Breed 'Hard Cash' (Peel Session, 1991)

Breed were an amazing three-piece band from Liverpool who deserved much greater recognition for their brooding, beautiful music and tales of sordid lives.

Contemporaries of Gallon Drunk and taking in influences like Beefheart, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Tom Waits, their drummer went on to be in Placebo, having been the original drummer in The Boo Radleys, and singer/songwriter Simon Breed has re-emerged as a solo artist in the last few years. However, the magic between the members of the original Breed line-up is palpable and they were an awesome live band.

'Hard Cash' is set beneath the sodium halo of a red light district and moods its way in on gentle cymbals before a resonant bass pushes slowly forward. Simon Breed's evocative words tell of the aftermath of the death of a 'street worker', aggressive, uncaring officers making enquiries deep into the night, uncomfortable with their visit to the city's underbelly.

The music is a rolling, almost bluesy shuffle, swelling into a raucous lurch and subsiding again. Entrancing.

Download Breed 'Hard Cash (Peel Session, 1991) (mp3)