The Collection (compilation cassette, 2009)

Front Cover: Ben looking young

Side One: accordion
1 - Boat-Train
2 - Working Christmas Day - new accordion recording
3 - The Ballad of Mavic Chen - rerecorded, shorter and better
4 - My Spoony Grease Loves the Baby - previously unreleased
5 - Pancake Dirge/Instrum.
6 - The Ballad of Rabbi Burns - previously unreleased
7 - Christmas on the Moon
8 - Prickly Way - previously unreleased
9 - Kingdom of Heaven
10 - I Wish I Had a Band (cos I play all of the instruments) previously unreleased

Side Two: electric
1 - Solitary Pleasure - new song for this cassette
2 - Hey Little Tomboy
3 - Had You Seen Her (Katarina)
4 - Africa - instrumental 'Voices of Stentor' out-take
5 - My Diane
6 - My Friends - instrumental version
7 - Speaker from 'The Voices of Stentor'
8 - Christmas in December
9 - The Carrot and Tree Christmas Surprise

A cassette has a great many merits. For one thing, it really does have two sides. Side A here is for accordion tracks, Side B for electronic works on keyboard or hammond. Included are a wealth of popular tracks, and some fairly obscure ones for good measure. Someone overfamiliar with my three canonical albums and Christmas works would still find eight unfamiliar works in there.

Natch, since some of their value comes from obscurity, some of the tracks aren't available here. The cassette is freely available to anyone who emails to ask for a copy. Unfortunately, nobody seems able to play the things.

In general, all works copyright Ben Swithen 2009. Not all, but most.