Seven Songs

My mp3 player is on the fritz, the cd player is busted in my commute car and I can't take hearing RHCP and something off Licensed to Ill every single time I listen to Live 105 for more than five minutes so it has been lots of talk radio for me lately. It's not that I've given up on music as this meme, which comes from XO by way of the thoughtful This Man's World, proves.
List seven songs you are into right now, no matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs...

Amy Winehouse "You Know I'm No Good" (mp3)
When I got hooked on "Rehab" (see what I did there?) a couple of months ago I didn't expect to fall in love with anything else from Winehouse but this Mark Ronson production occupies the same head space I reserve for breezy Portishead pop songs. That is if they existed. Lyrically the song drops a few great lines, including one about tearing "men down like Roger Moore", and the way Winehouse draws out words like "trouble" is positively intoxicating.

The Killers "Read My Mind (Pet Shop Boys Stars Are Blazing Mix)"
Reminding me a bit of Motiv 8's version of Pulp's "Disco 2000" this remix is a bit hit and miss. PSB take a hands off disco friendly approach for the song which is nice but a bit boring outside but the final moments of "Go West" bit they add at the chorus which is fantastic and worth the blah parts. I'd love to hear the edit and see if it gets to the meat of things but it's not available in the US and I haven't found it on 7digital yet.

Freezepop "Less Talk More Rokk (Guitar Hero 2 Mix)" (youtube)
Despite "Get Ready 2 Rokk" being Freezepop's most downloaded song on itunes it's one of my least favorite songs so when I learned they were making their major label debut with what look to be version of the song I was concerned. This mix is rather good and brings to mind the best of modern Daft Punk.

!!! "Heart Of Hearts" (myspace)
This hasn't grabbed me like "Take Esctasy With Me", which relates directly to the song not having been written by Stephin Merritt, but this is dance rock done right. Love the false ending and the guitar sound is killer.

Matinée Club "Tokyo Girls" (youtube)
Originally based around a now recreated Gary Numan sample this sounds like a hit because it was. Catchy and I've found myself enjoying it despite cringing at some of the lyrics...

Felix Da Housecat "Neon Human" (youtube)
Revisiting Devin Dazzle And The Neon Fever recently has reinforced my original thought that "Neon Human" is the best track on the album because it sounds quite like "Axel F".

Jay-Jay Johanson "Rocks In My Pockets"
I generally prefer Johanson's pop stuff but Tremble Clef turned me on to this song which really is "a record worth locking up the razors for."

Video: Tracey Thorn "It's All True"

Tracey Thorn has long been one of my favorite vocalists and with Everything But The Girl's hiatus carrying into a sixth year I was pleased to find that "It's All True", the first single from Thorn's forthcoming solo album Out Of The Woods, delivers the electropop goodness that I could only dream of a few short months ago.
The song's video is a single continuous shot that finds a seated Thorn facing us in a room filled with desks and uniform office drones adorned in grey suits. We never see much of Thorn as the director reduces her to a graphic element instead taking the standard pop approach of showing the star in close up as the focal point. Not only does this suggest that Thorn is one of her audience, often dismissed by critics with the subtle "coffeehouse crowd" insult, who are represented here literally as special effect created clones but the approach echoes the emotional distance often associated with Thorn's vocal delivery. As the video develops the clones are given chances to shine and express themselves individually with dance flourishes and momentary surges of color refuting the simple dismissal of Thorn's audience by demonstrating that they are more than an extension of their homologous environment but have soul and personality that is unique to themselves. The visual style of the video, most specifically the final moments, mirrors that of a number of viral videos in which people represent pixels in recreations of 80s video games which is not unlike the production team's loving reinterpretation of early 80s club music:



: Tracey Thorn's Out Of The Woods is out March 20 and Tremble Clef's inspired review of the album is a must read. Thorn's music can be previewed at her myspace which includes some delightfully endearing blog entries.

