Monolith Cocktail Blog

Anniversary Albums And Deaths Marked Alongside An Eclectic Mix Of Cross-Generational Music, Newish Tunes And Surprises.

To reiterate last month’s message, just give me two hours of your precious time to expose you to some of the most magical, incredible, eclectic and freakish music that’s somehow been missed, or not even picked up on the radar. For the Social is my uninterrupted radio show flow of carefully curated music; marking anniversary albums and, sadly, deaths, but also sharing my own favourite discoveries over the decades and a number of new(ish) tracks missed or left out of the blog’s Monthly playlists.

Anniversary picks this month include tracks from 50th anniversary celebrating LPs from Dr. John (In The Right Place), Alice Cooper (Billion Dollar Babies) and The Stooges (Raw Power); 40th’s from the likes of Echo And The Bunnymen (Porcupine) and Sonic Youth (Confusion Is Sex); hip-hop heavy 30th’s from the Souls Of Mischief (93 ’till Infinity), Digable Planets (Reachin‘) and Brand Nubian (In God We Trust), plus more indie, just on the cusp of Britpop fair from Radiohead (Pablo Honey) and The Auteurs (New Wave).

Marking those who’ve passed on in the last four weeks, where do you begin to start with such titans as Burt Bacharach, his genius, melody writ large into the very fabric of our culture, our cinema and musical cannon. Well, you just pick a favourite, and so I’ve gone for that Walkers Brother classic ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’. Similarly how do you represent the extensive, long career of the Zimbabwean songstress and ‘Queen of Mbira’ Stella Chiweshe with just one choice track. Again, just pick what you love and so here’s the opening buoyant lilt from her more recent Ambuya! album, ‘Chachimurenga’. It has been a terrible month for notable deaths, and so we also have tracks from Tom Verlaine and Yukihiro Takahashi too; the former, from the iconic doyen of alternative rock, new wave, punk’s 1979 eponymous solo, and the latter, taken from the former Yellow Magic Orchestra instigators’s 1981 solo album, Neuromatic – out new romantic(ing) the new romantics, and out Japan(ing) Sylvain’s Japan.

In the new(ish) category I’ve chosen a smattering of delights from Neuro….No Neuro, Karen Vogt & Simon McCorry, Marlene Riberio and Milk TV. That just leaves a curated selection of discoveries and music from my collection from across time and genres, and those older releases that have just been uploaded to Spotify in recent weeks, with songs and music from Jessie Mae Hemphill, Seventies Tuberide, Phil Mufu, A. R. & The Machines, Leo Sayer, Laurence Vanay, Chip Wickham, Ramon Farran & Lucia Graves and many more.

::That Tracklist In Full::

Stella Chiweshe ‘Chachimurenga’
A.R. & The Machines ‘Echo Boogie – Live At Elbphilharmonie Hamburg’
Dr. John ‘I Been Hoodood’
Digable Planets ‘Nickel Bags’
Madison Washington ‘((((Facts)))))’
Souls Of Mischief ‘Never No More’
Brand Nubian ‘Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down’
Jessie Mae Hemphill ‘Tell Me You Love Me’
Some Cash Players ‘Cold 40s’
Seventies Tuberide ‘Eyes Closed’
Milk TV ‘Bowery’s Swing’
Tom Verlaine ‘Red Leaves’
Sonic Youth ‘Confusion Is Next’
Radiohead ‘I Can’t’
The Auteurs ‘How Could I Be Wrong’
Blue House ‘Accelerate’
Yukihiro Takahashi ‘Drip Dry Eyes’
Phil Mfu ‘Electronic Jam Number 7’
Joel Vandroogenbroeck ‘Rocks’
Neuro…No Neuro ‘Blunt Affect’
Karen Vogt & Simon McCorry ‘The Path Divides’
Marlene Riberio ‘You Do It’
Holly Henderson ‘The Planes’
Bob Dylan ”Till I Fell In Love With You’
Leo Sayer ‘Only A Northern Song’
Laurence Vanay ‘Voyage Les Yeux Fermes’
VRITRA ‘Safe Passage’
Burt Bacharach ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’
Dori Sorride ‘Persone Fragili’
Chip Wickham ‘Lower East Side’
Alice Cooper ‘Unfinished Sweet’
The Stooges ‘Shake Appeal’
Echo & The Bunnymen ‘Back Of Love’
Ramon Farran & Robert Graves ‘Under The Olives’
Nyokabi Kariuki ‘Ngurumo, Or Feeding Goats Mangoes’
Dougie Stu ‘Silhouettes’