One of my objectives in life is to gently guide people away from listening to junk. By this I mean 95% of the music heard on the radio or television. For those who already listen to the stuff I like, another objective is to guide them further leftfield into territories that they daren’t normally enter. Whilst I’ve never managed to convince people to listen to Lydia Lunch, especially her early ‘work’, I did coerce three out of four people into listening to Throwing Muses back in the late 1980s (although that was extremely hard work). The return rate on My Bloody Valentine was only 25% though.

I bought the Balligomingo album yesterday, so in the interests of exploration, I thought I’d summarise related artists that are musically connected to that style of music. Firstly, ignore the Enigma references in the reviews. Done that? Good.

Here we go:

• The album does have lots of upbeat housey pianos, in a late 80s style. I’ve been racking my brains all day to recall what this reminds me of. It is Love Corporation. I only have their first album Love, but it’s similarly upbeat and a bit more bouncy.
• What about the smooth, gliding nature of the tracks? For this, we have Moodswings. I first heard Moodswings on Radio 1 eons ago — must be 13-14 years I guess — when their track Spiritual High was played. I was totally hooked on it, and I bought the single. It’s a collector’s item now apparently. I found out much later that it is a reworking of the Vangelis track State of Independence. Again, I only have one album of theirs. It’s called Moodfood and it’s very classy. This album peaks with the first three tracks. Essentially a Spiritual High triptych lasting 16 minutes – it’s a magnificant masterpiece, I adore it.
• Then we need the ambient dubby electronica. For this, I refer to William Orbit’s Strange Cargo moniker. Strange Cargo III is probably the closest. This too is a really great album.

Some iTMS links:

• Moodswings: Moodfood
• Strange Cargo: Strange Cargo III