Laika - If You Miss (Laika Virgin Mix) (1995)

Burbling, dubbed out dub indie.

This remix version of 'If You Miss' from Laika's debut album, throbs will sampled tones creating a woozy setting for Margaret Fiedler's hazy vocals.

Download Laika 'If You Miss (Laika Virgin Mix)' (Too Pure, Post-Rock, Dub, mp3) (Divshare)

Moonshake - Home Survival Kit (Too Pure, 1992)

Nick Drake-sampling dub soup.

B-side action from the peerless Moonshake sees NIMBY-bating lyric pitched against a soupy dub that incorporates pattering percussion, scraping guitar and a Nick Drake sample.

Download Moonshake 'Home Survival Kit' (Too Pure, mp3) (Divshare)

Th Faith Healers -Jesus Freak (Live at the Sausage Machine) (Too Pure, 1990)

Scuzzy, frantic stuff. Th' Faith Healers - and Too Pure's - debut release.

Lo-Fi live hurtle through 'Jesus Freak'. Screes of Sonic Youth guitar and remarkable straight line speed interspersed with lurching, almost retching interludes.

Th' Faith Healers would go on to release better, more considered records - as would Too Pure - but this splatter of noise and wonder has myriad charms in its breathless release.

Download Th' Faith Healers 'Jesus Freak (Live at the Sausage Machine)' (lurch, indie, alternative, mp3) (Mediafire)

Download the whole of 'Now That's Disgusting Music' compilation over on Archive:Live+Rare

Th' Faith Healers Peel Session (1991)

Classic Peel Session by Th Faith Healers - frantic, groovy, clanging, lurching Krautrocking genius.

Headfuck Disco fodder of the highest order from a band that emerged during Too Pure's golden period. Moonshake, PJ Harvey, Stereolab, Seefeel and Pram - all on the same label? What the hell was in the water at Too Pure Towers?

'Coffee Commercial Couple' is a driving beast of a tune, seemingly improvised vocal snippets adding to the intrigue. A juggernaut.

'Bobby Kopper' begins spartan and sinister before a snarling vocal is matched by a rolling, almost Stray Cats guitar. The rhythm section keeps it all grooving along nicely.

'Jesus Freak' is a trashy, messy scrawl of guitar with frenzied vocals and strung-out interludes.

Great stuff.

Download Th' Faith Healers 'Coffee Commercial Couple' (Peel Session, 1991)
Download Th' Faith Healers 'Bobby Kopper' (Peel Session, 1991)
Download Th' Faith Healers 'Jesus Freak' (Peel Session, 1991) 

Stereolab 'Super Falling Star (Moog Mix)' (Volume, 1992)

Delicious, delicate take that exposes a different side to early Stereolab.

Gentle layers of synth interweave, able to breathe and unwind even more without the guitars.

Stereolab were always more of a cerebral band more akin to Seefeel than the gutsier, more instintive music of Too Pure bands like Moonshake and Th' Faith Healers.

This version of the 'Peng!' album track you hear Laetitia's vocal's more clearly, though, of course, you still don't know what she's on about. The waves of melody remind me of Plone or the hauntological sounds of the Ghost Box label and BBC Radiophonic Workshop experiments.

Lovely.

Download Stereolab 'Super Falling Star (Moog Mix)' (indie mp3 download) (Mediafire)

PJ Harvey 'Ecstasy' (Island, 1993) (download)

Epic distorted Blues from the 'Rid Of Me' album.

'Ecstasy' is a monster of a track, shimmering and shuddering sheets of guitar orbit a powerful rhythm section that beats out a foreboding, almost Led Zeppelin-esque pulse.

Recorded by the right man for the job, Mr. Steve Albini, the sound is crystal clear and at the 'mighty' end of the Richter Scale. It delivers on the power and strength that 'Dry' implied.

The opening solo guitar used a slide to twist and bend and when PJ starts singing it sounds like she's struggling to stay on the song, hollering lustily to be heard over the maelstrom.

Mighty stuff, as John Peel used to say.

Download PJ Harvey 'Ecstasy' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Laika 'Coming Down Glass' (Too Pure, 1994) (mp3)

More incredible stuff from Too Pure's imperial phase.

