AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #377: STARTED BUT NOT FINISHED (Vol 1)

A GUEST POSTING by SWC

Rather fittingly I told JC that I would send him this ICA on (Checks emails) August 14th but like nearly everything I do in life these days, I got delayed. Last week, it took me three hours to nip to the shops to buy a pint of milk. The shop is a fifteen-minute walk away. I wish I was joking about that. Anyway, I’ve hastily added this paragraph at the start as way of a personal apology to JC for my ramshackle tardiness. What follows, is a piece I started writing in June, June! and finished on the first Thursday in September just after San Marino beat Lichtenstein at football.

I love an ICA, I love that sometimes they are of acts that I have never heard of, and I dive into them and bask in some wonderful new music. I also love the fact that sometimes they are of a band that I hate, and I shake my head in amazement that someone has found one song that they think someone might want to listen to, let alone ten. Sometimes I fume for DAYS that some idiot has written an ICA on a band that I love and hasn’t included a track that I would have put at track two on side one, sometimes I agree with the track listing but get angry about the order. About once a month I start an ICA, spend hours listening to music by that act, furiously scribble down notes on them, start to write about it and then leave it unfinished, unloved on the computer. So, in an act of soul cleansing here follows an ICA compiled of ten tracks by ten different acts, each of which I have started an ICA on but never finished.

Side One

1. Venom – Little Simz (2019, Age 101 Music)

I started my ICA on Little Simz in February this year after a four-hour Top Boy binging session. I banged on about getting mugged in a South London by Rotherhithe’s equivalent of the ZT gang and then brought it back to Little Simz (who of course plays Shelley in the series). ‘Venom’ opened that ICA and this is what I wrote about it – “‘Venom’ has lightning fast rapping laced with razor sharp barbs that vent angrily about the patriarchy”. Which I stand by, ‘Venom’ is ace and Little Simz is tremendous and if you don’t listen to her music, you probably should.

2. How Was It For You? – James (1991, Fontana Records)

During lockdown, I did a lot of running around the Devon countryside, one Sunday to spice things up I decided to write an ICA on whatever band was playing when I reached the start of the third mile of my run. On this occasion that was James, and it was ‘How Was It For You?’. My ICA of James currently has fourteen tracks and despite writing a really good first paragraph that talked about how much I hated Andy Diagram and his sodding trumpet, I never whittled the ICA down to a final ten. ‘How Was It For You?’ would have made the final ten though regardless.

3. Leave Home – Chemical Brothers (1995, Virgin Records)

This one started with a story about a bloke my dad knew called ‘Eggy’ who my dad once won a chest freezer off playing cards. It went from there to me and my dad getting a chest freezer in the back of a Sierra Sapphire and him not batting an eyelid about the damage it was doing to the suspension, and then went I went to University he moaned about the weight of my record collection. From there I somehow brought it round to the Chemical Brothers. The ten tracks have been decided, but I only wrote about six of them. Track Three is ‘Leave Home’.

4. Analogue Bubblebath – Aphex Twin (1992, Warp Records)

I still mean to finish this one, after all I only started it in 2018, so it’s early doors to be honest. Alongside Spiritualized and Primal Scream (see side two), the Aphex Twin is the act that I have started an ICA on the most only to delete all the words and start it again because I’d forgotten to include something from the ‘Donkey Rhubarb EP’ or because I’d decided that there was too much drill and bass on it and not enough classical piano. Regardless of what that ICA eventually looks like, it will contain ‘Analogue Bubblebath’.

5. Neighbourhood #1 – Arcade Fire (2004, Merge Records)

Sometimes you write an ICA and sit back and review it and think well its very album one heavy. Welcome then to my thoughts on my unfinished ICA on the Arcade Fire, of which six of the first eight tracks were from ‘Funeral’, which prompted me to realise that I love the debut album by Arcade Fire but remain somewhat nonplussed by the rest of their output. Still, an ICA made up of just the tracks from ‘Funeral’ would still be pretty amazing.

Side Two

1. Feel So Sad (Rhapsodies) – Spiritualized (1992, Dedicated Records)

Nine times I have tried to write a Spiritualized ICA and if you check the comments in the VERY FIRST ICA EVER, you will see me saying “Can I do one on Spiritualized?”. So I’ve been trying to write one since the dinosaurs walked the earth. But it’s just so hard to do. I just can’t do it and leave out this track or that track – and yeah I hear you, I could just do a second volume, but volume one has taken me ten years to decide on four maybe five tracks.

2. The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel (1964, Columbia Records)

My ICA on Simon & Garfunkel starts with me wittering on about ‘The Boxer’ coming on the radio at about three in the morning as I drove to Heathrow Airport to catch a flight and how the bored sounding radio presenter on BBC Three Counties Radio (or whichever it was) ruined it by talking over the last minute or so of it about the fact that there was no traffic on the roads of Berkshire. The ICA currently has seven tracks on it, most of them singles. I doubt I’ll finish it.

3. Swastika Eyes (Chemical Brothers Mix) – Primal Scream (2000, Creation Records)

I began my ICA on Primal Scream in May 2018. The first attempt was too ‘Screamadelica’ heavy (like six tracks or something). The second one had too little from ‘Screamadelica’. The third one had nothing from ‘Vanishing Point’ on it. The fourth one somehow managed to find room for ‘2013’ and was rubbish. The fifth one was also rubbish, and the sixth one was entirely free of tracks from ‘Screamadelica’ because I was in a grump with Bobby Gillespie in the wake of Martin Duffy’s death. Still am.

4. Blockbuster Night Part One – Run The Jewels (2014, RTJ Records)

You can blame Jeremy Corbyn for this one. Well sort of. I started this ICA after Corbyn lost the 2019 election to Boris. My opening line was “If Jeremy Corbyn had ended his speech on the Other Stage at Glastonbury 2017 by saying “Please welcome Run the Motherfucking Jewels” instead of saying “Vote Labour” or whatever it was he said, he would have walked the election”. Which wouldn’t have aged well knowing what we know now.

5. Sing About me, I’m Dying of Thirst – Kendrick Lamar (2012, Interscope Records)

“I’d love you to do an ICA on Kendrick Lamar” said JC in 2021. Ok, said I. Well, three years later I can tell you that my ICA on Kendrick Lamar ends with ‘Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst’, from his second album. I can’t tell you much more about it than that. Other than the fact that ‘Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst’ should end any Kendrick Lamar ICA.

So there we go – that’s volume one of the unfinished ICA collection. Volume Two will follow in December 2036.

Much Love

swc