On My Radio (And Buzzcocks)

I've noticed once again that while I purport to be a post-punk blog, it has been months since I posted anything in that field.

Well inspiration has come from The Identity Parade on last night's Never Mind The Buzzcocks, where Pauline Black from The Selecter appeared.

I'll take any excuse I can get to post the brilliant On My Radio. A stone-cold classic example of 2 Tone Ska.

mp3---> The Selecter - On My Radio

Deadboy's FACT Mix 112

Cutting Edge - the position of greatest importance or advancement; the leading position in any movement or field.

Here's Deadboy's FACT Mix 112 from way back in January. FACT named it their mix of the year. Hard to argue.

Fact Mix 112: Deadboy by Fact Mix Archive on Mixcloud

Four Tet's FACT Mix 182 was second.

Top 10 Tracks Of 2010

#10 Simple Minds - I Travel [mp3]

I would call this a guilty pleasure except I have no guilt in loving this piece of disco rock.

#9 Total Control - Paranoid Video [mp3]

"It has a sparse brutality with a haze of recent violence around it"

#8 Arcade Fire - The Suburbs [mp3]

Apparently it sounds like Neil Young. All I know is that it sounds good.

#7 Gold Panda - You [mp3]

Lead track from probably the album of the year.

#6 Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Fright Night (Nevermore) [mp3]

Everyone's opted for Round And Round but I prefer Fright Night (Nevermore).

#5 Eleven Pond - Watching Trees [mp3]

"... gloriously otherworldly, its jerky funk wrapped in melancholia. It also possesses a stone cold classic pop chorus."

#4 Amon Düül II - Mozambique [mp3]

"This morning I listened to the free-form, off-kilter German prog-rock (krautrock is a term I've grown to dislike) of Amon Düül II while on the bog. Lovely."

#3 DJ Nate - Make Em Run [mp3]

"... for three minutes and a second this is the weirdest and most compelling track of the year."

#2 Police Academy 6 - Run [mp3]

"... my track of the summer. It has Balearic touches but really it is a pop song, dripping with melody. All it needs is a puppet's vocals and it'll soar away."

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL

#1 Telex - Moskow Diskow [mp3]

"Moskow Diskow is a stupendous piece of dead-pan futuristic electronic disco music... from Belgium. It's the four-four handclap/fingersnap sound. It's the vocoder. It's the French (or Flemish, whatevs). It's the synths. It's the train motifs (the sister of Kraftwerk's bicycles?). It's the everything."

Xmas Mix 2010

Made this mix for some friends instead of sending Christmas cards. Time rich, cash poor and all.

Xmas Mix 2010 by Sammyfax on Mixcloud

mp3---> Sam's Xmas Mix 2010 [24 MB]

1. Nathan Fake - Silent Night

2. Glam Chops - Countdown To Christmas

3. Holly Golightly - Christmas Tree On Fire

4. Yo La Tengo - Rock & Roll Santa

5. Kurtis Blow - Rappin' Blow

6. Run DMC - Christmas In Hollis

7. Rotary Connection - Silent Night Chant

8. The Ergs - We're Gonna Have A Devo Xmas

Rock & Roll Santa

Can something that's eight years old be called new? Probably not.

So Nathan Fake keeps the ever-so-prestigious Ceefax Of Life Best New Xmas Song Of The Year Award 2010 for Xmas Rush.

And Yo La Tengo pick up the even-less-prestigious Ceefax Of Life Best New To Me Xmas Song Of The Year Award 2010 for Rock & Roll Santa.

mp3---> Yo La Tengo - Rock & Roll Santa

Merry Something To You

Last week I thought there was no Devo Xmas song.

This week I know differently.

Big up to renster who showed me the light.

Xmas Rush

Been flapping around the blogosphere looking for good Christmas mp3s. New ones.

Think I’ve found a winner.

Twisty, dubby, glitchy and enchanting, Nathan Fake scores again with Xmas Rush. Fake’s somehow beaten his previous crimbo best, his sterling version of Silent Night.

Gold Panda's Radio 1 Session

In case you weren't tuned into BBC Radio 1 at 5.30am on Saturday, here's the link to the iPlayer for Rob Da Bank's show featuring Gold Panda in session. It starts around 35 mins in, but the whole show is worth a listen.

