“The Bug Club’s 'Rare Birds: Hour Of Song' was a definite highlight of this year. An hour and four minutes (to be precise) of joyfully primitive pop whimsy. The band were kind enough to swing by the shop and sign some records for us back in September. A lovely bunch!”
Recommended by Will from Spinning Discs Sheffield
The Bug Club cap off 2023 with their second full-length album - an hour-and-a-bit long double LP called 'Rare Birds: Hour of Song'.
Their eighth release since joining forces with Bingo Records in summer 2020, 'Rare Birds...' is a culmination of a year spent relentlessly touring. But it's not one of those hackneyed road records. It's about birds, to an extent. Well, it is, and it isn't.
Spare us an hour and four minutes. That's what we're asking of you here. It's a big ask, these days.
But if you do, you'll find yourself entrenched in an immersive world of The Bug Club. The other records - with the sardonic and surreal, the riffs and the obsession with outer space - were a run up. With 'Rare Birds...' Sam, Tilly and Dan have created an expansive environment in which we can all bask in a cocktail of garage rock, poetry, nonsense, wordplay, sentimentality and fuck-offs. Ivor Cutler's come round to play with Gordon Gano and Kimya Dawson in a semi-detached in Caldicot. They've made something you're going to really like.
Record recommendation: Avocet by Bert Jansch
“As for Christmas gift recommendations, this delightful reissue of 'Avocet' - an instrumental ‘paean to British water birds’ from folk guitar hero Bert Jansch - comes with six bird prints by artist Hannah Alice and bird-watcher’s field guide. Perfect for the budding ornithologist/folky in your life…”
Recommended by Will from Spinning Discs Sheffield
Avocet is the 12th album by iconic Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch, released in 1979 in UK. The album was first released by Ex Libris in Denmark in late 1978. The title track "Avocet" was inspired by the traditional song "The Cuckoo". All tracks on the album are named after a sea bird or wading bird.
In 2016, Earth Recordings reissued the album (remastered by Brian Pyle, with new sleeve art) in digital, CD, and vinyl formats; the latter available in an 'art edition' which includes six lithograph prints of illustrations of each of the birds on the album, made by Hannah Alice.
Record recommendation: Different Class by Pulp
“As a little Brucey bonus, we’re also going to represent our hometown and suggest Pulp’s 'Different Class' - a perennial classic with cross-generational appeal. Seeing them live in Sheffield this year was really special.”
Recommended by Will from Spinning Discs Sheffield
A vinyl copy of Pulp's fifth studio album will be the perfect present for fans who were lucky enough to catch the band live in 2023. The album was released in the UK at the height of Britpop. It followed from the success of their breakthrough album His 'n' Hers the previous year, and features probably two of the most iconic songs of the decade in "Common People" and "Disco 2000".