Thursday, 7 November 2019

Salako (with Bitmap) - Self-Contained, Idiosyncratic Music



Short bio:
Salako is a band from Hull, UK that was put together in 1995 by Luke Barwell, David Langdale, James Waudby, and Thomas Spencer. In 1998 their debut "Re-Inventing Punctuation" came out on Jeepster. In 1999 the follow-up album "Musicality" was released. In 1999, Langdale left the band, which then continued to record and release 2 EPs, the titles referred to the date and place of the cover photos, entitled "Mappleton Sands 201298" & "Ventimiglia 120899". In 2000 founding member Barwell left the band, and the rest of the members took some time off without officially splitting up. In 2004 Salako re-emerged with the release of "The Story of Our Life So Far" on Tablature Records.

Bitmap is a band made from just one man. Luke Barwell is that man. Releasing two critically acclaimed albums and one EP between 2003 and 2006 on the Gentle Electric label. These can all be found on bandcamp.

This anthology takes tracks from all the above releases. I decided to include Bitmap because their sound is so similar to Salako, but focused mostly on Salako even though all 3 Bitmap releases are excellent.

Note: Artwork for this was inspired by their early album/singles cover art.

  1. Salako - Go on Then! Enlighten Me, Why Doncha? (2:18)
  2. Salako - The Bird and the Bag (4:08)
  3. Salako - The Queen's Got a Price on My Life (2:52)
  4. Salako - San Francisco Baby Rides (2:45)
  5. Salako - Six Part Lullaby (1:24)
  6. Bitmap - Run James Run (3:39)
  7. Salako - Revolution Is Eternal (2:08)
  8. Salako - The Cult of Winter (3:21)
  9. Salako - Hull City Tiger (3:32)
10. Salako - In Swoosh We Trust (1:51)
11. Salako - You Know It's True (1:01)
12. Salako - Seasons (3:34)
13. Bitmap - She Fell Quickly Into Fall (3:07)
14. Salako - Finger Exercise #1 (0:33)
15. Salako - The Cloning of Fudadeg Ulag (1:57)
16. Salako - Island Life (2:13)
17. Salako - Mountain/Molehill (3:28)
18. Salako - (Have You Heard) Musicality (3:14)
19. Bitmap - Everything's Gone Wrong (1:03)
20. Bitmap - Black Arts in the Town Hall (2:11)
21. Salako - Look Right (2:45)
22. Salako - Tales from the Riverbed (5:13)
23. Salako - For Inspiration Only (2:16)
24. Salako - Hull's Too Good for England (3:14)
25. Bitmap - How the West Was Won (2:55)
26. Salako - The Three Crows of Life vs the Woodpigeon of Death (3:30)
27. Salako - Truth in Me (1:37)
28. Salako - We (5:24)
29. Salako - Could Things Be the Same (2:29)

 
 

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