I beg to differ- the sky this week is most definitely blue (admittedly with pink and orange streaks at sunset). Back in 2004 Nathan Fake's The Sky Was Pink was remixed by James Holden, an epic ten minute job with processed beats, effects and a melody that surfaces and disappears and resurfaces. The bassline pounds along and as the track progresses the beats get harder and everything is a little bit more intense than everything else.
Tim Burgess has recently released a solo album he recorded and then forgot about. At a loose end between Christmas and New Year ten years ago and having only just given up the booze he gathered a few mates around him at The Charlatans studio in Northwich- Martin Duffy on keyboards, Debbie Googe on bass, Josh from The Horrors on guitar and Steffan from The Klaxons on drums. They recorded ten songs and this one, Clutching Insignificance, is the opener to the album (As I Was Now), a little bit ragged but insistent and intent on sticking in the memory.
This is the new single from Death In Vegas, Honey, with the blissful vocals of Sasha Grey over throbbing, minimal, mind altering techno. 'I would die... for you' Sasha whispers.
Richard Fearless has more or less devoted his music making over the last few years to this sound, stripping it back and purifying it. In 2015 he put out this eight minute song, Overview Effect. It followed 2 singles form the year before, all in similar groove. When you've got a sound this good, why do anything other than refine it?
I don't know why some get released as Richard Fearless and some as Death In Vegas, where Fearless ends and Vegas begins? Or the other way round...
This comes recommended by Drew (of sadly recently defunct blog Across The Kitchen Table). Rival Consoles featured here a little while ago remixing The Neil Cowley Trio. Rival Consoles own album came out back in April, an introspective feast of electronic sounds, synths, drum machines, computers creating music you could dance to, and music for sitting in dim light and listening to- ambient, drones, melodies. All infused with very human emotions. You can buy it here.
Back once again, the renegade master... actually, not the renegade master, but Lord Sabre. June's edition of Music's Not For everyone went out on Thursday and has the new Death In Vegas single, The Lucid Dream's blast of acid house SX1000, DJ Khaleb, a new one from the man himself titled The Blue Bullet, Lee Perry, Can and the usual array of stuff you've never heard of. Mark E Smith once opened up with 'Notebooks out plagiarists!'. With Weatherall it's more a case of 'chequebooks out enthusiasts!'. Tracklist here.
I appreciate that here in the UK we don't have too much room to shout at the moment, being led as we are by the most incompetent government since the end of the Second World War who are attempting to put into law, by most reckonings, the most disastrous political decision any major western country has taken in the same period. But, as the question at the top of the post asks, 'whither goest thou, America?' When Jack Kerouac asked the question in On The Road it was in a different context but still, the question stands.
In the last two weeks alone Trump has-
* legitimised a brutal dictator who uses torture and murder against his own people, orders assassinations of those in his government who he falls out with and who has used forced starvation to bring the population to heel.
* professed admiration for this dictator, praising him as a a man whose people listen when he speaks and said he wants the same from the American people
* removed the USA from the United Nations Committee on Human Rights because it criticises Israeli policies against the Palestinian people
* continued to support a policy that has led to toddlers being imprisoned in cages on the USA's southern border
This is the normalisation of anti-democratic practices by the US government. We know from history where this leads. It's never too late to shout about it. One of the things David Byrne talked about between songs on Monday night was about how at his shows in the US they had a table in the foyer to register people to vote there and then, and about how important it is to get people to engage, to vote in local elections and national ones. It beats 'Hi, how are you?' (response usually a big cheer) and 'this is a new one' (response, a trip to the bar or the toilet). Unless Trump abolishes elections in the next 2 years (as his new friend in North Korea might advise), he is removable and defeatable. Same over here. We've got to rid of these people. The chorus of this 2006 Jarvis Cocker song is truer now than it was when he wrote it...
'I mean, man, whither goest thou? Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?" "Whither goest thou?'
In 1997 an album called Joy Kicks Darkness was released, a spoken word tribute to Kerouac by artists including Michael Stipe, Lydia Lunch, Patti Smith, Thurston Moore, John Cale and Juliana Hatfield and also featuring surviving Beats like Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. This track is Joe Strummer and Jack Kerouac together. MacDougal Street Blues
Today is the longest day and the summer solstice, where the sun rises earlier and sets later than any other day. Make the most of it. I've never been to the stones at sunrise but if I did the man I'd want beside me would be the arch-drude, Julian Cope himself. Maybe he has the answer about the ancients...
