Jive Time Turntable

Gary Numan “Dance” (1981, Beggars Banquet)

Dance is the first of Gary’s albums to divide his fanbase. Several other Numan LPs had a similar effect, including the jazz-inspired Warriors and the cinematic and over-the-top Berserker. Dance is an album that’s easy to hate on first listen due to its radical differences from earlier efforts Telekon and The Pleasure Principle; however, that is its biggest merit in my eyes. If an artist can consciously change their style and still produce an excellent album, that artist is good. And Gary Numan proved that to me with Dance.

The album immediately rejects typical album track sequence, kicking off with a nine-minute minimalist masterpiece that feels a fraction of its length, Slowcar to China. Japan’s Mick Karn features heavily on this track, his liquid-like fretless bass flowing free and easy over the drum machine backing and airy synths. The best is yet to come though, as a quiet drum machine signals the beginning of Cry, the Clock Said, a sublime minimalist ballad that clocks around at ten minutes long. I would even go so far as to call this masterpiece Gary Numan’s best ballad, perhaps matched only by The Pleasure Principle’s Complex. It builds up atmosphere at a leisurely pace, introducing airy, twinkly synths that whisper over the beat. Gary finally begins to sing five minutes in. The song is ambient, atmospheric and beautiful. The lyrics here are some of Gary’s best. They’re extremely different from the machine/sci-fi themes of loneliness and isolation seen in Gary’s earlier work, and it’s a welcome change. They’re by no means jollier though, Gary still sounds miserable. He creates an effective image of black-and-white streets, cafes, prostitutes, rustling newspapers and devious women. This provokes some of his most romantic lyrical moments (Cry, the Clock Said), along with his most cynical, tongue-in-cheek and misogynistic (She’s Got Claws).

Dance, simply put, is an essential purchase, a brilliant piece of avant-garde experimentation. It might not be conventional, it might not be immediate, it might have been commercially less successful due to its experimental style, but it’s possibly the most indispensable of all of Gary’s album, the one that proved that he was not just a one trick pony. Truly exquisite. —Dylan

Bags’ Groove

Reusable Jive Time Records record bags have arrived! They’re made of natural cotton canvas with a strap and feature our Space Needle tone-arm design silk-screened in black. Now you can shop for records, look super stylish doing it, all while saving the environment!

They’re available at the store now for only $9.99 (or spend $100.00 or more on merchandise and get a bag for free!) For those of you out of town, we’ll have them up on our web store soon!

Harold Budd & Brian Eno “The Pearl” (1984)

While their other masterpiece ‘Ambient 2 – Plateaux Of Mirror’ was serene, misty and transporting, ‘The Pearl’ turned all these factors up to ten. It really shows the pair’s mesmerizing ability for creating other-worldly, yet so beautifully earthy soundscapes. It never sounds pretentious or over-done, it’s all created with a superior sheen and their attention to detail (particularly on the part of Brian Eno’s electronics) which makes this a surprising, engulfing and thoroughly rewarding listen play after play. It never really gets old, as you can ignore it if you choose to and it will still have a glacial and absorbing effect on you. What is also intriguing is the sense of mystery that inhabits the tracks; the whole record is full of ghosts and soft breezes. The opener ‘Late October’ really demonstrates Eno and Budd’s skill at holding your attention, with its hypnotic piano melodies and whirring and wisping electronics. A great thing about this album is that neither of the two musicians are over-shadowed by the other; Budd’s piano is at the forefront, yes, but it wouldn’t be particularly effective without Eno’s production and sheer atmosphere that he does so well.

