Bank Holiday Monday Long Song

Nine minutes of wide eyed joy and wonder from the combined talents of The Flaming Lips and Scott Hardkiss should be more than enough of a way to celebrate not just a bank holiday but a week off work for me too. The Flaming Lips cemented their status as one of the early 21st century's best bands with the release of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots in summer 2002, an album which if described to someone who'd never heard it (or of the band) would sound ridiculous...

It's an eleven song album, psychedelic, space pop which starts out with a world where a young girl Yoshimi is engaged in a life or death battle with some evil machines, giant pink robots. The story of Yoshimi and her fight is dealt with on the first four songs and then the album turns into a metaphysical/ philosophical record with the band taking electronics, hip hop drums and acoustic guitars to create some achingly beautiful, lush, experimental and incredibly memorable songs that deal with life and death, ruminations on beauty and mortality, physics, science fiction, emotion and suffering, ending with a soaring neo- classical piece called Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Pavonis Mons is a volcano on Mars). It is an album that can make you laugh and make you cry. 

See? That doesn't do it justice at all does it? Or capture what Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots actually sounds like or what it feels like. 

The Flaming Lips followed the album with several singles and EPs. In 2003 they released Fight Test, a seven track EP led by the title track and covers of Kylie's Can't Get You Out Of My Head, Beck's The Golden Age and Radiohead's Knives Out, a song for Jack White, another Lips song and this remix of Do You Realize?? by Scott Hardkiss.

Do You Realize?? (Scott Hardkiss Floating In Space Mix)

Scott Hardkiss stretches Do You Realize?? out for over nine minutes, the song's cosmic wonder underpinned by throbbing bass and rackety machine drums, piano, bells, heavenly choirs and Wayne Coyne's vocal front and centre. 

The lyrics are something else aren't they? Again, written down they could look trite or like the kind of positivity affirmations one sees on social media but Wayne's voice gives so much emotional heft and conviction that they feel like the truth being given courtesy of a kooky 21st century Moses.

'Do you realize? That you have the most beautiful face? 

Do you realize? We're floating in space

Do you realize? That happiness makes you cry

Do you realize? That everyone you know some day will die'

All these things are true. Happiness can make you cry, it happens all the time. Everyone you know some day will die, time is short, we're here for an instant. Whenever I look at photos of people from a century ago, those people and their lives, the stories you can see in their eyes, the battles they faced and the things they felt- I feel this and think of Wayne's line, all those people, they're all gone. 

Wayne doesn't just hit us with these four lines though, revealing the vastness of space and time, the bigger than us nature of the universe. He follows them with something to do about feeling infinitesimally tiny.

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes

Let them know you realize that time goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last

You realize the sun don't go down

It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

These would be just more Instagram positivity quotes in the wrong hands but Wayne Coyne is the right pair of hands. Scott Hardkiss is too, allowing the remix to serve the song and ending with Wayne, as the song should, his isolated voice gasping and singing 'Do you realize?'.

I read an article last week that made me think of this song, an article with this headline- 'Euclid telescope spies rogue planets floating free in the Milky Way'. Apparently astronomers have discovered dozens of planets that have broken free from the gravitational hold of their suns and are floating freely, inside the Orion nebula, a giant cloud of dust and gas, 1500 light years away. The article says they are 'destined to drift through the galaxy unless they encounter a star that pulls them into orbit'. 

Do you realize? We're floating in space. 

Forty Minutes Of The Flaming Lips

'The Flaming Lips', it says at Wikipedia, 'are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 from Oklahoma City. I suppose psychedelic rock band covers them but they're much, much more too, they're the sort of band who have an idea- let's come on stage in a giant bubble and roll out over the audience, let's have confetti cannons, and dancing skeletons, let's do a twenty three track album with Miley Cyrus, let's record an album with instrumentals, drum machines and the most gorgeous, existential acoustic guitar pop song of the 21st century- and then just do it. I haven't followed their entire career, there are gaps in my collection but what I have I love. Psychedelic music is, I think, supposed to be expansive- in terms of sound, ambition and minds and Wayne Coyne and the musicians, dancing aliens and skeletons, fellow travellers and merry pranksters are very much on a long trip of expansion and adventure. 