David Byrne played at The Apollo on Monday night and it was quite a night. Byrne had promised in advance that this tour was ambitious and it definitely did things differently in terms of staging and presentation. The stage was completely bare of any of the standard rock 'n' roll equipment- no amps, no drum riser or drum kit. As we took our seats all that was on the stage was a metal legged table and a chair under a single spotlight. At 8.45 he appeared, singing Here to a rubber brain. Dressed in a grey suit and shirt and barefoot, grown out white hair, he looks every inch the intellectual and artist. But things heat up very quickly after this arty intro. My friend, DJ, who got me the ticket, saw the show in Birmingham the night before and said that the crowd remained mostly seated throughout until the encore. From the moment the band hit the opening notes of the second song, his 2002 hit with X-Press 2 Lazy, the Manchester crowd is on its feet and dances until the end.
The band are all, in Byrne's words, 'untethered'. All dressed identically, grey suits and shirts and barefoot, the eleven players are free to move around. The guitar and bass have no leads, the keyboard player has his keys in front of him on a harness, again no leads, there are two hardworking backing vocalists/dancers and anywhere up to six drummers, standing up samba-style playing a variety of drums and percussion instruments. The show is highly choreographed. No backdrop or projections except for a silver metallic curtain and at one point a light as a TV set but the lights change the shape of the stage. Lit from low down hge shadows engulf the back wall during one song, genuinely exciting to look at. At times the eleven band members stand in a line, at times they move in circles or file in and out, some walking forwards as others move back. Lots of this seems to be a visual nod to Stop Making Sense. At the close of one song the lights go out and when they come up again the band are all lying down. On another they all stand on the right hand side and then stagger to the left, as if at sea in rough weather. All of this is very clever and very stylised and could run the risk of being too theatrical were it not for the playing and the songs. At no point do I wish they'd drop the artifice and just play the songs. The songs, the dancing, the show- all add up to something hugely imaginative.
Lazy is bright and breezy, full of bounce, and followed by I, Zimbra, monumentally funky and African influenced. They follow that with Slippery People. At this point I'm pretty much in David Byrne gig heaven- his voice is strong, his dancing energetic (and at times wonderfully in sync with his backing dancers) and the band are playing fully realised versions of the Talking Heads songs you want played at a gig. He throws in songs from other projects he's had along the way, one from the album he did with St. Vincent and one from his record with Fatboy Slim and a few from solo records (Like Humans Do). The songs from the current album American Utopia slip in seamlessly, less arch in concert than on disc. Anyone else who had written something as influential and massive as Once In A Lifetime would play it as an encore. David Byrne plays it at about the half way point, a single spotlight following his jerky dancing along the lip of the stage. It's all astonishing stuff- loud, clear, full of energy and the band and David are clearly enjoying the songs as much as we are. The set closes with two Talking Heads songs, first a blistering version of 1988's Blind, a song I hadn't expected and have loved since the day it came out, and then a red hot dance through Burning Down The House, the stage drenched in red light. To top this the first encore gives up The Great Curve (to join Remain In Light's Born Under Punches, played earlier), groundbreaking funk in 1981 and still ahead of the curve now. The group then stand in a line and play a cover of Janelle Monae's Hell You Talmbout, minimal drumbeat and chanting voices- essentially a list of black men killed by white Americans. The tour is sold out. David is bringing the show back in December, to arenas. My advice, if you want to see someone doing something other people don't or can't and doing it as well as you can imagine, is to get a ticket. The heat goes on, as he reminds us forcefully in Born Under Punches, the heat goes on.
From northern England yesterday to New Jersey today. I've posted some Yo La Tengo recently but make no apologies for putting some more up. In 1993 they released Painful, an album combining their love of ambience and atmospherics with melodic guitar and noise. The noise on From A Motel 6 is there at the start and comes in ecstatic bursts afterwards. Motel 6 is a nationwide chain of budget motels. I always imagined someone similar, Teenage Fanclub say, writing a British equivalent about Travelodges or Premier Inns in reply.
Somehow this beautiful, surprisingly noisy piece of northern rock is eighteen years old. I played it yesterday and was struck by how it manages to be both melancholic and uplifting. I have it on 10" but curiously it didn't find its way into the recent 10 x 10 thing on Twitter. The waves of sound it rides in on and the slow paced bang of the drums are built for cities in the summer, especially this one, even before the tears-in-your-beer howl of the chorus. The Cedar Room
Up in Edinburgh John Vick and Davie Miller have taken their time putting together an album as Finiflex, working in a subterranean studio in Leith, putting in early morning shifts from 6am until 9am when the paying customers arrived to use the studio. The album, Suilven, came out on Friday and while I'll have to wait until payday to get a copy it is sounding very much like a end of year list-maker already. Suilven has the fingerprints that made Finitribe such an unexpected groovy treat in the 80s and early 90s but updated for 2018. Familiar multitracked vocals, bleeps and bloops, chuggy rhythms and a sense of openness and possibility. I've posted the 2 singles that preceded the album Ta Ta Oh Ha and Bonus Freaks before, back in October last year and March this year, both of which I've played repeatedly. The title track Suilven is a joy and a tribute to a mountain in Sutherland, Scotland. You can buy Suilven here (the album not the mountain).