Proving once more that Eno seems to have something of a midas touch when it comes to music, ‘The Pearl’ is one of the most atmospheric records ever released. It clears your mind for thoughts of your own and takes you to places you’ve always wanted to see. It’s a record perched on those golden hours when the world around you is asleep and you are left to enjoy the silence. —Joe

Marine Girls “Lazy Ways” (1983)

The Marine Girls feature a young Tracey Thorne (soon of Everything but The Girl) and they make skeletal indie pop gems. This is their second LP and it’s made up of fourteen brief ditties with three Velvet Underground chords, elasticated bass riffs, the odd bit of percussive woodblock tapping, lyrics of lost love and sunshine and the mournful vocals of Thorne and co vocalist Jane Fox, who sings in a cheery breezy manner. They’re a wonderful contrast in vocal timbre and the twin vocals for ‘Falling Again’ are a delight. I’m a sucker for this femme twee pop fluff when it’s done right (which is rare). The Marine Girls are somewhere between The Young Marble Giants and Camera Obscura (*drool*). Every moment of this album is perfect for lounging about in the garden under the June sunshine with its melodic basslines crawling up your spine, or as Fox sings, “playing the perfect summer melody”. —Badlittlekitten

Kaleidoscope “Tangerine Dream” (1967)

Kaleidoscope’s Tangerine Dream is just about the most perfect example of fairy tale psychedelia. A technicolor gem produced at the exact moment British psychedelia went for a full on overkill of whimsy. Silly tweeness abounds, in fact the childlike lyricism is exclusively of the strawberry monkeys / candy forests variety. It’s up to you to decide if that’s a realm you’d be interested in visiting. If you are, you’ll stumble upon one of the prettiest records of the 60’s, one filled with exceedingly well written pop songs and some mildly medieval-esque balladry. It’s been quite some time since I’ve found such a scrumptious album, such delicious, cuddly cuteness.

Kaleidoscope themselves (not to be confused with the American Kaleidoscope) were quite the talented band, with their flair for composition and execution making the songs positively sparkle. Peter Daltrey’s sweet voice, Eddie Pumer’s exquisite guitars and the many little details sprayed across all shine. The band’s first single, “Flight From Ashiya” is the skyscraping tale of a doomed flight where “Captain Simpson seems to be in a daze, one minute high and the next minute low, nobody knows where we are”; “Sky Children” and its dragons, candy forests or porcupine captains add another candy coated layer to the cake, “In the Room of Percussion” recalls a Byrds’ rumination, albeit with the unByrdslike line of “My God, the spiders are everywhere”. “The Murder of Lewis Tollani” brings darker subject matter afloat and a trippy post chorus bit, “Please Excuse My Face” is both minimal and adorable. Plus the opener “Kaleidoscope”, with its precious harmonies and playful keys could be British psych’s theme song. Truly a treat.  —Johnny

“L” is a collection of perfectly crafted pop songs, with the rare quality of combining complex structures and progressions with familiarity and tunefulness. But saying “L” is some sort of easy-going pop album, reassuring, limpid and immediate would definitely be a mistification. Godley & Creme are the masters of cleverness and displacement, and there’s no song in “L” which does not evoke an impregnable sense of disorientation. The sophisticate nightclub/jazzy music structures are enshrouded of a detached and artefact allure, and some obscure deconstructionist element always crawls in the background making the songs subtly disturbing.

The style calls for mixed comparisons: from Queen at their most retro-sounding mellowness peak, to The Residents’s cynicism or Frank Zappa’s multi-instrumental intrications and Eno/Bowie/Fripp decadent atmosphere and sound. But I must admit none of these comparisons is actually able to describe the uniqueness of such a composite style, which despite all manages to keep light, cohesive and personal and – most of all – to produce memorable, ever-surprising songs. —Marco

Groove is in the Art Posters and Prints

This design, inspired by the graphics in our gallery Groove is in the Art, was originally created for our Tenth Anniversary. We’ve since removed our logo and made this popular design available in multiple colors, finishes and sizes in our Red Bubble store!

Red Bubble offers high-quality digital prints and posters; purchase them individually or pre-matted, mounted, laminated, framed, or even stretched on canvas! Visit the store›

Kate Bush “The Dreaming” (1982)

Here Kate Bush graduates from quirky teenage musical prodigy to full-fledged artiste. I think it speaks volumes about this strange and wonderful album that the lead-off single was the wonderfully un-commercial “Sat in Your Lap,” a heady stew of thundering Burundi drums, horn punctuations, and Kate wailing away like a madwoman on the nature of knowledge. EMI Records execs probably wet their pants when they heard it! In fact, I’m surprised this album got a major-label release at all, at least in this form!

