So the Glastonbury lineup has been announced… and is pretty much exactly as was rumoured anyway. I don’t have much clever to say since it’s late & i need to go to bed.
It does seem on first glance as though everything seems to clash on Friday. Choosing between Arctic Monkeys, Bjork, Hot Chip, Spiritualized, Klaxons and Neds Atomic Dustbin is going to be a tricky one.
It’s a bit of a waste of time working out who to see anyway. They may as well have ‘Don’t Make Any Plans’ painted in large letters as you walk in.
“Sorry I didn’t make it over to see Elvis. I was watching a naked man playing the bagpipes, and it seemed a long way away”
EDIT: Word reaches me that there will be a small number of additional tickets on sale this Sunday. If you can manage to crawl in front of your computer at 9am, you should be able to buy them here.
Techno legend Christian Vogel, who was also once half of Super Collider with Jamie Lidell, has put his synthesisers to one side and taken up singing duties for a new project - ‘Night of the Brain’. The outcome is an album - ‘Wear This World Out’ - that’s coming out in June. And on the basis of this brilliant lead single ‘The Theme’, I can’t wait to hear what the rest of the record has in store.
The album was recorded in Barcelona, which no doubt influenced some of the Spanish Guitar (or should that be Catalan Guitar) flourishes on the track. It’s just a great indie pop / rock track that’s quite hard to pin down to one place. It’s not obviously British or American…. no doubt a result of band members originating from Barcelona, Berlin, Chile and Brighton!
This is on a rather different tip. Back in the 90s, Christian also formed a group called Blue Arsed Fly with Neil Landstrumm… who left my radar after a number of sought after releases on Peacefrog, but seems to have continued releasing records on various imprints since then. Now he’s back with a killer album on Planet Mu - ‘Restaurant of the Assassins’. It’s a bass-heavy monster that seems to take half its influences from dubstep, and half from old skool Warp bleep music. LFO, Nightmares on Wax & the like. In other words it’s a Gutterbreakz* fantasy come to life!
As a fan of freaky noises, i’m immediately drawn to this track, Bleep Biopsy… probably the most bleepy and the least dubsteppy track on the album (although mind you, ‘Mike Grimes Toyota’ is straight outta ‘91). Whatever. Play loud!
* Nick, along with Matt Fluxblog was one of the main inspirations for me starting this blog… it’s good to see him back writing again, even without accompanying MP3s
Is this the gadget that will finally make me give up my vinyl? I’m not sure, but it certainly looks a lot of fun. And a lot of sexy.
It’s a 120Gb MP3 player, that also lets you mix tracks together. A pocket DJ system if you will.
I would question whether it’s really a good idea to make it even easier for people to become DJs, as sometimes it seems these days that a fast internet connection and a CD wallet full of the latest downloads has replaced a deep and long-standing love of music as qualifications…. but maybe like punk, DJ democracy will turn out to be a good thing.
Time alone will tell.
Then again:
And i’m not sure there’ll be much panic at the disco with today’s selections. Much as i’d love to go ‘here’s the SebastiAn remix of Rage Against the Machine, it’s AMAZING’…. I won’t. Because it’s absolutely fucking dreadful.
Have some indie goodness instead.
First we have The Answering Machine, a band that seems to follow in the joyful jangliness of Los Campesinos!. Of course the lyrics aren’t very happy happy joy joy, but that won’t bother the sweaty teenagers who will bounce around shouting ‘and i’ll drink till i’m sick’. Before sicking on each other. Probably. Teenagers eh!
Polytechnic are blessed with a fantastic name, which is half the trick in this pop stardom lark. Unfortunately i’ve heard quite a few of their songs, and they’re all good but I just can’t quite get orgasmic about any. This forthcoming single is a good example. It’s a re-release of a previous single on Transgressive, and it’s undoubtedly really good. Just not quite brilliant. It’s a classic kind of indie pop that will always and forever soundtrack the broken hearts and shattered dreams of generations of shy boys & girls wearing second-hand shirts and mascara. That was a long sentence. Thank god i’m not using Word or it would have all gone green & started FRAGMENTING at me.
