Tag: The Perfect Collection

1. HUGO LARGO – METTLE (1989)

Hugo Largo - Mettle
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Melody Maker famously called 1988 “rock’s greatest year” – perhaps with some justification. Across the Atlantic there was a proliferation of post-hardcore experimentation in guitar noise (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Pixies, Butthole Surfers etc) while at home, others (AR Kane, MBV) absorbed some of that inspiration to create something even more ravishingly beautiful and radical. If the apex of this first ‘blissed out’ generation was AR Kane’s aptly titled  Up Home! EP (which Simon Reynolds memorably described as “rock’s Antarctica…it’s final petrifying spell – the sound of a million icicles”) …then Hugo Largo’s Mettle was stretching the limits in the opposite direction. Their only full-length album was released on Eno’s Land label, but the crucial rule here was not to remain on terra firma. As if Brian would sanction that. If the likes of MBV were rocketing through the sonic stratosphere, then it was only natural that their visionary (distant) cousins should aim to go back down again, down as far as one could go, even into the womb – to the warm blue belly of a new aquatic Eden.

Their singer Mimi Goese probably believed in new age crystals. She sang about turtles and Native American  philosophy. She threw a few words of Japanese into the mix. All in the name of art you see. Pretentious? Perhaps. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to play with knives girl? But did it matter? Not a bit. The band broke all the rock rules. No guitar in sight. Hearing and seeing them for the first time in 1988 (supporting That Petrol Emotion bizarrely!) that seemed strange enough, but it took me a bit longer to realise that the drummer hadn’t simply been given the night off. Instead the soundtrack was provided by two bass guitars and a solitary violin. You might think there’d be something missing from the sound, but no, it surrounded and enveloped the listener like a velvet glove.

Hahn Rowe’s undulating violin tugs like the undertow around the rippling melodic lines of the brace of bass. The songs are strong, the melodies soporific yet full of surprises. Mettle may not be a post-rock blueprint (AR Kane’s 69 has a greater claim to that title) but it is a post-rawk blueprint. It is also the bluest album ever made, and by that I mean azure, the colour of the ocean, rather than morose. In fact it’s quite the opposite of blue in that sense. “Try taking off your noisy head; rest it on a pillow soaked in melting wax” Mimi sings with almost evangelical zeal on ‘Hot Day’. Quite. (JJ)

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THE NEW PERFECT COLLECTION Follow @terrytochel @tnpcollection @PgallagheretgGg

The "New" Perfect Collection
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The Perfect Collection was published in 1982. Subtitled “The Rock Albums everybody should have and why”, editor Tom Hibbert and his contributors selected 200+ albums, which would give you, if you bought them all, a “broad, balanced, lively, collection of all thats best in rock music”.

When this book appeared in our local library it consumed and obsessed us. It wasn’t perfect. It didn’t inspire us to track down all of the records like some other lists of the “greatest records ever made” (I’ve still not heard some of them). It included Vanilla Fudge’s The Beat Goes On which it claims is probably the worst album ever made. It included Pat Boone, Cliff Richard and Gary Glitter and omitted Howlin’ Wolf, Link Wray, T Rex and Can.

Where the book got it right was the inclusion of some records which I have never seen included in any other best of lists. It turned us on to records like The Standells’ Try It, The Seeds’ Raw & Alive and The Flaming Groovies’ Teenage Head which remain firm favourites thirty plus years after first reading about them. It included Gene Clark’s No Other and Big Star’s Radio City which were not acknowledged as classics for another decade or two.

While it included many of the big hitters and acknowledged classics, what was clear was that the rest of these albums were the real personal favourites of the contributors, the ones that you would fight for.

What we intend to do is write about the 200 or so albums that we would include in our perfect collection. While it would be tempting to only include records recorded since the books publication, it may include what we would consider glaring omissions from the original book. Like the book, if an artist has two albums of equal artistic merit, an alternative  choice will be denoted with an ‘a’. Various artist compilation were not included in the book, and will not be included here (sorry Nuggets et al) We have tried to avoid the bigger names and shine a light on those names that don’t usually figure in best of lists.

Dedicated to

Tom Hibbert, Andy Schwartz, Brian Hogg, Bill Knight, Chris Charlesworth, C. P. Lee, Chris Welch, Fran Kershner, Giovanni Dadomo, Harry, Shapiro, Ian Birch, John Tobler, Kerry King, Michael Heatley, Mike McDowell, Martin Plimmer, Mark Williams, Nigel Cross, Neville Wiggins, Peter Clark, Patrick Humphries, Paddy Poltock, Paul Whitcombe, Stephen Lee, Sally Payne.