The bulk of the songs here are taken from the trio of albums they recorded between 1999 and 2006 with Dave Fridmann producing. 

Forty Minutes Of The Flaming Lips

• The Observer
• Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)
• Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung
• She Don't Use Jelly
• Silver Trembling Hands
• Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell
• The W.A.N.D.
• Race For The Prize
• Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1
• The Golden Path
• Do You Realise??

The Observer and Race For The Prize are both from 1999's The Soft Bulletin, an album that shifted their sound from alt- rock into something else, a lush, wide eyed, tripped out, expansive, late 20th century Pet Sounds psychedelia. Race For The Prize,a song about two scientists competing to do good for the whole of mankind, is a song that is always associated with Isaac for me for various reasons that I may come back to at some point in the next few weeks.

Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell are all from Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, their 2002 masterpiece, a maybe/ maybe not concept album about a Japanese girl fighting giant robots, space, life and death, mortality, gravity, the precarious nature of existence, love, survival and pretty much everything in between. They do this with a mixture of lighter than air pop songs, instrumentals and electronic/ acoustic melancholic joy, reaching a climax with Do You Realise?? a universal secular hymn to human existence.  

The W.A.N.D. and Pompeii Am Gotterdamerung are from 2006's At war Wit The Mystics. The W.A.N.D. is Black Sabbath at the indie disco, pure exhilaration. W.A.N.D stands for The Will Always Negates Defeat. 

She Don't Use Jelly is a 1993 single, a U.S. indie rock ode to idiosyncrasy. She don't use jelly (jam for those of us in the U.K.)- she uses vaseline. 

Silver Trembling Hands is motorik psyche from their 2009 album Embryonic.

The Golden Path is not a Flaming Lips song but singer Wayne Coyne with The Chemical Brothers, released on Tom and Ed's first greatest hits CD in 2003. Over thumping, pulsing, festival dance music Wayne talks about a meeting with a mysterious spectre, the afterlife and his lack of belief in a heaven and hell, worlds in opposite duality before breaking down at the end and pleading to be forgiven.  

The Perfect Life Is All We Need

This is one of the most euphoric, everything- and- the- kitchen- sink remixes Andrew Weatherall produced during the last decade (and I'm shocked to find out on checking it was from as long ago as 2013). Another Perfect Life is a stunning, soaring, ecstatic sounding eight and a half minutes, Weatherall reshaping Moby and Wayne Coyne into something new. And while the lyrics appear to be about a junkie and hence the perfect life is actually an opiated delusion, it's as good a tune as any for today. 

Another Perfect Life (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Isolation Mix Five

Five weeks into these isolation mixes already- doesn't time fly when you're socially restricted? There is a higher BPM count on this mix but also some folky darkness and post punk dread from Nick Drake and A Certain Ratio respectively, some dance grooves from Ellis Island Sound and Scott Fraser, the ultra Balearic vibes of Richard Norris' Time And Space Machine remix of A Mountain Of One, some 1990 class from World Unite when Creation Records went all E'd up and dancey, Andrew Weatherall remixing Moby and Wayne Coyne in epic style, half of The Clash with Frank Ocean and Diplo plus the West Los Angeles Childrens' Choir (brought to you in association with Converse) from 2014 and a very long Seahawks remix of Tim Burgess, some headspinning ambient noise set against Harry Dean Stanton's monologue from Paris, Texas. 'Yep, I know that feeling'.

Tracklist:

Nick Drake: ‘Cello Song

A Certain Ratio: Winter Hill

Ellis Island Sound: Intro, Airborne, Travelling (Scott Fraser Remix)

A Mountain Of One: Ride (The Time And Space Machine Remix)

World Unite: World Unite

Moby Ft. Wayne Coyne: Another Perfect Life (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Frank Ocean, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Diplo: Hero

Tim Burgess: A Gain// Stoned Alone Again Or (Seahawks Remix) v Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski and Ry Cooder: I Knew These Two People, Paris Texas soundtrack

