Best of 2020
Oh. My. Days. Just when you thought the past had been bled dry... If you know Use No Hooks, it's probably for Do The Job, a pub rocking disco not disco leftfield insta-classic from down under that was originally recorded in the early 80s but remained unreleased until appearing on a Chapter comp in the late noughties. Until now, that was pretty much that, but Chapter have managed to unearth a whole album's worth of material. The grand news is that Do The Job isn't the only highlight - Lost Recordings is lit up like the Vegas strip. Another example of something being born in the wrong time perhaps, but Use No Hooks are at least the equal of the similarly minded Glaxo Babies, Essential Logic, Maximum Joy, Mode IQ, Cathy Le Creme et al. The latter actually provides an ideal comparison - imagine John Cooper Clarke fronting Talking Heads, vocals dry, band slick as... That this was all happening down in Melbourne away from the more celebrated scenes in New York, London tells me one thing (which i already knew...) - the desire to dance (and drink) knows no borders.