It's available until 7:02AM Sat, 18 Dec 2010 and not a minute later, so get on it quick sharp.

Oh and Rob Da Bank's "6 o'clock snooze" for this week is Aphex Twin's Avril 14th, which I wrote about previously and has since been sampled by Kanye West.

Metronomy = The Light

I’m looking beyond Christmas. The bleak mid-winter stares back. I need something. Something to anticipate. Last year I had Poland. This year I don’t.

This week I found the answer. This year I have Metronomy. April 21st. Clwb Ifor Bach. Get tickets from here. Awesomesauce.

Unfamiliar with Metronomy? Well they make wonky electronic music that’s sometimes introverted and winsome and sometimes bumpin’ but always brilliant. They’re also about 15 times better than that description suggests. Sleb junkies can also hang on the news that Joe Mount (Metronomy main man) is apparently working with Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud.

Instead of posting stuff from their excellent albums (which are easily available and streamable in most places) or last summer’s Not Made For Love EP, I’m sticking up a track from their hard to find first EP Wonders and the remix they did with The Teenagers of Goldfrapp’s Happiness to try and give you a flavour of what they do and not piss anyone off too much.

mp3---> Metronomy - Foe And Dear

mp3---> Goldfrapp - Happiness (Metronomy Remix feat. The Teenagers)

Oh fuck it here's the video for Radio Ladio as well. Still makes me chuckle...

Devo Xmas

Currently putting a Christmas mix together for some friends and I thought what mixtape is worth it's salt if there isn't any Devo on it?

Sadly as far as I can tell, Devo never laid down a proper Xmas song (though if you know of one please comment below) but they did come kinda close with this...

And The Ergs came one step closer with this track. While I hate ska-punk, I thoroughly agree with the sentiments and the breakdown is just superb.

mp3---> The Ergs - We're Gonna Have A Devo Christmas

Arcade Fire @ CIA

Couldn't sleep so wrote a review for Thursday night's Arcade Fire gig at the CIA on theSprout.

They didn't play Cars And Telephones, which didn't come as much of as a surprise seeing that they haven't played it live since September 2005.

But it's a good song nonetheless. So err... here you go.

mp3---> Arcade Fire - Cars And Telephones

I Don't Like Cricket...

We have beaten Australia! Australia, birthplace of giants. Dame Joan Sutherland! Germaine Greer! Harold Bishop! Jason Donavon! Skippy The Kangaroo! Men At Work! Michael Hutchence! We have beaten them all. We have beaten them all.

Rolf Harris - can you hear me, Rolf Harris! Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!

Bring on Perth.

mp3---> 10cc – Dreadlock Holiday

TRON JOUST

Daft Punk pop into Flynn's Arcade to play Derezzed or Tron Jousting as it is otherwise known.

Click here to watch the official video for Daft Punk's Derezzed on MTV.co.uk. Excuse the shitty advert at the beginning, it's worth it. My God it is worth it.

Or just watch it in mini form/fullscreen...

Footwork: Caught On My Heels

Witch house has been the big blog buzz scene of 2010. But bubbling just behind it has been footwork (chillwave was so 2009). And I missed a step, sleeping on this scene. Even The Guardian have had it down, posting this introductory footwork article in May.

Missed it too? Well this quote from said piece should clear it up a little…

“The music stems from juke, a speedy but strict evolution of Chicago's four-on-the-floor ghetto house style. Footwork, though, is more experimental than juke. The chief difference is in its warped basslines, which buzz beneath frenetic synth toms and rapid-fire vocal samples. It sounds dark and messy, like the brooding urban soundtrack of Burial reimagined for a city with faster, meaner streets”.

As for the name, that comes from the style of dancing that has developed in step with the music. How do you dance to complex 160bpm rhythms? The Chicago youth tackled it by developing a hyper-kinetic Riverdance-esque style and battling each other, all blurred feet, stiff torsos and death stares.

As the ever-excellent Alexis Petridis says in a review of Bangs & Works Vol 1: A Chicago Footwork Compilation...

