Orange Head, Black Grape, LP

Vinyl LP pressing. 2024 release. Black Grape could only have been made in Manchester. The swagger, fun and cryptic humour seem hewn from a city historian AJP Taylor once described as offering an archetypally different way of English urban life to London. Both Shaun Ryder and Paul Leveridge, known as Kermit, came from edgy-but-cool parts of the city. In Shaun's case Salford, with Kermit originating from Moss Side. Black Grape always were a grimily cosmic musical jigsaw, melding rock, hip-hop, acid house, psychedelic pop and reggae with Ryder's gutter poetry, delivered in his inimitable shyster's bark.