Spontaneous Overthrow: All About Money Vinyl LP

“can’t live / without money / can’t make this record / without money…” Official Numero Group reissue of Anthony Freeman and Nathaniel Woolridge’s lone album as Spontaneous Overthrow, private pressed in 1984. The missing link between John Maus, Dean Blunt, Eddie Kendricks and Curtis Mayfield, All About Money is essentially a 35 minute indictment of the music industry bureaucracy in the form of lo-fi, low-budget, low-giving-a-shit electronic soul. If only Freeman and Woolridge could get their hands on the $4000 that has changed hands in just three second-hand sales (that we know of) of this record in the last year alone! Like most people, we got hipped to Spontaneous Overthrow via the inclusion of the album’s title track on 2012’s revelatory Personal Space comp (compiled & issued by Numero extended fam), but dig a little deeper into the LP and get into the oddball proto-house grooves of “Get Yourself Together” and “If We Work It Out,” hedonistic falsetto anthem “Party” and the damaged waltz of opener “Why Did You Leave Me.” The climax is the aptly-titled instrumental “Overthrow Groove;” six straight minutes of housey piano vamps, stepping drum machine rhythms and icey synth arpeggios, occasionally cascading into red hot dirges of mixing desk exhaustion. Official 2018 reissue with new artwork, recommended.

• official pressing
• rare private press lo-fi soul LP originally released in 1984
• black vinyl pressing
• housed in pic sleeve w/ new artwork
• poly-lined inner sleeve
• music label: Numero Group 2018

reviewed by tom violence 01/2019