While there’s a hell of a lot of clutter and noise on the internet, there’s also a lot to be discovered. By randomly clicking a link it’s possible to discover (or rediscover) a whole new world.
Like, for instance, A Diamond Age, Atlanta, Ga.-based musician M Leer’s ever-mutating (mostly) solo project. While he’s busy putting the finishing touches on his next record, you’d do very well to download his beautifully-curated mix tapes — very heavy on Technicolor psychedelia and rarities from the glory days of Cinecitta.
Whatever you do, don’t pass up Beguiling the Hours, Leer’s track-for-track tribute to Gareth Williams and Mary Currie’s collaborative project Flaming Tunes.
Williams’ post-This Heat project only saw limited release on cassette in the 1980s. Thanks to Mick Hobbs’ Life and Living Records, it was given a proper reissue last year.
When Leer, a dedicated This Heat fan, stumbled upon an FT bootleg in 2007, he was amazed to discover that the album wasn’t more well-known, even among the cognoscenti.
“What initially grabbed me was that it was in a different place from This Heat, but with a similar cadence. You could tell where it was coming from,” he said in 2009. “Essentially, [it’s] a pop record —a song-oriented, soulful thing.”
Cheers to Dan Selzer at Acute Records for alerting me to this wonderful video of Gareth Williams, filmed in the ‘80s and completed after his untimely death in 2001 by friend Colin Harrison.
“Nothing’s On” and other rarities can be downloaded at Flaming Tunes. (The links are very quietly hiding out on the right, under the photos.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5VmnqUTbeI
A Diamond Age, “Raindrops from Heaven” (from Beguiling the Hours, 2007)
Gareth Williams, “31” (demo)
IMAGE: LETTER FROM GARETH WILLIAMS TO MARY CURRIE, FROM FLAMING TUNES