Skip to content
Greetings Sorry Staters. Thanks for tuning in. Hopefully, you are doing well. I must admit that I’ve been down in the dumps the last couple of days. That’s nothing new, ha ha, just more than usual. Those of you who follow football (soccer) and don’t support Liverpool are probably having a good laugh right now. If you read my section of the newsletter, you’ll know that I am a lifelong Red and so us getting humiliated at Anfield by Real Madrid on Tuesday on top of what has been a dreadful season already was a real gut punch. Today is Thursday, and I’ve had a couple of days to get over it and what better way than with music. Thankfully, I work in a killer record store and am surrounded by so much great stuff. Let’s pick one to listen to together shall we?
As I was receiving a recent order, Jeff pointed out a record that he thought I would like and should check out. It’s “The Uninvited” b/w “Ritual” by Lack Of Knowledge.
Originally self-released in 1982 and now reissued by No Plan Records and available in clear, white or black vinyl editions. We have a few available as I type, and you can click here to snag one. No guarantee which variant will be left; we only got a few.
The band formed in North London back in 1978 and lasted through to the mid-80s. They released a handful of singles and just the one album on the Crass Records label Corpus Christi. That album, Sirens Are Back, and the E.P., Grey, on Crass are highly desirable, as is the original of The Uninvited single. Sound wise, they are labeled post-punk and I guess that is about right. You can certainly hear elements of some of the bands they are compared to such as early Joy Division, but LOK were more about bondage pants than grey macs and it makes sense that they aligned with the anarcho-punk scene and found themselves on Crass Records.
Inside the jacket of the re-issue for The Uninvited single there are some notes from the band recalling the process of recording the tracks and getting their single sold in Small Wonder, Rough Trade etc. and then hooking up with the Crass world after hanging out at their house and playing them the record and getting the offer right there and then to record for Crass.
Also detailed in the liner notes is the session information for the three tracks, and it’s interesting to see that almost a full year passed between recording the first track and the third. When you listen, you can almost imagine it being two different bands. A year and a different studio make all the difference. I’d like to wax lyrical about the music and tell you clever things and perhaps Dr. D will be doing that elsewhere in the newsletter, but my usual response when asked what something sounds like is to say, take a listen. I encourage you to take a listen to this single and take a deep dive and check out their full length along with their other singles. It’ll be worth your time. Of note on this reissue is the inclusion of a third track, The Men, which was not included on the original release.
We’ve had a copy of that Grey E.P. on Crass here at the store before and it has been reissued recently as part of the Crass 12” series that has seen some other rarer and under the radar titles getting a nice fat 12” pressing. Hopefully we will be able to get some copies of those here for you at some point and perhaps that album will get a much needed repress too. Fingers crossed.
That’s all I have for you this week, short but hopefully sweet. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you here next time. Cheers and up the Reds.
-Dom