My diary tells me it is now officially autumn. This Coldcut track remixed by the Irresistible Force and produced by Mixmaster Morris is a wonderful sprawling piece of ambient house (some use the phrase chill out but I can't bring myself to do it). At first it doesn't sound that autumnal but as it unwinds and the vocal comes in, the sense of seasons changing and the sun diminishing becomes overpowering.
Back to back Clash.
JC's continuing series of Imaginary Compilation Albums threw up his ten track Clash compilation a good while ago. I did a spin off, alternative version which drew solely from non-single releases and nothing that JC had included in his ICA as a companion piece (which I should have submitted there rather than posted here). Some time later following my B.A.D. ICA at The Vinyl Villain I speculated about a Mick Jones sings The Clash ICA. Driving home recently listening to the extras discs from Sound System I was thinking that The Clash could have several other ICA's- a Clash In Dub ICA, The Clash cover versions ICA, a Sandinista! ICA (controversial maybe, many people feeling like Joe did that the thirty six songs should be left exactly as they are, warts and all). There may be others which just goes to demonstrate the band's quality, range and depth. The whole set could then be compiled in a massive Clash ICA box with trinkets and booklets.
The Sound System Extras pack is three discs, discs one and two covering non album releases and some unreleased bits (see yesterday). The third disc has various demos and finishes with six songs live from The Lyceum in London, December 1979. There are two gloriously spiky runs through City Of The Dead and Jail Guitar Doors, Cheapskates (not the greatest Clash song perhaps), English Civil War and then two absolute smashes. The first, Stay Free, is Mick's love letter to best mate Robin Banks and their time growing up in South London- the breakdown and Paul's bassline re-entry is every bit as good as it should be. The second is their breakneck cover of The Bobby Fuller Four song. Topper's drumming is breathtaking, the guitars squeal and spit, and then there are three way Joe/Mick/Paul vocals on I Fought The Law. On fire.
The Clash recorded and released a huge number of songs during their time together. In the space of just two years they put out London Calling (a double) and Sandinista! (a triple), Bankrobber as a single plus B-sides for the album based singles and found time to write and record Ellen Foley's solo album. There really doesn't seem to have been much left gathering dust unreleased and what there was has been bootlegged and compiled since they split. The Clash On Broadway boxed set included Mick's lovely cover of Every Little Bit Hurts and the more recent Sound System included two Combat Rock outtakes- the Beautiful People Are Ugly Too and Idle In Kangaroo Court, neither of which sound like it was a difficult decision to leave them off in the first place. Both boxed sets included the unedited version of Straight To Hell (pretty essential all told). Sound System had a magnificent extended version of Ghetto Defendant with much more Allen Ginsberg than made the final cut on Combat Rock and an extended version of Sean Flynn. The real treasure of the unreleased Clash songs is Midnight To Stevens, a tribute to the maverick dj and producer who created the atmosphere for the recording of London Calling and inspired that album. The song has a great Joe lyric, searching for and finding Guy in a pub coupled with a ringing Mick guitar line. It's heartfelt and true.
Denise Johnson, so much more than a backing singer for Primal Scream, the voice of ACR since circa 1990, has a couple of songs on Soundcloud. This one, 2001, has a very cool, after hours Massive Attack feel and is really, really good.
Back in 1994 Denise released a wonderful single, Rays Of The Rising Sun, a lengthy ambient house number. This version remixed by The Joy is a joy.
Back at the start of the year Iggy Pop released what may turn out to be his last album. Eight months later it still sounds like a good record and contains several songs that are as good as anything he's done for ages. It also sounds like a record he wanted to make rather than a contract filler or something to occupy some time. The lead song was Gardenia, opening with a great tremelo guitar part from Josh Homme and then Iggy's baritone voice comes in singing about Gardenia, a stripper he used to love/admire. The sound of the song harks back to Berlin period Iggy, mechanical and with groove. The line about 'America's greatest living poet' comes from a time when Iggy and Allen Ginsberg spent an evening in Gardenia's company, Iggy waiting decades to use this memory in a song.
We went to see Peter Hook And The Light on Friday night at the Apollo. Some friends had double booked themselves and gave us the tickets gratis. I've taken a purist line about New Order recently, holding the view that New Order without Hooky isn't really New Order. I'm not sure where that leaves me re: Hooky playing without any other members of New Order but he's got as much right to play those songs as anyone- his bass is as much the sound of Joy Division and 80s New Order as any other instrument, maybe more so. It's a massive shame that Hooky and Sumner have got so far apart. I can't help but feel that if Rob Gretton had lived he'd have banged their heads together and sorted them out. But it is what it is and the promise of both the Substance albums played in full and some good reviews was enough to go.
