ILWTT.05(55) “Stay Hopeful”: A 555 Recordings Compilation

It appears that most of our “fantasy label compilation” posts have received literally no hits at all, so this exercise in talking to ourselves out-does even our usual posts for pointlessness supreme. That hasn’t made it any less enjoyable to re-listen to all these records though, nor (of course) will it deflect us from carrying on REGARDLESS. In yer face, popularity.

We’ve written warm words before on our debt to 555 Recordings of Leeds, then Philly, then Flagstaff, the label that effortlessly blended laid-back quiet-fi gems with chaotic glitch, punky guitar blasts with chilled-out electronica; yet perhaps only when re-listening to dozens of their releases for the purposes of this exercise did we really appreciate the impressive depth of the 555 catalogue. In terms of trying to narrow the field down to 20+ favourite artists, this proved even harder than the Factory primer, and a reminder of how easily 555 helped to feel the gaping hole left in the post-Sarah wilderness: we remember at one point comparing Shinkansen fairly unfavourably with 555, and feeling (then as now) quite guilty about doing so, but from this distance one can’t but help feel we were right.

No apologies for the fact that many of the tracks we’ve chosen are taken from 555’s various stellar compilation albums. It was always a particular joy to listen to their eclectic roster in a way that actively forced you to change genre every few minutes. (We’ve tried to recreate that sensation a little here). “These Are Testing Times”, “You Gotta Get More Alive”, “Knowing We Was Right From Da Start”, “555CD55” (yep, 55 songs by 55 bands) and the remix comp “Chihuahuas and Chinese Noodles” (another great thing about 555 was that they recognised the transformative power of the remix, and embraced it fully) are five of the finest label compilations ever; but there were other, such as the considerably great more recent K7-only compilation, “Your Cassette Pet”.

Um, we should probably explain the title. We very nearly christened this one “Bitterness Is The New Tenderness” (a lyric from one of Kyoko’s songs for the label which characterised some, if not all, of the music on it) but in the end went with something a little more positive. The way that Stewart recounts it is that when he went to see McCarthy as a mere stripling, Malcolm Eden signed Stewart’s copy of “Frans Hals” with the legend “Stay hopeful”, and that strikes us as an equally decent motto for 555 and, indeed, for life in general. By happy coincidence we should also take this opportunity to recommend “Vote Malcolm Eden”, by A New Line (Related), the latest nom de plume of one Andrew Johnson (ex- Hood, Famous Boyfriend) who has of course himself appeared on a few 555 releases: whilst sounding not the slightest bit like McCarthy, it’s definitely worth a hearing or ten.

* * * * *

1. Boyracer “Sarah and Sarah”

It’s right to start with Boyracer, at the heart of 555 as so much else, and although we seriously toyed with “Wingtips”, the punchy and sassy opener to their later “Flickering B&W” album, we ended up going with this kick-off track from their 2003 ‘comeback’ outing “To Get A Better Hold You’ve Got To Loosen Yr Grip” (not least because it helped free up another minute or so on the track times). “Sarah and Sarah” is prime Racer; 70 tangled seconds of feverish, fervent, febrile emotion, urged along by unforgiving guitars. It perfectly bridged the gap between the band’s first and second heydays (it could have fitted smartly enough on their “Racer 100” EP) and helps to explain why, around this time, we felt it necessary to christen the band “prefects of the punk-pop perfect”.

2. Empress "Skills Unknown"

Whereas, by way of contrast…

Making slow music that *works* is incredibly hard, we think. Or, to put it more accurately, making slow music for people like us - who have the attention span of a sieve and find sedate strums & lazy atmospherics extremely boring and far too ‘easy’ – is incredibly hard. Yet 555 showcased a number of combos who perfected the art. Empress were one, and we’ll come on to others later.

The original Empress line-up was also one of Boyracer’s ‘90s line-ups, but you could simply never guess that from the otherworldly, plangent Empress sound: putting Nicola Hodgkinson’s vocal to the fore, Empress were high tea on the verandah compared to Boyracer’s fizzy lager in the basement. The mysterious “Skills Unknown”, from their second single, epitomises their soft-as-snow - yet slightly sinister - gossamer sound.

3. Lunchbox “Letter From Overend”

And so we move to the first contribution from 555’s extensive US-based stable. “Letter From Overend” is that relatively rare thing on 555, a glorious out-and-out summery pop song (pretty much), which pounds along with guitars and brass and a kind of harmonic, throwback interlude in the middle which sounds delicious, a little likethe Saturday People or something. It should have been an A-side, but instead it’s the proud opener to their 7-track mini-LP “Summer’s Over”, with the only 555 sleeve that uses London Transport font. (Obscure cover version fans should also seek out Lunchbox’s gloriously chiming version of the Flatmates’ “You’re Gonna Cry”, on Mobstar’s “Hopping On The West Coast” compilation).

Stop press: apparently Lunchbox have just reformed, with an LP on the way!

4. Hood “As Evening Changed The Day (Hood Remix)”

Hood. Obviously, and forever.

The first ever release on 555 was a seven track 7” by team Hood, in black and white paper sleeve, called “Lee Faust’s Million Piece Orchestra”. It opened with the 40 seconds of scrawny, lo-fi nervous tension they christened “Biochemistry Revision Can Wait”. This was clearly a band after my own heart, but much as we loved that first 45 (which also contained our comp tape fave “Dismissed Army Brought Us Knives”), it was *rough*. Incidentally, Record Collector tells us there were 1,000 copies, which nowadays would seem like a big pressing…

By the time of this track though, a remix for the “You Gotta Get More Alive” compilation of the B-side of their “Filmed Initiative” 7” on Happy-Go-Lucky, Hood had embarked on the journey that would, eventually, make them the best band in the world (almost instantaneously on reaching that peak, they of course went and split up). This is a blissful, echo-splintered instrumental jewel from the “Spofforth Hill galacticos”, as we later dubbed them (pun intended).

5. Bit Shifter “The Connector Conspiracy”

This is ‘chiptune’, apparently: playful instrumental 8-bit melodies spread improbably over a full album of glowing neon post-Atari mayhem called, inevitably, “Life’s A Bit Shifter”. This, at 3 minutes just about the longest track on it, is light, airy and somehow makes complete sense: a little like the equally free-spirited Printed Circuit (q.v), just transplanted to somewhat less versatile technology.

