Something Else I Found In The Basement

Michael Brook: Diffusing (4AD, 1994)
One of the greatest gigs I have ever seen was Brooksie* playing at London Zoo's aquarium to help launch his album, Cobalt Blue. In fact, the gig was so good it was later released on CD in its own right. Happy times, eh? Can you imagine a record label releasing a live CD of a guy playing his own launch party now? No, me neither. This track isn't from that (I lent it to someone about 8 years ago and never got it back, oh dear), it's taken from a 4AD promo called All Virgos Are Mad which featured a load of tracks recorded at the label's 13th birthday shows in LA. I used to have a nice t-shirt of said event which I wore every third or fourth day for about six years. But I've no idea where it is now - perhaps that's in the basement too?

*No one calls him "Brooksie", not even me.

Things You Find In The Basement While You're Looking For Something Else: 1

Studio Pressure: Relics (Natural Mystic mix) (Certificate 18, 1996)
I went down to the basement looking for a book and found a pile of CDs in a small, rather dusty looking box. There were some horrible old mix CDs in there and a pile of risible magazines (some of which I used to work for), but this caught my eye. Studio Pressure is Photek by another name. When I was still working in the record shop, Photek got signed to Virgin for, we were led to believe, £800,000. I wonder how that's working out for him... Anyway, this is a properly wonderful slice of mid-90s "intelligent" drum and bass that just happened to be on my friend Paul's label. Hope you're well, Mr A.