The first half was New Order working forwards through Substance chronologically, the dance influence building from Everything's Gone Green and Temptation through to Bizarre Love Triangle and True Faith. One of the highlights of the gig is seeing Hooky and co performing New Order songs that the original band haven't done live for years- Thieves Like Us and Confusion are superb and The Perfect Kiss is enormous with its extended bass ending. Subculture and State Of The Nation both get welcome airings. First half set closer 1963 is almost better than the recorded version. There's a rawness to this band that stands in contrast to the other group and it's good to see and hear.
After a short break they return for the Joy Division set. Hooky tells us that the first time he played the Apollo was in 1978 supporting Buzzcocks and that the venue seemed a lot bigger then. He seems genuinely moved at the sight of a full house. There's a lot of warmth for him here and a lot of older gig goers willing him on, plus a few youngsters who clearly want to hear Joy Divison songs done live. The Joy Division songs are rough and ready, David Potts' guitar turned up loud and distorted, two basses (Hooky's son on one of them) and Hooky now fully confident on vocals. The vocals on some of New Order's songs are well out of Hooky's range and former Monaco bandmate Potts fills in but Hooky's gravelly voice is ideally suited to the JD material and he sings them like he means it. Inevitably after building a head of dance steam in the first half the tone changes as they work their way through early JD material, songs like No Love Lost, Komakino, Warsaw and Leaders Of Men, with a detour into a frenetic run through These Days. Things really get going again with Transmission and then the intensity of Dead Souls. Everyone knows what the last two songs will be- an emotionally charged Atmosphere (dedicated to the recently departed Alan Wise) and then Love Will Tear Us Apart (dedicated to Ian Curtis, naturally). When the accounts are finally taken, the dust has settled and it's all totted up Love Will Tear Us Apart will surely be this city's anthem and it becomes a full on, audience joining in version. New Order have performed this song for decades now, reclaiming it from the dead back in the 80s. The Light with Hooky singing do it just as well as the current version of NO do. Hooky sings it better too. When the final chords ring out, guitars are dropped to the stage floor and a shirtless Hooky takes the applause before walking off to the dressing room, the crowd carry on the chorus for a minute or two, dragging the band back on stage for another bow. No encore. No need.
I found this on Twitter the other night, a list of books by Ian McEwan from the front of an Ian McEwan novel that reads like a poem in its own right. Accidental poetry.
Not really connected at all but the pick of Steve Cobby's 2015 Everliving album for me was Teleseme, a gorgeous, building, string laden tune that sent the listener ever upwards. Last July a remix by Hallo Halo was released which oriented it towards the dancefloor with a hypnotic, springy bassline. Hallo Halo are the legendary Jon da Silva and Jonas Nilsson. Eight minutes of fun.
Since my car was condemned to the scrapyard I've been driving a different car to work. Ok, alright, I've been driving my mother in law's car to work. It has a CD player so I've switched from my in-car mp3 player and the world of shuffle to grabbing some cds from the pile next to the stereo waiting to be filed and working my way through albums instead. One of them is Jamie Xx's remixed version of Gil Scott Heron's I'm New Here, released back in 2011 as We're New Here. Jamie kept the vocals and reworked the music entirely, sampling some of Gil's older vocals too. The closing song, I'll Take Care Of U, an old Brook Benton song, is one of the best and the one that most successfully takes Gil's vocals somewhere else (London pirate radio).
Andrew Weatherall's entered another period of activity with this remix of Craig Bratley's Play The Game coming out later this month. This is a cosmic trip, ten minutes long, with laid back beats, crashing guitar chords and a breathy vocal from Danielle Moore. Gimme more.
This font is called Rugby and was used in the mid-to-late 60s for records that had a certain tough psychedelic vibe- The Stooges and Shocking Blue for example- but also turned up on the soundtrack of For A Few Dollars More. In the late 80s Spacemen 3 used it, harking back to those days of lysergic adventure and sonic exploration. Both of those things can be found in spades on their 1993 release Dreamweapon, a three track compilation of live recordings. Side one/track one is a forty five minute drone out recorded live in Hammermsmith in August 1988, titled An Evening Of Contemporary Sitar Music. It goes on a bit never quite reaching a climax but definitely redefining the possibilities of the drone. I'm guessing you will either love it or it will do your head in. Maybe both. The other two tracks were equally self explanatory- Ecstacy In Slow Motion and Spacemen Jam, both from 1987.
This is a song for late Saturday night or the early hours at some point of the weekend, somewhere hot and sweaty, rather than a Tuesday morning on the way to work. Rich Lane has done a totally unofficial Cotton Dubs remix of Kelis' Acapella, vocal pitched down and setting the controls to the heart of the chug.
And it seems I have never posted Kelis before- which surprises me because Milkshake is a absolute floorshaker.
The spirit and sound of 80s indie, proper indie mind, seems to be alive and well in this new song from Toy- the guitars are brittle, the vocals remind me of Lawrence from Felt and Pete Astor, all very Creation. Rather good and very catchy too. Even the press shot for the album has been done to look like a cassette inlay. It's got me wondering what happened to my suede jacket.
