Marianne Faithfull – Marianne Faithfull [1965; Decca, London Records]

On her debut album (released the same day as her second album, Come My Way, with another album, Go Away from My World, released the same year), Marianne Faithfull works in light but soulful pop rock, with shades of psychedelic pop emerging in the guitar tones and tambourine. Themes of nature, self-reflection, and personal relationships are common to the songs, but the music keeps an upbeat air even for the most down-cast lyrics. With each of the songs kept under three minutes, the rapid pace works in impressionistic fashion, gliding along from one bittersweet tone-piece to the next. Short but effective in its gentle regret, with Faithfull’s voice creating a memorable presence.

Here’s the alternate cover art.

And the cover art used in Uruguay.

Ike & Tina Turner – It’s Gonna Work Out Fine / Can You Forgive Me [1961; London American Recordings, London Records, Sue Records Inc.]

Leading with a track from the duo’s second album, the A-side of this single lets Tina take the lead while Ike provides responses to her lines, with a trim guitar line and drums backing them up, along with a few extra female singers. The B-side is an advance track from their 1963 album Dynamite!, and it shifts to fuller instrumentation and a duet from the Turners. Both tracks move quickly, but the spirit with which they’re performed brings quite a punch to their short runs.

Frijid Pink – The House of the Rising Sun / Heartbreak Hotel [year unknown; London Records, Parrot]

With their take on the much-covered lead track, pulled from their self-titled debut album, Frijid Pink paint the blues rock standard in acid rock tones, with buzzy guitar and swaggering bass complementing the blaring vocals. Outside of that, it’s a serviceable but unremarkable treatment. More interesting is their raucous take on Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” on the B-side, with vocals belting out over jabbing piano and more hot electric guitar, with a raging escalation leading to the track’s fade-out finish. Though the second song handily upstages the first, both songs show the band in good form at the start of their career.

Janice Christie – Heat Stroke [1986; London Records, Supertronics]

Opening with one of two mixes by Tony Humphries, this single for the title track from Janice Christie’s only album luxuriates in its electropop nature by nearly doubling the run-time of the original song, with hollow-body drum machine sounds, bright-popping keyboard chords, and sensual singing wrapped together in tight formation. A mix by Larry Levan follows, rearranging the base rhythm, playing up the synth bass-line, and improving the focus of a sax break. Humphries picks back up for the last mix, which starts out by cropping the loops down to a lean beat before filling it back out, though the vocals are kept to doing very little besides repeating the name. Some interesting playing with the source material, but neither the base nor the remixing goes too far beyond the norm.

Here’s the cover art used in Germany.

Bill Black’s Combo – Movin’ [1961; London Records]

One of four albums released by Bill Black’s Combo in 1961, Movin’ features the band’s usual instrumental work (with some background yells in “Hey Bo Diddley”) over a dozen tracks, none of them breaking the three-minute mark. Keeping things fast and active, all but two of the songs taken on by the sax, bass, drums, and piano line-up are covers, though the style and condensing changes makes some practically unrecognizable at first hearing. The quick turn-over and fairly narrow span of tempos for most of the songs also leads to some of the music blurring together without high attention paid, but through it all, the band keeps up a fine style and strong performances.