This week’s theme – picked by a League player, as usual! – is INSTRUMENTALS (which I’ve decreed can include whistling). As usual, thankyou to our 11 intrepid selectors for choosing tracks to vote on.

How do you take part?

1. Go to the Playlist Post and listen to the tracks.
2. Pick the four you like best that you haven’t previously heard.
3. Log in here and vote for them!

We’re back with Season 2 Round 3 – and this round the brief was a simple one: find us all some instrumentals we haven’t heard. Note that I’ve decided to allow whistling in the instrumental category (if you want to be stricter than I was, that’s up to you, but the track is well worth hearing IMO). When you’ve had a listen, go vote in the Poll Post.

As usual we have a Spotify and YouTube playlist. The Spotify has all but the final song.

The missing track is “Ghana Postal Workers Cancelling Stamps”, a field recording. It’s the final track on the YouTube playlist:

Here’s our line up for this week!

1. FOURPLAY STRING QUARTET – “Something Is Going Wrong”: from 2014’s This Machine.
2. MOONLIGHT SORCERY – “The Moonlit Dance Of The Twisted Jester’s Blood-Soaked Rituals”: from 2023’s Horned Lord Of The Thorned Castle.
3. RATATAT – “Abrasive”: from 2015’s Magnifique.
4. WIZZARD – “The Carlsberg Special”: B-Side of 1972’s “Ball Park Incident”
5. KIBROM BIRHANE – “Mender”: From 2022’s Here And There
6. CASINO VERSUS JAPAN – “Where To? / What For?”: From 2002’s Whole Numbers Play The Basics
7. ASHRA – “Sunrain”: From 1977’s New Age Of Earth.
8. BILL DOGGETT – “Sweet Slumber”: From a 1954 7″ on King Records.
9. LAFAYETTE AFRO ROCK BAND – “I Love Music”: From 1974’s Malik.
10. ALLEN TOUSSAINT – “Java”: From 1958’s The Wild Sound Of New Orleans.
11. “Ghana Postal Workers Cancelling Stamps”: A 1975 field recording, included on the CDs accompanying the book Worlds Of Music: An Introduction To The Music Of The World’s Peoples

Apologies for the delay posting these and the new poll, though at least it’s given our 11 seekers after pop more time to work on the somewhat tricky Week 4 task..

Anyway, the white smoke has now issued from the Pop Vatican and I can announce the WINNER of Round 2’s Religion challenge.

In third place, SISTER WYNONA CARR took us out to the ball game! In second place, YELLOWMAN delivered some of the teachings of Jah. And the clear winner from was MARY LOU WILLIAMS, whose “Anima Christi” was the perfect combination of spirituality and awesome jazz chops. I think it’s the oldest recording so far to have won a League round – well done healingandy especially as his Round 1 pick came last! As you can see from the leaderboard this time there’s no clear front runner – Joe Kay with a double bronze has an early advantage, but all the top 8 players are within 4 points of each other.

Instrumentals will be up soon – for now, thanks again to your selectors for their handling of a tricky religious brief!

This week’s League Of Tracks is the first theme to go beyond pre-existing pop polls – we are tacking RELIGION with a selection of devotional, heretical, or otherwise spiritual tunes from across the history of pop.

As usual the rules are simple.

1. Go listen to the songs on the PLAYLIST POST
2. Vote for up to 4 of them in the poll – but!
3. You mustn’t vote for anything you already knew. New discoveries only!

Into the multi-denominational faith room of pop we go…

For the second theme of the new season Dave chose RELIGION – go as broad as you like, he advised. Let’s see what you unholy lot came up with.

As ever, listen to the playlist and then vote in the POLL POST.

This time all but one of the tracks are on Spotify:

The final track, “All Things Bright And Beautiful” by The Goodies, is at the end of the YouTube playlist.

ORDER OF SERVICE

1. MARY LOU WILLIAMS – “Amina Christi”: From 1964’s Mary Lou Williams
2. FREDDIE AND THE HITCHHIKERS – “Sinners”: From a 1961 single.
3. SISTER WYNONA CARR – “The Ball Game”: From a 1953 single.
4. SIERRA FERRELL – “Bells Of Every Chapel”: From 2021’s Long Time Coming
5. AMMA – “Sri Krishna Sharanam Mama”: From 2014’s Amritapuri Bhajans Vol.15
6. YELLOWMAN – “Natty Sat Upon The Rock”: From 1982’s Mister Yellowman.
7. ALY & AJ – “Church”: From 2019’s Sanctuary EP.
8. BEASTIE BOYS – “Something’s Got To Give”. From 1992’s Check Your Head
9. SPERMBIRDS – “My God Rides A Skateboard”: From 1986’s Something To Prove.
10. GREGORIO ALLEGRI (composer) – “Miserere Mei, Deus”: From Choir Of Kings’ College’s Allegri Miserere (1984)
11. THE GOODIES – “All Things Bright And Beautiful”: From 1973’s …Sing Songs From The Goodies

A close fought first week ends and it’s time for the RESULTS of the non-English selections. As last time, points are allocate Eurovision style (12-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0), with voting ties all getting the higher score. This means a skinny gap in votes can lead to a sizeable – perhaps ultimately crucial – gap in points.

In this week’s results, for instance, we have a joint gold and a bronze. South Africa’s TSHETSHA BOYS landed in 3rd, but in joint first we have Sweden’s FAMILJEN and Japan’s CENT. Which means Steffen Rayburn-Maarup and Jel are our Week 1 joint leaders. Congratulations to them and thanks to everyone else for an extremely high quality round.

Week 2’s RELIGION picks are going up imminently, and I can announce that the Week 3 theme – chosen by this week’s last-placed contestant – is INSTRUMENTALS.