The Feel It Adventure 2021: Door 2

From a 1961 obscurity on a California based label to a Noughties one.

As with Debra Lewis (yesterday) I can offer you zero information about the Liparis Nervosa Sextet beyond the fact they were LA based, as was the short-lived AllCity label I believe. However, in trying to discover some information on the band I did manage to expand my botany knowledge - Liparis Nervosa is apparently a species of tropical orchid.

This single was released in 2007 I believe but as it's 21^st century and about 40 years newer than most of the 45s I'm buying nowadays I think of it as “new” and for that reason something that wouldn't ordinarily be on my radar. 2007 is 14 years ago now though, so it is hardly “new”. Putting it into context, when I first started buying records in 1971 if I had been buying a 14 year old single then this record would be the equivalent of some obscure Cool Jazz 45, or maybe a Rockabilly 45. Something definitely from a different era music wise from a 1971 viewpoint. Likewise in 1980 when it was mostly about the latest club/disco music for me it would have equated to a purchase of a mid 6os Soul obscurity that had been no doubt for most of its life, criminally, languishing forgotten in a dead stock warehouse somewhere (it wasn't unknown for me to buy such a record then, and of course now it's mostly what I do!). What I'm trying to say is that this 45 is hardly “new”; it is certainly obscure – and obscurity is a thing I am attracted to. So this could be the start of a whole new digging experience – trawling releases from earlier this century that will somehow always seem “new” to me but are in fact quite old now, if you see what I mean. And, who knows, maybe in another 30 years or such records, maybe even this one, could be worth a lot more than they are now. 

I was alerted to this track when Kris Holmes played it on his show The Long Way Home recently and promptly ventured onto Discogs and purchased a nice minty copy for peanuts. The intro certainly evokes the theme from Taxi and then it develops into a nice jazzy groove with a certain filmic quality I think.*

Liparis Nervosa Sextet – Prayer 2007

* To be clear this is not typical of Kris Holmes' show which is very much rooted in the 60s and early 70s and is big on  Soul and R&B – i.e.  the stuff I really really go nuts for.