Monday 28 February 2011

It's All Happening Now





About 9 years ago, when at college, I was in Imperial Records on Park Street Bristol, the shop full of people browsing through the racks- new and old vinyl and some cd's and tapes too. It's been sorely missed, as it was one of those shops with an authentic musty smell, the sort you normally only get in 'proper' record shops. Whilst browsing I overheard a fellow punter saying 'This Lewis Parker record is really good' as it was playing over the shop speakers.

It's a true thing that one person's recommendation is worth more than any TV ad. It's person to person that counts sometimes. And 9 years later, this overheard P2P recommendation worked. I found myself strangely drawn to Parker's sophomore album as if a missing friend I hadn't seen for a very long time (and who wasn't on facebook).

So my quest began again, firstly, was the album on Spotify for me to rekindle my memory 9 years ago of the album? Luckily, this was a tick, and so for the next two weeks on and off, I tuned in. Again going through track-by-track, reminded each time of both the great production on the album, the original b-boy beats, Parker's raw voice and homegrown lyrics, spinning stories that make you think and challenged you in the same way that Tribe, Beastie Boys and DeLaSoul did.

Having satisfyed myself that I should own a hard-copy of the album, I went onto HMV, signed up to their Pure card because you get points (good ones), and dropped the album into the online basket.

4 days later and i'm playing the CD at home and boy was the 9 years and 4 days delivery time worth the wait.


Lewis Parker- "It's All Happening Now (The Ancient Series 3)"- hmv.com