Some very interesting things float to the top, occasionally, at Bumrocks.com. This morning I noticed that they had posted a song called “Spooks in Space” by the Aural Exciters. Gosh, that rings a bell, I thought to myself. On listening to it, I realised that I failed to remember anything at all about the song itself, but also, on the other hand, that I had a clear and vivid memory of the voice of Mac Cocker, latterly outed as Jarvis’s long-lost father, back-announcing the very same track over the airwaves of the old 2JJ back in 1979 or 1980. I can recall every inflection of his voice as he said “blah blah blah by the Aural Exciters”. The mind is a strange and unfathomable thing.
I was at the same time trying to place “Spooks in Space”. All I could come up with was, it's a bit like what the B-52s were doing, and something about it suggests the first Madness album (a long shot), but that it has an overall sound strongly reminiscent of a lot of what came out on Ze Records. And then a search of the Internet revealed, to my delight and amazement (and if I had ever known this it was long forgotten), that the Aural Exciters were, in fact, a side project of the guy who ran Ze Records, and most of the people who appeared on the label were in some way involved. You can find out more here and you can, at least for now, download the song (which has a certain charm to it, and presumably a James Chance cameo on sax) here.
