• EDWIN POUNCEY puts on the pearls and Twinsets and pounces on some weird beatnik shit and mad, uncomfortable listening

ANTHRAX: Among The Living/ Persistence Of Time
FREE: Fire And Water/ Heartbreaker
GRACE JONES: Warm Leatherette/ Nightclubbing
JOHN MARTYN: Solid Air/ One World
TOM WAITS: Rain Dogs/ Swordfishtrombones
(all Island CD Twinsets)

JUST A selection from Island Records' latest wheeze; double CD reissues that have been repackaged and priced low(ish). A good idea, even though that 'Twinsets' tag smacks of something your old granny might approve of.

Still, the chance to hear Anthrax and Free dirt cheap is not to be sniffed at, although Free's '70s blues/ rock experience is far preferable to that of Anthrax's rather ground-down mosh fest. For the rest... Grace Jones' decision to cover Daniel 'The Normal' Miller's 'Warm Leatherette' was a stroke of genius, as was her street-wise choice of dub masters Sly 'n' Robbie to supply the backing track. John Martyn's guitar-from-another-planet sound still pleasantly stuns and proves that he was New Age and ambient before the rest of the pack dosed in.

Finally, Tom Waits beats his drum and kick-starts the motor of his carnival calliope into action to pay his personal homage to hobo musician and instrument maker, the late Harry Partch. Waits offers up a set of marvellously moving, surreal songs that reverberate like nothing on earth. His is the one to own here.

sitenotes:
This one sentence review was one of very few that was published about this release (number two in the Twinsets series). The CD's used were not leftover stock from the original releases but pressed for the occasion and painted black.
Material provided by John Neil Munro.