A band that I thought through listening alone would probably do the previous lot of fey indie prancers in a fight are These New Puritans… however having seen this photo i’m not too sure.
Probably realising that no-one has done a 13-minute indie epic since The Family Cat’s ‘Steamroller’, these Southend droogs have funnelled their ambition to be a futuristic marching band into this Homeric saga. Well I say that, although I haven’t the slightest idea what this is about. The singer sounds like a slightly more tuneful Mark E Smith, and verses and choruses come & go without drama or announcement. I guess about 8:30 in is where the the 3-minute single suddenly reveals itself, however it wouldn’t sound right unless preceded & followed by all that yelping, sloganeering and guitar riffing.
Again this isn’t going to be playing at many discos this weekend, however it popped onto itunes while I was having a bit of a lie down, and as I lay & listened I went from ‘what the fuck is this’ to ‘what the fuck is this, it’s brilliant’ over the course of its 9 minutes.
Quiet Village of course have made a couple of timeless records on the Whatever We Want label… which has just released the brilliant Map of Africa album (the one i’ve not quite got round to writing about yet). Well this isn’t quite as chillpop as their singles. At all. But it really rewards careful listening. Preferably with some fragrant buds.
But look, here’s me forgetting myself. It’s a bank holiday. Woo! Well I can’t deny you some dancefloor diesel so here’s a mix i’ve been enjoying by The Black Ghosts. I get sent quite a lot of mixes, but unfortunately I never have time to listen to them. This one has the dual advantages of a: being only 30 minutes long and b: being packed full of great records.
Tracklisting: Harco Pront “Night” Emperor Machine “Rimramramrim” Clinic “The Second Line” Soul Savers “Rumble Fish” (Simian Mix) Supercollider “Darn Cold Way Of Loving” Electrelane “The Valleys” The Jonzun Crew” “Space Is The Place” Good Books “Leni (Crystal Castles Mix) Heaven And Earth “Feel The Spirit” The Firebirds “Soul Sonata” Blowfly “Sesame Street” Silver Apples “Lovefingers” Gianfranco Reverberi “Nel Cimitero Di Tucson” Metronomy “Trick Or Treatz” Milton Hamilton “My Love Supreme” 101 Strings “Karma Sitar” Can “Vitamin C” (Ghost 1 And Ghost 4 Edit)” Zongamin “Spiral” Brian Eno “Sky Saw” Frankie Valli “Beggin” (Pilooski Edit) The Whip “Muzzle #1″ (The Black Ghosts Mix) Beck “Sexx Laws” (The Wiseguys Mix) The Black Ghosts “Amyway You Choose To Give It” (Fake Blood Mix) The Dykeenies “New Ideas” (The Black Ghosts Mix)
So yes, it’s a bank holiday. And it’s going to be pissing it down. So personally i’m going to be leaving the caravan at home & raving it up here:
Here’s hoping you have fun & good times. Or failing that, cheap beer & a leg over.
So the all conquering Kitsune label is to release Vol. 4 of its ‘Maison’ compilation series on 11th June. Like the classic previous compilations, it’s a mixture of pop bombs old and new…. and is of course an essential purchase.
Stand out tracks for me are the Boys Noize mix of Feist, and the Hadouken! track… which I meant to post up some time ago (but didn’t). I’m sure these can be easily found on t’interweb if you so desire, so I’ll just post up the promo mix for the album, which will hopefully act as a tantalising aperitif for the main banquet.
Tracklisting: Thieves Like Us - Drugs In My Body Dragonette - I Get Around (Midnight Juggernauts remix) Phones - Worryin’ Crystal Castles – Knights (Demo Version) The Whip - Divebomb (short edit) Riot In Belgium - La Musique (Adam Sky mix) Hadouken ! - Tuning In (H! re- rub) Feist - My Moon My Man (Boys Noize Classic mix) Guns N’ Bombs - Crossover Appeal (radio edit) Passions - Emergency (radio edit) Numéro# - Hit Pop Hummer - Foals Punks Jump Up - Dance To Our Disco Darkel - Be My Friend
It seems that as is customary, almost all of these tracks either have been or will be released as singles… and forthcoming sometime soon is the excellent ‘Divebomb’ by The Whip.