Brazil, Olympics, Paralympics, A Certain Ratio, Samba 123, Fila Brazillia remix, Rob's Records, Steve Cobby.
If you type the word Samba into a Google image search this is one of the few nipple and buttock free pictures. Try it. See? Thought I better keep it respectable- this is a family blog after all.
Earlier this year The Liminanas put out a new album, Malamore, preceded by a Peter Hook bass-led single Garden Of Love. This has now been remixed by Andrew Weatherall into a murky, bleep based excursion with a synth breakdown at four minutes followed by some drama before the bleeps and heavy breathing returns.
More sad news in a year of sad news- Prince Buster, a true legend of Jamaican music from his first release in 1961, has died at the age of 78. Buster's real name was Cecil Campbell and as Madness noted he was born on Orange Street in Kingston. He fell in with Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd's sound system and having learned the ropes moved on to set up his own system, Voice Of The People. This song became one of those Levi's adverts hits which shouldn't detract from either its brilliance or the libidinous lyrics.
Seeing as the sun has decided to make an early September appearance and that this is a song that was also released in 1991 like yesterday's 808 State/Bjork record and just to show that sometimes the simple things really are the best here's a sunny little tune that is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Cola Boy were a duo of Andrew Ridgley (not the Wham! one) and Janey Lee Grace (who had sung backing vocals for Wham!). St Etienne's Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs wrote 7 Ways To Love and recorded it with Sarah Cracknell singing and because it was 1991 stuck it out as a white label (partly because they feared it destroy St Etienne's carefully built up credibility). It sold out and was a big hit in the clubs. Sarah Cracknell was contractually not allowed to sing on non-St Etienne so it was re-recorded with Janey singing it. Meanwhile the Cracknell version was bootlegged left, right and centre. Despite the lost sales it sailed into the top ten. It sounds like the summer of 1991- carefree vocals, cheesy keys, wobbly bass and a fantastic rhythm. Two versions, 'cos I love you.
Back in 1991, a quarter of a century ago as I'm getting tired of typing/saying, Bjork made the transition from singer of oddball Icelandic indie band to dance music based solo artist look as simple as could be and this song was all part of it. 808 State's Ex:el album was pretty groundbreaking at a time when dance acts were exploring and expanding the possibilities of the album format. Ooops is an utter delight, weird and otherworldly but still clearly rooted in 808 State's Mancunian house. From the ascending chords in the intro to her vocal, which seems to come in and tickle your ears. 'Ooops alright, I'll come over and pour myself over you, jars of fun, exciting stories, I'll make you forget' she sings. Yup. Graham Massey's woodwind joins in, the drums rattle away, that piano riff comes back and Bjork carries on, gurgling sweet nothings. Strange and accessible, ambient-techno, both moody and upbeat. I think we took it for granted at the time how good this sort of thing was.
The Vinyl Villain's run through of Buzzcocks singles reached Orgasm Addict yesterday. Which made me think of their first album, 1978's Another Music From A Different Kitchen (a title based on a Linder piece of art called Housewives Choosing Their Own Juices In A Different Kichen). The album closed with Pete Shelley's frenetic Moving Away From The Pulsebeat, a Buzzcocks masterclass in Mancunian street urchin punk, with thumping drums, trebly guitar and impassioned vocals. A massive breath of fresh air.
I've enjoyed watching The Get Down, Netflix's series based around the birth of hip hop in The Bronx in 1977. Whenever one of the characters (Dizzee) appeared so did this song, with those crazy Jaki Leibezeit rhythms and Damo Suzuki's vocal refrain. It's off Ege Bamyasi, released in 1972, the album that enabled them to move into a bigger and better studio. At only three minutes thirty three seconds long it doesn't outstay its welcome and leaves me wanting more.
My car spluttered out of life on Friday morning. I got in it to drive to work, turned the key and it turned the engine over, growled and then died. I thought it was just a battery problem. The men at the garage down the road disagreed, telling me that the timing belt had sheered off causing all manner of problems and damage to the engine. Fixable but expensive, more than the car was worth. The scrapyard would give me fifty quid for it though. Fucking fuck.
On the same day the latest instalment of Andrew Weatherall's monthly radio show for NTS came online. Predictable? Me? Two hours of the usually unexpected treats including two remixes of his own Convenanza songs (by Duncan Gray and Sons Of Slough), for a remix album due out next month. That's your Sunday morning sorted.
