Let’s Talk About Girls

Ooh a blast of nasty 60s psych rock brightens up any gloomy Tuesday- this one from Los Angeles’ The Chocolate Watchband from fifty years ago this year is as good as any, with fuzz guitars and a snarl.

Let’s talk About Girls

This Is The Impression I Get From Looking At The Television Set

Whoever spliced Allen Ginsberg reading his 1956 poem America with Tom Waits’ Closing Time created something beautiful and profound. You can take as much as you want from Ginsberg’s poem at the moment.

America (Closing Time)

Consequences Of Love

A skip back to Friday for today’s post. After writing about Death In Vegas’ You Disco I Freak a friend on social media pointed me towards this which somehow I had missed. Consequences Of Love remixed by ex-Throbbing Gristlers Chris and Cosey. TG seem to be one of the influences on the Transmission album (and on vocalist Sasha Grey) so it’s fitting that they remix one of the songs from it and it’s a very good job done indeed- throbbing synths and nagging melodies.

Into The Cosmos

If you’re at a loose end and want something to soundtrack ninety minutes of your life you could do worse than this mix from the Quiet Storm family, a blogmind compilation expertly sequenced by Mark. This one took suggestions of songs inspired by the cosmos, the moon and the stars. It opens with William Shatner, takes in a wide cast of stargazers including Prefab Sprout, Billy Preston, AR Kane, The Upsetters, David Sylvian, Chilly Gonzales, Billy Bragg, Declan O’Rourke, Stereolab, I Am Kloot, Mayer Hawthorne, Sandy Denny and Labelle and finishes with Rutger Hauer and the ‘tears in rain’ scene from Bladerunner. See if you can guess what I suggested.

And this didn’t occur to me at the time but it could have been a fine addition to the mix, Paul Weller dubbed out and spaced out by Brendan Lynch back in 1993.

Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats)

Emotion Electric

There’s more to A Guy Called Gerald than Voodoo Ray y’know, as this wondrous 1989 track amply proves. Inspired by Detroit, made in Manchester.

Emotion Electric

Freaked

The world that seems to be going madder as each day goes by. Watching the news is an exercise in seeing how low ones jaw can drop before spluttering ‘whatthefuck whatthefuckingfuck didhejustsay?’ One day we’ll look back and laugh.

Death In Vegas released an album last year, Transmission, a record that fused minimal techno with the late 70s and early 80s synths, industrial ambient, and the breathy vocals of Sasha Grey. It is an intense, nocturnal, somewhat freaked out collection of songs, that throb and drone and pulse. It draws you in. It is very self contained. This one is especially trippy.

You Disco I Freak

Right Back

Jez Kerr, frontman and bass player for A Certain Ratio, has had an on-off solo thing going on for a few years. ACR have signed a deal with Mute and are planning a series of re-releases plus a new album so the solo thing is probably off for the moment but I revisited some of his solo tracks from 2012 recently and there are a couple you might like and may not have heard.

Reason I Feel Like An Alien has a dreamlike melody and an ACR-like vocal but this is more meditative and lost than ACR are. There’s another version which is even spacier but I can’t find a link to it right now. The video is pretty hypnotic too.

Rip You Right Back rides in on noises and a mechanical rhythm and stays right there, with Jez’s monotone vocals sinking over the top. In different ways I can hear the influence of Brian Eno in both songs. The pair are off an album called Numb Mouth Eat Waste which you can still pick up in the usual places.

The Dirty Beat

The Hoga Nord record label (of Sweden) is putting out a consistently high standard of tracks and this recent one is no exception. The music makers behind F.A.T.M.A. (or Fatma) are currently a mystery but they are hiding behind a very good track. A track that they have linked to the unsolved assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme and thus labelled conspiracy funk.

Just press play and get down.

Jaki

Jaki Liebezeit has died aged 78. There aren’t too many drummers- forgive me drummers if I’m showing my ignorance here- who you can say are unique and recognisable. His playing, his rhythms, on Can’s records are otherworldly, like nothing else. As well as Can he played with Jah Wobble, Michael Rother and Brian Eno. Again, there aren’t many drummers whose name alone makes me want to check out something they played on. Jazz trained, reluctantly pushed into rock ‘n’ roll in West German beat groups in the 1960s he (and the rest of Can) came up with something entirely new that was also culturally significant. Can were determined to reject all that their fathers had stood for, perhaps more significant in Germany in the 60s than other many countries, and avoid the influence of the USA too. They wanted to make a music which was new and European with the rhythms well to the fore. His Can companion Holger Czukay was asked by a journalist if Jaki was like a drum machine. ‘More accurate’ he replied.

Future Days

This footage shows B-Boys poppin’ to Can’s Vitamin C back in the day.

That is the real deal I believe.

RIP Jaki.

As The Day Begins

Briefly in 1990 The Beloved made some very good music, perfectly in tune with the times- a run of singles, the 1990 album Happiness and its remixed counterpart from a year later Blissed Out and the not-a-hit It’s Alright Now single. This Melody Maker front cover is dated 27th January 1990 and shows where the inkies were at that point- Loop, Carter USM, Baby Ford and The Shamen show the twin pleasures of noisy guitars and the dancefloor while The Cult, Mantronix and Psychic TV bring the mid 80s back. Tanita Tikaram was available for interview twenty seven years ago too.

The Sun Rising is a fast paced, slinky groove with that female vocal sample that Orbital also used (on Belfast). Music made from optimism with a sense of endless possibilities.

The Sun Rising

I chanced upon this NME cutting yesterday too, a review of The Beloved playing the Hacienda (5th March 1990 I think, according to some internet research), supported by local heroes The High and a dj called Andrew Weatherall. I may get around to posting something by him sooner or later.