The King of Woolworths is the musical alterego of Mancunian Jon Brooks, who makes reprocessed tributes to 1960s BBC soundtracks. This is good shit. Here’s a BBC interview with him:
The King Of Woolworths is Jon Brooks, a man inspired by the soundtracks of 60s and 70s film and television like Get Carter, The Sweeney and the music of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. “It was always my dream to work for them,” he says. “Just that kind of experimentation. I like that attitude where anything went. You could use guitar or trumpet but the way you treated it was something else, and they created some really amazing sounds.”
L’Illustration Musicale is his second album, the follow up to 2001’s sampledelic soundtrack Ming Star. “Ming Star was me and a load of samples, whereas there are no samples on this album, it’s just a load of loops and stuff.” The new LP also features Jon’s first work with vocalists, including tracks with Dot Allison who has previously added vocal flushes to Death In Vegas and Emma Pollack from indie rockers The Delgados. She features on Nuada, 60s sugary pop soul inspired by the film The Wicker Man. “It was a very different thing to do for Emma, but I kind of had an idea it might work.”
Throughout the album, the Roy Budd-influenced instrumentals are cut up with Scott Walker-tinged pop. “I love pop music as well, especially 60s and 70s pop, and I wanted to get an essence of that,” he says. “I didn’t want to do the same thing again. I didn’t want the album to sound like the last one.”
(Kings of Woolworths: Ming Star)
(You may recognize the song below as the source for Coil’s “Wraiths and Strays.”)