AFTER what seems like a lifetime of finding, buying, playing and coveting vinyl, I’m well on my way down the road of divestment. But there is still much music out there which is un-digitised and not known [especially anything outside of canonical lists dominated by white American males] and I like to research and enquire about it, perhaps to write about it too.

In light of the recent report on just how much music was lost in the Universal Music Group fire of 2008 – and what that says about music companies’ traditionally cavalier approach to artists and their recorded output – it’s all the more important to stand up, as it were, for that which has been lost or is in danger of being forgotten.

At the same time, you can take the man out of hip hop but you can’t…

In other words, old habits die hard. A crummy album from a bargain bin or dusty, damp back room in a shop may well have a few seconds or more of a weird beat/arrangement or strangely affecting voice/keyboard line. The rest is dreck but that one element is to savour, perhaps even re-deploy elsewhere to greater effect.

In the same vein as the seminal Octopus Breaks and continuing the great auditory turn-on which was Lovefingers – RIP to both – here’s four beats for free; musical oddities which still possess life and a promise of… of… of something! Do what thou will neighbour.

Name all four tracks and I’ll send you a coveted, culturally valuable and scarce piece of vinyl, free of charge.

Love,

Pat

https://soundcloud.com/patmellow/mellowbeats-1