I Want To Wake Up

Spin just created a list of ways to save the music business including this obvious suggestion:

Fully embrace the Web. Instead of making threats when an unauthorized song or video shows up on MySpace or YouTube, majors should welcome the exposure. In its early days, MTV made you want to buy records and go to shows. The Web has the ability to provide those same thrills.

: This is coming from a magazine that had a website that was not accessible to the general public until a few years ago and lost much of the audience during the same period so maybe they know what they are talking about.

Flashback: Mono "Life In Mono" (1996)

The 90s were a difficult time for those looking to combine a love electronics and the craft of songwriting. The rise of underground techno suggested that vocals and traditional structure weren't necessary while the reactionary grunge movement knocked anything with a synthesizer off "alternative" radio in the US but the success of Portishead opened a new door that allowed songwriters access to the American market. The caveat: their music was labeled as trip hop. There was a time when trip hop was, at least in my mind, a fairly specific genre during the first half of the 90s when it directly involved the hip hop inspired Bristol Sound. Over the course of the decade the term diversified when bands like Hooverphonic and Morcheeba revealed similar stories about sneaking their music onto major labels by convincing A&R men that they could sell to the trip hop crowd.

Producer/instrumentalist Martin Virgo had a solid background in the genre working as a session musician on albums from Massive Attack and Bjork before forming Mono with vocalist Siobhan de Maré but the tone of the project echoed a decidedly more pop approach exemplified by other late 90s trip hop acts. The band's sole album Formica Blues produced four singles including the Saint Etienne-esque "Slimcea Girl" but "Life In Mono" is their finest, if perhaps darkest, moment. Equally bringing together Virgo's passion for all things John Barry and Phil Spector with drum 'n' bass inspired beats the song had the unique quality of sounding dated and futuristic on the first listen. A decade later it simply sounds timeless:



: The song's inclusion, reportedly at the suggestion of Robert De Niro, on the soundtrack to Alfonso Cuarón's Great Expectations helped make the song a radio hit in the US two years after it's initial release but my first exposure to the song was the Propellerheads instrumental remix which used the originals Barry flavored guitar to turn the song into a proper James Bond dance track. More recently former Spice Girl Emma Bunton used "Life In Mono" as her most recent album title and included a faithful cover of the song which I'm sure was not inspired by a karaoke version being available.

Despite their moderate success Mono didn't survive after rifts between the two proved to be too great to bridge. Siobhan de Maré has since worked with Robin Guthrie and Martin Virgo seems to have slowed down as reports suggest he is spending his time with a rightfully unsigned jam band. Sigh...

Video: LCD Soundsystem "North American Scum"

James Murphy and company are here to they clear up some misperceptions “for those of you who still think we’re from England” on the first single from LCD Soundsystem’s forthcoming Sound Of Silver. Musically the song plays on LCD’s strengths and does it with a short running time which is something of a rarity for the project. The tinfoil heavy video parodies the artifice and excess of mainstream videos as it opens with Murphy playing a bored rock star at a photo shoot before a Hype Williams style “LCD” graphic takes the video to the moon:



: The "North American Scum" single drops later this month with Sound Of Silver expected the week of March 20 when Murphy has asked fans to pick up the album on the theory that if everyone who bought the first LCD album bought SOS then it would chart at number 1 (assuming sales matched the historic low a few weeks ago). Hear more from the band at their myspace.

Swimming In The Haze

Nine Inch Nails are expected to release new album Year Zero this April. NIN's site has a section up for the album now with an incomplete tracklisting that lists two song names with a bunch of "0"s (see what they did there) outlining the names of the other tracks. Reports have the album being mostly recorded on laptops while the band was touring and it gives me hope that it will sound like this live cover of The Normal's "Warm Leatherette" with Peter Murphy on vocals that I saw posted on Voltage:



: On the heels of 2005's With Teeth this is the quickest NIN have recorded studio releases since the two year break between Pretty Hate Machine and the Broken EP which I'm sure has nothing to do with Trent Reznor's discovery that his former manager was skimming money leaving Reznor with a small, by rock star standards, cash reserve a few years ago. I suppose inspiration comes in many forms.

