Office Listening: The Charlatans - Tellin' Stories

The nineties was a great time. Pre internet (for the masses at least), it was probably the last time you had genuine musical tribes still floating around. You had grunge kids and grebos, ravers and rap fans, and then the indie fans gorging themselves repeatedly on a staple diet of Britpop and languid guitar driven numbers in-between, None of this iPhone full of differing music, you had one genre cassettes for your walkman and you were happy with that.

One of the best albums of that time was The Charlatans' Tellin' Stories (stream on Spotify above), which catapulted the North West band to the top of the album charts in 1997 as well as three top ten singles to boot. One of those singles was 'One to another' which reached Number three in the charts (the bands highest ever position for a single) and was bolstered by drum loops recorded by the Chemical Brothers' Tom Rowlands. Watch the video to that below.

Released on iconic Beggars Banquet, it was the fifth the band mustered and sadly the last one to involve contributions from Rob Collins, who tragically lost his life in a car accident midway through recording. Even now it stands out as a classic of the era, jangling guitars combining with a more organic direction from the subtle mechanised drums that underpinned much of their previous work. And we'll tell you know it's made a great diversion from the thunderous electronic beats and neo-soul crooning that normally makes up the Skiddle Stereo.

The Charlatans are due to hit Liverpool shortly, when Freeze team up with Liverpool International Music Festival to put the band alongside the great and good of North West live music scene in St Georges Hall on Friday 8th November. Head here for tickets.