BRIAN AUGER’S OBLIVION EXPRESS
Complete Oblivion
SOUL BANK MUSIC
8/10
All aboard for a rewarding journey into jazz prog
After 1960s chart success with Julie Driscoll and Trinity, keyboardist Auger sidestepped the mainstream for the progressive jazz flavours of his next band. This boxset brings together all six albums Oblivion Express released between ’70 and ’75, all lovingly remastered, allowing listeners to follow the path Auger navigated through jazz fusion, with stops along the way to test the waters of Latin rhythms and disco. The group’s evolving lineup (including guitarists Jim Mullen and Jack Mills, and drummers Robbie McIntosh and Steve Ferrone) enabled him to switch horses wherever inspiration led him, be it to the celebratory soul of “Fill Your Head With Laughter” (from A Better Land), the lean and mean reworking of Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues” (Closer To It!) or what became a signature number of sorts, the eight-minute wig-out “Brain Damage” (Reinforcements). An endlessly rewarding compendium highlighting a man at the height of his creative powers. TERRY STAUNTON
BELLE & SEBASTIAN
The Boy With The Arab Strap (reissue, 1998)
MATADOR
8/10
The Glasgow collective’s pivotal third album, repressed and re-pressed
In the two years between 1996’s career-making If You’re Feeling Sinister and 1998’s The Boy With The Arab Strap, Belle & Sebastian released three EPs that drew on Stuart Murdoch’s deep well of material while also nudging their music in new directions. Full of northern soul rhythms and ’60s pop pomp, …Arab Strap is the product of those experiments, a loose and gently expansive album that presents Belle & Sebastian as an ensemble rather than merely an appendage for Murdoch. Guitarist Stevie Jackson contributes two songs about the music industry, bassist Stuart David narrates “A Spaceboy Dream”, and cellist Isobel Campbell takes lead on “Is It Wicked Not To Care?”. It’s ironic how well these odd tinkerings fit together, given that the songs address loneliness and isolation, and perhaps it was strategic: a means for the group – and especially Murdoch – to maintain a useful aloofness even as they stepped into the spotlight. STEPHEN DEUSNER
DAVID BOWIE
Pin Ups (50th Anniversary)
PARLOPHONE
8/10
Half-speed vinyl remaster of this love letter to Swinging London
Bowie’s covers album is often dismissed as a bit of a stopgap release. But, revisiting it on its 50th anniversary, it’s a hoot: a delirious love letter to the bands he followed on the London gig circuit in the mid-1960s. Bowie’s saxophone playing