No Time For Dancing

David Byrne showed off Here Lies Love, his work-in-progress multimedia musical chronicling the rise of Imelda Marcos, as part of the Carnegie Hall Perspectives Series that he curated and performed last week. The first American staging of the incomplete work generated a fair amount of interest with warm reviews in the New York Times and Time Magazine. Better yet is that he did a number of interviews including one with New York Magazine that asked "what made now the right time to write a song cycle about Imelda Marcos?":

Probably the end of the CD and the end of the record business. Seriously. This is going to sound very calculated, but I just thought, If I think of a collection of songs I write as being of a piece, how do you keep that connection and continuity? And I thought, Well, this is made to be heard and seen; it doesn’t rely on a piece of plastic. Although I think the piece of plastic will be a nice-sounding thing, too.

: The Guardian found out why he decided to work with Fatboy Slim on the project:

"I imagined it being dance music, so I thought I should go to a professional for help," he says. "Norman's awfully good at that - he has played an instrument at some point, so has an innate sense of song structure that not everyone in the dance community has. He knows what a song is."

: As a side-note, it is interesting that the qualities that attracted Byrne to Cook are the same reasons Cook is distrusted in the underground electronic scene.

Here Lies Love should be a fascinating experience as the songs reportedly range from whistle sampling big beat to trip hop and pure orchestral accompaniment with archive footage and stage performance expected at the final staging. None of the press indicates that it will happen particularly soon and Byrne has implied he is still in the writing process for material to be featured in the musical. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Get Ready 2 Rokk

Boston's DIY synthpop sensations Freezepop have just signed to Cordless Recordings which is great news. I've been a fan of the synthpop trio since stumbling upon them at the old mp3.com and love both of their albums. Cordless, the mostly internet division of Warner Bros that releases material from Dangerous Muse and Skye among others, should be a good fit for the band because they should give the band wider exposure that they deserve without the pressure for an across the board radio hit. The band had this to say by way of their newsletter:

...the idea of giving up control made us pretty nervous. But things have grown to a point where it's been getting increasingly difficult to juggle all the day-to-day details with getting new music out to you guys. When Cordless approached us, we were impressed by their ideas about artist development, and it was reassuring that they didn't want us to give up our independence. To us, the decision to go with Cordless came down to the fact that they can help us get our music heard by more people without sacrificing the music that we make.

: A new album is due out this Spring and the band's Cordless page is up now. Freezepop's first release for the label is The Rokk Suite out February 27th and you can preview it at their myspace.

Video: Matinée Club "Discothèque Français"

The video for Matinée Club’s "Discotheque Français" is out on youtube and like the band's name change from The Modern the "announcement" came by way of their forum (this time from a fan who happened upon it). The song has been around for almost a year so releasing the video now is a bit puzzling on first blush, but the song is getting the single treatment from the band's new UK label Planet Clique Records at the beginning of March so this is the start of the promotional push. A click on the video quickly reveals a period piece that finds the band acting out some strange plot involving espionage and destruction in France during WWII. Clearly there was some money spent with special effects beyond the standard blue screen variety (when was the last time you saw a dogfight in a music video?) and that raises the question of where the money came from. They left Mercury last year and while it is possible that it was filmed then the band's copyright tagged on the video casts some doubt on that. Planet Clique is just getting started up and Ninthwave simply doesn't have the funding for a video of this magnitude so the money issue is a mystery for now. Regardless it's great to see a Brit band using the video for their "français" song to remind the French of one their history's lowest moments:



: Better bloggers than me have already posted about the video with greater clarity so please visit XO and Arjan for more insightful takes on the video.

Matinée Club "are currently putting the final touches to their debut album" with "The Dirty Blonde" EP expected soon on Ninthwave in the US. "Tokyo Girls" from the Robopop compilation is on US itunes now.

