Inky Bloaters by Danielle Dax

Inky Bloaters, Danielle Dax's third solo album, came out in 1987 on the Awesome label after sessions stretching back to 1985, and it was the last thing she released there before signing with Sire. The former Lemon Kitten wrote every word, split the music and arrangements with David Knight, made the cover art herself and raided half the instrument shop: sitar, flute, kalimba, guitars, keyboards, percussion and droning guitar. Knight added his own guitars, keyboards and tapes, Ian Sturgess brought bass, harmonica and jaw harp, Martyn Watts drummed, and Stevie Savage played guitar and wrote the music for "When I Was Young".

The result is avant-pop in the truest sense, all oddball textures and eerie drones bent into shapes that nearly pass for hooks. "Big Hollow Man" is the one that slipped onto the countdowns, as close to a pop single as this wonderfully strange record gets. It came back on CD through Biter of Thorpe in 1993.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.