John Morrison

John is our resident record collector – he possesses a frankly ridiculous collection of CDs and vinyl, spanning experimental Jazz to American Garage bands. In a previous life he ran Glasgow’s iconic Missing Records (a match made in heaven) and is now in his third decade at Loud & Clear. John has a wealth of experience in two-channel hi -fi, networking, music streaming and all things vinyl.

John’s One LP is: Miles Davis – Bitches Brew

“I’ve chosen Miles Davis ‘Bitches Brew for a couple of reasons. Really the first is it’s massively experimental for its time and it just absolutely jumped out at me. My raison d’être in music and listening to music has always been pushing the boundaries and I’ve always loved noise. I like bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain and wall of sound – Phil Spectre through to Jesus and Mary Chain and everything else.

I first discovered jazz through dance music in the late 80s and I went into Tower Records in Glasgow one evening and it was empty – it was a Sunday night and I went up to the top floor where they sold all the jazz CDs and albums and I asked the guy behind the counter if he could play me some Miles Davis because that was one of the names I recognised and he said ‘yeah, go and pick something.’ So I looked at all of the Miles Davis albums and the sleeve and cover of Bitches Brew just absolutely leapt out at me and I took it up to the counter and the guy said ‘Are you sure you want to start there?’ And I went – ‘sure am’ and I listened and I was the only person on the whole of that floor and it absolutely blew me away and it still does to this day.

It’s an incredible album, it came out March 1970 a year and a half before I was born. He was 44 years old when he recorded it and he was still pushing boundaries. To this day I hear something new in it every single time, and it’s that wall of sound that I absolutely love. It’s the album that I think I go back to more than any other to hear something new. The amount of experimentation on it and driving rhythms and off-kilter sounds – never get tired of hearing it.”