Luxury Liner

I was wondering what to do for my midweek post this week when a thought struck me: why not feature one of the CDs that I have recently bought from a charity shop. It seems such an obvious idea I'm surprised nobody has thought of it before frankly.

The CD I picked out of the pile is "Bengali Bantam Youth Experience!", the second and last album by the Leeds-based outfit Black Star Liner. 

The album came out in 1999 and was sufficiently well regarded that it was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. That was when Talvin Singh won the prize, so it was a big year for the Asian Underground (and also for  Stereophonics who were inexplicably shortlisted as well). 

More recently Uncut ranked it as the 465th best album of the 1990s. Based on a couple of listens and having reviewed the list I believe it deserves to be at least in the 300s. Here are a couple of my favourite tracks from the album. That's Jah Woosh guesting on "Pink Rupee".

"Pink Rupee" - Black Star Liner

"Inder Automatic" - Black Star Liner

The album that appears right at the bottom of Uncut's list of the 500 best albums of the 1990s also came out in 1999. I'll hand over to your friend and mine Conan O'Brien to introduce the performers.