6. Cheap Red “The Hurt On Her”

Cheap Red are Jen + Stew (again) plus Akina + Arland (Kanda) and “The Hurt On Her”, with its urgent strings and message of tough love, may be the finest moment from Cheap Red’s sole, self-titled long-player, one that sadly failed to perturb the scorers. We had a dalliance with including theDJ Downfall’s excellent Giallo version here, which combined the full lyric with a bolted-on Europop reboot (the album came value-added with a remix CD featuring several of the usual suspects) but in order to fit on all the other songs here, we’ve stuck with the original, and its ever-perceptive, razor-sharp words (“if you push the point, I’ll tell you / she needed more than you were capable of…”)

7. Other People’s Children “Delete Control”

Oh my. Talk about slept-on. Australia got plenty of look-ins to the 555 roster, via the likes oft he Cannanes, Fog & Ocean, Huon (of whom more…) and the “Empress Hotel” compilation, but OPC (aka Nicole Lowrey and Jason Sweeney) launched themselves to the toppermost boughs of the tree with “Delete. Control. Escape”, a collection of some of their finer moments on a frankly to-die-for CD. “Delete Control” itself is just one of half-a-dozen tracks that are stunningly nr-perfect, as strong even as the best moments of Sweeney’s Simpatico project. The songs here, largely eschewing the guitars that provided the undertow to Simpatico’s brittle if always electro-tinged indiepop, play off tales of human weakness against machine-curated soundscapes as well as anyone has managed these last few decades.

8. The Bright Lights “Marissa’s Song”

The Bright Lights were a true force of nature. They obviously listened to Boyracer’s fightingly fleeting, desperately romantic, helter-skelter high-tempo pop songs and thought “hmmm… we’ll try that, but even faster, and even rougher”. What this means is that the songs on their LPs “The Bright Lights” and “Drunker Than You Since ‘002” sound at constant risk of collapsing in on themselves: they combine brilliant melodies and raucous NOISE with complete frailty (try “The Edge Of Indifference”, which we nearly picked). But we’ve selected this excellent tune in part for memories of what it represented: the first track on their first release, it started in raw mono and even when it flicked into stereo, the roughness was striking (and is still very effective).

9. Printed Circuit “untitled”

We’ll tread carefully because this unlisted bonus track on Claire Broadley’s “Acrobotics” EP does rather reek of, how can we put this… copyright infringement. It’s a clandestine Brikolage remix of “Chevron”, freely sampling a certain esteemed UK MC (well, esteemed by us and a few of our vintage; he was hardly a household name) over Printed Circuit’s ever-engaging cut and paste robotics. Or, as we put it at the time,“a sweet bootleg in which a ragga narcissist faces the wrath of ms broadley's full armoury of circuitry.”

Bootleg or not, this is completely brilliant and if they’d ever been able to afford to clear the samples and employ a few pluggers we’d like to think this could have been 555’s smash hit single, the Top of the Pops moment which every great label really deserves. Claire notes darkly on her website that“many copies were destroyed (against my wishes)”, which of course would have reduced any fantasy of chartdom still further.

10. Hulaboy “Quirk Pop Sloganeer”

Hulaboy = Eric (Hula Hoop) + Stewart (Boyracer). As a duo, they’re wrongly overlooked, as proven by recent releases like “Fuck You, We Love Us”.

“Quirk Pop Sloganeer” comes from their “Olympic Krush On The Hulaboy” set, and we think it’s as good as anything they’ve ever done (yup, right up there with that LP’s opener “When Owls Cry”, or the fabulous “The English Mindset” from their split LP with the now-prized Tunabunny). It tells the tale of how Stewart and an unnamed rival from a fellow small town band – whose paths crossed early on, in gigs in local dives - have navigated their largely off-the-radar musical careers, and it carefully alternates bitterness and real pathos. Our best guess was always that the song might be about Pete Dale: we’re happy to be corrected, but we did spot that the montage on 555’s “Wetherbeat Scene” CD proves that Boyracer shared a bill with Razorblade Smile many years ago...

11. Steward “The Last Wasps Of Summer (Downpour remix)”

12. Downpour “How The West Was Wrong”

Stewart Anderson’s solo, electro-tinged venture Steward was a fixture of those halcyon early years of 555, before Boyracer were re-formed/exhumed, and he created plenty to savour in that guise (not least an excellent LP of remixes for Blackbean & Placenta called “I Was The Only Boy On The Netball Team”). His wonderful “The Last Wasps Of Summer” 7” single was sadly released on Orgasm Records of France, meaning we can’t include it here, but luckily this remix, the B-side to it, also appeared on 555 as part of the “Goodbye To Everything You Love” CD; as well as gracing the track list of “Chinese Noodles”.

Whereas the A-side was carefully-paced, an assured mix of crisp electronic beats, weaved guitar, angst-filled vocals and brooding feedback, the Downpour version is an all-out assault, starting softly but soon exploding into mad-skillz D&B-style chaos like nobody’s business. This is all the more remarkable when one considers how understated was Downpour’s own, excellent bright pink vinyl 4-track 7” for the label, “Don’t Go Breaking My Art”. Or, indeed, how minimal is Downpour’s ambient gem “How The West Was Wrong”, laid-back horizontal atmospherics that couldn’t be further from the Scythian fury that envelops his remix of “Last Wasps” (oh, and we’d actually forgotten until recently, but mention now should you need any further excuse to seek out his stuff, that Downpour was none other than Chris Adams, of Hood and later Bracken).

13. Kyoko “P.E.T.S”

“Kyoko continue to seep almost unnoticed out of speakers…”

Andrew Jarrett’s Kyoko landed on planet 555 with their album “Co-incidental music”, as quietly stunning as their other releases, and “P.E.T.S” was the furthest they came from their shell – “gangly, late night… the sugargliders lounging at 33 rpm…” - although there are terrific songs elsewhere on the LP, not least “Boats”, “Reality Dawns On A Second Rate Sit-com Actor” and “Better Days! Coming Now!” You should also really try to delve within their mysterious, but wonderful “t.a.m.s”, a contribution to “You Gotta Get More Alive”.

14. Famous Boyfriend “We’re All Pretty Much Failures”

Oh, we werevery obsessed with FB awhile, marvelling as they “mutated from perfect post-Brighter indie (“We’re All Pretty Much Failures”) through basic skewed Steward-by-numbers (“The Last Drink Makes Me”) to their instrumental reincarnation as the Remote Viewer (witness the breakbeat-with-a-heart of “We Do What We Can”).”

Nor could you fault anyone able to release an LP called “Making Love All Night Wrong” (unfathomably limited to 120 copies), even if it was their first, self-titled album that leapt closest to our heart and prompted us to perhaps our most accurate assessment of their ouevre:

“the famous boyfriend wrote songs about being sorry for oneself, messing up relationships and opportunities, often through saying the wrong things and drinking too much of the right things....”

Anyway, “We’re All Pretty Much Failures” was the first time we heard them and much as they went on to be more sculpted and more refined, it remains as cherishably raw to this day.

15. Figurine “Connections”

Similar to, but indisputably better than, a hundred American combos that later made it “big” – and probably damned by being ahead of their time – Figurine dealt in cleverly-constructed electronic pop, topped off with aloof vocals yet somehow harking back to the ‘80s heyday of synthpop just as much as sounding like a platform to an intrigue-filled future. The “Discards” EP saw them reassembling cast-off beats by Isan, Rechenzentrum etc into new tunes, one of which is this charming ode to a lover so behind the times that (s)he’s still on a dial-up connection.

