Mook operate out of Mainline Studio in Leeds, where many of their releases are recorded. The label started in 1995 in order to make records which sound live, with a minimum of overdubs. I've got most of their releases, which are as follows.

Fuzzbird have an LP with the curious (but good) title of Welcome To Santa's Sex Shop. Fuzzbird aren't the easiest of bands to pigeonhole, which makes them a nightmare to try and describe, but makes for a much more enjoyable listening experience than a lot of stuff that is easily categorised. (Yeah, I remember saying back in an early Aq that I'd rather listen to predictable things - I really regret that now! My remarks at the time were caused by the fact that everything I'd heard back then which was genre-hopping or experimental were not the best examples of those sort of things. Now I know that genre-hopping things are often tons better than types of music that there's an obvious description for. Not always, but often. Anyway, I'm going off at a tangent here ... back to the subject). Although there are a few quieter songs on Welcome To Santa's Sex Shop, most are a mixture of noisier styles such as noisepop, punk, garage/psych rock, indie-rock. They make a rather good row, and have some equally great tunes too.

Chest have a 10" EP, Destiny Phones, which I've not got, and a 7", Angels, which I have. I've read about Chest in zines for years, but have only just heard them. Angels has two songs which are a kind of quirky noisepop with viola, and on the title track, occasionally shrieked vocals. The cover shows a strange creature which looks like a monster with birds' wings, flying through clouds. It kind of sums up the band's sound - ethereal yet spiky.

Mama Scuba's She's Good has three noisy tracks, all of which are good, but my favourite is Talking Too Fast, which has a slight punkish feel but is very melodic, with its vocal harmonies and so on. Panama Jones is a largely instrumental track which includes elements of raw, sleazy blues and psychedelic rock.

Rudolf Rocker's Rousseau 7" is on purple vinyl - a good move, purple is my favourite colour. The title track is an odd mixture of punk, pop and bossanova, which features Rico Bell from The Mekons on accordion. The b-side is an instrumental which mixes easy listening with quirky keyboard effects. There's also a CD album, The Exotic Sounds Of Rudolf Rocker. Like the 7" this mixes punky noisepop with bossanova and Moog-driven experimento-easy listening, with bits of other genres, like dance and funk. As you may expect, this sounds like no other band, and this can only be a good thing.

7"s are £2.50, 10"s are £4.50, the Fuzzbird LP is £7, and is also available on CD for £10, and the Rudolf Rocker CD is also £10. Write to Phil at Mook Records, PO Box 155, Leeds LS7 2XN.

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