started on 2021 music for much of January. So instead, most of this mix is made up of a lot of new discoveries of old music, a few relistens (RIP DOOM) and just a couple of truly new tracks.
So here we go…
Attica Blues - Deeper starts us off. I love trip hop but its a bit before my time so I’ve never been very knowledgeable about it. Didn’t know Attica Blues at all until Gilles Peterson played them earlier this year.
Next up is a double bill of MF DOOM tracks to go with the sad news on NYE that he’d died last year. It’s hard to pick out specific tracks - I feel Doom works function much better as whole album that little snippets - but I’ve picked a couple anyway. First up is Viktor Vaughn - A Dead Mouse from the Vaudeville Villain album, one that I didn’t really know very well but listed to a lot in January. Followed by Madvillain - Figaro, a classic piece of one of his most loved albums.
I don’t know if its escapism from the grey cold weather or escapism from the grey cold lockdown but I’ve been listening to a lot of reggae lately, a lot of whch has come from David Rodigan’s excellent shown on BBC 1XTRA. So here’s a triple of reggae cuts. First up is The Loving Paupers - Enemy of History. They’re a contemporary New York band and their whole 2019 album, Lines, is great but this is my favourite track. After that’s its Macka B - Gentrification a brand new track I’ve enjoyed a lot and then Mafia & Fluxy - Horns of Jah Children, a lovely re-recording of a clasic tune.
By far the oldest track on this month’s playlist is Roberta Flack’s Compared To What. It’s another Gilles Peterson discovery that he played for its 60th anniversary and I just found myself singing over the following days.
Kruder & Dorfmeister brings us back to the 2020s, although it doesn’t sound like it. I didn’t really start listening to the dusty sounding beats on their 2020 album 1995 until the start of this year but its a firm favourite from start to finish. It’s a similar story with the next track from Four Tet - Parallel 4. Parallels came out right at the end of lasy year but I didn’t really get to it until the first couple of weeks of January. Great stuff.
The last pair up the ante a bit. We have the fab squelchy, bassy stomp of Danny Breaks’ - The Jellyfish, an early 2000s track I listened to on repeat this month (need to check out more Danny Breaks!) and then the only true 2021 album of the lot: from Isles we have Bicep - Saku. There was some serious hype around this album and it was well justified, the whole LP is incredible. A strong early contended for AOTY 2021!
There was some good music in 2020, so I’ve put together my list of ~40 albums. This is the ‘Club’ section - from full on disco to some proper techno.
Click here for the Spotify playlist of the lot!
Romare - Home - Gone
Beatrice Dillon - Workaround - Square Fifths
Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song - Melt!
Three fantastic albums from very different UK producers. All of these work as long-play albums in their own right.
Jupiter Jax - No Such Thing - Moods No Grooves
Shinichi Atobe - Yes - Yes
I don’t know very much about either of these, but both albums are great fun.
Horse Meat Disco - Jump Into The Light - Jump Into The Light - Aeroplane Remix
This album’s been a long time coming. Joyous stuff.
Georgia - Seeking Thrills - Tuff City Kids Remix (Edit)
Actually found the album a little disappointing but this single is big, and the remix even bigger.
Ellen Allien - Auraa - True Romantics
Damian Lazarus - Flourish - Into The Sun
Now we’re talking. Some of my favourite techno from this year.
Faithless - All Blessed - Synthesizer (feat. Nathan Ball)
New Faithless! No idea how this manages to be both totally cheesy and thrilling. Had the album on repeat for a week.
Luke Vibert - Luke Vibert presents Amen Andrews - Bad Boy Acid
Vibert dropped 3 monster releases back to back, covering breaks, rave and rave-hop. It’s all great.