The single comes backed with a cracking remix by Crystal Castles, who filter the track through their Vic 20 blender to create a gloriously bouncy combination of squelching bass and an 8-bit vocal loop.
11th June also sees the release of Digitalism’s debut album ‘Idealistic’. I also have a kind of promo mix for this, but it’s not quite so smoothly mixed… being just a quick blast of each track loosely joined together. It’ll give a quick taster though….
Tracklisting: Magnets Zdarlight I Want I Want Idealistic Digitalism In Cairo Departure From Cairo Pogo Moonlight Anything New The Pulse Homezone Apollo-Gize Jupiter Approach Jupiter Room Echoes
If you’ve not seen the rather impressive video for ‘Pogo’… here it is.
And you want more Digitalism? Well here’s another mix I received of all(?) Digitalism’s remixes. DIGITALISM - REMIXES MIX
Tracklisting: TIGA - Far From Home (Digitalism Remix) / PIAS TOM VEK - Nothing But Green Lights (Digitalism Remix) / KitsunÈ THE PRESETS - Down Down Down (Digitalism Remix) / Modular MUNK - Disco Clown (Digitalism Remix) / Gomma THE FUTUREHEADS - Skip To The End (Digitalism Remix) / 679 Rec DEPECHE MODE - Never Let Me Down Again (Digitalism Remix) / Mute KLAXONS - Atlantis To Interzone (Digitalism R-r-remix) / KitsunÈ
In lieu of an mp3 from the Digitalism album, i’ll post up a track from another single on Kitsune by Jence. Who is in fact one half of Digitalism. It’s out now and it’s noisy.
Still with Kitsune, here’s an unreleased mix of Klaxons’ ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. Is there anyone left who’s not remixed this? Well once again this is a pretty damn excellent weapon for yer dancefloor. Although to be honest i’m still of the opinion that the Nightmoves version from the original Kitsune 12″ is the best.
This is turning into a bit of a marathon post, however i’ll just leave you with some more ripe Gallic Camembert. I wrote about Naive New Beaters quite a while back, but they’re now back with a jacking new single, ‘Bang Bang’.
It comes backed with remixes from Yuksek and Ajax (from Bang Gang), however here’s the original version…. some filthy sounding beats with a French dude rapping on top. It’s undeniably funk filled, although in a boy scrum way rather than a bump and grind seduction fashion!
I wasn’t sure I liked this at first… but now i’m not too sure what I didn’t see in it.
I guess this is probably the signature tune of Copenhagen’s Oh No Ono, repeating as it does the phrase “we are oh no ono”. Although the CD sleeve displays some kind of classic rock pose… all big hair and Kings of Leon style (not the picture below btw), the music inside is altogether more eccentrically scandinavian. This single sounds to me like the Banana Splits playing the Star Wars cantina. Which can only be a good thing.
A friend of mine from Leeds sent me his new band’s CD, and despite the fact that i’m usually particularly hard to please when it comes to stuff my friends do, I think this is a rather fantastic song. For some reason the thought comes into my head that this should have been the UK’s Eurovision entry this year. I’m sure it would have got more points than Scooch!
With the mention of Eurovision, don’t start thinking that this is some kind of gay europop hellbeat. For The Resplendents bill themselves as a kind of lounge soul band. They also compare themselves to Dexy’s, which sounds reasonable. Anyway check it out….
19 May 2007 Rio’s Leeds Doors £4 TBC on FIRST (Supporting Napoleon IIIrd) 24 June 2007 Uppingham Market Square on at 4pm (Free all day festival)
Finally here’s a little something for the weekend. What else can I say but…… TUUUNE!!! I virtually combusted last time I heard this in a club. Which was far too long ago come to think of it.
I’m not quite sure how the incredible Battles single ‘Atlas’ passed me by. But since getting the album this week i’ve been listening to little else.