Even the more “normal” songs on this release (“There Goes a Tenner,” the jaunty “Suspended in Gaffa,” the Celtic folk-lilting of “Night of the Swallow”) have a certain something that renders them deeply “odd.” Or perhaps its just the proximity of the other songs that’s colouring my perception: witness “Leave It Open” with its Chipmunk backing vocals or “Get Out of My House” with its angry ranting and donkey braying. This is almost Kate’s version of John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band, her own personal primal-scream therapy swathed in digital electronics as a sort of purging of her early precocious piano-maiden persona. This is the next step beyond Nina Hagen’s West German albums, and is one of the most eye-popping musical statements [of all-time]. A vital release. —Progbear

Tortoise “Standards” (2001)

On their fourth album, Chicago post-rock godheads Tortoise continue to drift away from the stark musical academia of their mid-90s work and into brighter, (dare I say?) groovier territory. You can’t quite dance to Standards, but you can certainly get a lot closer than with any of Tortoise’s previous works, thanks to the newfound focus on upbeat rhythms, cool basslines and immediate percussion. If TNT was Tortoise’s jazz album, then this would have to be their funk album, if such a thing is even possible. Between those two albums they’ve evolved down a very smart path, though, as attempting to recapture the minimalist beauty of their first two albums would’ve been awfully difficult. By developing in this manner, Tortoise retain all the fascinating intricacies that have made their previous albums a joy to deconstruct, while revitalizing their sound and pushing them into accessible, effortlessly listenable territory more so than ever before. —Tommo

Gilberto Gil & Jorge Ben “Ogum Xangô” (1975)

This has got to be one of the most engaging and enjoyable displays of totally unrestrained musicianship I’ve ever heard. Jorge and Gil’s chemistry is seamless, yet their vocal and instrumental skills remain distinct and identifiable. The album is a terrific, relaxed affair, and the songs have a continuously rolling, improvvy feel about them, driven by bouncy, rhythmic guitar lines that eventually loop into hypnotic grooves and some extremely dynamic dual vocals, all of which remains surprisingly tight throughout. Jorge might take the lead on one song, Gil playfully trailing his vocals and throwing in some little guitar-tricks for embellishment, only to have the baton passed across, the two switching roles in a manner that’s quite selfless and democratic. The decision to record Gil primarily in one channel and Jorge in the other (perhaps just on the remaster?) was a stroke of genius, as it provides a slight buffer between the two which allows each of their contributions to be heard without any obfuscation, not to mention that it makes listening to Ogum Xangô on headphones feel a lot like you’re sitting in the middle of one of the most productive jam sessions of all time. The talent on display here is simply incredible. —Tommo

Magic Carpet “Magic Carpet” (1972)

Mindblowing UK raga-psych that has all the right moves: Warm, stoned and fuzzy guitars, gentle tabla, soft acoustic passages, blissed-out sitar lines and simply wonderful female vocals. I cannot overstate how full-on psych this record is. From the opening lines of “The Phoenix” to the fade out of the final ‘trance’ raga, this one is a synapse burner. Totally far out, and gorgeous, too. Track it down if you are even remotely interested in Eastern folkpsych, you’ll be thrilled with it. —Chad

Fugazi “Fugazi” (1988)

Including members of DC-hardcore originators Minor Threat and Rites of Spring, Fugazi achieve an inspired blend of punk fury, hard rock riffs, and deft instrumental interplay coupled to righteous lyrical content on this, their seven song debut EP. The songs’ big, chant-along choruses (see fan favorite “Waiting Room”) are infectious, the bobbing rhythms of bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty pointed and propulsive, while providing a fluid center around which guitarist Ian MacKaye unleashes razor sharp scrapes and howls from his SG. On this release, MacKaye swaps vocals with Guy Picciotto (not yet playing guitar), giving the band two distinctly different yet equally passionate frontmen. Favorites here include the aforementioned “Waiting Room,” reggae inspired “Suggestion,” and driving “Bulldog Front.” —Ben