alright Jim?

A quick stroll through Dublin's music stores threw up three new pieces of 7" vinyl for my ever-increasing collection. I'm going to have to commission a carpenter to build me some shelves for the 7"'s. They just don't fit rightly on the standard shelf for 12"'s and when I store them in boxes then i never know where to find them. Such are the quandaries I face on a daily basis.

Hydrogen Dukebox embarked on a 'Sing & Play' series a couple of releases back. Their first two were A1 People’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and Metamatics’ ‘Personal Jesus’. The latest release in the series see's Globo do a cover of DEVO's 'Whip It'. Funnily enough I only picked up the original of 'Whip It' in All City Records a couple of weeks ago. As such it was nice to hear this cover of it which is very, very different to the original itself. This one is very low-key electronica with some low-key vocals and harks back to the nice electronica that was released on the Hydrogen Dukebox label back in the late nineties and early noughties. It's on limited release so i'd grab it before you have to go and buy some expensive compilation that its bound to appear on in the future.

Jim Noir has also released a little EP thingy on 7" called All Right. It's a bit of spacey vocoder madness on the title track. Then its all 'oohs' and 'aahs' on top of a loose drumbeat. Mix a little bit of electronica into the backing track and all of a sudden you've quite a pleasant ditty on your hands. 'Find Mind Grind' is another of the featured tracks and is another slice of electronica mixed with sixties pop. Following on from the reissues of My Patch and Eany Meany this EP is another must have for any discerning music lover. Its also a must have for people like me.

Finally, after weeks and months of reading about them, I bought a 7" by The National. This one is called 'Apartment Story' and at first it reminded me of a tune that might arise if Echo & The Bunnymen were jamming with The Wedding Present circa 1987. It's very much the type of rock music that I was reared on back in the eighties. The more I listen to it, the more anthemic it gets. It's very much a grower. I reckon I'll be raving about it in a couple of days.