“There's something fascinating about music intended to be entirely utilitarian that ends up in the realms of avant-garde abstraction by default rather than by design.” And “There's certainly a hypnotic, slightly druggy quality to its minimalism, but none of house or disco's sense of escapism […] everything here sounds reflective of a grim urban environment…”

I downloaded footwork figurehead DJ Nate’s Make Em Run in July. On first listen, I thought it was another load of hipster shit. But by cropping up on my phone repeatedly over these winter months it’s sunk into my head and I find myself mumbling “makeemrunmakeemrunmakeemrunmakeemrunmakeamakeamakeamakeamake” at inappropriate moments.

Would I want to listen to a whole album of it? Probably not, but for three minutes and a second this is the weirdest and most compelling track of the year.

mp3---> DJ Nate - Make Em Run

[via]

Paranoid Video

Late last night. Went on a blog trawl. While also reading about uncommon psychiatric disorders on Wikipedia.

Came across this track. It has traits of minimal wave, of Suicide, of new wave and of industrial. It's what I imagine EBM sounds like.

It has a sparse brutality with a haze of recent violence around it. And it still sounded good this morning.

mp3---> Total Control - Paranoid Video

[via]

GWTF:6.0 Scott-Heron & Jamie xx

Been a while since I've done a Go With The Flow post. Ubiquity was very 2009. But Jamie xx's remix of Gil Scott-Heron's NY Is Killing Me is absolutely everywhere. Partly because it has this natty-looking embedding-enabled player.

But mainly because it's very good.

O Superman

That new track from Bullion has been doing the rounds for a couple of weeks. It makes no bones that it samples Laurie Anderson’s O Superman.

I was chatting to someone about this and I was startled to learn that they had no idea what I was talking about. O Superman has been covered, sampled and parodied many times over the years. But listening to the original recording, it’s not surprising that it receives little airplay now. It’s surprising that it received any airplay in 1981 when it was released.

We’re talking about a minimalist synth recording built around a natural “Ha” sound looped in an unnatural cycle, an audio example of the uncanny valley hypothesis, a record imbued with an unsettling familiarity. It’s over eight minutes long. It’s based on an aria by Jules Massenet. It’s by a performance artist who was little known at the time. It’s synthetic and detached, with lyrics bordering on gibberish.

And yet it reached number #2 in the UK charts. #2.

I find it utterly beguiling. But I can understand if you don’t.

mp3---> Laurie Anderson – O Superman (For Massenet)

Gold Panda Cooks Caribou

Take the guy who released one of the albums of the year and winner of the inaugural CeefaxOfLife Knob Twiddler of the Year Award (Gold Panda) and mix in with a track by the guy who released one of the albums of the last decade (Caribou nee Manitoba - Start Breaking My Heart).

Let it twist and swirl away for four minutes. Sprinkle with bleeps and echo and serve. Voila! You now have one hell of a track on your plate...

Caribou - Jamelia (Gold Panda Remix) [via Gold Panda's soundcloud page, embedding and downloading disabled.]

The Ashes

What else could I possibly post?

Come on England!

Night People

Have you heard the new Human League single? Fuck me it's good...

What's Not To Like?

Two Kids. Ten-year-old twins in fact. Covering Moody by ESG. And coming out on Optimo.

What's not to like?

mp3---> The Green Door Kids - Moody (ESG Cover)

[via]

Coldwave Continuum

Now that the warmth has gone, it's time to turn our attention back to coldwave.

Where better to start than this greatest hits mix by Detachments. Except none were hits. But they are great.

If you've got the Cold Waves & Minimal Electronics Vol.1 record, then you'll recognise a few tunes on here. Watch out for the car crash of a mix around the 28min mark.

Detachments: Cold Wave Mix by ThisisnotanexitRecords

[via the ever excellent The Beat!]

Let's Get Quizzical

I've done the music round for the pub quiz in The Heath tonight (8pm start, £50 prize). Here's a head's up...

Quiz Music Round - Covers Nov 10 by Sammyfax

Guess the track title and the original artists.

Answers in the comments section below.

LCD @ CIA

Posted a review of last night's LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip show at CIA on theSprout.

Read it here.

And no they didn't play Throw.

Larry Levan Chatting & Mixing

Larry Levan (who passed away 18 years ago this week) talking and mixing with a green Judge Jules on Kiss in 1991.