Sad news to wake up to this morning- as well as what looks like a catastrophic fire the beautiful Glasgow School of Art building- is that Nick Knox, the longest serving drummer of The Cramps, died yesterday aged 60. Nick started his tenure with Lux and Ivy in 1977 and played on at least 4 classic Cramps albums before leaving in 1991- Songs The Lord Taught Us, Psychedelic Jungle, A Date With Elvis and Stay Sick! plus songs and singles on the essential compilations Off The Bone and Bad Music For Bad People. That's your full Cramps set right there. RIP Nick Knox.
I was asked to dj at a friend's 45th birthday party in Sheffield a few years ago, a party with guaranteed dancers and folk who would enjoy a good shindig. Which was very much true. Except with this song, which cleared the floor. Sometimes you've got to scare them away to bring them back again.
Johnny Marr posted this photograph on his Twitter account yesterday with the caption Kylie Fucking Minogue. It got me thinking that I would definitely pay good money for an Imaginary Collaboration Album, Marr and Minogue covering songs from their respective back catalogues. Johnny and his current band with Kylie singing How Soon Is Now and Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me, Kylie cooing her way through Getting Away With It, The Beat(en) Generation and Still Feel The Rain by Stex and in return Johnny blazing his way through Can't Get You Out Of My Head, finding a new slinky guitar version of All The Lovers and a jangle version of I Should Be So Lucky. Come on, make it happen.
Johnny Mar's new solo album came out yesterday to uniformly good reviews. I'm not getting it until tomorrow (Father's Day innit). This single came out a month ago and sounds like a song he meant to record with his most famous band but never got around to until now.
I pulled out Two Lone Swordsmen's 1996 double album Swimming Not Skimming at the weekend, a record I haven't played for a long time. SNS was a mixture of new tracks from Weatherall and Tenniswood and some remixes. The vinyl always confused me- the tracklist and disc labelling was unclear and I wasn't sure what the different tracks were called until I became acquainted with the cd version and then later the internet could confirm which track was which. Additionally the cd had 10 tracks to the vinyl version's 7. Both formats have the same couple of remixes of stand-up bass tour de force Rico's Helly, almost worth the price of admission on their own. I was half tempted to post the whole thing but it is still available to buy digitally so decided against it. Here's a couple of tasters, one from the vinyl/cd and one from the cd alone.
This is the one that grabbed me most at the weekend. Blu Jack And Florence is extremely high quality machine funk, riding in on a mechanical rhythm. The bass hits at fifteen seconds and then the keyboards play around over the top. Wait for the synth strings come in at around 3.30. Hair-raising. The drums double up and it powers forward unrelenting.
In The Nursery Visit Glenn Street was only on the cd (along with the lovely ambient opener Azzolini And the Branch Brothers Meet Being), a remix by In The Nursery (who had previously done a lovely, slightly spooky remix of Haunted Dancehall). Klive and Nigel Humberstone pull out the bassline and some ambient bubbling and add sweeping strings, a cinematic and celestial track to counter Blu Jack And Florence's more earthbound, booty shaking appeal.
There are two significant events today, June 14th 2018, one personal and one international. The first one, close to home, is the 15th birthday of number two child/number one daughter Eliza. Once, as the picture shows, she was young and cute and happily wore a Clash t-shirt. Now she is 15, growing up into a young woman and probably wouldn't wear a Clash t-shirt.
Every summer in recent years we've driven to France with a stack of music. I get accused of hogging the car stereo. Not true obviously. Finding songs we can all agree on is a bit of an artform. Last summer we got there on this one- I've got to say, I think this is a tune. So you can have this one as your birthday song Eliza. Happy birthday.
One of Eliza's presents is Dolly Parton's 9 To 5 on 7" (which she should have opened by the time this is posted). So here's your birthday bonus song...
We survived our first 'proper' teenage house party at the weekend, a mixed group of 15 of them in our garden, with music, dancing, shrieking and 'controlled' drinking (you can control what they drink in your house- more difficult to control what some of them have drunk before they arrive). Apart from some minor damage to our already patchy lawn there was no harm done and much fun had. The party playlist was dominated by 80s pop, some disgraceful 80s soft-rock and some more contemporary stuff. Back in 1985, when I turned 15 this was the UK's number one single...
19 is groundbreaking in its own way and genuinely memorable, and kept at the number one slot by regular releases of remixed versions. Vietnam was big in the mid-80s. A decade on from the end of the war people were getting to grips with it, what had happened and what it meant. I read somewhere recently that the average age of the combat soldier in Vietnam wasn't actually 19 but 22. But that doesn't really change the message of the song or the fact that if you were poor, uneducated or black you were far more likely to end up in Vietnam than if you were wealthier, educated and white. Does it Mr. Trump? Coincidentally I played it to my Year 11 class recently as part of their depth study on The Vietnam War. They weren't very impressed if truth be told, the sounds were too dated and quaint, the stuttering vocal too cliched and the female backing vox too cheesy. But they took the message and the visuals in.
