When I was a young teen, I went into Denver's Wax Trax record shop (Owned by the same people who founded the Wax Trax label, I believe). They had started a new section simply called Electronic. I looked through this section and saw this very cool looking record cover (Done by Cal Shenkel), so I just had to get it for myself. I'm sure glad I did because this extreme rarity is a real gem. This quartet put out 4 live improvisations that resemble the 80's King Crimson, Frank Zappa and Robert Fripp's albums with Andy Summers.
The quartet consists of: Richard Isgrigg (Guitar, Guitar-Synthesizer & Rhodes Piano), Tom Cranor (Guitar & Guitar-Synthesizer), Mark Murrell (Bass) and Sam Simon (Drums). This was released by a small label called Nozzle Records in 1983 on Vinyl, Cassette and PCM Digital Cassette formats. I have not found out any information on this group except what is printed on the back sleeve. The artwork was exceptional both front and back, and the art was available for a limited time as a poster from Cal Shenkel. The sound quality is less than perfect as the vinyl album has been played frequently over the last 24 years. It was transferred to a Sony pro CD recorder, then encoded to VBR LAME mp3s.
1. Out Of The Box
2. Fog Bank
3. Space Mambo
4. The Bending World
UPDATE-I was recently contacted by Richard Isgrigg, lead guitarist of Inserts, and they are still a functioning band, and this album will be made available again in the near future. In the meantime, I highly recommend checking out their web pages at
bandmix.com and
MySpace. I borrowed a copy of the album art from their bandmix page.
Link to Inserts-Out Of The Box
This little gem of an album is an EP of 8 classic Ink Spots recordings. It is a British 10" album released in 1955 on the Brunswick label. Whereas most EPs contain a good amount of filler songs, this one is all good tunes. Thankfully it has the famous tune, "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire". I've loved this album for many decades now. I always thought that the cover art was particularly nice, and it beautifully matches the mood of the music. My album was rather worn, so I culled this from digital sources. I also needed to crop some of the cover art because there were major cracks around the edges. I EQd the tracks, adjusted the volumes and ripped to 320 kbps mp3, enjoy! Definitely play this late at night sometime, preferably by moonlight.
