Daphni Does It

Essential listening this week has come in the form of Daphni's one-off NTS show. Daphni is the clubbier side project of Dan Snaith, more widely know as Caribou, so you should know that it's two hours of excellent and eclectic music.

I'm going to highlight two tracks from the show that have stuck with me.

First up is Medellin, which appears on Daphni's new album Joli Mai and is a bumping, twisty slice of uplifting house music.

The second is James Holden & The Animal Spirits - Each Moment Like The First, a wibbly downtempo jam that builds steadily across its five minutes...



I need an image to go with this post, and while I'm a fan of Dan Snaith's glasses, I can't resist shoe-horning in some Frasier.

Photo Credit: Alan Light [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Who's better?
🆚🆚🆚

— Sammyfax (@CeefaxOfLife) October 15, 2017

Mute City Mute Blog

So it's been a little quiet on here lately. This is the reason why for the last couple of weeks...

Man, I can't quite express how much I'm enjoying the SNES mini or "Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System" as it's meant to be called. That hasn't meant I've stopped listening to music, and I plan to post a few things over the next couple of days, but first off I'm going to stick with the SNES and share one amazing soundtrack in particular.

Here's the Mute City (ミュートシティ) music from F-Zero.

Epic, driving, and fun I could listen to this 16bit classic on loop for hours.

Plus One Loo has been playing EarthBound loads and there's some amazing music in that game too, however I've been too busy in Hyrule to play two RPGs at once. I will share some music from EarthBound too once I've taken care of Ganon.

Related: クワカブト一家の逆襲

PC Music Vs Aphex

If there's one thing that's guaranteed to get on this blog it's PC Music head A.G. Cook reworking the iconic Windowlicker by Aphex Twin.



"My set at Field Day directly clashed with Aphex Twin's headline show, so I thought it would be nice to do a full-length, note-for-note cover of Windowlicker. Spent a very intense 48 hours inside a windowless room - somewhere between a Braindance rehearsal and a labour of love." - A. G. Cook

And it's a surprisingly faithful cover, with just a few of the sonic flourishes for which the ever-divisive PC Music is known. They've even made it free to download, which is nice. Remember mp3s?

D.Stop & The Missing Görl

Anyone after some nihilistic 80s DIY synth punk from France? Here's Görl by D.Stop.

I love how basic this is, how singular in its goal it is. Minimal electronic music always wins out for me, whether it's punky like D.Stop or disco like Metro Area. The longer I live, the more I realise what I love.

Nouvelles Du Front is D.Stop's only album. You can hear all 13 minutes on YouTube. However I think it's missing Görl. It should be on there according to Discogs. Another coldwave mystery.

Here's the band performing it in 1983 for French TV, while looking pretty French...

Bonne nuit.

Metro Area's Housework

The moment finally came to refresh the Celica soundtrack. A drive to Dorset with the dog blocking the glove box will do that. So it was time to rummage through the spare room on a CD hunt.

Updated the celica soundtrack

A post shared by Sammyfax (@ceefaxoflife) on Aug 6, 2017 at 3:11am PDT

While this was going on, Plus One Loo was trying out her new Apple Music subscription and fired up a 2001 playlist. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. And nostalgia for that time pushed Metro Area's self-titled debut to the top of the pile.

I picked up this album in Fopp, back when Cardiff had a Fopp at the bottom of Queen Street, back when the bottom on Queen Street was alright. Now the bottom of Queen Street looks pretty dire. I suppose the Capitol Centre didn't stand a chance against St David's 2.

Anyway, I remember buying Metro Area upstairs in Fopp way back when, as it's one of just two occasions when the person behind the counter positively commented on my selection. The other was Röyksopp's Melody AM in HMV (coincidentally Eple was on Loo's 2001 soundtrack). Twice in all the years I've bought albums. Maybe I should take that as evidence of my shit taste in music.

I'm still 18 yeah? 💃💃💃

A post shared by Sammyfax (@ceefaxoflife) on Aug 6, 2017 at 3:20am PDT

Metro Area's 2002 debut always used to be my housework album. It just bumps and it just swings, spreading positivity and energy. This is helpful when dusting. It is beautiful disco house music that's funky as fuck.

However what I love most about it is the space. It has a confidence to it, and that confidence allows it to pause, to breathe. A lot of electronic dance music tries to cram everything in. Metro Area by Metro Area knows it's on to something and takes it time. And don't just take my word for it, Resident Advisor voted it the 2nd best album of the 2000s.

Muira is the biggie off this album yet I'm gonna go with Atmosphrique, as I'm a sucker for double disco handclaps.

Keen-eyed peeps will have noticed that Metro Area is missing from the pile in the second picture. That's because it didn't make it out of the kitchen. I had some housework that really needed doing.