Laika were formed when Moonshake Mk 1 could no longer bear to stay together. In the alt-rock divorce settlement of the year, Margaret Fiedler got the bassist (John Frenett) and producer (Guy Fixsen) and Dave Callaghan got to keep the drummer (Mig Moreland) and the bandname.

Laika's debut album - 'Silver Apples Of The Moon' - is a searing but groovy thing and 'Coming Down Glass' was my first taster via the 'Pop: Do We Not Like That' Too Pure sampler which also featured killer tracks from Stereolab, PJ Harvey, Th' Faith Healers, Seefeel, Pram, Moonshake, Minxus and Mouse On Mars - all for a couple of quid.

Scattershot drum machine rifles off in seemingly every direction around a solid breakbeat and some beautifully rubbery bass carries the track along to create a setting for Fiedler's disturbing POV-of-a-sex-pest lyric and half-whispered, half-sung vocal.

Spectacular.

Download Laika 'Coming Down Glass' (mp3) (Mediafire)

'Silver Apples of the Moon' seems to tbe out-of-print but the compilation 'Lost in Space Vol.1: 1993-2002' isn't a bad place to start.

Long Fin Killie 'A Man Ray' (Too Pure, 1995) (mp3)

More magic from Too Pure's 'imperial' phase.

Long Fin Killie were a Scottish band who fused a post-rock sound of the same ilk as Ganger, Tortoise and Laika with the narrative genius of songwriter Luke Sutherland who has since contributed to a number of Mogwai records.

'A Man Ray' rides on an immense raft of dubby bass with gentle cymbal percussion. Damped guitar harmonics form the melodic framework for the gently intoned vocals to sit amongst with just an occasional drift of sodium-light trumpet adding a little smear of extra colour.

It's a warm and enticing soundscape and the low-key vocal style - it's like someone talking quietly in your ear at a gig - draws you in to the lyric.

Download Long Fin Killie 'A Man Ray' (mp3) (Mediafire)

PJ Harvey 'Dress (Demo)' (Too Pure, 1992)

Music is often a confounding thing. Much of the music released seems dull, formulaic, unimaginative. Then someone will come along and use exactly the same ingredients as other less gifted souls - guitars, chords and all that - and somehow create something with real magic to it.

PJ Harvey has continued to be a true, questing artist throughout her career but nothing has matched the shock of those first singles, the 'Dry' album on Too Pure and the harrowing 'Rid Of Me' album.

Initial copies of 'Dry' came with a bonus album that contained the demos for the whole album ('Demonstration'). Though she would go on release the demos for 'Rid Of Me' as a standalone album, she has been less inclined to 'show her working' since though this is perhaps because she's more in control of the production side of her music.

The 'Demonstration' tracks are predominantly acoustic but often include guitar lines or other embellishments to show where the song in her head needed to go when recorded. Demos, for me anyway, can provide a fascinating insight into the process of realising the artist's vision, seeing how the raw idea is transformed by working-through and the also the input of other musicians.

Sometimes, as with The Boo Radleys' 'Giant Steps' album, the demo has already defined the key elements for the finished record, even if it's with a scratchy guitar or a cheap keyboard sound. Other times, the demo is just the chords and vocal line and the finished product goes somewhere else entirely. Around the time of this album the Too Pure label was on fire with Moonshake, Th' Faith Healers, Pram and Seefeel all knocking out ground-breaking records for breakfast and I would love to hear the demos of Moonshake's 'Eva Luna' album to see the transition from song idea to finished masterpiece.

The demo of PJ Harvey's storming debut single 'Dress' lays out the blueprint of the restrained/strident dynamic of the record. It also sets out the elements used to build out the sound as the record progresses - cello line through the second verse, electric guitar from the second chorus, the simple, bluesy guitar solo. It's both a template and an insight into the unadorned mood of the core song. Mighty stuff.

Download PJ Harvey 'Dress (Demo)' (indie alternative mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Moonshake Peel Session (22/11/1992)

The Mark I version of Moonshake has to be one of my favourite bands of all time. The dynamic, creative tension between songwriters Dave Callaghan and Margaret Fiedler sadly meant the band couldn't last beyond a handful of EPs, a mini-album and the legendary (in my house) 'Eva Luna' album. However, while artistic gravity was able to keep that version of the band together, they were able to produce some stunning live shows and amazing records.

