What up music fans!?

The Twinkle Sisters were part of the original Crewe-Wolverhampton trip-hop explosion of the early 90s, and if you weren’t there, you missed out. Not completely however. Here for posterity is a collection of MP3s of their finest work (this doesn’t say much) which you may or may not enjoy – not that it really matters, because you’ll have at least heard them play, which is more than can be said for most people.

My name is Rasmus P Man, musical archeologist and one half of the outfit known as the Twinkle Sisters. Together with my partner in crime, Dog, we “tore it up” in many a living room between 92 and 95 with our own brand of musical nonsense, and I’ll be your guide through some choice Twinkle pickings. There are others available, notably 5 different versions of “Atrocity Exhibition” (all of them crap), but this is a good sprinkling of the decent stuff. Or as decent as we got anyway.

It’s well worth noting that these musical interludes only exist now in memory and on a single C90 cassette – although for the first time they are now available digitally (not remastered). This is why the quality of the recordings are somewhat shonky. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Bitch Must Die Free Dog Radio [download] (2:08)
BMD as it was known was originally an anthem written about she who later became Mrs Rasmus P Man. Not so much of a tune, more something very repetitive with an obviously stolen guitar sample.

Hamster Free Dog Radio [download] (1:51)
Like many Twinkle Tunes this is an underdeveloped idea for a song that never made it very far, so it was used as a nice piece of filler material. We were never ashamed to include filler material – much like many pop artists.

Know Right Free Dog Radio [download] (5:49)
[recommended] This recording is the first time this tune came together. The “hook” had been acquired, looped and augmented only an hour before this recording was made. The lyrics are taking from an electoral form which had been lying around to make roaches out of. Later versions were recorded with more “gubbins” (a musical term) thrown into the mix, but this is the one for the purists.

Pure Rare Free Dog Radio [download] (1:26)
Another piece of filler material. The issue was always “Yeah, that’s cool, now what do we do with it?” Not disimilar to conversations which must have occurred during the recording of the Spice Girls first album, although replace the word “cool” with “shit” and “what do we do it” with “release it immediately”.

Walk This Way Free Dog Radio [download] (6:11)
Yes, we did a cover. Somewhat half heartedly.

Free Dog Radio Object II [download] (3:42)
[recommended] We liked the title of our first “album” so much we wrote a song using the the same title for our second. Anyone can steal an obvious sample, but it takes some actual skill to make it cool. We had that skill. This track recorded in an actual studio, although we were too artistic to go for more than one take.

Empty Object II [download] (3:17)
Someone once said to me “Hey Rasmus, you should write some lyrics.” Here’s why they were wrong.

Rancid Object II [download] (3:47)
[recommended] A slight change of pace. It takes a bold individual to use whale song in a tune. Church bell solo by Rasmus P Mann.

Dub John Henry Object II [download] (7:21)
Another change of pace. Dub John Henry was only ever performed three times. The first time, when we wrote it, lasted about an hour, the second (this recording) has an un-natural fade out (most TS tracks simply stop abruptly, that’s how we like it) this is due to there being another 20 minutes to go and you get the idea. I’m pretty sure the third time we played it is still going on somewhere. We smoked a lot in those days.

This Record Is 56 Object II [download] (2:57)
[recommended] “But!” I hear you cry “Nobody can write a dance tune in 5/6!” We did, and it’s very very cool. Just bop along, it does the rest.

Sam’s Bass (live) The Raybees [download] (5:37)
From the last great Raybees gig attended by almost several people, one of the final outings for Sam’s Bass. The Raybees appear courtesy of themselves. It sounded significantly better live – the microphone for this recording is sat just a little close to the samples amp…

So there you have it. I didn’t say it was good, but it’s something you hadn’t heard before. It could also do with being resampled with fewer skips in it, but I’ll do that some other time. If you fancy sampling any of it to reuse yourself, be sure to send me the results. Not that you would, but people can be strange.

The Twinkle Sisters are listed on LastFM so feel free to scrobble away. As people do.