When You Had Me In Your Hands

You might remember that in 2013 (and 2014) I raved about Andrew Weatherall's remix of The Perfect Life, from Moby's album Innocents. Weatherall turned The Perfect Life into Another Perfect Life, adding house pianos, burbling synths, ecstasy and sheer sonic gold. The original isn't too shabby either- acoustic guitars, gospel and a Flaming Lip. Moby wrote the song and then asked Wayne Coyne to sing on it. Wayne's lyrics seem to be about the narcoleptic effect of drugs, a heroin user slipping away. Thus, I guess, The Perfect Life is not so perfect after all. I found a clip of Moby performing the song live in L.A. The woman with the big voice is Mindy Jones and she can definitely hit it. If you look closely Daenerys Targaryen from Game Of Thrones seems to be playing keyboards (Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, Tinkler of Ivories). I'm also enjoying Moby's slightly wonky guitar solo.



The Perfect Life

The video is equally feel good.

Bagging Area End Of Year List

This is my list, based on what has been played the most this year in the Bagging Area bunker, that was released this year. Judging by many of the names it looks like it could have been put together in 1991 and probably won't have too many surprises for those that read this blog regularly. I really don't seem to have stuck with new stuff by new artists this year. Two of my most played pieces of vinyl in 2013 have been Kolch's Der Alte and Glass Candy's Warm In The Winter, but both came out last year. I have gone for a dozen records (albums, singles, eps, 'internet teasers'), plus a book.

Thirteen. Morrissey 'Autobiography'
As Davy said, his best work for ages. Too much on the court case but the first half is superb. Far better than it could have been and full of music. And people he's fallen out with.

Twelve. David Bowie 'The Next Day'
But especially Where Are We Now, just as it was so unexpected. And so good.

Eleven. Two re-issues (cheating I know but it's my list)- The Clash 'Sound System' and Bob Dylan 'Another Self Portrait'.
Once you strip away the lovely ephemera and trinkets from The Clash box set you are left with the best re-mastering job I've heard. And the Dylan thing was a brand new look at some previously unreleased or unloved songs, beautifully played and sung.

Ten. Peter Gordon and Factory Floor 'Beachcombing'.
Fifteen minutes of sound waves, rippling synths and Balearic loveliness.

Nine. Steve Mason 'Monkey Minds In The Devil's Time'. If only because in Come To Me and Fight Them Back Steve Mason released two of the year's most affecting, emotion-laden songs, but in two very different ways.

Eight. Johnny Marr 'Upstarts'.
A glorious upbeat guitar pop single from Mr Marr. The rest of the lp's pretty good too.



Seven. Primal Scream 'More Light'.
The more I lived with it, the better it got. Their best lp in a decade and though sprawling and heavy, it's got depth, soul and invention, and they sound like they care again. Well done to David Holmes for the production job. It's Alright It's OK- the festival song it's OK to love.



Six. Warpaint 'Love Is To Die'.
New album in January. This is the best kind of advance warning- slinky, groovy dance rock from four girls who know exactly what they're doing.

Five. Jeremy Deller 'English Magic' ep,
I love this- Voodoo Ray remixed by JD Twitch and Optimo. Steel drums, house piano, oh ooh ooh oh oh a ha yeah.

Four. A bagful of Andrew Weatherall remixes.
Emeliana Torrini's Speed Of Dark, Jagwar Ma's Come Save Me and Baris K's 200. Spaced out dance pop, with dub basslines, indie -dance, eastern dance house. Taken together almost thirty minutes of far out bliss. But most of all the stupendous remix of Moby and Wayne Coyne's Another Perfect Life. Still not out on vinyl. Why? Write to your MP now, start a petition, call the Omsbudsman. It's a disgrace.



Three. Daniel Avery 'Drone Logic'
Electronic music, techno and ambient and acid and all the rest, aimed the dance floor and the headspace. The last few songs are close to perfection, the first few will make you move your feet.

Two. my bloody valentine 'mbv'.
What still gets me about this record is the sound- the way that some things sound dead close and some sound dead far away and how much thought has gone into this. How no one else sounds anything like mbv do. new you is beautiful. And wonder 2 is the sound of a helicopter taking off at a drum and bass night,  twenty years ago and today, simultaneously. Don't know why he's abandoned capital letters but with this record he can do what he likes.

