Jun 11, 2008

THE BAND OF HOLY JOY "More Tales From The City" (UK,1987)



Debut LP of the top british folk pop band of late 80`s. Their sound, based on keyboards, bass, accordion, strings, horns and the melo-romantic singing of Johny Brown, is raw, passionate, sad and haunted. A kind of individual and social requiem for living in british cities. A mournful staring at the beauty, hurting and heartening.
After More Tales From The City the band left small Flim Flam label and signed Rough Trade seeking a richer and shinier producted sound, but the fresh, direct, sudden, wounded feeling of these "imperfect" songs remained finally unrepeatable.
Listen here (74mb)


"...what kind of fools stays on in angel town... "

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great!!!!!
Thank you very much!!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this gem.
Really miss it.

Steve Lafreniere said...

Thanks so very much. I've been searching for this for some time. I agree, an abject masterpiece.

They are still playing around, with some great live footage up on YouTube these days. Johny Brown is still wonderful on stage as well.

Unknown said...

radio joy... every sunday 8pm GMT two shows 'sounds from the lonely shack' and MPNYC at www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk x

george said...

i saw them in Rodon club Athens (first night) just after they had released Manic magic majestic. They were playing after suicide and most of the crowd - not more than 200 hundred people- had come 4 the New Yorkers. I remember a specific guy who opened a newspaper and started reading just after BOHJ had appeared on stage. Despite the context or maybe because of it BOHJ played in a heavenly manner and it was one of the most astonishing concerts of my life. Thank you again for sharing this hard to find gem.