16. Mytty Archer “Grudge Like A Gun”

Our memory is that Mytty Archer’s long player “If I Had A Shovel” was passed over by labels who ought to have known better, meaning that in the end that this strong, confident, melodic album snuck out on 555. In a different time, this song in particular could have been a real indie hit: Jen Turrell’s soft vocals cross a spacey landscape of bass and background distortion, singing a song of quiet regret which memorably blossoms, just the once, into a Breeders-esque wall of sound before seductively swirling back into its original form.

17. Jean Bach “Furuftuta's Theme (Melodie Und Schlag Mix by Accelera Deck)”

18. Accelera Deck “Untitled (Remote Viewer remix)”

19. The Remote Viewer “All Of The Wckwc Want To Be Abstract (Third Eye Foundation remix)”

Sit back, rock back a glass of your off-licence’s most expensive bottle of wine and enjoy a chilled yet rewarding quarter of an hour as the baton changes hands, with Accelera Deck remixing Jean Bach, the Remote Viewer doing the honours for Accelera Deck and Third Eye Foundation erm, ‘obliging’ the Remote Viewer…

We have a couple of records at home by one Sascha Schierloh, aka Jean Bach. One is an unassumingly-clad 7” EP, “Jean Sans Le Playback”, obtained from Selectadisc in our younger days; the other an extraordinary, hour-long 20-track creation, “Smugglers Downloading Genoveva DMS Tapes”. Sometimes, it seemed like every act signed to 555 were a subgenre in themselves: with Jean, it could feel like every single track invented a new subgenre. The album, in particular, is a mostly brilliant if occasionally enervating construct which pools caustic IDM with, samples, mellowness, dancebeats, grinding noise, glitch and the kitchen sink. In doing so it yields several moments of near-genius, and we’d particularly commend the run of songs that starts with the gnawing, nagging, ironically-named centrepiece “Hitmix (Zeit Fur Zartichleit)”, as RMXd by Taciturne, and then spans the poptoned optimism of “We Won’t Contribute (Vermeintlicher UFO-Spuk Zerrüttelt Die Gemeinde)”, the relaxed beckon of “Falling Into Atmosphere (Tante Extra Markt Mix)“ and the instant, half-minute, “Colder Than Ice”.

But *as well* as those two fine records there was also this Accelera Deck remix from “Chinese Noodles”, the absolutely elegant “Furuftuta's Theme (Melodie Und Schlag Mix)” and while “Theme” is very far from the neo-industrial chaos of his shoutier moments, it’s a rather beautiful composition. Which seems entirely appropriate: he is a J. Bach, after all.

Accelera Deck was Chris Jeely, and 555 licensed his “Conviction & Crack” LP, turning it from a CD-r into vinyl, as well as showing off some guest AD tracks on label samplers. His “untitled” gets a sleek from the get-go, gently repetitive spin cycle from post-Famous Boyfriend electronic venturers the Remote Viewer.

As to the Remote Viewer’s own composition, “Wckwc” apparently stands for “West Coast Kids With Computers”, but we enjoyed this song for well over a decade without knowing that, which made its title at the time nearly as intriguing as the sounds within. The Remote Viewer weren’t always at their best in their early, 555 days (we’d still maintain that there are only a couple of truly top-drawer tracks on their eponymous first album) but this layered electronic gem, suffused with acoustic guitar, was much more like it, and a hint – thanks in part to the oh-so capable hands of Matt Elliott in his Third Eye Foundation guise - at the glories they would later ease to on albums for City Centre Offices et al.

20. Halkyn “Norway”

Ah, the mysterious Halkyn,“honey-scented welsh minimalists” who “shone a flickery flame for bedroom acoustic angst, post-homework no doubt” and delivered up two wonderful 7” EPs, five years apart, of nervy, sleepy shyness which went almost entirely unappreciated by the population of this globe: this number led off their first 45, “Behind The Snow”, whilst the later 10-tracker “Winterhill”, was“a spindly, echoey, ssshhh-fi ten-track delight - albeit so subtle at times as to be almost invisible”. “Norway” is one of Chris Coyle’s more ‘formed’ songs, but still impossibly delicate, incredibly beautiful. His exclusive contribution to one of the 555 comps – “I Tried So Hard, But I Was Already Mistaken” – is another 24-carat tearjerker.

21. Father “Now I’ve Changed My Minder (Hood remix)"

There were relatively few noisy guitar bands on 555: p’raps only Boyracer, the Bright Lights and early local signing Father, who made an eccentric and impressively shouty racket on songs like “Dancing Major”. This remix combines playful Hood junglistics with Father’s urgent, trebly guitar essence, and is a *must* for playing to all your mates from the “that’s not music, that’s just noise” camp who keep trying to tell you that Ellie Goulding, or some such nonsense, is now where you should be at.

22. Huon “Hung Up Over Night”

Mellow, slow-burning, beauteous title track by Melburnian musical mafia members Andrew Withycombe, David Nichols and Mia Schoen. Much of the album is loose, experimental and intimate, with low bass, deep voice, indie-rock stylings overlaid by moments of electronic whimsy; the brilliant “C86” is a particularly poignant record of time spent living in London bedsit land. But “Hung Up Over Night” the song is more focused than the bulk of the LP, a carefully-crafted mid-to slow paced popsong acrostic which dovetails Mia’s extra vocal with a lilting beat and some beautiful, subtle brass.

23. Saucer “untitled” [LP track 5]

As we revealed here, Saucer’s music gradually revealed its greatness to us over a long period, so it seems fully appropriate that we should close with this perfect example of how the gift of 555 still keeps giving.

* * * * *

Ok, ok. Not everything issued on 555 was beyond reproach: it’s a long time since the Joan of Ass 10” has strayed anywhere near our turntable, for example. However, the hit-rate was still shockingly good, with so many other things we’d have *loved* to shoehorn in to this compilation had space allowed…Joshua Treble, the mysterious Error- Cancel.BOTS (“Chinese Noodles”, track ten: we still have no clue who or what that was), Kid 606’s “Temptation”, the Cannanes helping out Steward and wowing us with “Hey! Leopard”, slinky-sounding French duo Transbeauce, Amber#2 (who we managed to describe as “a Belgian REM, except good”), the punkish garage rock of Tricia Yates Fanclub and the (Nervous) Rex, arch madster 6955, Clohydris Diepholz (a Jean Bach prototype of some kind), Fingernail, Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers, Cex, Kanda, Peel favourites New Bad Things, huge swathes of 555CD55 (the Lucksmiths, Seaworthy, Caravanette)… the list stretches on, from the lanes of Wetherby to the Arizona sands.