Big up to popbitch for pointing me in the way of this...

Larry Levan KissFm Uk Radio interview/mix with Judge Jules - 1991 by djmixes

Inky Sounds From Matthew Herbert

Matthew Herbert sticks his microphone in more ridiculous places.

The concert is next Saturday (November 20th) at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Beards will be stroked.

LCD Cover Throw

LCD Soundsystem take over CIA (and Clwb) tomorrow night.

This Paperclip People cover (and iTunes only bonus track to This Is Happening) is a staple of their live sets apparently.

Well we'll see won't we. Can't freaking wait.

mp3---> LCD Soundsystem - Throw (Direct Link)

Saturday Night's Alright For Thinking

In last Friday's Guardian, John Harris wrote a piece for the comment & debate section called "Someone out there, please pick up a guitar and howl". It was a lament for the current lack of political ideas and stances in music. As ever it focussed solely on guitar music and rock in general, as if only rock can protest.

Now I'm not the only person to take umbrage with this. Indeed Mike Harding from BBC Radio 2 wrote in stating the case for folk. I wanted to make the case for electronic music. Yet the more I thought about it, I couldn't make one. Maybe my knowledge of the electro-scape has subsided but I couldn't think of one track to back my case.

The argument has always been that the majority of electronic music is escapist. Dance-floor fodder for hedonists, that politics has no place in the disco. But even in the pieces designed for the headphones of home, you won't find any form of dialogue.

Is this a dereliction of duty by producers or a further point of differentiation between the worlds of rock and electronic music?

Shari Vari Redux

Just noticed that The Beastie Boys posted this video last night (check Napoleon Dynamite at 2.59)...

And seeing that my post about A Number Of Names' Shari Vari (or Sharevari or Sharivari) is still getting hits to this day, I've decided to repost the mp3.

To put it simply, this proto-techno track is one of the greatest records ever made.

mp3---> A Number Of Names - Shari Vari (Vocal Mix)

*Proper non-skippy version now*

Fuck Buttons Fuck Relationship

Came across this mix from Fuck Buttons' Andrew Hung last night via the frankly weird mulasuperpoco.

It sparked a minor argument this morning.

Loo expressed her hatred of "Detroit House". After correcting her on both terms and meaning (I said with full seriousness that Detroit Techno was "soul music for robots!", like the pretentious twat that I am), she left for work. I am lost.

At least I have this mix for comfort. It features The Knife, Green Velvet, Carl Craig and the awesome Freak by LFO.

Fuck Buttons - We Fear Silence Border Community Mix - Feb 2010 by wefearsilence

Islet December Show

Islet are playing a final home-town of the year gig on December 13th in Clwb. TBH I'm assuming it's their last of the year. Boy could I have egg on my face.

mp3---> Islet - Holly (Tidal Barrage Remix) (Direct Link)

Obligatory Hallowe'en Post

mp3---> Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Fright Night (Nevermore)

Derezzed

New Tron: Legacy trailer featuring Daft Punk's Derezzed and cameo (1:35).

Pseudomodernism, The Bay & The Reply

Last Saturday in the Review section of the Saturday Guardian, Owen Hatherley wrote a piece promoting his new book A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain.

It’s a very interesting read, discussing the new desolation of developments such as Cardiff Bay with its gated communities, its swathes of empty luxury flats and his theory of “psuedomonderism” in general.

But there’s a particular passage that caught my eye…

“While the ruins of the postwar settlement's architecture – the under-maintained estates, the yawningly wide plazas, the vertiginous new spaces of towers and walkways – elicited aesthetic responses in post-punk and electronic music that matched the starkness, power and modernity of their setting, how do you respond critically to something that is trying so desperately not to offend?”

I think we already have a response in what is now derogatively titled Chillwave. Although predominately US based, I think the hazy nostalgia, the ever-so-soft synth washes, the palpable melancholia of the music is the reaction to the disassociation of people with a sense of place and power. The music is imbued with a sense of loss, a loss of feeling for anything. Chillwave is the sound of resentful and frustrated apathy.

The same can easily be said of Dubstep, but I believe that it is still tempered by modernist rather than psuedomodernist architecture.