Echo And The Bunnymen sounded like a band with something to prove at The Ritz on Thursday night. The set focused mainly on their early years and Ocean Rain, not once failing to do those songs justice. The opening section of songs like Going Up and All That Jazz is loud and punchy with just the right amount of punky aggression, Will Sergeant riffing at the forefront. A few songs in there is a one-two-three of Angels And Devils, Do It Clean and My Kingdom which if that had all I'd seen, I would have gone home happy. In their pomp the Bunnymen created a marriage of post punk and psychedelic rock and that's what we get tonight, Will peeling off solos and riffs, one of the key post punk guitarists. During some of the instrumental breaks Ian McCulloch stands back gesturing towards his bandmate, fully appreciative of his playing. Mac's voice has survived the years, a little deeper at times and there are some of the higher notes he steps back from, leaving the crowd to fill in, but he is still largely the singer he was thirty years ago, wrapping his tonsils around his Scouse poetry. There's nothing run of the mill about this band tonight, They play like they mean it. The songs are done properly, a little raggedness adding to them and keeping them alive. They're still doing that old Bunnymen trick of breaking into medleys- Do It Clean goes into Sex Machine, later on we get Roadhouse Blues, Walk On The Wild Side and Jean Genie- and then snapping straight back into the original tune. Villiers Terrace is immense, a scabrous tale of trippiness in post punk Liverpool (did I ever tell you I once spent an afternoon trying to find Villiers Terrace? It doesn't exist). The poppier songs are joyous- Lips Like Sugar sounds as good as anything they ever did, Seven Seas shimmers and sways and Bring On The Dancing Horses is a big echo laden treat. Nothing Lasts Forever provides the terrace singalong moment. The Cutter is alive and kicking. Bedbugs And Ballyhoo is all beefed up, hair slicked back and all that jazz. The knack the Bunnymen mastered in the mid 80s was writing songs that were full of romance and drama, reaching a peak on The Killing Moon, introduced to us by Ian as 'the greatest song ever written'. They then go on to do a good job of proving it. The last song of the encore is Ocean Rain, a masterpiece of quiet/loud dynamics, a transporting moment, Mac singing as if he depends on it, needs it. It's 2016, a long time since their heyday. It's true that this isn't the original line up, they can't match what they did with Bill Drummond at the helm, playing strange gigs in Buxton, the Crystal Days, St George's Hall and so on- they were different times. But this is as vital and revitalised a Bunnymen as there has been for some time. If they're playing anywhere near you in the near future, I'd go and see them if I were you.
This song has been posted fairly recently over at the mammoth 200 songs rundown at When You Can't Remember Anything At All. I'd been meaning to write about it for some time and a little repetition in our part of the blogworld is inevitable I think. Jamie Xx released a single back in 2014 that attempted to summarise and pay homage to the entire history of UK underground dance music. It is inevitably nostalgic but it is also totally contemporary and bang up to date. Using UK garage's beats, some heavy bass and his own trademark steel drum sound Jamie builds a track in love with the music that inspired it. Throughout he uses vocal samples (taken from a short film called Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore) to illustrate it and drive it, starting with 'You like junglist music?', moving on to 'we kept it UK, that's what we're trying to do, we're keeping it going the same way, we're all under one roof raving, laughing and joking, y'know what I mean' and eventually finishing with the voice getting distorted as someone reels off clothing labels 'Fila, Head, Kappa, Ellesse, Lonsdale, Sergio Tachini, Burberry, Diadora...', neatly summarising the longstanding link between British dance music and British street wear. It is a pretty stunning and evocative piece of work, and it wasn't even on the 2015 album In Colour that it clearly predicts.
Well, that's that then. It's September, summer is over, the school year starts again for me today. Back to it. On the plus side my brother got me a ticket to see Echo And The Bunnymen at The Ritz tonight (yes, it's a school night but there you go, life is short, carpe diem etc).
Mac the Mouth said that Ocean Rain was the greatest album ever made. I don't think that's true but there are times when I think it's the greatest Bunnymen album. This different version of the title track, which I have posted before I'm sure, lacks the strings of the final version but is just as good in its own way.
Shall we do something really obscure from the back catalogue of Andrew Weatherall? In 1997 Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood moonlighted from their day job as Two Lone Swordsmen to put out a double vinyl, six track e.p. as Lino Squares. The record came out on Humboldt County Records and had various spelling/punning titles- the e.p.'s title was The Role Of Linoleum and included tracks called Neuphrique, Phrique Out and Blue Pole Dancer. Musically we get deep house, minimal electro and minimal deep house electro. This one, Tidy Unit, has a smart breakbeat, crashing percussion and some whooshey noises. Rather fine I think.
Rummaging through a box of records at the second hand record shop the other, a box labelled House/Dance/Ambient I found a pristine copy of Leftfield's Song Of Life (Remixes) ep for only £2. So I bought it. Two of the three tracks are the Underworld remixes of Song Of Life which are excellent. The third is Leftfield's own remix of Release the Pressure, premium grade skanking dub techno.
I wrote a piece for The Vinyl Villain's Imaginary Compilation album series, ten Husker Du songs to brighten up your life. It's here. I also found this, a remastered version of Zen Arcade's opening song. The Youtube poster who put it up had done the new version himself, brought the bass up and balanced out Spot's trebly mix. A very good job done.
