“It’s a gatefold,” the vendor told me as I handed him one of the records I was about to purchase. 

I hadn’t thought to pull the 12” single out of the plastic sleeve. It was too hot in the early afternoon on Sunday— over 90 degrees according to my phone— and I was ready to wilt and, maybe, overly concerned about dripping sweat on Italo disco and city pop vinyl in front of me. Before opening the gatefold, though, I could tell you that the cover for Xalan “I Only Move For Money/Solo Me Muevo Por Dinero” was a masterpiece of sleeve art that could put even Lime’s covers to shame. The cover model is an ‘80s hunk of a man with sweat glistening on his muscular arms and a twinkle in his eye, A woman’s hands are wrapped around him. Her pink nails tear through his hairy chest to reveal a rainbow array of wires. 

It wasn’t until I got back to my air conditioned apartment that I spread open the gatefold and saw that the front and back covers are actually a centerfold-style art piece with a strategically-placed form documenting all of this android’s statistics. 

“Sexual Capacity,” it reads, “Unlimited.” 

The cover stud is also waving a stack of bills against his hairy thigh. 

Brilliant!

I’ve written about this before, but the seasonal In Sheep’s Clothing x Homage Brewing x Japonesia seasonal market is the one record fair I try not to miss. It’s small and the vendors tend to focus on higher-end, hyper-niche vinyl, which could be off-putting if the first thing you see is, IDK, a Lebanese psych album that’s selling for $100 and the second thing you see is a $75 copy of that one Mariya Takeuchi album that you’ve been wanting ever since hearing “Plastic Love” on YouTube. But, what I’ve noticed is that a good amount of the vendors also have killer vinyl at much lower price points. 

On this particular Sunday, my first stop was at a booth with a bin marked $5. I didn’t know most of what was in there, but then I saw a Shriekback 12” for “Hand on My Heart” with Adrian Sherwood remixes! Shriekback is from the post-punk era, formed by Barry Andrews, who had been in XTC, and Dave Allen, from Gang of Four. This single is sick. It’s probably best known for the Adrian Sherwood remix called “Mistah Linn He Dead,” which is a pretty wild proto-techno track. He has another remix on the same 12” called “Cloud of Nails” that starts out as this crazy industrial-dub and then morphs into a more club-friendly version of “Hand on My Heart.” Then, I came across the single for “Voodoo,” a dubby new wave tune from Jah Wobble (PIL), Ollie Marland and Polly Eltes in the same bin. 

I stopped by another booth because I saw a box marked “Cheapos.” The first record in there was a 12” from a band I had never heard before, Kissing the Pink. The pink Post-It on the sleeve noted that this was a synthpop record. I looked at the center label and saw that it was released in 1983, a fine year for synthpop indeed. Since it was only $3, I decided to take a chance on it. Turns out this club mix of “Big Man Restless,” which is on both sides of the record, is a real chugger, long, slow, groovy and perfect for a warm-up set or playing records at a bar. 

This vendor— a DJ in town from Northern California— had great records and the prices were very good outside of the Cheapos bin as well. I picked up a “Makossa Rock” 12” by Deadline, a mid-1980s collaboration between Bill Laswell, Manu Dibango and Phillip Wilson that’s a weirdo, post-disco track. I also got an album from The Invisible Man’s Band, a later incarnation of the Five Stairsteps, the family soul group known for the song “O-o-h Child.” This is also the booth where I found my android centerfold. 

I did check out a preview of “I Only Move For Money” on my phone before buying this, but, in the interest of honesty, I bought this 12” from Xalan mainly for the cover. That the music is good is really a bonus. 

From my cursory search online, Xalan only released this single and an EP, Revolution Without Solution, and it looks like it was basically a studio project that briefly existed in the mid-1980s. Tucho and Xeno Balado are the producers and Tucho wrote the songs with Luis Cusido. “I Only Move For Money” and “Solo Me Muevo Por Dinero” were recorded in Barcelona and the 12” is dedicated to all the camouflaged androids (“dedicado a todos los androides camuflados,” reads the inner sleeve). 

Musically, the song(s) is a good early evening heater, a kind of cross between Italo disco and ‘80s Balearic. The English and Spanish versions are distinct. The lyrics are slightly different between the two languages, which is to be expected, but they capture a similar sentiment about a cold robot who is only out for the money. 

It sounds like there are two separate singers at work here. The English language vocals are very Italo. The Spanish language vocals are raspier, kind of like Pino D’Angiò where you can basically hear him singing between cigarette drags, and the singer ads a sinister laugh that heightens the disco sleaze. 

Overall, this was a particularly fruitful record fair visit and, maybe the best part, is that whole haul cost less than a Target “exclusive” of the new Sabrina Carpenter album. 

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Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram  or Bluesky for more updates.

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