This one is a major milestone for my collection. I post a lot of Paul McCartney stuff, but this one is special because it’s his last album on vinyl that I didn’t have — The Fireman’s “Rushes.” The Fireman was an experimental collaboration he had with producer/ex-Killing Joke member Youth, and over the course of three occasional albums between 1994 and 2008, they explored instrumental, ambient, electronic, dance and other genres that you don’t typically associate with McCartney. “Rushes” was the second of the three albums, released in 1998, and it is impossible to find on vinyl, but was worth the search as it is rather enjoyable. Working under a different name gave McCartney some freedom to go down different creative avenues, and generally speaking, it’s good; he clearly relished getting to create music far more structure-less than his usual work. Whereas the first Fireman album is very remix/Fisher-Price “My First Sampler”-ish, this one, too, is instrumental, but has a more organic feel, working in drones, acoustic instruments, stray unformed harmonies, dialogue and more to create a far more cohesive musical journey. I’m thrilled to get this into the pile of records. There were a few albums he released only on CD—a classical set around 2005-ish and an ambient art music thing, “Liverpool Sound…” something or other around 2000—but vinyl-wise, I believe this is it in terms of the big stuff. Will there always be McCartney solo records to be uncovered and squirreled away? Of course, but for now, this is one major avenue of my collection that has come to an end, and an enjoyable excursion it has been.