At around the same time a friend reminded me of Bob's 90s band Sugar and their 1993 ep Beaster. Having signed to Creation and got some genuine success with Copper Blue they put out Beaster as a follow up The six songs on Beaster were recorded at the same time as Copper Blue but stand out as distinctively different- the guitars are heavier and denser. Very dense. Like other Bob Mould records (like Zen Arcade) Beaster was a kind of concept record and had a lot of religious imagery. Opener Come Around comes around slowly with bright acoustic guitar but then the Les Paul and Marshall stack kicks in, along with Bob's deliberately difficult to make out vocals.
This is new from Lambchop and is pretty remarkable- an eighteen minute long meditation utilising a stuttering drum machine, some pretty little melodies on piano and woodwind and Kurt Wagner's rueful voice. It's a tribute to the dance of the same name, witnessed by Kurt at a wedding, it's not country soul they are known for and it sounds like autumn is just around the corner.
A few weeks ago Strictly Rockers did a guest posting as part of The Vinyl Villain's Imaginary Compilation Album series, a ten track compilation of the Durutti Column. Strictly Rockers focused on the Factory years and did a great job. I had been planning my own Durutti Column ICA and didn't get around to completing it but it wouldn't have been too different from SR's. Mine would have included-
Sketch for Summer
Otis
For Belgian Friends
The Missing Boy
Home
Contra Indications (The Together Mix)
Silence
Sketch For Dawn
Which gets me to eight songs and two to mull over. SR stuck to the Factory releases and I had intended to include some post-Factory material. Since Factory went bust Vini Reilly has put out at least fifteen albums for other record labels including the short lived Factory Too. I wouldn't pretend to have an expert knowledge of them all but have kept my hand in, dipping in and out over the years. 2008's Sunlight To Blue... Blue To Blackness had a beautiful little tune called So Many Crumbs And Monkeys which was on my ICA shortlist. A principal contender for my ICA would be this one from 2006's Keep Breathing album which a friend posted on social media a few days ago, reminding me of it. Before I go any further, just give it a spin...
See?
I don't know where to begin with this song- it defies description. Heavy bursts of rhythm guitar. Soaring melodies. A voice floating in and out. Tremelo. Vini's own voice whispering in the background. All building upwards towards the light. Stunning. And proof that Vini's well continued to contain deep water long into his third decade of making 'silly little tunes'. The rest of Keep Breathing has plenty of other brilliant moments too.
I have no idea if anyone makes any pennies off their Factory recordings anymore- who owns them? New Order got a record deal elsewhere and their back catalogue gets re-issued all the time. Happy Mondays got their stuff licensed or bought up by a major. Does the rest of the Factory roster see any cash for their music? I have no idea. However this album and this song are commercially available at various legal download sites, which I should imagine Vini benefits from. Vini has been hit by poor health and financial trouble in recent years and is currently unable to play the guitar which is incredibly sad for such a unique, talented and expressive artist. So I'm not giving you a free download of this- if you like it, and I'd be surprised if you didn't, go and give Vini some of your cash in exchange for It's Wonderful. Cos it is.
It's over a year since I lasted posted anything by the Reid brothers. Over a year! Slap my wrists and confiscate my scuffed suede Chelsea boots immediately. The video for Sidewalking came my way on social media the other day and what a truly great record it is, maybe their greatest. Released in March 1988, a stand alone single which marries industrial noise with hip hop drumbeats (sampled from Roxanne Shante) and lyrics about missing the last bus home. The extended version from the 12" is double the length and double the fun.
Primal Scream's Chaosmosis album from earlier this year didn't really do too much for me- it was alright but nothing special. This however is the best thing they've put their name to for a long time. Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre has remixed 100% Or Nothing into a nine and a half minutes long psychedelic dub odyssey, spaced out with dubby bass, disjointed backing vocals, a melodica wending its way through and lots of echo... echo... echo. It's coming out on limited edition clear vinyl on Friday. Really good.
Factory Floor- messy decorators, don't ask them to do your front room. You could ask them to provide you with some good music though. They've slimmed down to a two piece and on their new album 25 25 they've moved away from the industrial noise of their earlier records to an acid house sound- stripped back with bouncing basslines, analogue synths, acid squiggles and squelches, the tsk tsk tsk of high hats, an 808 snare, a thumping kick drum and some very minimal vocals ('Ya', 'work work work'). Much of this album sounds like it could have been made and played in any dance club anywhere between 1988 and 2003 but it more than gets away with it- retro but forward thinking. I suspect I shall be playing this for some time.
Ahead of a new album (Heads Up) in Setember warpaint have released a new song called New Song. On first listen I was a little disappointed- it seemed a bit lightweight, their languid, rolling grooves replaced by something much poppier (not that I'm against poppier). However it's really grown on me, especially since picking it up on 7" where on a proper stereo rather than computer speakers the bass has room and the rhythm hits the spot.