Then I Just Smile

I'm a big fan of aol's new music preview because it allows you to listen to most major releases for free without signing up for anything. Still you would think a big corporate site would hire an editor to look over some of their material before it goes live. Take the blurb they have up this week for Lily Allen's album:




: I had never seen Keith Allen described before without the word "comedian" stuck somewhere in there which is something I can forgive but the unexpected Gwen Stefani credit is just wrong. Keep up the good work guys.

Stream Alright, Still here for the rest of the week.

Promiscuous Producer

In the last few days it has come out that Timbaland likely swiped music from a amateur artist for a ringtone and later used it for the backing music for Nelly Furtado's album track "Do It". This video and a followup make the case:



: So did he steal the track? Probably. However the interesting thing is how the story has quickly gone from being tracked in blogs and forums to specialized news sites like Side-Line and being covered in Rolling Stone. Interestingly the hip hop press that I've read suggests it's not a big deal that it isn't worth the controversy. Maybe they are right.

Bullet Points

• Congratulations to Orac of Electronically Yours who has now made the leap from fan to webmaster for the official Heaven 17 website. He does a great job keeping his all things Human League related site Secrets Online and EY current so this should be a pleasant change for the notoriously difficult Heaven17.com which oddly required people to sign up to read the section of the website that announced their Before/After album that was released last year.
• IAMX will be doing a limited tour of the US (with a few Canadian dates possible) at the end of March despite not having his latest record released here yet. Details should be found at his myspace once they are announced.
• The (mostly) reformed Information Society have finally gotten their website online and it is worth the wait with the opportunity to remix their new single and listen to hours of unreleased material. The unreleased tracks are a fantastic way to hear the band's sound and songwriting develop with songs dating as far back as their high school days. The new InSoc album Synthesizer is expected to be released in Brazil in early April so an announcement about the US release can't be far off.
• PopJustice notes that Rex The Dog has an album coming out as they casually reference his other alias which I couldn't find to save my life even a few months ago. They also link to an amusing video of Rex performing his new remix of The Sounds new single.
• Annie just signed a new deal in the UK and her new album is expected at the end of this year. PopJustice reports "It'll be very melodic song-based electronica - cutting edge pop and great melodies with a view to getting people dancing." Perhaps that means her sessions with James Iha have been jettisoned.
  

Musique Non Stop

Despite having first taken Daft Monk as my dj name back in my college radio days as a tribute I initially passed on Daft Punk's singles collection Musique Vol. 1 1993-2005 because I already had the bulk of the material on the collection. I recently gave the disc a listen and the track selection suggests a career arch:


: The graph does cheat a bit crediting "Musique" as appearing on Homework although it is only excerpted on the album, but when you consider that the included remixes pre-date the band's mid-period album Discovery by more than a couple of years it appears that the band peaked early and never recovered. That is not the case because Discovery is a stronger album than the singles would suggest that helped bring underground electronica back to the idea that songs were acceptable. However, despite the exception of the effortless "Technologic", the Human After All singles really call attention to why I never have any interest in revisiting the mess that is that album.

Daft Punk's myspace show a live date scheduled for later this year and their website promotes their movie Electroma which according to imdb "follows the history of two robots, the members of Daft Punk, on their quest to become human". The film apparently features no music from the duo and there is little information about a release date but you can watch the trailer here.

Who Needs Blog (Like That)

Producer Gareth Jones has spent the past few months locked in his home studio with Erasure recording their new album and blogging about the experience. Before making the jump to blogger the blog was hosted on his own site which has made following it a bit difficult, but it reveals Jones to have an apparent passion for food and bicycling as they get as much space as his musical escapades. Still there are some interesting moments that peel back the curtain behind the band’s creative process and it’s worth a look. Also of note is that Jones has a video camera and the occasional cameraman around so clips capturing everything from (muted) vocal sessions to Andy Bell talking about his weekend have turned up on youtube. I haven’t made it through all of them but this rather long clip of the band attempting to steal beats from Kraftwerk captures how I imagine studio time to actually be... a bit boring:



: Erasure's next release is the On The Road To Nashville live DVD documenting their decent into madness as they perform country-influenced arrangements of their synthpop hits. The new album is in the mastering stage so a proper announcement of a release date can't be too far off.