[Right click and "Download Document" for mp3 of Feel It All Around by Washed Out]

SWN 2010 Preview

Was only planning on going to the Thursday of this year’s SWN festival, had work and friend commitments. But then I won four weekend tickets. Who needs work or friends?

Here’s a quick rundown on who I’m psyched about seeing.

Thursday:

Threatmantics @Clwb - 7.15pm

Crash.Disco! @CAI – 8.15pm (Download Something Like This from NME.com)

Tall Ships @Y Fuwch Goch - 10.00pm (mp3---> Tall Ships - Beanie & Dodger)

Samoans @Dempsey's - 11.15pm

Friday:

T3ETH @Buffalo - 8.15pm (My favourite discovery at last year's SWN)

Stricken City @Undertone - 8.45pm

The Ex @Clwb - 10pm

Saturday:

Y Niwl @Model Inn - 6.15pm

Alex Dingley @Undertone - 6.45pm

Let's Wrestle @Model Inn - 7.30pm (mp3---> Let's Wrestle - I Won't Lie To You)

Egyptian Hip Hop @Dempsey's - 8.00pm (Download Middle Name Period from NME.com)

Islet @Model Inn - 11.15pm

But then the joy of SWN is stumbling across something you didn't know about before...

P.S. I've got one spare weekend ticket if anyone wants it.

The Multinauts

Just come across this Blake's 7 meets hipsterdom WTF video featuring Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. Skip the first 16 minutes.

“…The Multinauts are visited by Falco Quasar. Falco convinces the Multinauts to blow off some steam by going to a wild space party where the galaxies hottest new “saga-wave” band, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti are playing. Good times go terribly awry when the trio travels to a wild kegger full of space preppies that turn out to be more than just party animals.”

THE MULTINAUTS- Episode One "Flashback" from Multinauts on Vimeo.

RIP Ari Up

I've just heard the news. A sad day for post-punk. No a sad day for music.

I've written about the importance of The Slits before, so I'll just say that Ari Up was an enigmatic and beguiling stage presence, that music would be in a much poorer place if she'd never approached the mic and that she sang on the greatest cover version ever.

RIP Ari Up.

mp3---> The Slits - Heard It Through The Grapevine (Direct Link)

Bonfire Of The Quangos

Here's something to soundtrack Osborne's "Bonfire of the Quangos"...

mp3 --- > Quando Quango - Love Tempo (Direct Link)

Ringerz

Simple yet addictive video from a complex yet addictive band...

Islet "Ringerz" from Ewan Jones Morris on Vimeo.

Which Is Better...

Mondays are the new Fridays. Tonight’s three way tug of love is between…

1. Toro Y Moi @ Cardiff Arts Institute for the launch of Swn Fest

2. N64 Goldeneye Tournament @ Buffalo

3. Quiz Quest @ Gwdihw

I’m going with #3. I’ll be the guy at the back shouting.

Mp3---> Toro Y Moi - Blessa (via Box.net)

Gash Free But Shark Ridden Waters

After the gash fest that was The Terror Of Cosmic Loneliness, Gruff Rhys returns to listenability...

Summer Longing

The coat has been out for a while. The winter boots have been bought. But today the gloves come out. Now it is winter. And so the longing for summer begins.

To soothe the slow ache, here's my track of the summer. It has Balearic touches but really it is a pop song, dripping with melody. All it needs is a puppet's vocals and it'll soar away.

mp3---> Police Academy 6 - Run (via box.net)

Total DEVOtion

I work for a website that has an 11-25 remit. Though our readerships seems to be mainly 13-17. Aware of this I decided to litter a piece about a community arts festival with as many Devo song titles as possible. Petulant but pleasurable.

Guardian readers may recognise where I stole this idea from wholesale.

Anyway, during my research I noticed just how good this oft-overlooked track is.

mp3---> Devo - Be Stiff

Four Tet's Fact Mix

This week has been a good week. Why? Because on Monday, FACT queefed out a brand new mix by Four Tet which has been on heavy rotation all week.

Closer to his DJ Kicks mix than the seminal Late Night Tales mix, it's a good guide to where Kieran Hebden's head is now at and where it has been.