Yesterday was Joe Strummer's birthday. He would have been sixty four. His passing in 2002 seems a long time ago now. I've no doubt he would have had a lot to to say about the world as it has unfolded over the last fourteen years, more songs to write and records to release, more places to tour, constant offers to reform The Clash. So it goes. This song does a typical Strummer trick, taking the commonplace (a nitcomb), building some versus and a chorus around it with some typically Joe street-poetry touches, and turning it into something affecting and real, a song of devotion.
I've been having some fun watching these clips on Youtube recently. Dance Energy was BBC 2's attempt to capture early 90s youth culture. To be far to the Beeb Snub TV was an excellent half hour weekly look at the indie scene with some essential live clips and interviews. For Dance Energy they got Normski in as presenter. Normski may be best described as an acquired taste (although many internet commenters seem to prefer the word bellend). Dance Energy ran on a Monday evening, straight after The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air and had 'live' performances in the studio from dance and hip hop acts. Unlike the majority of 1960s TV music programmes, where there's no doubt that the groups are better dressed and better coiffured than the audience, on Dance Energy the crowd are the real stars. here's a few I've picked out...
Steve Cobby's band from this time was Ashley and Jackson (they played Cities In The Park which is why I think I came across this on Youtube while looking for clips of that event for my post a couple of weeks ago). Solid Gold was going to be Ashley and Jackson's breakthrough single but it never really happened for them in terms of having a hit. This clip from 1991 starts with the titles and theme music which will push all kinds of buttons for some of you of a certain age...
Bassomatic's Fascinating Rhythm was a top ten hit in 1990 and still sounds pretty good today although that style of rapping has dated. This song aside Bassomatic are also known for having a pre-Madonna/All Saints William Orbit on board.
Yo! Here comes Normski again! This is Bizarre Inc, hugely popular up here in the north, with Playing With Knives. I love this record, it's crunching keyboard riffs, repetitive, cyclical vocals and breakbeat- and the on stage dancers.
And this is a beauty, The Beloved's It's Alright Now, a properly blissful, house tune, all positivity and optimism. Again this should have been a massive hit and wasn't.
Lastly for the moment The Shamen. Like The Beloved they started as an indie guitar band and then moved into dance music when it hit them. This performance of Hyperreal is pretty smart, the best version of this song, and has Will Sin in the group, before his untimely death in Tenerife in May 1991.
There's loads more of this on Youtube if you want more. And why wouldn't you?
Following yesterday's ambience and Davy H's contribution here's the new one from Frank Ocean (which I picked up on on Twitter via Davy H). Word on the net is that this forty five minute visual album stream is Frank's artistic statement prior to the new 'pop' album dropping. It may have already dropped by the time this post publishes. Endless is built on Frank's r 'n' b voice and beats, emerging from sound, ambient washes and loads of texture. An acoustic guitar drops in at the half hour point and at the end it turns techno. Very dreamy and slightly out of kilter. In the film Frank is wearing a Jesus And Mary Chain t-shirt while building stuff. What does it all mean? I don't know...but I like it.
Hmm... I don't have permission to share it. Watch it here.
Edit: you can't watch it there either. Apparently you can only watch it at Apple in exchange for cash. Sorry about that.
Far be it from me to take the corporate shilling and promote a multinational corporation- but almost all of use Windows don't we? If not Windows then Apple? And I'm not being paid anyway. Months ago someone directed me to these on Twitter, possibly Davy H of the much missed and still sadly inactive Ghost Of Electricity blog. To mark the occasion of the 20th birthday of Windows 95 ideoforms put these onto Soundcloud, the Windows 95 start up sound slowed down by 4000%, followed by the same slowed down effects for Windows 98, 2000, NT, Vista and XP.
All of them become rather wonderful, ambient, Eno-esque moods rather than the brief and sometimes irritating sound of your operating system bursting into life. Eno actually contributed to the creation of the 95 jingle and Robert Fripp did the Vista one. You could probably slow many things down and get them to sound like Eno and turn them into interesting ambient pieces. But like the person in the art gallery who points and says 'my five year old could have done that', it's the doing it that's important.
The action and success at the velodrome in Rio over the last few days has been unmissable, edge of the seat stuff. Laura Trott, Becky James, Katy Marchant, Jason Kenny, Bradley Wiggins, Owain Doull, Ed Clancy, Steven Burke, Katie Archibald, Joanna Rowsell Shand, Elinor Barker, Callum Skinner, Mark Cavendish- all truly something else.