This Peel Session from 1992 was recorded just as the album was coming out and they were starting to tour the new songs. It shows a handful of tracks as work-in-progress live versions - almost formed but still to be completely refined and honed into their final, live incarnations.

'Sweet Heart', 'Mugshot Heroine' and 'Beautiful Pigeon' all have slightly different arrangements, with a sample/loop missing or a slightly different choice of sample, which gives a real insight into the process the band went through from song/idea to their hybrid of organic and inorganic elements. The other track is 'Coming' from their debut EP on Creation which, having been recorded and fully road-tested, is very close to the recorded version.

Download Moonshake Peel Session 22/11/1992 (Moonshake mp3)

Read a great article about Moonshake and Eva Luna.

Th' Faith Healers 'S.O.S.' (Clawfist Singles Club, 1994)

Another Clawfist Singles Club goodie. This time a split between Th' Faith Healers and Mambo Taxi called 'Th' Faith Healers & Mambo Taxi Go Abba'.

Mambo Taxi's contribution is an acquired taste from the sometimes good, sometimes bad shamblers. Their take on 'Super Trouper' sounds like Courtney Love has just woken up in rehab after a particularly arduous world tour and someone thrust a microphone into her bleary face. Or maybe it's Phoebe Buffet after six years of homelessness and crystal meth abuse. I can't decide.

Anyway, that all just serves to make Th' Faith Healers' searing take on 'S.O.S.' sound all the more vital and incisive.

Th' Faith Healers were peers of the awesome Moonshake on the mighty Too Pure label and their track opens with a bass-heavy rotation, Roxanne's controlled but yearning vocals setting the tone before the rolling, monster truck of dirge sound is applied to the Abba classic. It works surprisingly well with a lovely, counter melody being picked out on the second guitar and some nice bits of what sounds like mobile phone interference (in 1994?).

It clatters, rumbles and shakes its way through to a climax, fading away in a shronk of guitar.

Download Th' Faith Healers 'S.O.S.' (mp3, Rapidshare)

Pram 'Cumulus' (from 'Iron Lung EP', Too Pure, 1993)

Pram were an interesting proposition - thoroughly avant garde in approach, but on this EP at least, they certainly seemed to be striving for something melodic, attractive, enticing. Active since the early 90s in Birmingham, Pram have ploughed a very singular furrow across labels including Too Pure, Duophonic and Domino.

My first encounter with them was a review copy of this very EP. Putting it on, I had no pre-conceptions of what I was about to hear, save for those stimulated by the press release.

As the first bars of 'Cumulus' emerged from the speakers - a short loop of almost ice cream van style metallic tones - I was hooked. 'Cumulus' alternates between ambient verses and harsh lurching choruses. The verse tells of the sky becoming aglow, neighbours wandering outside to look into the sky, catching a glimpse of an unspecified something.

The chorus crackles into life, an aggressive drang of guitar and bass suggesting an uncertain turbulence before the verse's motorik clip takes up again. There are echoes of Can, especially as the track hits the four minute mark and veers off into what seems to be a locked-groove jam, fragments of melody looming into the mix.

Download Pram 'Cumulus' (too pure, experimental, postrock mp3, Mediafire)

Moonshake - Beautiful Pigeon (Too Pure, 1992)

Simply one of those records that is so good - and such a discontinuity with what you've heard before - that it sounds wrong the first time you hear it.

A cacophany of guitars and scree gives way to a monumental, Bonham of a drum break. Margaret Fiedler's coo-ing vocals entice you in and the most sumptuous dub of bass weaves its way into your brain.

The chorus is an awesome release of noise and melody and track has a sumptuous ebb and flow to it.

I remember listening in awe to the drummer and bassist sound-checking when they supported The Wedding Present around the time this came out. A most beautiful, powerful noise.

Stunning stuff. The whole Eva Luna LP is amazing too, as is the 1992 Moonshake Peel Session that featured a number of the tracks in development mode (full Peel Session available below).



Moonshake 1992 Peel Session (mp3 download)

Moonshake Wikipedia page