Atlas itself has got to be a contender for one of the singles of the year. A primal drumbeat is eventually joined in the groove with a multitude of other clattering instruments and a bizarrely high-pitched vocal. It shouldn’t work, but it does. Brilliantly.
Watch the video here, but bear in mind that the full album / single version is twice as long & thus twice as good.
Although most of the album is instrumental, another vocal track stands out for me. Ddiamondd has a frantic police-chase bass line, which eventually turns into a full-on insect invasion with singer Tyondai shouting scary nonsense over the top.
Buy the album from Warpmart It’s ace, and Warp deserve your money.
Also out on Warp this week is the new single from !!!, ‘Must be the Moon’. It’s the Emperor Machine remix that elevates it to ‘must buy’ status… like their mix of The Knife it’s a deep disco groove with added special cosmic powers.
The !!! single also contains an obligatory Hot Chip remix, but i’m preferring their new original track from the DJ Kicks album. I mentioned the album a few weeks back, but it’s finally out to buy on 21st May. As is traditional with the DJ Kicks series, the compilers include a new & exclusive cut, and in Hot Chip’s case it’s ‘My Piano’.
With a familiar 5-pronged electro pop attack, it shouts out ‘Hot Chip Hit’ as you tune into the different parts of the groove. I think the piano noise adds a great new dimension… and i’m once again really keen to properly hear those new tracks they played at Lowlands last year.
Bringing the pain with some more electro pop is Australian ‘Muscles‘. Although most of last year’s (impossible to find as there are only 70 copies) debut album ‘Four Months’ consists of a lot of frequently disturbing bedroom sonic experimentalism, it suddenly leaps at ya in the middle with a couple of tracks of pop gold.
Coming on like a one-limbed Presets, this track’s a lot of fun. Who hasn’t been let down by an art student armed with a formidable badge collection?
The following track is also a cracker. An arpeggiated bassline and squelchy synths accompany muscles’ urgent implorations of ‘can i get some ice, it’s burning up from inside’.
Finally, one to clear the bowels. Released on Planet Mu - the home of sonic terrorism (and much more besides), this new single by the excellently named ‘Duran Duran Duran‘ is like some kinda ghetto-tech gone wrong. Step aside DJ Funk…. this is maximum brutality gabba kick massacre! DURAN DURAN DURAN - FACE BLAST
What a package the new LCD Soundsystem single is. Cover versions by Franz Ferdinand & John Cale; a ‘Whatever We Want’ Voodoo Funk style remix by DJ Harvey; a cover of a Joy Division song & a new track excitingly called ‘Freak Out’, which is a marvellous beardo disco epic (mind you if it wasn’t epic (or 10 minutes long) it wouldn’t be beardo disco!) .
So I’m loving ‘Freak Out’, but also this cover of ‘All of my Friends’ by John Cale. The backing sounds quite loose compared to most modern production, and there’s certainly elements of Velvet Underground in there. It’s also interesting to compare singing styles with James Murphy. They could both be described as ‘anti-singers’ but are of course both incredibly good. We all know that Simon Cowell + vocal coaches do not emotional music make. Actually Cale sounds rather like Ian Curtis here.
Here’s the video of the single to remind you of how good the original is…
The Mash-up scene seems to have died a death a bit, perhaps because people began to see the challenge as splicing together two disparate records no matter how crap… rather than to produce good music.
Back from Japan has decided that the way to go is to splice together two excellent records. And as such I like it lots. I imagine that the Spank Rock vocal sounds awesome over most things (and indeed even i’ve managed to rock my bedroom to the rafters with it, my decks and a.n.other record)… but i’m thinking it sounds particularly good married with this ‘Thunderous Olympian’ remix of Justice. Tension, riffs and rapping. It’s what the kids go for.
EDIT: Kevin (aka Back to Japan) has just finished an updated version of this…
“I extended the middle of Amanda Blank’s rhyme so that it doesn’t clash so much with the synths on the track and so that it lines up better on the end. If you like this version better, switch it up, if not, fuck it.”
