The Cassette Box

Today’s tape is another excursion outside the box and is actually the second tape that Kathy sent to me. As I recall she sent this at the same time as Songs from Down Under, so the summer of 2001. It’s a bit of a mish-mash featuring an Alex Lloyd radio set, some early Whitlams tracks, a selection of tracks from Area-7’s latest album and various other tracks she thought I might enjoy.   Artist: Various Album: Alex Lloyd – Live / Area-7 + Whitlams UK Record Label: None UK Release Date: 2001 UK Single Releases from Album: None   Alex Lloyd – Melting, Desert, Black the Sun, What a Year, Lucky Star  and  Snow: Six tracks recorded for Triple J’s Live at the Wireless programme sometime in 1999. I first heard Alex Lloyd in the year 2000 when ‘Black the Sun’ was Mark & Lard’s record of the week, and liked what I heard enough to mention him to Kathy not long after we started e-mailing. She was also a fan, and so made sure to include this set when she sent me some tapes fo...

Back to the box this week, and it’s another tape recorded for me by David in the summer of 2001. I’m not sure when I heard Radiohead for the first time, it was probably ‘Creep’ on daytime Radio 1 or something. I remember liking The Bends when it came out, but it was really OK Computer that made me sit up and take notice of them. When we were in Year 11, so before the sixth form afforded us the luxury of a common room, we were allowed to use the school hall at lunchtimes, so I remember that album often being played over the PA system not long after release.   In the months immediately before Kid A ’s release anticipation in the music press steadily grew and grew. I vividly remember tuning into Steve Lamacq’s show on the evening that four tracks from the album were being premiered for the first time. I was blown away, it sounded so different to what they had done before, but in a good way. I’ve seen influences cited including electronica artists on the Warp label such as Autechre a...

We stray outside of the main box again this week, with a cover mount cassette courtesy of Vox magazine that I’ve hung on to over the years for whatever reason. I was a big fan of Mark Radcliffe’s late-night Radio 1 show the Graveyard Shift, as to me it was pretty much the perfect radio show. Radcliffe and his sidekick, Marc ‘Lard’ Riley, were basically given free reign to do whatever they fancied. A typical playlist might feature psychedelia and garage rock from the sixties, punk from the seventies, electronica from the eighties, and Britpop and ambient music from the nineties. But it wasn’t just about the music, there were regular guests such as poets Simon Armitage (now, rather wonderfully, the poet laureate), Joolz, Ian McMillan and John Hegley, cult TV reviewer Kim Newman, cult film critic Mark Kermode, broadcasters Stuart Maconie, Andrew Collins and Katie Puckrik, authors Caitlin Moran and Will Self, BMX Bandits frontman Duglas T. Stewart, former Orange Juice drummer Steven Daly, ...

Another tape that David copied for me in the summer of 2001, today’s entry is Bentley Rhythm Ace’s 1997 eponymous debut album. Formed in Birmingham in 1995, BRA consisted of former Pop Will Eat Itself bassist, guitarist, keyboardist and programmer Richard March, and his drinking buddy Mike Stokes. Part of the late nineties big beat scene, the duo were somewhat inevitably signed to Skint records (albeit briefly), before an arrangement was reached that saw them transfer over to Parlophone.   I’m not sure where I first head Bentley Rhythm Ace, I suspect it may just have been hearing ‘Bentleys Gonna Sort You Out!’ on Radio 1, but I immediately liked their everything including the kitchen sink approach to music making.   Artist: Bentley Rhythm Ace Album: Bentley Rhythm Ace UK Record Label: Skint (original issue), Parlophone (re-issue) UK Release Date: 12 th May 1997 (original issue), 8th September 1997 (re-issue) UK Single Releases from Album: ‘Bentleys Gonna Sort You Out!’ (orig...