Light In The Attic and Friends

Light In The Attic is a label that I was really only familiar with because of their really excellent reissues of Betty Davis’s groundbreaking funk albums, which showed a real dedication to the music and its history, putting together impressive packages for each of the releases. I also have their reissue of “Jane Birkin – Serge Gainsbourg.” So when this came out for Record Store Day 2023, at first I thought it was just a sampler of other artists on their label. But it’s even a little bit more interesting than that, as a lot of the songs are covers of songs by artists the label has put out – such as a completely unexpected Iggy Pop cover of a Betty Davis song, “If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up.”

Like most samplers that I really enjoy, it introduced me to a whole bunch of artists and songs I didn’t know, both covered and covering. Overall, the mood is mellow and the songs are quite beautiful – and like the Jenny Lewis records I’ve just been describing, this is another one that gets a lot of lazy Sunday morning plays. So far it hasn’t sent me off in search of more by these artists, but if I chanced upon another work by Roedelius, for example, I’d be way more likely to give it a chance (and that’s saying something, because I am not generally a fan of electronic, but his contribution of Le Chant des Fauves is stunning).