The other event today is the start of the World Cup, Russia 2018. This is my 11th World Cup. I have some vague memories of Argentina '78 aged 8, memories of the final at least, which I was allowed to stay up and watch some of. Spain '82 is the first one I really remember- in the picture above Bryan Robson celebrates after scoring against France in England's opening game. Mexico '86 was a blast, taking place during my O Levels, the magnificence of Diego Maradona in his prime, England out in controversial manner and an epic France v Brazil game. Italia 90 was ace, mixed up as it was with New Order's World In Motion, No Alla Violenza, Toto Schillaci, Roger Milla and an England run to the semi-finals.
Twenty-eight years on, this is still the only world cup record that really matters.
'Love's got the world in motion and we can't believe it's true'.
This new method record labels have adopted of suddenly releasing singles and albums has its benefits but it makes planning monthly record spending very difficult. You think you're sorted and have budgeted for what you want and then without warning Phantasy send you an email saying they've just put out a Gabe Gurnsey 12", following up last month's superb Ultra Clear Sound. The new track, Eyes Over, is another summer monster, sweaty night club vibes, warm synth sounds and what the press release calls 'proto-Hacienda grooves'. The vocal is an insistent little earworm too. This is the radio edit....
And the flipside of the 12" single has an extended dub mix, separating the different elements out with some very mid-to-late 80s Chicago sounds going on, drawn out over seven increasingly intense bass-led minutes, the temperature rising as it unfolds.
I had techno on repeat at the weekend and this one from 1995 was buzzing around my head after pressing play at some point on Saturday morning. Drexciya were a duo from Detroit, a focused and purist electro-techno pairing who shunned the media and dwelt in the shadows. They created an origin myth for their name- Drexciya was an underwater nation made populated and inhabited by the unborn children of pregant African slaves who jumped or were thrown off slave ships crossing the Atlantic.
The sleeve to the Aquatic Invasion 12" has this on it...
On February First Nineteen Hundred And Ninety Five the Drexciyan Tactical Seaforces received orders from UR Strikeforce Command, for one final mission. The dreaded Drexciya stingray and barracuda battalions were dispatched from the Bermuda Triangle. Their search and destroy mission to be carried out during the Winter Equinox of 1995 against the programmer strongholds. During their return journey home to the invisible city one final mighty blow will be dealt to the programmers. Aquatic knowledge for those who know. The Unknown Writer
They weren't messing around. Wavejumper is the a-side on the 12", a blast of the future, a slice of purist funky electro, a piece of uncompromising dark techno. It still sounds streets ahead.
We spent a very pleasant Sunday afternoon drinking beer and wine in the sun and listening to music at a friend's house. After a while the person in charge of Spotify started asking for requests and we ended up with a bunch of mid-to-late 80s songs, as you might expect given the age of the people present, and eventually a run of Aztec Camera songs. This one didn't get played but it should have if time and had permitted. Roddy Frame's bittersweet kiss off to punk (and a major inspiration on Johnny Marr, tuning in, a couple of hundred miles south). This is the single version, with production and horns that sound dated- but the song is divine.
When I posted the Rival Consoles remix of The Neil Cowley Trio's Weightless last week a reader called Adverse Camper advised me that the remix of Echo Nebula by Vessels on the same ep (Spacebound Tapes) was really good too. And Adverse Camper is absolutely spot on, it is. It buzzes and fizzes, building in bursts, little melodies shining through, before the classical piano emerges at the end. The 12" is long since sold out but this track will cost you just £1 at Bandcamp or you could splash out on the whole 4 track ep for a whopping £3 if you're feeling flush.
I was waiting my turn in the barber's, sweltering in the summer heat and after a day at work, and there was a playlist from Spotify on (it's usually XFM in there, wall to wall Oasis and Arctic Monkeys). Out of nowhere the keyboard part and funky guitar riff from Genius Of Love came into earshot and for the next five minutes I was grooving slightly in my seat to the sounds of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz back in 1981. 1981! I can't think of many songs from 1981 that still sound as fresh as this does and as full of life. One of the most sampled songs ever and a genuine hit. Tina's bassline alone guarantees it a special place. According to Frantz when David Byrne heard it he changed his mind about splitting Talking Heads up- he was a little envious I should imagine.
Back in the middle of May I posted Eyes Of Others recent single Lust Unrequited, a top notch release featuring a fine pair of remixes, one each from Sordid Sound System and Mugwump. Now, fresh off the shelf at Paradise Palms headquarters in Edinburgh, comes a remix of a 2017 Eyes Of Others song by Andrew Weatherall, a seriously dubbed out affair with live sounding drums and melodica, on a journey into time and space.