So. Stewart - and your many compadres, your true friends who were golden - we salute your legacy.

Saucer

Some bands are just unsung. Wrongly, criminally so. 555 had many such bands, but over the years we’ve tried at least to tell you how much a few of them meant to us (and still do): not only the justly celebrated Boyracer and the sainted Hood but also the likes of Downpour, Halkyn, Empress, Famous Boyfriend... we reserve the right to come back to all of them. But Saucer are a combo that we never got round to praising, possibly even mentioning. In this, we were severely remiss.

Their album, 555CD25, then. "Saucer" by Saucer. A completely overlooked but v. rewarding 2001 outing from the mysterious and muchly-instrumental quiet-fi trio. Think stretched-out Empress or Halkyn, with a touch of the Wedding Present at their very quietest: they could have been the north’s answer to Kyoko. Seven tracks, none with titles: they can be identified only by song length (Empress did something similar). It's a work of understated brilliance.

The first minute and a half consists of nothing more than looped birdsong, before the 'signature' Saucer sound - a lone electric guitar, but played *quietly* - gradually intrudes. Not unlike Halkyn's wisping string-scapes, but drawn out. No other elements are added: no bass, no percussion, no keyboards, no voice. Six minutes of atmosphere. The second song "builds" - gently - and a vocal appears for the first time. A little boy lost. The electric guitar, still played quietly, delicately frames the shapes it needs to. There's the tiniest hint of the Wedding Present's most fragile new-century moments: but whereas those oases of near-silence invariably explode into noise, these sounds stay warm, intimate, tender. The third song, by Saucer standards, almost feels like "full orchestra": there are drums! And a female backing vocal! But then, through it all, there are those crystalline electric guitars again, weaving away, never in danger of rocking out.

The fourth song recognises that things got a bit overblown: we are back to a single sound, an electric guitar, picked not strummed, plucking a certain sadness from the night air. The fifth song goes back to still, clipped pulses, wantaway vocals and girl backing vocals - "this makes me nervous", they sing - as if Empress specialised in six minute songs rather than one minute ones. Eventually, the drums intrude once more. As for ‘song six’, it's a breakthrough: the guitars finally rise up and strum, as they’d been threatening too all album, a Gedgetastic-ish wall of noise that subsides, then rises again one long verse later.

Oh, and then there’s… track seven. But we’ll save that for another day.

There are a couple of Saucer tracks on 555 compilations, too (another reason that label was frankly so ace) although, disappointingly, they seem to have titles. "Barney" is an instrumental that, like that sixth track on the LP, flares occasionally into distracting, errant guitar noise: it's great, but the trouble with the noisy parts is that they distract you from the fact you're listening to tremblingly beauteous songs, and make you half-feel you're listening to Weddoes instrumentals. And then there’s “I Miss You So”, a tiny nugget of melancholy on “555CD55”, sadness cut and pasted from the blinking and the teardrops of “Saucer” the album.

So what do we know about Saucer ? We would have sworn they were a solo project, given that most of the songs are laced so sparsely with instrumentation, and the virtual impossibility when you get any number of musicians in a room together that they won't instantly try and drown each other out, but apparently they were a trio (from - of course - West Yorkshire, which hardly rules out links with other 555 alumni). At our local Ladbrokes, the smart money is that Darren Belk (once of the Wedding Present) might have been involved.

The irony is that there are probably other records we raved about in 2001, but that which we've hardly listened to since. Yet "Saucer" is something that we're still loving, still feeling, more than a decade on. Hopefully all of the happy few who own this record feel just the same.

555, you helped us get more alive

If you were a City lawyer with underground indiepop leanings in the late 1990s and early 2000s (in our experience not a terrifically oversubscribed club) then Tower Records on Piccadilly Circus was your new best friend (replacing all your conventional human friends, who still had lives but who you never saw any more). Not only did the store open until midnight - meaning that you could wander in there even if you didn't get out of the office until 10 or 11 in the evening, which was hardly uncommon then (as those of you who often saw us wander into gigs in full whistle and flute, usually just as the last chord rang out, will testify), or allowing you to salvage a corporate night out in the West End (usually full of unbearable private school braying and showboating in extremely terrible bars) by ducking out at closing time and sneaking down Regent Street to said record mecca - but it also had a comprehensive and up-to-date selection of v. obscure indieness. In particular, Tower Records seemed to have everything released on 555 Recordings. Many an otherwise unsatisfactory evening for this downcast, downtrodden twentysomething was therefore leavened mightily by being able to pounce on a new 7" or CD on the way home, and play them within the hour. Remember, this was in the days before you could just pay for and download music at will: indeed, purchasing records outside of office hours still felt both a privilege and a novelty. (The privilege now denied us, of course, is buying great records on small indie labels from actual shops, let alone chainstore megastores like Tower).

This mattered even more because 555 Recordings (first of Leeds, then Philadelphia, and late of Arizona) is one of the best labels of the last twenty years: as they themselves have it, they've been "banging our heads against the wall with conviction and style since 1995". You would have struggled to find enough love for them in the inkies, but 555 had a terrific roster and doled out a generous acreage of compilations, one-offs and genuinely classic singles / albums that spanned indiepop, experimental, electronica and ambient (often all at once). The factor that united all of these things was the talentspotting nous of all-round hero of ours Stewart Anderson, a man who always had an uncanny gift of being friends with most of the people in the world who were making great music at any particular time.

It did no harm that 555 could therefore call on the services of Stewart himself, including post-Sarah incarnations of the peerless Boyracer (see the opening archive reviews below) and his massively underrated solo work as Steward (*so* much you should check of that, but how about Cex's remix of "This Land Is Nervous" or the brilliant "The Last Wasps Of Summer", a single not actually on 555 but on kindred spirit Orgasm Records of France, frequent collaborators with several of our favourite Leeds-connection artists). Mr Anderson's schooldays links with fellow Spofforth Hill galacticos Hood - later documented in the marvellous Wetherbeat Scene package on 555 - also meant that that band, and glorious Hood-related projects such as the wonderful Famous Boyfriend, featured prominently on the release schedule.

555 continued to furnish some wonderful records in more recent, post-Tower Records years - "Your Cassette Pet" was a typical compilation flourish, while "Flickering B&W" was one of many examples of Boyracer's unfading charms.

But this post is really about an earlier phase of 555's history, and of our own history. As we approach retirement from this game, we wish that we had time to say more about all the ways that 555 touched us in those often difficult years, beyond inspiring us to write about many of their records at the time. But all we can do now is say that this post - and some extracts below from what we did write, tired but happy and at home, after those forays to Piccadilly Circus - are here to pay tribute to a label, and a label boss, who inspired us and helped us and made us stay young and angry and aware when the world was trying to make us old and jaded and complacent.

