1999

5-19-10 1999

While digging through some papers at home, I recently found a detailing of what I was listening to in 1999. Where were you in 1999?

Afro Celt Sound System – Vol. 2: Release (Realworld CD)

Cafe Tacuba – Reves / Yosoi (Warner 2CD)

Corduroy – Click! (Pony Canyon Jpn CD)

Ekova – Soft Breeze and Tsunami Breaks (CBS FR CD)

Goblin – Original Remixes Vol. 1 (Japanese CD)

Golden Earring – Paradise In Distress (CNR NL CD EP)

Lynden David Hall – Medicine 4 My Pain (Cool Tempo UK CD)

Hideki Kaji – 15 Angry Men (Trattoria Jpn CD)

The Montgolfier Brothers – Seventeen Stars (Advance CD)

Mr. Oizo – Analogue Worms Attack (F Beat FR CD)

Pizzicato Five – Nonstop To Tokyo (Nippon Columbia Jpn CD EP)

Scritti Politti – Anomie & Bonhomie (Virgin EU CD)

V.A. – Plastics Tribute – Welcome To The Plastic World (Epic/Sony Jpn CD)

V.A. – Pop Romantique (Trattoria Jpn CD) with Kevin Ayers!

I wouldn’t start blogging for another three years when the above batch of releases were filling my ears. I waited the better part of a decade for the Scritti Politti album, and yet another almost-decade before he came and played live in L.A. “Click!” was to be Corduroy’s last album of all-new material. Pizzicato Five essentially ceased to operate in 2001; Did The Montgolfier Brothers ever have a 2^nd album on Poptones? British soul singer Lynden David Hall passed away after one (or two) more albums. Even Trattoria Records ceased trading shortly (I was on their mailing list – and most of their new releases were being sent to me in 1999).

Gilles sent me a video of Mr. Oizo “Flat Beat” from France – so I knew I had to have whatever album it was going to come from. I’d been a Goblin fan since I first got “Profondo Rosso” – and “Suspiria” is one of my all-time favorite progressive rock albums – despite it being the bookmark that ends the ‘prog rock’ years. Golden Earring still exist and probably still make great sounding music in 2010. Whatever happened to Ekova? I guess Café Tacuba went on to be mega-stars south of the border – but this was the last album by them that I ever encountered.

I first saw Afro Celt Sound System on “Later with Jools Holland” around the time of their debut release – I stayed with them for an album after “Vol. 2”, too. I have been a fan of both Hajime Tachibana and Toshio Nakanishi for nearly 30 years – so a Plastics Tribute CD interested me greatly. I hear that they’ve “re-formed” yet again and are touring Japan this summer.

I’m still pretty OK with all of these releases, a full decade on. I still buy whatever I can find by Mr. Oizo…and there is a Golden Earring SACD that I’m looking for…