Yesterday I contributed the 170th Imaginary Compilation Album over at The Vinyl Villain. I think it's fair to say it is an idea which has caught on. After sending over ICAs for Big Audio Dynamite, Husker Du, ACR and Andrew Weatherall I decided it was time for San Pedro's 80s punks Minutemen to have their time in the sun. You can read it and get the songs here. As always there are songs which had to be left out. This is one of them, the live version from their posthumous 1987 live album Ballot Result. Following D. Boon's death Mike Watt and Hurley compiled the album from fans votes and contributions but the idea had started back in 1984 when they were bootlegged.
The lyrics for this song show, along with the 10 short songs over at TVV, what a remarkable band they were. Over their frenetic, jerky post-punk funk we get one minute forty seconds of American awkwardness and cultural imperialism in the Reagan era.
'Ton of white boy guilt, that's my problem
Obstacle to joy- one reason to use some drugs
Slept on a Mexican beach, slept in trash
America trash
Too much can ruin a good time
I asked a Mexican who ran a bar for Americans
'Who won' I said, 'the election?'
He laughed, I felt like a gringo
We paid for a song and they had some fun with us
Why can't you buy a good time?
Why are there soldiers in the streets?
Why did I spend the 4th in somebody else's country?'
I missed this when it came out back in 2015, a standalone 7" single from Michael Head and his Red Elastic Band. The b-side is a jazzy song about Koala Bears with an intelrude into Close To You. The a-side is a beaut, with a finger picked intro reminiscent of Everybody's Talkin', cello and Mick singing of the pleasures of listening to Lou, Sterling, John and Mo in the park, in the dark.
This live version was recorded in March 2016 at Islington Assembly Hall, all reverb and atmosphere. It shimmers. If you want a physical copy of the studio version Piccadilly Records seem to have some left.
If you're looking for sublime, romantic indie-rock with happy sad melodies, just the right amount of fuzz, some chiming noise and the sense that something else is out there, just out of reach, there's no finer sound than Yo La Tengo in the mid 90s. Tom Courteney is a marvellous example- maybe their finest (although I'm willing to listen to arguments for Autumn Sweater, From A Motel 6, Sugarcube and Big Day Coming. Actually this list could go on and on...)
Five years ago last night, 9 pm on June 3rd 2013 to be exact, was the last time I smoked a cigarette. At that time being smoke free for five years seemed impossible. I do feel a sense of achievement about giving up. I don't even miss it all the time now- I do miss it sometimes but not every waking moment like I did at first. When I get a waft of smoke in the street from a passerby I quite like it but there have been occasions when I get a noseful of second hand smoke where I can't believe I actually used to do it. I sometimes think that I'll start again when it's too late to matter much, maybe when I'm 75, but I suspect in 27 years time it'll be illegal to smoke in any public or private space and if not it'll be prohibitively expensive.
This ep from Bird Of Paradise called Smoking Holiday came out on Sweden's Hoga Nord label earlier this year. All four tracks here are top quality, spaced out, slow motion, electronic chug.
How about some Balearic groove for your Sunday? To accompany the photo I took of our Lake District sunset last Sunday I offer you this mid-paced piece of summer loveliness, Underground System remixed by Leo Mas and Fabrice. The Afro-beat drums clatter about nicely, the bass riff is up front and on the dub mix the trumpet part is wonderfully loopy. Bella Ciao is a hymn to freedom and resistance dating from the civil war. Italo disco veteran Fabrice and Ibiza original Leo Mas, Balearic veterans both, take it up towards the sun, wherever you happen to be listening to it.
In his most recent Music's Not For Everyone radio show Weatherall played this track, released back in February. Neil Cowley made an album called Spacebound Apes, a sci fi exploration based loosely around Arthur C Clarke's 1956 novel The City And The Stars. This remix by Rival Consoles is a joy, a beautiful, lighter than air piece of music that sounds like music made by human machines.
It's June, June already. How on earth did that happen? Summer has arrived in the north west of the UK recently and long may it continue. I spent most of yesterday pulling up the wooden decking from our back garden, ten years old and rotten and collapsing in places (but really well secured in others, hence every single part of me aches today. I ache in places I didn't know you could ache). We're replacing it with gravel. Gravel doesn't rot and doesn't need maintaining.
In 2008 Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve put out this track, Winter In June, a 60s psychedelic inspired adventure, a re-edit of The Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band's 1967 song Flowers Never Cry.
I was listening to Julian Cope's Peggy Suicide album last week. I was looking for something I hadn't heard for a long time to soundtrack my drive to the Lakes and it caught my eye. Released in 1991 it signalled a new Cope. He went on to make a further opus for Island, Jehovakill, who then dropped him, at this clear turning point in his career. It was the period when the post-80s pop Cope was formed, with his lyrical references to organised religion, feminism, paganism, ecology, Mother Earth, prehistoric sites- the Cope world view. It was also a move away from the pop sound of the previous decade and into a heavier, psychedelic rock sound. He was at a peak of press interest (the weeklies loved him and the new spate of monthlies were on board too). His hatred for the Thatcher government and the poll tax demonstrations/riots took pace during the making of Peggy Suicide, with Julian attending the London demonstration dressed as Squibsy.
