Chances are that if you head down to HMV and browse through the 'Compilations' section you'll be battered about the head with a £3.99 12CD Ibiza Anthems box set or brain-numbing twaddle like Housework Music. Housework Music. For fuck's sake.
Compilation albums shouldn't be like that. Instead of forcing you to wear out the 'skip' button on your CD player, they should pick you up and slap you in the mouth over and over again with songs you've never heard but can't imagine being without after hearing them for the first time. Gareth 'Cherrystones' Goddard is well aware of this, and his new Cherrystones Word compilation does exactly that. As far as getting your lost psych garage proto-punk kicks go, Cherrystones Word is hands down the best compilation album released this year.
If you've ever heard a compilation by David Holmes or Andy Votel, you'll know exactly what to expect from Cherrystones Word - incredible, raw, funky psychedelic garage rock that somehow slipped through the net of popular culture first time round and that's been dragged up for consumption all over again by a more discerning generation. Cherrystones Word is rammed with songs like these - it's obscenely good from start to finish.
And, perfectly, Cherrystones Word is completely unmixed - these tunes are going to fit onto your iPod in their entirety, leaving you safe in the knowledge that they won't a) suddenly end halfway through or b) get mangled up with a a speech by Manc Indian restaurant owner intent on rapping about how good his food is. For this reason alone, Cherrystones Word is worthy of your money.
Oh, and as for the music itself - Cherrystones Word offers the listener an embarrassment of hard-to-find riches that dips in quality so rarely that it's hard to know where to start when picking out highlights. Our favourite tracks tend to change every time we listen to Cherrystones Word, but at the moment we're going loopy for Dead Moon Night by Dead Moon - a scuzzy-soundblast of desperate garage energy that doesn't sound too unlike The Make-Up, Farsa Del Buen Vivir by Fusioon - which takes The Mexican by Babe Ruth and shakes it until its eyes fall out, and A La Queue Les Yverlines by Jacques Dutronc - but then we'd give a Keane album a good review if Jacques Dutronc figured in there somewhere.
King of them all for us at the moment, though, is Jak D'Or by Episode Six - a tight, loping mod instrumental that couldn't have come from anywhere but the late sixties that half of Deep Purple somehow play on. But we're just skimming the surface of Cherrystones Word here - there's so much to offer, from songs that sound like they should be on the Deep Throat soundtrack to murky PiL soundalikes to Brazilian funk masterpieces. If none of the tunes on Cherrystones Word have been plastered all over TV adverts by the end of next year we'd be very surprised indeed.
There's a common condition called Compilation Overdraft where, upon hearing a compilation album and falling in love with some of its tracks, the more geeky completest listeners obsessively track down every last scrap of music by the bands responsible until they literally don't have enough money to eat. hecklerspray knows about Compilation Overdraft only too well, as our stacks of Marlena Shaw, Darondo, He6 and Pugh Rodgefelt albums will testify. And now that we own Cherrystones Word we can feel its sweet call luring us back into the water. Cherrystones Word has made sure that we're going to have a very hungry winter.
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A heady serving of rare fuzzy treasures from the psychedelic rock underground of the 60s and 70s -- served up with the usual funky flair of the Cherrystones series! The guitars are all pretty heavy on these numbers, but there's also a fair bit of kicking drums too -- enough to give some of the tracks an appeal to our more funk-tuned ears, and let us appreciate the more straight-ahead guitar jamming tunes! The set's got even better packaging than other Cherrystones sets -- with notes on most of the titles, further helping us situation this odd mix of pan-global rarities from many years back. Titles include "Amsterdam The First Days" by Brainbox, "Dead Moon Night" by Dead Moon, "Blowin Smoke" by George Brigman & Split, "You've Got To Hold On" by The Deviants, "Do The Residue" by Kontakt Mikrofoon Orkestra, "Warinobaril" by Lard Free, "Mapina" by George Romanos, "Demons" by Bintage, and "Jak D'Or" by Episode Six -- Dusty Groove description
Track Listing
1. Amsterdam, The First Days - Brainbox
2. Dead Moon Night - Dead Moon
3. Blowin' Smoke - George Brigman
4. You're Got To Hold On - The Deviants
5. You've Been Duplicated - Chrome
6. Highway - Nosferatu
7. Farsa Del Buen Vivir - Fusion
8. I Can't Control Myself - Roger C. Reale & Rue Morgue
9. Do The Residue - Kontakt Mikrofoon Orkfest
10. Get It - Midnight Circus
11. Dead Of Love - Pan & Regaliz
12. Jak D'or - Episode Six
13. Demons - Bintangs
14. Mapina - George Romanos
15. Warinobaril - Lard Free
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