* * * * *

boyracer "boyfuckingracer" (555)

well at last. in terms of wall to wall quality, a compilation that is up there with the field mice's "where'd you kiss that way", big flame's "rigour", "this is heavenly" or even the smiths' "singles": full of songs we have loved to and lost to and drunk to and sung along to.

kicking off with "he gets me so hard" is not really fair on any other records released this year as that song, in 2 1/2 minutes, uses the medium of pop (hard, fast and beautiful and noisy but pop all the same) to storm every possible barricade. it was the moment that sarah records finally completed the journey to the punk ethic that they had always not-so-secretly coveted... the whole song is like riding a massive wave, from the taut bass intro through the boy/girl vocal collision to the last 20 or seconds of pure chaos, in which the cumulative effect of the frantic drumming and the earsplitting guitars is to stab you through the heart, not unlike the wonderful feedback romance of "you trip me up". definitely one of the most compelling love songs of the 20th century.

we'll all play the game of tracks we would have included that they haven't... my choices are "jesus suzanne christ", "no fuel", "david byrne", "doorframe" (a particularly gaping omission), "your dark secrets", "michael", "boyracer" (gaping to the point of unforgivable), "two", "boxing day"... but the whole point of that game is to demonstrate how brilliant boyracer were, in that 33 great tracks merely scratches the surface of their prolific, unstable, erratic and above all magnificent back catalogue. to prove the point, consider a mere handful of the tracks featured: "i've got it and it's not worth having", the top tune from the splendid "B is for Boyracer" set on sarah; "your secret desires", best of the superb "Racer 100" five-tracker; "west riding house" and "meadowhall", breakneck joyrides through the streets of west yorkshire; "friend", the acoustic tearjerking dalliance ("situations that suck... everything is shit... but when you need a friend, i'll be there") with even as we speak (but really, what's with the banjo ?) and tucked away as track 28 and justifying even the length of this sentence, the behemoth of a cover version that takes even as we speak's classic pop-pourri "one step forward" and transforms it into a massive, massive lo-fi distortion festival without losing any of the original's playful charm. godlike.

being able to cram verses, choruses and instrumentals galore into songs that frequently only just make the one minute mark is a gift that we haven't witnessed since the more one dimensional days of the rosehips. as with most truly great bands, the thing that lifts boyracer into the top drawer, however, is lyrics that were both original and easy to identify with, combining the ache of distant romance with the immediacy of english angst.

and to close ? a short, romantic interlude, recorded on a dictaphone. it's called "in love with these times". and it, not any other work of the same name, is why we are called what we are.

* * * * *

boyracer "to get a better hold you've got to loosen yr grip" (555)

ok. now the reformation of any once-quality combo is beset with dangers. symptoms in reviewers include wary expectation, eager anticipation, and in the case of returns of original punk icons, something akin to primal fear (mixed with a soupçon of cringing embarrassment). however, boyracer's new album is their most coherent work: they had after all been getting pretty close to the modern epitome of punk/pop fusion in the non-experimental half of their "in full colour" set before they kind of fizzled out with the unobtrusive "perfect tense" 7" in 1997. now that's been exposed as a false ending, the boy racer (stewart anderson aka steward) has decided to resurrect the group, with wife jen turrell on bass, and ara hacopian (lately the 5th member of the saturday people, we seem to recall) providing the extra layer of guitar on more raucous numbers.

to those of you who never really bought into the boyracer thing - possibly you remember their early flexis, and recall wondering what the hell they were doing signing to sarah, before you kind of got distracted by britpop or something - well for us, boyracer cemented their reputation with the sarah a sides "i've got it and it's not worth having" and "he gets me so hard", but their main attraction to us has always been that they had something to say (largely on the personal / political level), and they were prepared to say it with feedback. we guess it was possibly wire who first realised, with "pink flag", that there wasn't much point in playing songs that lasted 3 minutes unless you had 3 minutes' worth to say - best just dive in, say what you gotta say and wind proceedings up pretty smartly, and if you do that in 70 or 80 seconds, as boyracer often do, so much the better. it's a market in which boyracer have traded admirably with past classix like "small consolation", "west riding house" and "your secret desires", and there are plenty of golden nods to that tradition here in standouts like "sarah and sarah", "temper" (the alternate take at #21 being even better), "tell me where my hands should go" (an exemplary lust song) and "nostalgic for a time i hardly remember", during which not only does the phone appear to ring, but i'm damn sure that this time the screech at the end isn't feedback, but the sound of a kettle boiling. there's also a new and improved version of "razor", originally previewed on "boyfuckingracer". all the songs gleefully run into each other, too, one scratchy thrash bumper-to-bumper pranging into the next - no respectful radio 3 silences here.

"i lost a day / but gained so much more..."

there are a few necessary deviations from the boyracer formula, although none of the famous boyfriend collaborative experiments that perhaps unsettled the flow of "in full colour". of these, track 10 is the best answer phone track since the beatnik filmstars' "phone kids": let's just say it has the desired effect. and former b.f. andrew jarrett is indeed in the area, responsible for recording some of these tiny gems onto 8-track. occasional guitarist and "classic line up" member matt green also plays on his own composition, "matty's untitled song" (shades of "billy's third" ?) which does enough in its 45 seconds to keep his forthcoming solo album (as "the tall boy", in which guise he's already impressed us) firmly in mind. and there are a trio of covers to provide (a little) tone and contrast - the primitives' "nothing left" is done in fine style, with jen turrell's vocal recalling the cuteness of early tracy tracy; the marine girls' "in love" (such a shame when you think of tracey thorn now that aberration "missing" always sees to lodge in mind) is charmingly rendered, the best part being in the chorus with stewart saying "i hear you're..." and then as the guitar really kickstarts he adds / yelps "IN LOVE!!" - it's faithful to the childlike allure of the original. "come out 2 nite" is more an affectionate interpretation, not really being a patch on the original but at least reminding us how kenickie's potential was never realised... these cover versions, tending as they do to (gasp!) exceed the two-minute mark, seem quite epic, surrounded as they are by boyracer's homegrown short sharp shocks.

it's always a factor that stewart's lovelife - or at least certain episodes from it - is now an open canvas thanks to previous recorded confessionals. while this doesn't put boyracer quite in the league of j-lo, cris judd and puff daddy - thank goodness - like so many of those field mice and trembling blue stars songs, it adds an extra edge in listening to the records as you try and guess who they're about. listening to "priorities" (another office recommendation), following some of the harrowing revelations of steward's "horselaugh on my ex", you're in no doubt as to who the song is about; equally one would assume that "every day is christmas with you" ("don't let me become immune to such beauty ...") is aimed at jen: like any decent romantic cadeau, stewart is responsible for putting the whole thing together. you can almost imagine him presenting her the master tape, gift wrapped, with boyish pride. my favourite lyrics on the album are actually "grand rapids", but whenever boyracer slow down these days, comparisons with steward's solo material are bound to surface, and they can't always be flattering. you wonder what such touching, homely phrases ("sat outside in the freezing snow / in the dead of night / my coat on / my hood up / all alone...") could do to you if they were part of the steward montage of samples and fluffy electronica.

still relevant, then.