Peggy Suicide is a double album and an 'artistic vision' record. The band were a mix of old (Donald Ross Skinner, Rooster Cosby) and new (Mike Joyce and Mike Mooney). Some of the songs sound, not dated maybe, but of their time- 1990/91 drum beats, Manchester funky rock- but there are some career highs here too, perfectly sequenced, leading us through the album in a certain order, lyrically and musically. Beautiful Love is a gorgeous, lightfooted calypso song about Albion and dolphins. Hanging Out & Hung Up On The Line is dense Detroit rock. Drive, She Said is a stunner. But on the drive up the M6 the one that struck me most was Safesurfer, seemingly a tribute and ode to contraception and safe sex, from the opening line 'I saw my old man exploding out of a tunnel' to the huge Mick Ronson- inspired guitar track. Eight minutes of epic Cope magnificence that no one else could have made.
I nearly missed this while I was away, the latest from Andrew Weatherall's monthly shindig Music's Not For Everyone. You can find the tracklist here which should help you spend next month's record buying budget.
Back from the Lake District, sun beaten and more than ready for a week off work, with a pile of records to play that I bought the weekend before (and the new Wooden Shjips album, not yet bought but certain to be purchased once I get into town later on this week).
There's been a thing on Twitter recently where people have been posting pictures of 10" record sleeves, 10 pictures in 10 days. I did it. Some of you have been joining in. I was going through my 10" records and found my copy of Innerzone Orchestra's Bug In The Bassbin, released/reissued on Mo'Wax in 1996 but originally recorded in '92. Carl Craig put his nose ahead of the pack on Bug In The Bassbin fusing techno with jazz. Sounds like a terrible idea but isn't. It's fantastic. Bug In The Bassbin was picked up in the UK by some of the leading DJs including 4hero, Goldie, Mixmaster Morris and Giles Peterson, and when played faster than intended (at 45 rpm), played a major role in the dawn of drum 'n' bass. Bug In The Bassbin (Sessions Version)
I got the new Jon Hopkins album at the weekend, a beautifully packaged album on two vinyl discs (which are pressed onto a sumptuous deep blue vinyl to match the album cover. Occasionally I buy a new record and am shocked to find when I take it out of the inner sleeve that it has been pressed on black vinyl. I'm happy with black vinyl too- I don't really need all these colourful discs).
Hopkins suffered from writer's block after his 2013 album and according to an interview I read recently found his way out of it with a combination of meditation and hallucinogens. The album is a beauty, a record to lose oneself in, expertly paced with a balance of electronic grooves, meditative piano pieces and tracks which are physical, that demand a response from the listener. In places the rhythms and the drums threaten to run away with songs, the synths and instruments having to twist themselves inside out to keep up. The one that keeps me flicking the needle back at the moment is the ten minute techno track Everything Connected, a monster of beats and bass and synths, building and dropping and getting a little bit frazzled. It is, as people like to say, a banger. It fits well with last year's Bicep album and that recent Four Tet remix of Bicep.
I am now away for a few days. We are taking ourselves off after work tonight to the Lake District for a few days, camping and living under the constellations Hopkins has adorned his record with. See you for more blogging fun early next week.
I was in a record shop the other day- I know, fancy that, a record shop- and this song was playing over the shop's speakers and it sounded super. I love hearing a song I've not heard or played for years unexpectedly, in a different context. At that point Neil Young and Crazy Horse in 1969 playing on and on around a couple of chords and coming together for the verses every couple of minutes... let's just say it sounded like the best thing I'd heard that day.
Neil and Danny Whitten both play solos throughout this song but it never feels like those kind of virtuoso guitar solos (that on the whole I really can't stand). It is looser and less planned, less flashy than that. And even though it goes on for ten minutes it never really feels like it. Neil apparently wrote Cowgirl along with Cinnamon Girl and Down By The River in a single day when he was ill with a high temperature.
This sounds like one of those songs that is going to soundtrack summer, that should be blaring out of car windows rolled down at traffic lights and piped out from shop doorways and bars- an incredibly funky, smart and sexy song from Roisin Murphy celebrating going out, dancing and general good times for all. This is from one of a series of four 12" singles Roisin is putting out (at nearly 20 quid each they are a tad pricey mind). This is very, very good however and works well played before or after yesterday's Gabe Gurnsey song.
Gabe Gurnsey, one half of modular synth duo Factory Floor, has been working on solo stuff. This track, Ultra Clear Sound, is the first fruit of it, a sweaty, intense and futurist vision, co-produced and mixed by Erol Alkan (who seems to be signing and working with some of the best electronic talents out there at the moment). Gabe's album Physical is out on Phantasy in August and if this song is anything to go by it could well be a dark summer pleasure. Conclusion- I'm well into this.
