Bikes are humanity’s most overrated invention. A less comfortable, slightly faster, far more dangerous way to make shortish journeys on particular terrains. And bikes that don’t go anywhere? Jesus Christ.

I always found watching people ride bikes on telly the most baffling thing a person could do, but now you can watch them take a phone out of the box, or play Minecraft, and most of the things on telly actually have less narrative structure and good writing than a bunch of juiced-up nutcases with big neck veins wobbling up the Alps behind a Range Rover.

Tour de France opens up with what sounds like an excerpt from one of those, er, “of their times” fifties films where English people go to the jungle and get put in a big pot by a tribe with bones in their noses. Simpler times. You wouldn’t get away with that these days. Bring back pounds and ounces.

What comes next is pretty good. Slickly put together. Sample-hungry and, I’m not sure what the modern terminology would be, but heavy on the drum machine’s “ethnic percussion” card.

On Expo 2000 (Mambo Original), I think Senor Coconut uses one of the same samples as Lou Bega did on Mambo Number 5, but in a way that has more respect for women. That’s one mambo-ish sample.

There are then two more entirely pointless versions of each song, but they’re still pretty good. It sounds brilliant too.

Come on Peloton, you got this!

Six tracks across a 33rpm 12”, so we may be here some time. But what else are we going to do? Everywhere’s too busy now, because everyone feels they have to be out doing something absolutely all the time. With their dog.

Blimey, that took a while. Yeah, you’ve got a 303. We get it. Next!

Everything about this says “GOTH”. The sleeve, the inner, the white vinyl, the lyrical prevalence of words like “dead”, “black”, and “fog”.

Someone one said something about not judging a something by its something or other, and they were right, because I don’t think it is goth. It’s a shitload of noise and reverb but pop songs, and pretty good ones. (Though it does get a bit doomy in places.)

Apparently some of the September Girls were out of off of The Chalets. I liked them, which probably is why I bought this. I wouldn’t have picked it out of a rack unheard, because I’d have thought it was some Goth nonsense. Maybe it is. Your nearest touchpoint might be Joanna Gruesome, but it’s more echoey and vague, so maybe it even is Goth. I don’t know, and I don’t care. (Which increasingly is my whole ethos.) I don’t like the modern obsession with applying a label to everything. Records (and people) don’t belong in categories. They belong in alphabetical order.

Pond. What were they? Some kind of grunge thing? Never liked grunge. Don’t like this, particularly. If you do like that kind of thing, this is probably a good example. They can play and stuff, and they have an okay guitar sound, but it’s just indie rock. Let’s be right about it; not much on Sub Pop was actually any good. Not even Journey to the Center of Cat’s Butt.

Famous for being the least-4AD 4AD-band ever. I loved Shea, and I got the album, but the front cover grossed me out so I got rid of it. I’ll be getting rid of this too. It’s just boring indie rock. I don’t think I like any form of “rock”. Indie, punk, stoner, garage, cock. Can’t think of any others. Oh, post and space, they’re alright.

What is this? Where did it come from? Why do I have it? I don’t know.

“I don’t like sand. It’s irritating and it gets everywhere”. Well, I’ll tell you where this Sand won’t be getting, and that’s on Top of the Pops. Spell has some nice jazzy drumming, and an upright bass, but it also has quite a lot of dissonance and difficulty. Terminus is relentless heavy electronics, and quite sci-fi soundtracky. Give it some serious volume and bask in it.

That’s Dressed in White She Walks through the Door to you. Here remixed by Stereolab and Melchior. The Stereolab remix sounds like Stereolab, and there’s never been anything wrong with that. Ask Flowchart.

I don’t know who or what Melchior is or are, so I can’t tell you if the Melchior remix sounds like Melchior, so instead I’ll tell you it’s a sort of high-fidelity V/Vm. Phased, reversed, chopped up and generally spoilt. Fun.

On the ‘b’ you’ve got someone called Lindstrom remixing something called Ayisha Abyss. Haven’t a clue, but it’s a stylised and crazy as the artwork. It’s a slow burner, gradually going from arrhythmic mess to slick clavinet-driven funk banger to creepy bleeper to embedded Popcorn cover

The Stereolab one is almost certainly the reason I bought it, twelve years ago, but all three tracks here are excellent. I doubt I’ve played it before, but I’ll play it again. Roll on 2034.