Over the past few weeks, I've been stuck in the 70s. It goes back further than that, actually, thanks to this poll. However, I never thought my interest in 70s music would influence my buying habits as much as it has, but it seems that my ratio of 70s to anything else is about 4:1. Not that I'm complaining, but this whole getting older and out of touch certainly isn't helped when everything you buy is 25-35 years old.
Thanks to musicrecylery.com, I've been able to pick up Sugar Minott's - Ghetto-ology + Dub (a 2-fer only available on the Easy Star reissue), The Rance Allen Group - A Soulful Experience, Charles Earland - Black Talk, and the Crusaders - Chain Reaction. Aside from this, I also recently bought the Slits - Cut, Suicide's first album (with the bonus live disc), the Faces greatest hits, King Tubby's In Fine Style (a collection of 46 songs he engineered from 72-77 with various producers) and Townes Van Zandt's Live At the Old Quarter double CD.
However, I haven't been totally out of it, thanks largely to some friends who help keep me up to date on things. I finally got the Run The Road compilation, which will not be sold domestically in Canada, so I'm told (even though the label had a release party in Toronto, which is pretty fucking stupid, but maybe they knew that copies would at least be imported to the big city). For those people who are not living in Toronto, I recommend amazon.ca, which has the album less than $16, or cdwow.com, if you'd prefer the black cover/gold lettered version. Personally, I prefer the UK version's look, but opted for the US release.
Also, the recently leaked Jamie Lidell album, Multiply, will have motown soul fans salivating. It's a brilliant soul/funk creation by a warp artist who, as far as I understand, put out a more challenging IDM music on his debut album. However, clearly he's turned to his old soul and funk records (or even pulled out the Amp Fiddler album from last year, which was equally retro though still very forward thinking).
Despite my 70s hangup, I've still made quite a bit of time for various 2005 albums, and a number of them are essential (Bloc Party, Decemberists, MIA, Mars Volta, Sharon Jones, Al Green, LCD Soundsystem and Black Mountain to name a few).
However, my favourite review of the year (of an album I haven't heard at all) was published today on Stylus magazine. Michael Barthel's excitement is so infectious that one feels they need to hear the album, if only for Barthel's sake. If the album makes me half as happy as it clearly made him, then it'll be one of my albums of the year. More love for the album can be found on ILM.
posted by Jonathan