Brian posted Scritti Politti's single Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) a few days ago so I thought it might be worth showing the distance Green Gartside travelled between their first single in 1978 and Wood Beez in 1984. Scritti formed as a collective , operating out of a South London squat, fired up by punk and Italian Marxist theory. They intended to demystify the recording and releasing of records, priting the costs of their single on the sleeve and providing phone numbers of studios and pressing plants. Skank Bloc Bologna came out on Scritti's own St. Pancras label, a pioneering piece of DIY.
The song is firmly post-punk, with scratchy guitar, a melodic dub bassline carrying the tune and percussion dominated by cymbals. It all sounds very spontaneous and freeform. Green's lyrics are full of real life, prosaic imagery with references to Tesco, the Bull And Bush, Harringay, Number 26 (cigarettes) and marmalade, and what I've always taken to be a pop at The Clash ('rockers in the town the magnificent six'). John Peel picked it up and then Rough Trade signed them. Six years later they made Wood Beez (for a major label admittedly). I'm not sure anyone else from that era travelled as far musically as Scritti Politti. Except maybe The Clash (and probably not even them).
Almost a year ago The Sexual Objects put out a 10" single on Fife's Triassic Tusk label. I played it quite a bit at the time and then it got mixed up in a pile of records- I like 10" singles but they're easy to misplace and can get lost between the sleeves of others. When I found it again last week I also realised that I'd hadn't blogged about it. The single was a four track comprising the original version of the song Sometimes and some remixes, with one each from Boards Of Canada and Andrew Weatherall. The Weatherall one is a stripped back, dubby treat, riding on the bass, an echoed guitar chord and some repeated vocal lines. Nine minutes of head nodding and a repeated 'get my kicks' vocal part.
The Boards Of Canada remix is also a keeper, with washes of synth and organ eventually joined by piano and some lovely musical box melodies. Voices fade in and out, before the whole thing swells into something really beautiful at two and a half minutes, a mini-epic. The vinyl sold out along time ago but you can buy the four tracks digitally at Bandcamp and listen to them all on the player below.
Today is my 48th birthday. I suppose I have to face facts that I am now late 40s rather than mid-40s and that 50 is bearing down on me. Age may well be nothing but a number but also you have to come to realise that you are not a young person anymore, you are in fact middle aged and increasingly so as each year passes by. There aren't many songs with 48 in the title- but there is this one which promises me 48 thrills this weekend. Maybe.
Due to a pile up of other events and commitments this weekend my initial plans have not come to fruition. Andrew Weatherall and A Certain Ratio shared a gig at the Hebden Bridge Trade's Club last night (which I wanted to go to but couldn't). Steve Cobby and Darren Emerson were DJing at Band On The Wall last night too (which I wanted to attend as a back up to the ACR/Weatherall gig but couldn't) and tonight Weatherall is doing a Wrong Meeting event at the Golden Lion in Todmorden but I can't attend that either. So without any of those plans coming off I shall have to take it a bit easier and be a bit more local, a bit more sedate and a bit more middle aged about my birthday.
I don't remember being consulted about the aristocracy holding their wedding on my birthday either. A member of the British royal family is marrying an American. I will not be watching it. I believe the royal family should be abolished and that having a monarchy is not just undemocratic but anti-democratic, that we can never really even pretend to have a goal of a fair and just society while we have a monarchy. I am quite cheered by opinion polls that suggest a majority of people are at best 'politely disinterested' but also, y'know, stuff your street parties and the idiots with union flags camping out on the streets of Windsor, cheering on an institution that does not care about them a single jot. Rant over, as Drew says.
Actually, rant not over. The FA Cup Final is on today as well, kicking off at 5.30 between my club, Manchester United, and Chelsea. My opinion, seeing as I'm giving them out today, is that Jose Mourinho is a bad thing, an outdated, negative, narcissist who wants the praise for himself when they win and blames the players when they lose, a man who thinks spending massive sums of money is a substitute for coaching. I didn't want him to get the job 2 years ago but we're stuck with him for the moment and obviously I'll still be wanting United to win.
There's a new Half Man Half Biscuit album out today, always a cause of celebration. The lead track Alehouse Futsal appeared online a few weeks ago. It's business as usual lyrically, that is, moments of laugh out loud genius punctuated with insight and references to popular culture and history...
'Your softly spoken friends Their fortnight in the Fens Your time slip stories I avow Are boring the arse off me now I’m gonna put up a wall in your through lounge My animosity knows no bounds I’m gonna give you alehouse futsal' And this part from the middle eight... 'Picnics with craft beer Elbow in Delamere Your brand new 10K PB Haile Gebrselassie'
No One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fucking Hedge Cut is out today, available from Probe Plus. I am especially looking forward to the songs Man Of Constant Sorrow (With A Garage In Constant Use) and Knobheads On Quiz Shows.