* * * * *

various artists "knowing we was right from da start" (555)

i know arrogance isn't becoming, but 555 records (now relocated from leeds, yorkshire, to philadelphia) have got much to be arrogant about and this summary of their roster is the usual tour of all that is innovative and meaningful in lo-fi pop and electronica, showing that they were indeed correct from da start - my own baptism was hood's fine "biochemistry revision can wait", which is included here and which i tracked down in my otherwise barren time in nottingham about '94/95. top tunes of many for me here are the other hood contribution, the single "(the) weight"; the aislers' set's "fire engine" - a fantastic, crackling homage to the shirelles as played by the mary chain; empress' "skills unknown", which I don't remember from their albums but which is the pick of their three cuts herein; hulaboy's kitchen sink drama "river of honey and mud"; beachbuggy's tempered fall tribute "ya just a little punk"; huon's utterly disarming and shambly "thunder"... as you'll have gathered, popular music pickers, 555 have what we premiership-haters enviously know as "strength in depth". more power to their cute electronica and lo-fi obsessed elbow.

* * * * *

Various Artists “These Are Testing Times” (555)
Various Artists “You Gotta Get More Alive” (555)

Two 20-track budget samplers packed with lo-fi; sometimes ideas and titles are more successful than the finished products; but the Empress and Steward compilation LPs which came out this year demonstrated that 4-track is still capable of evoking far from humdrum worlds. The CDs, too, showcase a fair breadth of talent. Famous Boyfriend have mutated from perfect post-Brighter indie (“We’re All Pretty Much Failures”) through basic skewed Steward-by-numbers (“The Last Drink Makes Me”) to their instrumental reincarnation as the Remote Viewer (witness the breakbeat-with-a-heart of “We Do What We Can”). Meanwhile, Kyoko continue to seep almost unnoticed out of speakers (the mysterious quiet-fi “t.a.m.s.”); Halkyn shine a flickery flame for bedroom acoustic angst, post-homework no doubt, with “Local Summit” and the superbly titled “I Tried So Hard, But I Was Already Mistaken”; Kid 606 transports his nervy mantras across the pond via the medium of beats n’ bleeps (“Nobody Wants To Be A Star Any More”); Clohydris Diepholz (track title unpronounceable) messes around with loops in a most satisfying manner (imagine the Third Eye Foundation’s remix of the Pastels' “On The Way” but on a very austere Weimar-style low-deutschmark budget). And then from around the world there are more traditional takes on indie from Amber#2 (a Belgian REM, except good), Ashland (stilted Amero-pop drawl) and Huon (scuzzy southern-hemispherettes who have a track on their album called “C86” which makes you want to buy it just for that, until you remember that the song “C86” by the BMX Bandits was one of their worst songs ever, not even counting the fiddle).

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that 555 are much closer to my own musical credo, “if you can’t be good, be different”; in fact, they are frequently good too, which is a bonus. Shinkansen, on the other hand, is producing sub-Sarah indie from the days of, well, before Sarah, which makes you think the Sea Urchins died in vain (let me reiterate: I do like Cody and Monograph – but not with “every fibre of my being”)… and it is no coincidence, I am sure, that there was some comment on the Shinkansen website earlier this year appearing to “celebrate” the carnage of 26 May 1999. Despite now claiming to be an Orient fan, Mr Haynes clearly has no conception of the things that are actually helping to drive the O’s into the Conference this season. Man Utd are killing football, as usual, and in the same way that the Beatles ruined music (i.e. with mass public backing). The great Preston side of 1889 won the Double without losing a game (didn’t concede a goal in the FA Cup) and it’s fair to say they would have won the League Cup, Auto Windscreens, European Cup, World Club Championship, Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup in the same year if only some marketing persona [non grata] had thought of them at that stage. Same with Huddersfield in the 1920s, Arsenal in the 1930s, etc, etc, etc.

While I’m on this topic, you will have noticed that the FA are killing football, too. They get paid for killing football. I’m all for people getting paid to kill rugby, or cricket – I’d do it myself for free – but the FA’s twisted minds get their kicks from frying the small fry and letting the paper idols I mentioned above get away with anything. Just imagine if Robbie Fowler or Patrick Vieira had kicked Neil Lennon in the head – it would have been a ban some way into the third millennium, at least (and, incidentally, un-English as it might be, I’d rather be spat at than suffer the sort of two-footed leg-breaking challenges that Michael Owen and his mates from the diving club are coming up with). The FA enjoy it most of course when they’re destroying the FA Cup – letting games be played at every time possible, except 3 p.m. on a Saturday; moving the 3rd round to December (Please never let this experiment be repeated) for their mates at MUFC and then allowing them to jack in defending the trophy anyway (instead of expelling them) so that for the rest of all time their fans can claim they “would have won it” (in fact, they’d have played a bunch of kids and got pasted fair and square, like they did in the League Cup). I suppose hopeless optimism would also suggest we could go back to calling the top division the “First division”, etc, even numbering the players on the field with 1 to 11, but I’ve fair given up on this. Perhaps there’s a kill the FA website we could link to…

Difficult to link this article back to 555 after such a fantastic digression (that’s fantastic in its true sense, rather than the received wisdom that it means “really good”, I hasten to add), but I think I’ve found a way. I remember Boyracer’s “I’ve Got It And It’s Not Worth Having” (as do all fans of, well, pop music, I would hope); and Matt Rowson's comment that, although not quite up his particular street, it was pretty enjoyable all the same – ramshackle, energetic and (I always remember this) “like a non-league side getting through to the third round of the FA Cup”. That might have been damning with faint praise – I think Alexander Pope predated Boyracer – but what chance analogies like that even existing if the FA had their way ? (I should also mention that subsequent single “He Gets Me So Hard”, if I can extrapolate further – can I ? Many thanks – was like a non-league side getting to the final of the FA Cup and hammering Liverpool 5-0). Anyway, a few years on, the leading lights of the former Boyracer are now driving 555 forward, and to me that’s enough to restore daylight to my darkened mind.