I haven’t had the chance to compare the two & work out which I prefer, however if Kevin says this is better then it probably is!
So, rumours of my demise have proved unfounded. A week seems like an awful long time in blogworld though… sorry to abandon you for so long again. In my defence I am still in the, er, grip of what’s now been diagnosed as ‘Devil’s Grip‘. Sounds nice, eh!
Just to get me back in the swing of things again, here’s a few new remixes i’ve been sent.
First up, and apparently ‘biochemically engineered with aural pheremones’, is an unreleased South Central remix of Van She. Although many of the sounds will be familiar to South Central fans, it’s overall a bit less punishing than some of their other recent remixes. Perhaps any ladies reading could let me know if the aural pheremones are correctly tuned in?
A reader known only as ‘Ryan’ sent me this re-edit wot he done. I don’t know the original, but this is pleasingly tuneful… a nice piano house number with darker disco beats tempering what could otherwise be some overbearing joyousness.
Here’s a couple of new mixes from Will of Adventures Close to Home. The Biffy Clyro starts of with a dark italo groove, before getting all messed up and acidic. Meanwhile The Tiger Picks starts off with a repetitive ‘Disco. Electro.’ vocal, but just when you start to think it’s losing its focus bounces back with some nice old skool rave stabs. BIFFY CLYRO - LIVING IS A PROBLEM (ACTH REMIX)
Any new material from Kenny Dixon Jr is cause for a party in my house, and i’m loving his new single ‘Technology Stole my Vinyle’. The man just kills it every time, having been blessed with that elusive Motor City magic. Fans of the Moodymann will lap up those funk & soul samples, the jazz riffs, and that swinging beat that heads directly to your hips. Don’t be misled.
This is a very limited 1-sided 12″, so don’t hang about if you want a copy as it’s been out a couple of weeks already.
I’m a bit confused by this next one, as I thought it came out a while back (in February) but i’ve just got an email telling me it’s coming out on 28th May.
Findlay Brown has joined Jose Gonzales as another folky singer on the previously resolutely techno Peacefrog records (which has also put out a lot of Moodymann stuff in the past). ‘Losing the Will to Survive’, the forthcoming single, sounds like a lost folk classic from the 60’s and wouldn’t sound out of place on ‘Forever Changes’.
Now the original has a definite hint of lysergicity running through it, which has been teased out even further by those modern masters of Psych Rock, Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve. I don’t think it’s much of a secret any more that BTWS are Erol Alkan and Richard Norris, and I can only assume that they’re targeting the mushroom dwellers of Lost Vagueness with these new tunes. Hearing this at a certain point at Glastonbury I think you could quite easily forget which decade you were in. It’s quite brilliant.
Want more Wizard’s Sleeve? Well fortunately their third album is out this week. I’ve not heard it yet, but reports are good. It’s called ‘George’. And this is what you want to look out for:
Like the previous two, it won’t be around for long.
So, Does it Offend You, Yeah? Their name sounds like something created by Nathan Barley, and they also to be honest sound like they may just have put together by a bunch of hoxton ‘creatives’ with too much time and too few brains.
But suspicions of some industry joke aside, you can’t deny the hard rocking riffs, daft punk vocoder sounds and crunching beats of forthcoming single ‘Weird Science’. The more I listen the more I realise that it is, in fact, ‘well weapon’. I’d actually go as far as to say that it’s totally fucking Mexico.
The big news for next week is a new ‘is it is or is it ain’t AFX’ release on Rephlex. The hand of Richard d. James has been rumoured to be involved in countless Rephlex (and Warp) releases over the years, and it usually turns out to be someone else entirely (Rubber Johnny, Bogdan Racynzski & Ovuca for example).
Listening to this new single by The Tuss however, has me 95% convinced that we do in fact have some Aphex Acid. The tracks are an obvious continuation from 2005’s Analord series, and another clue lies in the fact that ‘Tuss’ is Cornish slang for an erection! The track titles and label photography also scream ‘Analord’.
This is track 2 from the EP… make your own mind up. I think it’s pretty wonderful stuff either way.
