How I Spend my Friday Nights

Hey look, it’s music on a Friday night/Saturday morning!

Blue Pearl
Alive (Goa Mix)
Alive (Radio Mix)
Alive (Organapella Mix)
Down To You (Massey Mix)

Last year much hoopla was made of Metallic Spheres, the new album by The Orb that featured Youth from Killing Joke and David Gilmour. The funny thing was that both of those guys already worked together at least once before.

Blue Pearl was a collaboration between Youth and female singer Durga McBroom, who worked as a backup singer for Pink Floyd in the 1980s. I guess she had a fan in David Gilmour, who contributed some guitar work to Blue Pearl’s only album, 1990’s Naked. According to Wikipedia Richard Wright from Pink Floyd also contributed on the album, but I don’t know if his work is on any of these tracks.

As for the songs themselves, they are very 80s house sounding, and pretty dated. Still, McBroom has a crazy amazing voice and the tracks are an excellent example of that kind of music.

Youssou N’Dour
Undecided (Deep 12” Dance Mix)
Undecided (12” Dance Instrumental)
Undecided (Deep Radio Mix)

I know nothing about Youssou N’Dour. Sorry. I bought this 12″ single on a whim and dug it for its Deep Forest-ness. Enjoy.

Soft Cell
Numbers (Extended Version)
Barriers

Now this is an artist I know about. I thought that by now damn near every obscure 80s track had been re-released on CD or digitally, but I guess I was mistaken. These versions of Numbers and Barrriers are not in print in any digital format (although the extended version of Numbers was on one re-issue of a Soft Cell album at one point, I can’t find that one anymore.)

Now look, I love me some Soft Cell. Tainted Love? Easily one of the top three songs of the decade. Sex Dwarf? Easily the best named-song of the decade. But these tracks? Well…I’m sure if you’re a devoted Soft Cell fanatic you’ll be very happy to find them here. Um, enjoy.

10 Responses to “How I Spend my Friday Nights”

  1. Homer J from UK says:

    I didn’t know anything about ‘Blue Pearl’ apart from making the massive hit ‘Naked In The Rain’.
    I certainly didn’t know about Youth being from ‘Killing Joke'(i love ‘Adorations’)-didn’t he produce some ‘Depeche Mode’? If not i do tend 2 get him mixed up with ‘Flood’!
    So haven’t u heard the worldwide hit ‘Youssou N Dour’ had with ‘Neneh Cherry'(‘7 Seconds’) !?!
    I’ve never really been a fan of ‘Tainted Love’,i always thought ‘Say Hello…’ & ‘Bedsitter’ were better. Now the bootleg ‘Tainted Cash’ from late 90’s,now ur talking!
    The thing is with ‘The Orb’ is that their music is pretty much stuck on the wrong side of 1990 2 not sound dated. But the white label i have of ‘Hotel California’ by ‘Jam On The Mutha'(Ibiza 90 Mix) is gr8,& isn’t that a collaberation between part ‘Orb’ & part ‘KLF’.
    If all the music out there was available on CD i wouldn’t have 2 keep my collection of mostly 12” singles in my mum’s loft. Altho that collection from 92 is only around 600 now(due 2 some replacement by CD!),there’s loads of stuff that still can’t be found even on the net-‘Just Bugging(Dutch Mix)-WHISTLE’ for one. Blimey that was a long comment !

  2. Tim says:

    You may know N’Dour from his duet with Nenneh Cherry “7 seconds”. A big hit here over in Europe in its day and worth checking out

  3. Isabel says:

    Awesome beautiful unknown song “Barriers” from Soft Cell! Thank you for that unexpected gift. Not much into this band (only knowing about “tainted love” which is clearly fantastic) so double discovery!

  4. Steven says:

    Thanks for the Goa mix of ‘Alive’, reminds me of working in the Sub Club in Glasgow on function nights. Rab Clark giving the partygoers what they wanted (as long as it was the same as what Rab wanted…).

  5. Fictional Queen says:

    Cool post!

  6. raul says:

    great post today,i took a bit of each,thanks so much

  7. Tony says:

    Its about time I say something.
    I’ve right-clicked my way into quite a digital collection because of you and I just want to say thanks, thanks a million.
    ‘specially today with the extra stuff.
    I’m a vinyl junkie from the past (’80’s) and would be glad to share.
    You cool.
    BTW I think “you- sir-endure” (mental pronunciation) was on Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”.

  8. Ali says:

    Yay – I loved Blue Pearl – especially Roll Over and Chemical Thing – so much better than their big hit

  9. thefxc says:

    The extended “Numbers” is on some CD versions of “The Art of Falling Apart,”and that and “Barriers” are both on the 3CD Twelve Inch Singles comp that came out about a decade ago.

  10. Lost Turntable says:

    Yup, and neither are in print right now.

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