* * * * *

the famous boyfriend (555 / orgasm)

a compilation of the two albums before famous boyfriend hatched into the remote viewer, and one which confuses by reversing the chronological order so that tracks 1-13 (the "making love all night wrong" outing on 555) showcase the evolution to near-instrumental samples and beats, while 14-25 (the eponymous debut lp on orgasm records of france) are much more melodic, with a strong lyrical thread - more in the vein of the fantastic, scratchy earlier pop moment "we're all pretty much failures".

although i prefer the second half of this cd then, it would have been a crime not to reissue "making love", of which only a painfully austere 120 copies were ever released. the grave, warm tones of loops like "it's not the way you kiss" and "septembernovember" are worth a far wider audience, and on one occasion ("your hearts not in it") there is even a discernible and world-weary vocal, aided and abetted by pretty keyboards, harking back to the early stuff.

nevertheless, i commend this cd to you chiefly for "the famous boyfriend" album, which despite being remastered from one of the 400 vinyl copies ever issued stands up well as a morose pop anthology rooted, as you would expect, in the pop vs. experimentation ideologies of (earlier) hood and steward. the famous boyfriend wrote songs about being sorry for oneself, messing up relationships and opportunities, often through saying the wrong things and drinking too much of the right things (think hood's "dismissed army brought us knives", but channelled into an arrangement and even some kind of - albeit lo-fi - production values). these graceful indie tunes impart a fairly deep-etched melancholy without departing too strongly from the home-recording blueprint, and the demise of the famous boyfriend, as this cd now evidences, is a tragedy at least on a par with the commissioning of big brother. a record to look after.

* * * * *

steward "bang! there goes my youth" (555)

and talking of steward, a chance to appraise "bang! goes my youth", originally released in the states on blackbean & placenta, not that we ever got hold of it, but which now appears to have found its way to these shores on reissue - rather charmingly, our copy in fact reuses the cardboard sleeve from kyoko's "co-incidental music" set, turning it inside out and handprinting the steward moniker on the reverse - perhaps stewart had a load of unsold copies left over ?

the 8 tracks of the cd proper are a mixture of new vignettes and alt. takes from the "horselaugh on my ex" set that so impressed us in 2000... they start with "bad" (no relation to the fab flatmates number) which apes the formula of "horselaugh" opener "you can't fuck with nature" (beatbox thud, angular guitar riffs interspersed with breakbeats, although this time sans any jam sample) and then there's a boy/girl vocal thrash through "he is a genius with his hands", more in the vein of steward's collaborations with amy linton, though this time the girl vocal is a lot more in the punky, english mould...

"surely you know i'm trying my best... when your voice breaks up i'm half-relieved"

with such words, "dial tone collective" heralds a switch of pace to light percussion and bass keyboard tones, half-whispered voice and slices of acoustic guitar: for once, the absence of feedback is apt, suddenly ushering stewart's usual lovelorn selfconsciousness into the harsh light of the listener's concentration: the transformation smoothed by the subsequent near -instrumental "8.30 yr looking great".

it's back to indie junglist sampledom excess after that, as "i am the magnificent" mixes a treasure trove of loops, sounds and piano before crescending on the back of more guitar feedback to another plateau of white noise - but the prize in this respect is taken by a cover of the buzzcocks' "you say you don't love me" - which was a little plain in its original form. here it is given the full anderson makeover namely morse code-like cut-up bleeps, white feedback like breaking glass, shambling guitar buzz and a vocal that illiberally dollops large doses of angst all over the shop.

but it is "happy new years", the original of which jerked tears worldwide in its "horselaugh" incarnation, which remains the most sincere, affecting, heart-on-sleeve exposition of hurt that even steward has committed to public consumption: in this brittle and less noise-ridden take, fear and sexual jealousy congeal into 2m 51s of hurt, bitterness, melancholy, betrayal and resentment. it's a tranche of real-life, conveying open wounds with all the familiarity of kitchen sink drama, and is in itself the perfect closer.

however as this is steward there are then a host of hidden / "extra" cuts and, steward being steward, several of them actually bear critical analysis in their own right... they include, after the "netball" remix album's parting shot "bonus beatz", more copyright-defying escapades including a kid 606 / v/vm-ish take on "i feel love", aswell as a sumptuously-weighted acoustic plus violin sixty-second rendition of "something to crave". finally, if you mentioned to us the phrase "world weary and wise", it would strike us as rather encapsulating the timbre of the emotions which steward's lyrics have been exhibiting for the last ten years. it would also of course bring to mind yet another completely underrated janglethon from the undisputed kings of el records (depending on who you ask, of course) the james dean driving experience who, as coincidence have it, we were mentioning earlier. so you can appreciate our happiness on hearing steward's rather cheap keyboard cover of that very song. and he even whistles the violin part. how cool is that ? oh - and claire - it was recorded in melbourne.

so while there may be nothing here quite on the level of our past eulogies to "hey! leopard" or "the last wasps of summer", and the untitled nigh-on faultless closing track on "goodbye to everything you love", there remains much to admire in the ex-sarah records hearthrob, now prolific globetrotter and record label mogul, stewart anderson. word 2 his mother.

* * * * *

halkyn "winterhill" ep (555)

finally, well, more of a public service announcement than a review. according to the 555 site, the excellent "winterhill" single by the honey-scented welsh minimalists halkyn has sold less than a 100 copies to date. if so that is a national disgrace, hence this cri de coeur. worst of all this very british apathy is prompting 555 to "review" its policy of releasing 7" vinyl at all... that would mean joining shinkansen and others in just giving up... and the thing that really cuts is that you can hardly blame the labels, it's our fault for not bothering to go out and support the format... always remember that when you don't exercise your choices, they just get taken away. um, yes... for the record, while there's nothing quite up to the brilliance of "norway" from the "behind the snow" ep, "winterhill" is a spindly, echoey, ssshhh-fi ten-track delight - albeit so subtle at times as to be almost invisible - and "through snow" in particular is a top example of the genre.

* * * * *

kyoko “co-incidental music” (555)

....shhhh. quiet-fi.

a fine band, probably the best from bristol at the moment, with their eventually-pressed outing for 555. if you listen attentively to later beatnik filmstars outings, I swear you can hear in the evocative, quieter passages strong echoes of the fine band they were about to become.

“boats” kicks off proceedings proper, a warm and soft soliloquoy leading into the more drawn out, feeling-sorry-for-itself “reality dawns on a second rate sit-com actor”: though the show is then enlivened by a faithful take on the steward standard “he dispenses with timid afterthoughts” my own favourite, on which “co-incidental music” pivots, is the gangly, late night “P.E.T.S” – the sugargliders lounging at 33 rpm. after that, things scale down, with the flow of dark but beautiful songs interrupted by a space-age and unconvincing remix of “yellow” (the pick of debut album “mini: one”). “better days! coming now!” is also far from the happyfest its unlikely title promises, but another near-fatal dose of mellow introspection before closer “ex-filmstar” nods knowingly back to the halcyon days of the beatniks, in the days when they ruled the off-kilter indie-punk ridiculous-song title world. Apparently there is another album ready for release on mobstar: we will bring you news, soon.