Husker Du's Celebrated Summer, fifth track on 1985's New Day Rising, is a peak by a band with many, many peaks. The opening burst of guitar followed by thumping drums and bass raise the hairs on the back of the neck and the 12 string acoustic guitar breakdown in the middle and at the end show Bob Mould wasn't going to be hemmed in by hardcore's rules. Breaking out and breaking through. Melody combined with their ferocious energy. The lyrics, as so often with the Huskers, suggest something gone, something lost, the summers of youth- was that your celebrated summer?
A Level results today for my students. More tension and hopefully more celebrations.
A couple of lesser known tunes from A Certain Ratio's back catalogue for you today, both real favourites of mine. In 1986 ACR were moving away from the clipped, army shorts, punk-funk of their early years. Force, released in 1986, found them edging towards a more commercial sound. And Then She Smiles is northern jazz/funk/pop but much better than that sounds. Martin Moscrop's clarinet keeps it all slightly discordant (and isn't a million miles from 808 State's Pacific). It's parent album Force was re-issued by LTM back in 2009 and is worth tracking down. I have a cassette copy in one of those cloth-bound boxes Factory went with for a while (Fact 166 fact fans).
In 1987 they signed to A&M and put out several career highs which failed to sell (Good Together, acr:mcr, The Big E, Won't Stop Loving You) and migrated their way back to independence in the early 90s on Rob's Records (Rob Gretton's label). They then released a series of cracking dance/house inspired records including Mello in 1992. Mello came in a variety of versions, including M-People remixes and dubs.Part 1 was the radio friendly one. The 303 Dub is great too. Mello (Part 1)
Tuesday calls for dub, dunno why, it just does. This is a recording of Radioactive Man's dub dj set supporting Pitch Black in London in July. Over the course of an hour and a half it goes deep into dub and echo, rimshot and strange smelling smoke, including Sly and Robbie, Grace Jones, Lee Perry, Ini Kamoze, Adrian Sherwood, Colourbox, Aswad, Toots and The Maytals, Johnny Osbourne, Peaking Lights and Dub Syndicate. Highly recommended.
Some more archive footage from two decades plus ago and another Manchester group. I watched this on ITV in the summer of 1990 and taped it on a VHS cassette that I always had on standby near the telly for music clips. I built up a small collection of compilation videos that got thrown away at some point. Now most of it's on Youtube. In July 1990 a bunch of Manchester bands played at Granada Studios- Intastella, The New FADs, The Charlatans and The High. I've written about The High before. They released a minor classic album called Somewhere Soon which had some really good songs and three superb singles in Box Set Go, Up and Down and Take Your Time. The album's follow up single was another cracker (More...). After that, for a number of reasons, it fell to pieces but for a while they were very good. In the clip here, which I can remember vividly from my homemade videotape, they play Box Set Go and PWA in one of the sound stages at the old Granada Studios building.
Singer John Matthews and guitarist Andy Couzens have recently reformed and played a few gigs. The released a new single (Kiss The Sun) but annoyingly I can't find a stream of it to post.
Tim Burgess has done an album with Peter Gordon, due out on Tim's O Genesis label in early September. Tim's work outside The Charlatans is full of surprises, from various guest vocal performances to his solo album written with Lambchop's Kurt Wagner. This is the furthest from Madchester and Britpop yet- and it seems unfair to continue to pigeonhole both Tim and The Charlatans with those two labels. Peter Gordon is a New York based composer, experimental jazz, film scores and so on. He worked closely with Arthur Russell and his own Love Of Life Orchestra recordings are well worth checking out. The first song from Same Language Different Worlds came out digitally in June and is a little wonder, pitter-patter drumming and a drifting sax, swirling aquatic melodies and Tim's hazy vocals floating along on top.
A second song, Begin, has appeared online this month- metallic percussion, some synths and more phased vocals. All in all, it's a long way from Knebworth 1996.
Released twenty five years ago this month Primal Scream's fourth Screamadelica single was Don't Fight It, Feel It. Where Loaded had been one of the key indie-dance triggers and Come Together was Weatherall's gospel masterstroke and Higher Than The Sun was just so far out and gone, Don't Fight It, Feel It was pretty much the closest they came to making house music (maybe Slip Inside This House shares that). DFIFI is wobbly house but house music nonetheless with a shuddering bassline, Denise Johnson's wonderful vocals and bleeps and bloops and all manner of dancefloor sounds. The various single versions came with remixes including the even housier and barnstorming Scat Mix where Weatherall and Hugo Nicholson twist their own track inside out and upside down.
The song and others on Screamadelica caused ructions in the group no matter what Bobby told the press, guitarists walking out of studio sessions and people's egos threatened by not being on certain tracks. They worked it all out for the live shows. This TV appearance on The Late Show shows how they got a guitar-led version of DFIFI going, with Throb working his way around house music on a Les Paul and Bobby sharing the vocals with Denise. Good stuff. And unlike The Stone Roses, they didn't blow the sound meter and then shout abuse at Tracy McLeod.
