Apiento wrote review of this back in February, when Phil South at Golf Channel mad generously mailed out a huge stack of white labels, and I subsequently did the sleeve notes, so I won`t go on at length, but if you bought records this year by Iasos, Leon Lowman, or William Onyeabor, or have pre-ordered the Gigi Masin retrospective, then you probably need this.

While “Orange Cloud Nine” sounds quite different to any of the above, the thing that Spike and these other artists share, apart from a lot of similar kit, is that they were making music, not for fame or money, but because they had to. They all attempted to transcribe the melodies that were playing inside their heads, outside of then current vogues, and as a consequence produced something unique and timeless. “Orange Cloud Nine” was / is Spike inventing within the limitations of his equipment, compelled to comment on a world and its injustices, which unfortunately still stand, in song.