Records That Make Me Feel Good: 4 and 5

Two wonderful tracks this afternoon and both of them from new albums rather than some dusty piece of crap I bought for a dollar in some out of town nightmare in Des Moines or Derby (though there's lots more of those coming, BTW).

Alan Randall: Work Song (Licorice Soul, 2006).

I can't tell you anymore about the incredible - and sadly dead - Randall than you can read here, but this track is a brilliant piece of early 70s funk as orchestrated by a man more famous for having a massive gap between his teeth and being good at George Formby impressions.

Much, much more of this on the Working Man's Soul album, 12 tracks of the sort of social club funk that, I know only too well, just doesn't exist anymore.


Trans Am 4,738 Regrets (Thrill Jockey, 2007)

I saw Trans Am support to Tortoise at the Astoria in about 1994 (or something) and they were bloody great. To be honest, I'd not thought about them much since, but then their new album arrived in the post today and - who'd have thunk it - it's really good! This track in particular - instrumental, of course - has that New Order-ish sort of melancholic bite that staring out the windows into the middle distance was invented for.

More details about the very marvellous Trans Am here.