Hunters & Collectors - Horn of Plenty box: Cargo Cult/Mutations/Spare Parts

We're into the odds and ends now, but that's by no means a bad thing. Cargo Cult (2008), exclusive to Horn of Plenty, rounds up three EPs: World of Stone (1981), Payload (1982) and Living Daylights (1987 - a tribute to Timothy Dalton's first outing as James Bond from the same year, perhaps?). The CD actually contains a fuckup: it stars with "Run Run Run" instead of World of Stone's title track, then crams "Watcher" and "Loinclothing" into one track. That EP is a dry run for the slightly better structured Krautrock-aping style of the debut; the title track basically repeats itself until it passes the seven and a half minute mark. Payload (1982) is presumably made up of Fireman's Curse outtakes, but the latter two songs would have been more than welcome there. It's a sonically fascinating EP more than anything else, and Doug Falconer is at his heavily percussive best. Fast forward five years and Living Daylights gives you even more options besides the Fate tracks for imagining how much better What's a Few Men? could have turned out, or perhaps Human Frailty if they'd waited a bit. "Inside a Fireball" is some catchy shit right there, and either album would have benefited from its presence.

Mutations (2005) shares its name with a Beck album that was disingenuously marketed by Geffen as not being "officially" the next entry in his catalogue. Hunters & Collectors' Mutations is accurately described as such, however, given that it is a b-sides and rarities collection. It's better than most, too. "I'm Set Free", unlike "Run Run Run", is a Velvet Underground cover, and a creative one at that. "Know Your Product" is more perfunctory and a more predictable choice of cover; just as The Saints probably felt obliged to cover Motown classics when they availed themselves of a horn section, Hunters in turn probably thought it was a waste not to cover the horniest of Saints songs. "Mind of an American" is a disappointing way to finish off the collection. It's an unimaginative jab at US foreign policy - better leave that to Midnight Oil and stick to local concerns.

Spare Parts (2008) is the far less substantial and far more asterisk-ridden of the two rarities collections. Everything here besides the original 1984 version of "Throw Your Arms Around Me" is either a live recording or a remix. Meh.