Hobbit House Collective - 2 x 7"

 Latest Fruits de Mer double 7” featuring covers of Fleetwood Mac, Led Zep, and a new original track!

 

The latest release from what is surely now a nationally treasured institution. I’m talking of course about the wonderful Fruits de Mer Record label. It’s 14 years since they first pressed music onto vinyl, since when they’ve put out a veritable treasure trove of psychedelia, acid-folk, prog, krautrock and spacerock. Much of it highly collectable, all worth investigating.

The label’s most recent offering is this double vinyl 7” featuring long-time friends of the label, Crystal Jacqueline, Icarus Peel, The Honey Pot and The Locker Room Cowboys. Grouped together as the Hobbit House Collective they’ve put together four tracks that draw from the early ‘70s rock scene. Crystal Jacqueline does a brilliant version of Zep’s ‘Battle Of Evermore’ featuring stellar guest violin from Curved Air’s Darryl Way. Furthering the Zep love-in is The Honey Pot’s take on ‘Ramble On’.

Icarus Peel does a storming version of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’, and to round things off there’s an equally impressive original track, ‘Wolfgang Does the Nurburgring’ by The Locker Room Cowboys. The latter is a four-minute instrumental featuring full-on guitar heroics, heavy organ, and conga drum groove. What’s not to like?! 

 

1. Crystal Jacqueline – The Battle Of Evermore (Led Zeppelin)

2. The Honey Pot – Ramble On (Led Zeppelin)

3. Icarus Peel’s Acid Reign – The Chain (Fleetwood Mac)

4. The Locker Room Cowboys – Wolfgang Does the Nurburgring (Icarus Peel) 

 

Click here for the Fruits de Mer website

 

Office for Personal Development - You Are In Control

New Band, New Direction, New Era. Motivation meets Europop!

 

As we work our way through February’s slow wintry days, January already seems like a distant memory, the early days of the new year feel life a lifetime away. If, like me, you made one or two new year resolutions which have already been broken, there is still a chance of redemption. It’s not too late to re-commit.

Appearing at just the right time to help with any form of self-improvement is a new band (or should that be focus group?) called Office For Personal Development. Their latest track is called ‘You Are In Control’, the video for which is posted below. Mixing synth led Europop with a corporate branded boosterism, they’re a band for these strange, hard times, guaranteed to help you become the best version of yourself.

 Eagle-eyed viewers may spot an old friend of Harmonic Distortion at the helm. OPD vocalist Trevor Deeble released a string of albums as one half of Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou, superb folk-pop harmonists who may at some point, we hope, be back.

As we head deeper into the 21^st century however, it’s time for new directions, new ideas, new music and possibly a new you. With that in mind, please enjoy the latest offering from the Office For Personal Development. 

 

Click here for the OPD website

Click here for the OPD on Twitter

Click here for the OPD on Facebook

Click here for the OPD on Instagram

 

The Piaggio Soul Combination and Lakeetra Knowles - Soultimate

Italians do it better! Fourteen tracks of dancefloor-filling modernism!

 

Happy January folks! It's often said to be the longest, darkest, most miserable of all the months. Especially if you're a meat-eating alcoholic feeling societal pressure to give up the things you love most. (Not a reference to myself I should stress!) None of us should be giving up the joys of new music however, so it's comforting to find that January is offering up some brilliant new releases for us to seek out, listen to, and perhaps even buy.

Top of my listening pile at the moment is this cracking dancefloor filling soul album released by an Italian Mod collective called Piaggio Soul Combination. It's the group's third full-length album following Italian Boogaloo (2017) and This Is The Piaggio Soul Combination (2019) and is released on January 28th. Here in the UK we're inclined to think that the creation of the mod movement is a uniquely British thing. Or maybe just an English thing, centred on London or the south-east. It should be stressed though that the movement soaked up influences from other cultures - American soul, jazz and R&B, Italian scooters and tailoring, and a forward thinking approach to fashion in general, inspired in no small part by that of post-war mainland Europe.

It's fitting then that this album features input from Italy, the UK, and America - The band themselves formed in Pisa, Italy. Featured vocalist Lakeetra Knowles was brought up in Arkansas, USA. And the album's producer is none other than Andy Lewis, a name that will be familiar to fans of Paul Weller, Fay Hallam, and British soul music in general.

Over the course of the album's 14 tracks we journey through Northern soul stompers, latin-flavoured boogaloo, and sophisticated toe-tappers. All very groovy, all infectious and most importantly all very uplifting. Perfect for lifting one's spirits and shifting those damn January blues. It will also make you want to get up and dance. With this in mind the album is available on a very DJ-friendly physical format, a gatefold double 12" 45rpm set. Perfect for spinning at your local vinyl-only all-nighter.

 

The current line-up is: Lakeetra Knowles (lead vocals), Marco Piaggesi (lead & backing vocals, organ, piano, mellotron), Michele Malasoma (drums & timbales), Gio Renzo Baccelli (percussion), Saverio Grasselli (guitar), Michelangelo Pardini (bass), Andrea Milano (alto sax), Manuel Vanni & Cesare Errico (tenor sax), Gaspare Vinto (baritone sax).