The Comedy of Errors: Little Annie - I Think of You (9 May 1992)

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Around the time that Peel broadcast this track, Little Annie Bandez AKA Annie Anxiety moved back to her native New York after a decade living in the UK.  Before returning, she cut the Short and Sweet album for On-U Sound and released I Think of You as a single.
Dripping with sensual vibes and propelled by libidinous bass, the general effect is as if Grace Jones was a sexually re-excited housewife living in a terraced house in Hounslow and finding reminders of their lover amid a catalogue of early 90s touchstones.  It takes an outsider like Bandez to find erotic cues in sources as diverse as Robert Kilroy Silk’s daily debate show, Trevor McDonald, checkout queues at  Marks & Spencer or the twice daily showings of Neighbours.  She also conjures up the sense of romantic delight found in things as mundane as smelly socks - it’s fine when it’s her lover’s sock - and the distortion of the senses which sees a vacuum cleaner recast as James Brown.  There’s even a nod to one of Peel’s favourite guilty pleasures, Sheena Easton’s 9 to 5 (Morning Train).  Peel admitted that had he spotted the link sooner, he would have programmed in Easton’s record to follow Little Annie’s.

So a big thumbs up from me for I Think of You, but what’s been interesting for me is how little else of Bandez’s music, I’ve enjoyed.  With the zeal of a newly interested convert, I alighted on a video of Bandez’s 1984 debut album, Soul Possession.  Had that been a purely instrumental dub album, I’d have raved about it, but Bandez’s relentless performance poet monologues make for exhaustingly insufferable listening.  I had to take breaks after every 2 tracks and could imagine the cries of “sell out” that may well have gone her way when she recorded the more accessible, Short and Sweet album.  But even flashing forward to the 21st Century, there’s little relief to be found in torch song tracks like You Better Run where Bandez looks to sing exclusively in the cracks between the notes.

But never mind, we’ll always have bacon on the kitchen table to sustain us.

The video includes both sides of the 12” single.  The vocal version lasts for 4:50 and features a different vocal melody to the version on Short and Sweet.  Marks and Spencer had reduced their prices by 60 quid by then too.

Video courtesy of DownTownVibesRon