* * * * *

fog and ocean "fog and ocean" (555 / red square)

while some may say that every record on 555 appears to feature special guest appearances from most of the other artists on the diverse roster, fog and ocean are pretty much the epitome of this being billed as a combo including personnel recruited from the likes of the cat's miaow, huon, hydroplane and new waver (so a few more heavyweights there from the fecund musical breeding ground of melbourne!!) as well as the more traditionally ubiquitous 555 head honchos jen turrell and steward.

nevertheless, it's probably fair to say that when listening to it, you do not detect a cast of thousands at work. indeed, the opposite: the main component parts are clean keyboards and kellie's butter-wouldn't-melt voice, supplemented at times by other vocal chords both male and female but never venturing from the f&o style, which appears to be a guitar-free, and, er, new wavey trip through the clouds - the pattern is set by casiotone keyboards (you know, the sort of thing where the bass notes sound like they're being played on a stylophone), with brisk electronic percussion lifting f&o from the realms of mere empty dreamers. imagine the sound of leaves swaying in a gentle breeze, soft ocean currents lapping on the foreshore, you know the kind of thing, but kind of duffed up by shyly def beats (f&o's weapon of choice being the trusty 808, rather than their neighbours the berzerker's 909). as such it is terrific, rewarding listening - cleanly produced, simply arranged, free of padding and more accessible for 555 virgins than much on the imprint. oh, and in the style of the first remote viewer album, the songs - none of which outstay their welcome nor stray into over-experimentation - don't have anything as earthbound as names. and to round off the effect, the record itself is coolly packaged, in a very pretty sleeve that gives nothing away - as well as no song titles, there is, we presume, no album title, hence the attribution of an eponymous one which we've settled for. eponymous and anonymous, ha.

the f&o tune billed as "wave and a sigh" on the recent 555 australian pop sampler (and also included as the sixth track here), will give you an idea of the affectionate and careful homage to all past forms of sweet, winsome electronic pop that you are being pampered with. much of the lyrics touch on pastoral or geographic themes or features too, especially the opening song (which for the purposes of this review we have radically christened "song 1": to make things easier for ourselves and to achieve vague consistency, we will apply numerical order to the track listing throughout this prose, in the absence of anything more tangible to use). at its poppiest, the album is vaguely reminiscent of retro-futurist US labelmates kanda (e.g. song 2) or perhaps even the real deal of visage or ultravox (songs 3 and 4): but we are most taken with song 7 - very huon, with we assume bloke from huon on vocals; song 5 - simply divine and unspeakably cute, eespecially the stuff about pelicans nesting which is thoroughly in keeping with its delightful gorgeousness; and song 8, which should be in the charts. now.

* * * * *

STEWARD: I Was The Only Boy In The Netball Team (Blackbean & Placenta)
STEWARD: Horselaugh On My Ex (555)

“Netball” is a sweet remix album the highlights of which are Steward’s own take on Japanese experimentalists Stadium, Downpour’s incendiary rampaging of “The Last Wasps” and Figurine’s incredibly slick construct on “Bit Part Actor Made Good”, which like all the best creative remixes, creates beauty and tone that wasn’t so evident in the original.

But “Horselaugh On My Ex” is the real McCoy. Six months in the making, a 20 song concept album – the concept being a whole CD about the dramatic end of a five-year relationship, in the haze of New Year. In its own way, it is just as moving as the Trembling Blue Stars’ impossibly brittle and beautiful “Her Handwriting” album on that same horrible theme – the knowing that for once, these songs were written about real events. Steward, of course, goes further lyrically – naming names and much more – but it’s the essential vulnerability of the lines we can all relate to - “While I was sleeping, seemingly so much happened” - that really tug on our unsuspecting heart strings. Opener “You Can’t F*** With Nature” even manages to make an amateurish sample of “This Is The Modern World” fit smoothly into the sombre mood of the album – but elsewhere, in amongst the insanity, the bleeps, the bizarre guest appearances and covers - and the odd barrages of screaming feedback – the highlight is the stunning “Hey! Leopard” which sounds like prime-era Pacific (former Creation artistes and occasional purveyors of shimmering majestic beauty), courtesy of the guitars, trumpet and vocals of labelmates the Cannanes. Stunning.

* * * * *

printed circuit "acrobotics" (555)

to continue this sequence of bamboozling and arguably recent albums there's printed circuit, aka claire broadley. you'll be sufficiently au fait here if you heard her take of "sex dwarf" on 555's "a tribute to soft cell" compilation: in a sense, that gave the game away, because hearing printed circuit resembles listening to a young dave ball doing a solo jam session, full of synth pulls, twisted melody curves and occasional vocoder vocals: an unholy 1982 mishmash of soft cell vs. the sinclair zx spectrum. "sex dwarf" remains the epitome of this, although it's run close by the hidden track 6 here, a sweet bootleg in which a ragga narcissist faces the wrath of ms broadley's full armoury of circuitry. as for the five tracks actually listed, we take maximum solace in "hard drive soft drink" and "robophobic", both of which are sufficiently bright and melodic that one feels that soft cell would gladly have written them circa "memorabilia". not profound, but could still likely have you dancing like your day depended on it.

* * * * *

cex "starship galactica" (555)

while not achieving the joy of "balls out" with its hip hop beats on orange vinyl, "starship" (surely battlestar?) is a joyous bundle of electronica, energised with humour as most electronica sorely needs to be. although the obvious reference points would be fellow 555ers lesser and ver mighty kid 606, cex often roams in nightmares on wax territory, and spins some mellow vibes on "get in your squads" (most n.o.w.-ish) and "your handwriting when you were a child in the winter" - wow. what's my favourite ? probably "cal and brady style", which mops up all the relevant reference points with aplomb. close second is the mighty title track, which is - really - one of the greatest pop songs of 2001, because it's fun and soooo easy to dig. yep, this music may yet be the future, which means we're in pretty capable hands.

* * * * *

Some other highs / heights of 555 included Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers' "Lunchdate EP": "kitchen pop which mixes scuzzy indie lo-fi guitars and female “ba-bas” with common or garden breakbeats and lackadaisical male vocals"; Kanda's "Dormitory Heartbreaks": "on the truly maverick 555 label, kanda revisit c96 - the flickery electro pop revival and all - with the curt "dormitory heartbreaks" - the boy / girl interface is not a million miles from pipas, but just a few years too early. sugar sugar kanda pop, natch"; Kid 606 and the Remote Viewer's split picture disc: "a gorgeous platter aesthetically; between the grooves a little more mundane although the Kid’s “When I Want A Gun, Yeah” is up there with most of the techno dabbling on his 2000 long players. The Remote Viewer, so recently the near-perfect Famous Boyfriend, continue to refine their dark breakbeat vision with “A Fielder""; Cex's "Get Your Badass On": "“Balls Out” is the pick, a hip-hop style backbone shot through with skewed beats and breaks. On violent yellow vinyl, too"; and Downpour's "Don’t Go Breaking My Art": "A world away from the apocalyptic remix of Steward’s “The Last Wasps Of Summer”, here we have four slices of electronica that rotate little ripples of noise in (ever decreasing) concentric circles."

And don't worry, we still have them all.