Taking in the garage flecked bass pressure hinted at by the inclusion of So Solid Crew on the aforementioned DJ Kicks mix, the more dancefloor directed inclination of his latest LP There Is Love In You, the polyrythmic complexity of jazz drumming from his work with Steve Reid and the genre-switching googlies he like to bowl (check the last track on the mix), this is another essential mix from one of the most progressive producers around.

FACT mix 182 - Four Tet (Sep '10) by Sammyfax

Tracklist:

1. Rocketnumbernine – Matthew and Toby (Four Tet remix) [Text Records]

2. Pheeroan Ak Laff – 3 in 1 [Passin' Thru]

3. Soul Capsule – Seekers (Ricardo Villalobos remix) [Trelik]

4. Mount Kimbie – Blind Night Errand [Hot Flush]

5. Grevious Angel – Move Down Low VIP [Soul Jazz]

6. Ro 70 meets Move D – Untitled [Source Records]

7. Floating Points – J+W beat [Planet Mu]

8. Ramadanman – Glut [Hemlock]

9. JD Robb – Canon in Percussive Sound [Folkways]

10. Index – Starlight (break) [Record Shack Records]

11. Four Tet – Nothing to see [Soul Jazz]

12. Falty DL – St Marks (Cosmin TRG remix) [Rush Hour]

13. Luke Abbott – Holkham Drones [Border Community]

14. Oni Ayhun – OAR004A [Oni Ayhun Records]

15. Bob Holroyd – African drug (Four Tet remix) [Phonica]

16. Lata Mangeshkar – Too Mere Saath Rahega Munne [EMI]

Breezeblock Burial

Burial and Kode9 sent off Mary Anne Hobbs' Experimental Show née The Breezeblock in some style.

Now while I haven't tuned in for a while (the preponderance of grime pushed me out) The Breezeblock, alongside The Blueroom and Fabio & Grooverider, kick-started my odyssey into the synthscape, and for that I will always be grateful.

The mix is what I imagine a trawl through the FM spectrum in Hackney on a Tuesday night would sound like, snatches of garage, funky and jungle swathed in static, rain and isolation.

The whole show is up for a couple more days, but below is a link to the mix.

mp3---> Burial & Kode9 - Mix For Mary Anne Hobbs Sept 10 (via mediafire)

Tracklist:

01. Speedy J – Tesla

02. Zomby – Natalia’s Song

03. Brandy – Never Say Never (El-B version 1)

04. Brandy – Never Say Never (El-B version 2)

05. Brandy – Angel (X-Men vocal mix)

06. Laurie Spiegel – Voices Within – A Requiem

07. Alena – Turn It Around (Hard House Bantons Mandy Mix)

08. Cooly G – Him Da Biz

09. Theo Parrish – Soul Control feat. Alena Waters

10. KMFH aka Kyle Hall – Girl U So Strong (Wild Oats)

11. Terror Danjah – S.O.S.

12. Darkstar – 2 Chords

13. Prince – Condition of the Heart

14. Erykah Badu – Telephone

15. Foul Play – Being With U Rmx

16. A Guy called Gerald – Silent Cry

Bye Bye Battles

I turn my back for a second, well two months, and something bad happens.

Tyondai Braxton has left Battles. It's amicable as it always seems to be. Battles aren't gone but kinda are.

I always assumed Tyondai was the main guy. With his big hair, doing the Smurf thing on Atlas and almost being called Toni Braxton.

There'll still be a new Battles album in 2011 and solo stuff from Braxton too, but Tyondai! Can't you rejoin and un-break my heeeaaaaart (arf!).

mp3 ---> Battles - Leyendecker

Always thought Dirty Projectors kinda ripped this track.

Moskow Diskow

It had to be something special to drag me back. Past couple of months I lost heart. I heard nothing to match Castro Boy or Shari Vari. I got worried.

I returned to my CDs and tapes. In the back of my mind was the half-remembered fact I read somewhere that states that your music tastes are set by 24. I turned 25 a few weeks back.

But it was through CDs that brought me back here, got me back trawling blogs, got me loving music again.

There it was buried on disc three of an EMI compilation of "New Romantics". The inverted commas are there for a reason. Devo are many things but New Romantics is not one of them.

For the past couple of days I've wondered how I've gone so long without hearing this.

