1. Steeleye SpanPlease To See The King
I’ve listened to this album inside-out so many times it feels like a great friend. I found it crate-digging as a teenager. I used to spend hours in boxes in the backs of shops, like Reddingtons Rare Records in Birmingham, which was such a brilliant place, drawn to things that had this dreamy, esoteric iconography on their covers. This opens with ‘The Blacksmith’, and after this, you should go and find it and play the guitar sound at the beginning. It’s hot in a way, and really luscious. It just grabs you. Then comes ‘Cold Haily, Windy Night’, which has the same urgent effect, but this time it shimmers to a chill. It’s mesmerising, like the effect of electronic music, almost, and so unexpected. Every track on this album affects me like that. And this was when Martin Carthy was in the band, so now it means even more to me!
