Current campy Command favorite is Enoch Light and his Orchestra's Far Away Places (1961), which could pretty much be the archetypal space age pop record with its faux exoticism, accordions and harpsichords, wordless vocals and every kind of bonkers percussion available. I'd put a track up but (a) none of you buggers would bother downloading it and (b) I screwed up the digitalization process last night and there's a horrid electrical buzz in the background of the albums I mp3ed. (Long and probably inaccurate technical passages removed.)

There's something so perversely appealing (to me, at least) about this cartoon version of global music, a million miles from the sort of po-faced authenticity you had in the 80s where concerned pop stars would produce supposedly uplifting tracks by oppressed noiseflute players for people in Islington to leave on the coffee table rather than in the CD player. This is world music for a people who looked like Larry Tate and were too blitzed on martinis and mai tais to leave the cruise ship when it docked. (Besides which, foreign places were all filled with befezed devils with cocoa butter complexions who'd whisk your comely blond daughter off to the nearest harem.)

"The Third Man Theme" rubs shoulders with "How Are Things In Glocca Morra?" and "Waltzing Matilda", "Bali Hi" and "The Poor People of Paris" and that's about as far away from the USA as anyone really needed to go . I definitely need Volume 2 which somehow manages to take in both "White Cliffs of Dover" and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)". Another 99c gem from eBay, although postage and packing pushed this up to almost five bucks.

(I do like that new Sia single, "Buttons" by the way, even if the video is somewhat disturbing. I've not entirely gone retro.)