Moskow Diskow is a stupendous piece of dead-pan futuristic electronic disco music... from Belgium. It's the four-four handclap/fingersnap sound. It's the vocoder. It's the French (or Flemish, whatevs). It's the synths. It's the train motifs (the sister of Kraftwerk's bicycles?). It's the everything.

The mp3 is a remastered version from 2004, but I don't think it's been altered too much.

mp3 ---> Telex - Moskow Diskow

The video is worth a nosey too.

Horse Meat Disco

The NME have posted a new Horse Meat Disco mix, a six track, thirty minute, camp disco workout.

It's out (and proud) to promote their latest release, Horse Meat Disco II, out June 28th on Strut.

mp3 ---> Horse Meat Disco - NME Mix

Tracklist:

1. Eastside Connection – You’re So Right For Me

2. Linda Evans – Don't You Need Somebody

3. Carlos Romanos – 1-2-1

4. Lourett Russell Grant – Hot To Trot

5. Lonnie Smith – Do It

6. El Coco – Afrodesia

Songs Of The Sea

Went to Cornwall for a wedding over the weekend.

It was thus a pleasing surprise to find that it was also the Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival.

I'm sure my fifteen-year-old self would cringe at the thought of Future Sam not only going to, but thoroughly enjoying a sea shanty festival. I no longer care for the concept of cool.

You have not lived until you have seen a group of elderly German gentlemen singing What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor complete with a slapstick drunk. Who said Germans can't do comedy?

Though the festival (and Skinner's Press Gang) plastered a smile across my face, I couldn't part with the £10 for the festival CD. My thinking was that it would never get played; That I will never have the urge to listen to sea shanties.

Stewing on this thought on the train back, I came to the realisation that some of the main attractions of shanties, the narrative, the history, and most pertinently the collective voice, are sated by other forms of popular music.

The sturm und drang of Arcade Fire's music draws greatly on the collective wail (amongst other tropes), but I shall not post one of their songs, as I shall probably save them for the new album out in August.

Instead I shall go with the more nautical Port O'Brien. Named after a now-abandoned bay on Kodiak Island, the band's leader Van Pierszalowski spends his summer months fishing commercially with his father. I believe you can hear the bonds with the ocean, the family-unit, the lore of the sea within their music.

mp3---> Port O'Brien - I Woke Up Today

Tiny Streaker

There is only one truth....

Ad men are wankers.

Yet despite their coke-addled ears they can still pick the odd tune.

mp3 ---> Men Without Hats - Safety Dance

Preview: Unicorn Kid

Did a quick preview of Unicorn Kid's gig at Barfly on the 28th for theSprout, which you can read here.

Fuck Mini Babybels

Finally caught Four Lions last night.

Ferocious and funny, there are many parallels between Chris Morris’ and Aphex Twin’s work before you consider the links of Warp and Blue Jam and now Four Lions.

The final montage scene of the film is underpinned by the threnodic Avril 14th from Drukqs, Aphex Twin’s 2001 LP.

Beautifully wistful, it is a fitting ending to the film and sparked a somewhat shocking realisation that I haven’t posted any Aphex tracks, despite passing 100 posts last month.

[Right click and Download Document for mp3 of Aphex Twin – Avril 14th]

The Good LFO, Not The Bad LFO

Went to Quiz Quest a few weeks back in Gwdihw.

It was their 4th quiz, all about the number 3 and we came 2nd.

We won this.

One of the rounds was all about musical trios or bands with three in their name. During the round a particularly awful pop song cropped up and the bad LFO made an unwelcome return to my thoughts (incorrectly as it turned out).

The bad LFO are the Lyte Funky Ones. Just typing “Lyte” made me feel nauseous, so click the link if you want more info on them.

The good LFO are bleep pioneers and British techno dons, synonymous with Sheffield and early Warp.

When the good LFO get talked about, people usually focus on their seminal debut album Frequencies, which came out in 1991. So I’ve decided to post something from the 1994 Tied Up EP instead.

Enjoy this slab of fizzing crunchy techno. And forget about the other LFO.

[Right click and "Download Document" for mp3]

P.S. Quiz Quest is usually on the third Monday of the month, so the next one should be on the 21st. Join the Gwdihw facebook group for deets. It’s well good.

