Fruits de Mer has clocked up 15 years paying respect to some of the brilliant solo artists and bands of the 60s and 70s but - let’s be honest - we’ve given insufficient coverage in that time to one of the UK’s greatest living songwriters – The Kinks’ Ray Davies; yes, we’ve included the occasional track on a compilation, but nothing more substantial than that, and nothing dedicated to a man who has managed to capture many different aspects of England and the English way of life so perfectly over nearly 50 years of writing.

So here is ‘REKINKED’ – and we go a small way towards rectifying this with a four-track 8” lathe-cut – limited to 100 copies – that features artists covering three of Ray’s most thoughtful songs and ends with a quick blast of something much more direct, from his band’s early days.

I have a feeling we’ll be revisiting the Ray Davies songbook before long.

The four tracks here are:

1 ‘See My Friends’ by The Flower Machine
(this is the band’s first appearance on Fruits de Mer vinyl)

2 ‘Do You Remember Walter’ by Bertling / Robertson
(Kevin and Scott Robertson, joined on this recording by Nick Bertling)

3 ‘Shangri-La’ by Crystal Jacqueline & Icarus Peel
(a rare outing as a duo by the two leading names from The Honey Pot)

4 ‘I Need You’ by The Tubeheads
(again, this is the artist’s first appearance on Fruits de Mer vinyl)

I might have a couple of copies on sale at the 19th Dream festival, and the artists each get a few copies but, other than that, all copies have now been snapped up

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