A year a so ago we were contacted, and asked for assistance. The request regarded a proposed re-issue of Lifetones` “For A Reason”, and its sender was looking for stories from those who either had secured or were in search of a copy. I`m not sure what happened to this project but Light In The Attic have licensed the rights to This Heat`s back catalogue and have now also made available This Heat founder Charles Bullen`s highly sought after post band break up LP. Produced under the shadows of This Heat`s final European tour, Thatcher`s Britain, The Falkland`s War, Reagan`s America, and the fears pictured in Brian Barnes` “Nuclear Dawn”, “For A Reason” still utilised the band`s “Cold Storage” studio on Brixton`s Acre Lane but was the work of Bullen alone, now partnered with Reggae multi-instrumentalist, Dub Judah (Julius Samuel). Consequently “For A Reason” is not a Reggae record, but JA is there in the drums, the busy rhythms and use of delay, the guitar figures spiralling towards infinity and Bullen`s clarinet doubling for Augustus Pablo`s melodica. Post-Punk, like Jah Wobble, using Dub as an Anti-Rock aesthetic. Wire-y, trebly guitar-led improvised grooves and Eastern tunings that inhabit a space between Acid / psychedelic Folk and African Highlife. My own “For A Reason” story involves L.I.E.S.` Ron Morelli, Stuart at Emotional Rescue / Response, the Beautiful Swimmers and finding a copy on the floor of club / bar in Harajuku.

Ron Morelli had put together a mix for Test Pressing. A few of the tracks I knew but one “unknown” leapt out as a “must-have” to an obsessive like me. I asked Ron for a track-list, but I guess he was busy. I then got an email from Stuart commenting on Ron`s mix and wondering where all the copies of “For A Reason” were coming from. He`d also heard a track from the album on a set that the Beautiful Swimmers had posted on-line at around the same time. From there it was over to Youtube to confirm the ID as “Decide”, and over to Discogs to balk at the prices. Then about six months later I was at Bonobo in Harajuku, due to DJ but early so chatting to the owner, Sei-san, and listening to him indulge himself on the bar`s amazing sound system. Sei-san has an amazing collection of records, books, DVDs and videos, which are casually stacked and strewn throughout Bonobo as they might be around someone`s home, something light fingers would never allow back home in the UK. Vinyl was scattered around the decks and across the dancefloor. A jigsawed carpet of colour, of juxtaposed sleeves and unsleeved plastic. Already quietly aghast at the treatment of his treasures (“Where were his surgical gloves, his mask, for goodness sakes?”) I saw the distinctive “leaf” artwork of “For A Reason”. Someone could have bloody trod on it! I was freaking out, waving it in front of Sei-san, asking him if he knew how much it was worth, explaining that I`d just paid 80 euros for one, confirming that I was a nut and putting a now keep-at-arms-length strain on our relationship. It`s best I make clear here that I only ever spend this sort of cash on vinyl if I have accumulated Paypal credit from selling stuff. If 80 euros was a lot, the only copy of the original currently on the `Cogs is asking 400. The reissue is already going for 50.