I had an urge to hear the music of The Byrds this week, the mid 60s, jingle-jangle, folk-psyche Byrds. It was the result of listening to Michael Head's Adios Senor Amigo in the car going to and from work this week. There's a Byrdsian influence on Adios Senor Pussycat, in the playing, the chords and the harmonies.
A long time ago I posted Feel A Whole Lot Better, my favourite Byrds song, with its chiming Rickenbacker guitar riff. But I also found a lot to re-love in this one, a minor key Gene Clark masterpiece, written when The Byrds were still The Jet Set. It's shot through with melancholy and loneliness as he describes being in the big city Los Angeles, without her. The opening guitar riff seems to hint at what would happen in 1966 with Eight Miles High.
This track is from an ep that came out last month, is really good but is also likely to freak you out if played through headphones late at night. Eyes Of Others is an Edinburgh based musician/producer and remixed here by Sordid Sound System, dubbed out post-club music with backwards, slurred, reverb drenched vocals and a ton of bass.
The Geoffroy Mugwump version is worth a look too, a bit more direct and aimed at the floor of a Belgian indie-disco. The beat and looped vocals work really well alongside the Vangelis Bladerunner style synths.
Michael Head and his Red Elastic Band played at Gorilla on Sunday night. I got an offer of a ticket earlier in the week and I'm really glad I said yes (despite trying to kick a cold that left me feeling shitty all weekend). Gorilla is a small venue underneath the railway arches on Whitworth Street, capacity 500 people (sold out, rammed and somewhat warm) and is the ideal place to see Michael Head in many ways- great sound, intimate and with a committed audience.
The Red Elastic Band comprise of two guitarists, a young long-haired Fred Perry clad bassist, a drummer, a cellist who makes a massive contribution to the sound and a trumpeter (who I've read today is Andy Diagram, formerly of James and also Mick's first band The Pale Fountains- his trumpet parts make me wonder why every guitar band doesn't have a trumpeter). The songs from last year's Adios Senor Pussycat album sound wonderful, dynamic and full of life, influenced by Love clearly, but modern and sharp too, Mick's familiar marriage of melancholy, warmth and bad luck. Picasso and Picklock stand out, beefed out by the players compared to the album versions. Mick is a charismatic and genial host, stumbling in his words occasionally between songs, but not in his singing and playing and the band are as tight as you like, changing tempo or direction effortlessly. The audience would no doubt have been pretty happy just to have heard the songs from Senor, of which we get plenty, but they are interspersed with songs from Shack and other periods of Mick's life- opener is an unreleased beauty called Pretty Child (which has had several names over the years); an intense, survivor's gallop through Streets Of Kenny; a clamorous Comedy as the only encore; Waterpistol's Mr Appointment; and a brilliant version of 1991 psychedelic-Shack single I Know You Well. Back in the 90s an NME front cover proclaimed Mick Head as the best songwriter in Britain and over 90 minutes he goes a long way towards proving that opinion right- how he is playing in venues this small while some of his contemporaries play arenas and stadiums is a mystery, but we win, as we get to see him close up and with all the subtleties and intricacies that you get at small gigs.
New tracks from Orbital could potentially be a let down, a bit Orbital-by-numbers- press the right buttons, get the right sounds, presto. Thankfully this doesn't seem to be the case with Tiny Foldable Cities, a new track played at their gig at the Apollo I attended back in December last year. There is a Philip Glass element to the melody part from the intro, set off neatly by the buzzing bassline. Dramatic and full of life. Eye catching video too.
Looking back at my posts over the last week shows a fair amount of dub influenced music. Today's song is in that vein too, a magnificent piece of 90s dub-house from Neil Barnes and Paul Daley.
Song Of Life was a 1992 single and also on Leftfield's 1995 album Leftism, a rousing enough piece of progressive house in itself but for my money the Fanfare Of Life version from the 12" release was the one (later on it appeared on the first volume of the Cafe del Mar series, an essential 90s compilation, one I played through from start to end last weekend when the sun shone). Fanfare Of Life takes a dubbier approach, a slower build, synths that give goosebumps and the looped vocal sample of Bulgarian singer Yanka Rupkina). The introduction of the drums at 1.36 is a moment but the breakdown not long afterwards into the dub bassline is tremendous too.
Sometimes it's only proper Jamaican dub from the mid 70s that really fills that hole, that provides the basslines and the rhythms and the s p a c e. And then you realise you must have Augustus Pablo's melodica snaking around on top. And King Tubby at the controls. And all is good.
Road Block was on 1974's Ital Dub and was written by Bob Marley and Aston Barrett, a version of The Wailers' Rebel Music. Here's the whole album for your Saturday morning skank. It won't help you get much done but you'll have a good time doing very little while this plays.
