Tim has lots of these mix CDs, including ones by people I'd barely heard of before like Fila Brazilia. He plays them, appropriately, late at night accompanied by the TV with the sound off and a glass or two of red wine. That's how I picture him, anyway.
In fact Tim gave me this CD, as a late birthday present two years ago. I'd definitely heard of Four Tet (and indeed seen him perform at the Green Man Festival with Steve Reid, earlier that year).
I'm no expert on mix CDs, which are clearly quite different from normal compilations, but it seems to me that this is a great example of the form. It's very smart, the way he digs out unusual old records and recontextualises them so that they're fresh and different from your expectations. Max Roach comes after Terry Riley, and sounds like more of a minimalist than him. There's a track by Manfred Mann Chapter Three — I'd never heard of Manfred's Chapter Three period, so had to look them up on Wikipedia — and it's fantastic. After listening through three times, without paying attention to the tracklisting all the time, I'm astonished to see there's a Fairport Convention track on there: I'll have to listen again now.
Thinking back, it might have been a recommendation from Four Tet (probably in The Wire) that led me to buy the Joe Henderson album from which Late Night Tales' longest track is taken. The Linda Perhacs song is also familiar because, for some reason, Last.fm keeps playing it to me. But almost all the other stuff is new, and interesting.
 MusicBrainz entry for this albumWikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album Listen to this album in full at Last.fm |
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