I'd forgotten about this one and found it while wasting time on Youtube recently. 1999's Electronic album Twisted Tenderness didn't exactly set the world alight and Sumner and Marr moved onto different and separate things afterwards. Track 2 is a little gem though, a highlight in either man's back catalogue outside their main bands. Johnny Marr had got back into playing distorted guitar and the whole thing has menace and convincing swagger.
I read an article about poor old Billy Mackenzie recently, the man with the astonishing voice who sang The Associates songs. Party Fears Two is so beyond pop but also a very great pop single. I also really like this one from 1981, undoubtedly Bowie influenced but also very much it's own thing. And that voice gives me goosebumps.
I usually throw cds that come free with music magazines straight into the bin these days but a Jamaican Explosion one survived and when I stuck it the kitchen cd player the other night The Folkes Brothers 1961 hit Oh Carolina had me skipping around while loading the dishwasher or doing something similar.
Forget about Shaggy's 1990s version, this is the real deal. There's an excellent explanation of the song's recording and history here. It may not surprise you to know that Prince Buster was heavily involved. In 1984 the Jamaican government sent John Folkes a certificate for Oh Carolina accrediting him with recording the first ever reggae song. Which is nice.
Dublin and Wicklow duo Solar Bears have been subjected to two new Andrew Weatherall remixes, both out on 12" now. The two versions of Separate From The Arc are a step removed from some of Weatherall's recent reworkings. Mix 1 has a Two Lone Swordsmen style breakbeat and some dark soundscapes.
Mix 2 is percussive and far out, a syncopated rhythm with synths wobbling over the top.
While we're in the Weatherall area there's another instalment of his NTS radio show for your listening pleasure. This one is a pretty dark trip- the first song alone is unsettling.
Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve's album The Soft Bounce has been getting regular listens round here, loads of good stuff on it. The title track has been remixed by Daniel Avery and it sounds like this...
Insistent techno drums and percussion with some droney keys and pulses. Uplifting and gently euphoric.
If you can tear yourself away from the Olympics this new mix Steve Cobby has done for Thump magazine might just work some magic on a Sunday evening in August.
An hour and thirty minutes of blissful sounds- Balearic, house, reggae and most points in between including his own gem of a single Bushfarmer (released earlier this year).
Just over twenty five years ago Factory Records put on a two day festival in Heaton Park, Manchester, in memory of Martin Hannett who had died earlier that year. Day One, Saturday August 3rd, included Buzzcocks, Paris Angels, Ruthless Rap Assassins, The Railway Children, OMD and The Wonderstuff. Day Two, Sunday, was almost entirely Factory acts- Happy Mondays, Electronic, ACR, Revenge, Durutti Column, The Wendys and Cath Carroll plus De La Soul, 808 State and New Fast Automatic Daffodils. There were two day camping tickets. But who would want to camp in Heaton Park?
We went on the Sunday. It was hot. I met my brother there, who came in when some of the crowd outside pushed the fence down. He had a ticket but just fancied coming in through the fence. From memory Durutti were good but a bit lost in a giant field, Revenge were a bit iffy (Hooky playing bass, singing and whacking the syndrums repeatedly, probably trying to overcompensate for the bad blood between him and Bernard Sumner, New Order's split and their relative positions on the bill), ACR were good, 808 State really moved the crowd, De La Soul were shouty. Electronic were imperious, especially when the Pet Shop Boys turned up on stage and you scanned left to right and saw key members of New Order, The Smiths and PSBs all together for one song. It's shame they played live so rarely.
The whole event was filmed and a video released which I bought but no longer have. Here's a scene setter...
And here an enthusiastic Tony Wilson interviews Johnny Marr, Rowetta, Shaun Ryder and Bez...
This Youtube uploader has labelled this as Electronic live in London but it's definitely Heaton Park.
Happy Mondays were by 1991 a stunningly effective if very unlikely stadium band. Kinky Afro rocks. No, it doesn't, it grooves.
Back home again- I've barely been at home for the last three weeks have I? I'm sure those of you who don't have long summer holidays don't want to hear about the beautiful rolling hills of the Dordogne, the sandy coloured French villages, the point at which the Dordogne and Vezere rivers converge, engravings made on cave walls by our ancestors 25, 000 years ago that take the breath away, the fine wines of the Bergerac and Saumur, long sun drenched evenings, the daily sunshine and 34 degree heat. So I won't go on about it. If it's any consolation I can offer this advice- don't get a ferry back across the Channel from Caen to Portsmouth that lands at 10 pm and then leaves you having to drive up to Manchester round not one, not two but three sets of roadwork diversions and gets you back in at 3 am.
Long summer drives through France on the other hand are a joy. The roads are great, traffic is minimal, the scenery wonderful. We have occasional differences about what should soundtrack the journeys. This year's tune that all of us agreed on was this recent smash from Beyonce, full of ire and anger, led by calypso strings and some intense drums. It borrows liberally from Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs too.