One. The Asphodells 'Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust'.
Simply my most played album of the year- twelve tracks mixing up dub, early 80s punk-funk, John Betjeman, and acid house. Easy to lose yourself in, full of invention and the joy of repetitive music, I played it nonstop at the start of the year and I've been coming back to it ever since. Lovely packaging with the vinyl. As a companion piece the remix album was a beauty as well. It's about time Weatherall and Fairplay took it out on the road.

Beglammered (Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s remix)

Another Perfect Life

I wasn't planning back-to-back Weatherall posts but this appeared yesterday and I thought you'd be interested. A curious coupling (tripling?) of people here- Moby and Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips) remixed by Andrew Weatherall. House piano, female wailing, some gospel, bouncy bassline and bubbling synths, robotic vocals, an all round '89-'90 vibe- it'll put a smile on your face for sure. It did on mine.

The Flaming Lips 'She Don't Use Jelly'

Some wonderful indie-rock nonsense from Oklahoma's Flaming Lips for your Sunday enjoyment, concerning a girl who spreads vaseline on toast, a guy who sneezes into magazines and a woman who washes her hair using tangerines. The band's own website says 'It's a happy little ditty about strange people and their individual idiosynchrasies... with crunching but still harmonious noise', and I can't describe it any better than that.

Tonights World Cup final? I'm not sure I care that much. The Netherlands are effective and not in the habit of losing. Van Bommel seems to be setting some kind of record for committing fouls and getting away with it, while the undoubtedly talented Robben draws as many fouls as possible and rolls over a lot. Espagna play lots of very nice little passing triangles, have the most talented strikers in Europe, and struggle to win every game One-Nil. Neither are exactly setting my heart racing with anticipation. Who knows, maybe we'll get a Four-Three classic.

She Don't Use Jelly.mp3

The Flaming Lips 'The W.A.N.D.'

I saw some of Glastonbury on the TV last weekend, most of the Gorillaz and some other bits and bobs. The reviews have all been pretty negative about Gorillaz. It looked fantastic on the telly, but apparently the Top Shop/Hollyoaks Glastonbury massive wanted a band with more hits and couldn't maintain interest in a band featuring the frontman from Blur, half of The Clash, Mos Def, Bobby Womack,Shaun Ryder, Mark E. Smith, Lou Reed and anyone else who was wandering past and fancied a bash at vocals. Does sound a bit rubbish when what you really wanted was U2 doesn't it? Young people today eh?

At some point I saw the end of The Flaming Lips set, where they played a mind-blowingly great version of their greatest song Do You Realise? and I finally got round to watching the rest of The Flaming Lips' set on the BBC's Glastonbury website last night. For a bunch of drug-crazed, leftwing, middle-aged acid-hippies they may be just about the most entertaining band on the planet. Apart from the sheer quality of the songs (Do You Realise?, She Don't Use Jelly, The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Song, Yoshimi Battles The Giant Robots etc) they have charisma and presence in spades. Wayne Coyne's gigantic beach ball entrance, confetti, projections and films, random dancers wearing orange, aliens, the lot. I can appreciate that they're not everyone's cup of tea but it was very impressive stuff. The W.A.N.D. was a 2006 download single, that later turned up on their slightly disappointing At War With The Mystics album. It's an anti George W. Bush, anti-war lyric set to a huge riff and crashing drums, like Black Sabbath if they'd actually been any good and had a sense of humour.

10 The W.A.N.D.wma

The Chemical Brothers and Wayne Coyne 'The Golden Path'

The Chemical Brothers have done the guest vocalist thing as much as anybody. I was going to post Out Of Control, but JC at The Vinyl Villain put it up a week or two ago. Out Of Control (vocals and guitar by Bernard Sumner) is as good as any of the past decade's New Order tracks. Bad Lieutenant did a blinding version of it when they toured back in October, segueing into Temptation. Some of The Chemical Brothers stuff leaves me less impressed- too obvious, too many guest vocalists, too many collaborations with Noel Gallagher. But they pull it off from time to time. I think this is great- great track and production, cool vocals from Flaming Lip Wayne Coyne. And it always sounds good in the car to/from work.

13 The Golden Path.wma