VARIOUS ARTISTS

Burselm Accomplice

(Burselm Crypt Recordings) CDR $8.00

The Burselm. Small market town in the middle of the Midlands. Usual mither. Nothing good. Houses where the curtains don’t open. The only way in is by accident. A stranger parks herself at a table in the Turks. Seconds pass. First appearance; stick-thin youth tugging cheese from his drawers. Special price. Second appearance; short lady, ancient and crumbling. DVDs. Stars of yesteryear. Three for a fiver. And then nothing. No one. Nobody. Block of cheddar and a small pile of Charley Sheen. What is there to do in this town. Scan the room. Poster behind the bar. Handwritten promise of Live action. Inept punk and esoteric experimentation. Esoteric punk and inept experimentation. It’s hard to make out. Deliberately obtuse. Shitty. Upstairs. So she walks upstairs. The DVD lady is on the door. Five quid. Give me five quid and you can come in. Cheese boy is at the back of the room with a contact mic. Some old people huddle round an amplifier that has no plug on it. She pays her money. Five small coins. Already working on the cheese. Gobfuls of it. Hard to breathe. Starts up a glam rock medley. Nothing obscure. Just the hits. The numbers one. She’s part of it. That horrible thing. Horrible Burselm thing. She’s an accomplice. Like the fools on the disc you hold in your hand. Indoor market. Open coffin. Sealed fate. Tracks by Posset, Dai Coelacanth, Lovely Honkey, and Andrew M Jarvis.

VILE PLUMAGE

Excavation At Hobbs Lane: The Early Days Of Community Radio

(Burselm Crypt Recordings) CDR $8.00

“Totally oddball little loopy songs and scenarios,” marvels Duncan Harrison, “Creeping radioplay-style narrative occasionally revealing itself, the ever pervasive mysteries of Burselm, forever.”