P.P.S. - News Flash! Quiz Quest 5 is on the June 21st and is on Now That's What I Call Music 29.

The Samps, Sampladelia and Sampdoria

For Simon Reynolds sampladeila “… layers and concatenates musical fragments from different eras, genres and places to create a timewarping pseudo-event, something that could never possibly have happened.”

While written before the upturn in lo-fi’s cultural standing, and predominately focussing on techno and hip-hop, I think it is an apt description for the music of The Samps.

Merging the micro-editing and warped lifts of early hip-hop and contemporary dance, The Samps make greater use of the “-adelia”, their tunes closer to the (purple) haze of the first wave of psychedelic rock.

Recently I’ve been swimming in Samps. The band returned with the release/leak of Peppergood. Some of them make up part of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, a band that are dominating my “recently played” menu.

More anomalously, Sampdoria finished 4th in Serie A, their best finish in years and I've just finished Reynolds’ Bring The Noise, though the above quote comes from the equally excellent Energy Flash.

Whatever the cause of the samp tsunami, if you haven’t sampled The Samps it’s high time.

[Right click and go for "Download Document"]

Glorified Walkman

Got around to sorting my phone after what happened in December.

I've missed having music on the go and the unexpected delights it throws up. The contrasts too between activity and soundtrack.

This morning I listened to the free-form, off-kilter German prog-rock (krautrock is a term I've grown to dislike) of Amon Düül II while on the bog. Lovely.

mp3---> Amon Düül II - Mozambique

Bring Back Literal Videos

Fuck metaphors.

Ariel Pink's Fact Mix

Been a while since I posted about a FACT mix or indeed Ariel Pink.

This sounds exactly how you'd imagine an Ariel Pink mix would. Woozy, disorientated pop music with plenty of googlies (I've decided from now on to use googly instead of curveball. Love cricket), all fizzy and fuzzy.

It's not the best mix you'll ever hear but it does offer an interesting insight into the minds of Ariel Pink and his Haunted Graffiti. Which I think is exactly what said about that Washed Out mix from a couple of months back.

mp3---> Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - FACT Mix 152 [Dead Link! Sorry if you want me to repost it, comment below]

Fact Mix 152: Ariel Pink’S Haunted Graffiti by Fact Mix Archive on Mixcloud

Tracklist:

01. НИИ Косметики - unknown

02. Samsimar - Indang Pariaman

03. Warfield Spillers - Daddy’s Little Girl

04. Vahag Sekadean - VS

05. Chuck Edwards - Oh La La La

06. FX - Les Choces Ne Sont Pas Ce Quelles Semblant

07. Aarow - Paris Now

08. Europeans - Europeans

09. Dirt Wizard - Kill The Wizard

10. Softboiled Eggies - Shower In The Rain

11. Devo - Bottled Up

12. Prince - When You Were Mine

13. t.o.l.l. - Milzbrand (edit)

14. Bobb Trimble - One Mile From Heaven

Heaven 17 = Cloud 9

Accidentally caught a programme the other night about Heaven 17 on BBC2.

It focussed on the recording of Penthouse and Pavement, though it did touch on their formation and the Sheffield scene as a whole.

I felt the wider influence of the Steel City on the astounding electronic music that came out of there in the late 70s had been better covered in other documentaries I've seen.

But as a snapshot from a particular angle, it is well worth an hour of your time. I didn't know for instance, that the track below had been banned by the BBC.

The fools.

It is a super-fast dancefloor classic. Also has the best bass solo ever in it. Fact.

Heaven 17: The Story of Penthouse and Pavement should be on the iplayer till Monday.

mp3---> Heaven 17 - (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang

Take Cover

I felt embarrassed in Spillers yesterday.

Doing my dad a favour, I went to get him a ticket for the Rollin' Clones in The Globe.

Why was I embarrassed? I have no issues with authorship in music. Nor authenticity for that matter. In fact the more synthetic the better.

So why do I have a hang up about cover bands when I adore fakery everywhere else in music? As a cheapskate I should be in favour but they're just... well... naff. And naffness is chronic.

So here's a proper band (whatever one of those is) covering the Stones. All female post-punk goodness from 1980.

mp3---> The Mo-dettes - Paint It Black