Video: Jarvis Cocker "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time"

Now that Jarvis Cocker has recorded his own version of "Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time", a song that originally appeared on Nancy Sinatra's comeback album a couple of years ago, there is a strong case that only he can interpret his own material (bar William Shatner). The video brings us Jarvis as our taxi driver who offers some friendly advice:



: Still no word on Jarvis being released in the US, but at least my fellow Americans can visit Jarvis at his myspace and enjoy some of his friendly podcasts.

2006: Top Albums

Thanks to the miracle that is the internet (and free streaming services) this past year has given me the opportunity to listen to almost as many albums as I did when I was a sub-music director at a college radio station. In spite of the access there were only a few albums that I found myself drawn to time and time again.

1. Pet Shop Boys Fundamental

Returning to the principals of the duo's "imperial period" of the late 80's with producer Trevor Horn Fundamental managed to be my favorite and most listened to album of the year despite it's flaws brought on by the Boys own attempt to create a cohesive album. If they had included the Richard X produced "Fugitive" (on the bonus disc), "The Resurectionist" and "Bright Young Things" (b-sides) we would have a classic PSB disc. Sill it's hard to complain about an album that has "Minimal", "I Made My Excuses And Left" and the chill inducing "Integral".

2. Goldfrapp Supernature

Love is a difficult thing when you're treated badly and my relationship with this album is a complicated one. The music is brilliant as the duo complete their electropop makeover in a style that is unparalleled but the endless lingering in limbo for the belated US release took it's toll and I didn't find myself giving it the attention it deserved. Still tracks like "Ride A White Horse", "Satin Chic" and "Let It Take You" changed me as they left an imprint on my soul and for that I will always be grateful.

3. Tiga Sexor

Arriving at least three years too late for a proper electroclash cash out Tiga's debut album left many puzzled on first few listens. Still I've found myself going back to the album over and over again on my mp3 player as I slowly but surely have found new tracks to obsess over and pick apart. This must be why six of the tracks have outside lives as singles even when he didn't just take the easy way out by compiling his one-off single releases as an album. It doesn't matter if Tiga is taking on Public Enemy on "Pleasure From The Bass", deconstructing NIN on "Down In It" or himself on "Type Of Guy" (which references almost every single song he had recorded before the album) there is plenty of good listening here.

4. Ferry Corsten L.E.F.

Trance star Ferry Corsten proves again that he has more interests than the melodic trance he built his name with as he storms the sub-genres that fall under the electronica umbrella with an unusually strong sense of song craft. The album's profile has been hampered by dodgy single selections like "Junk", which is his 2002 hit "Punk" with a rap over it, but the album has very few missteps and is so strong that Howard Jones sounds good and relevant on his guest track (note: I hate Howard Jones). Corsten calls his music loud, electro and ferocious but "L.E.F.", "Down On Love" and "Into The Dark" explore more complex and ambiguous territory (actually "L.E.F" must be played very loud, is extremely electro and is utterly ferocious but you get my point).

5. Junkie XL Today

The most common complaint about Tom "Junkie XL" Holkenborg is that he simply copies the style of others and he overcomes that here exploring a rock-ish style of trance that he has been developing as a remixer over the past few years on an album that also delivers strong straightforward vocal songs. Fortunately it's much better than it should be and far more complex than I can properly describe as the album conjures atmospheric post-punk like The Cure but in a more electronic way. "Today", "Youthful" and "Yesterdays" are as good as it gets from rock-friendly electronica.

There are other albums that could be contenders which haven't connected with me completely yet. Junior Boys So This Is Goodbye is a truly solid album and Hot Chip's The Warning has many fantastic tracks but I rarely find myself listening to them like I do with the albums that made the cut.

2006: Top Songs

1. Pet Shop Boys- Minimal (video)
2. Hot Chip- Over & Over (video)
3. Gnarls Barkley- Crazy (video)
4. Goldfrapp- Ride A White Horse (video)
5. The Killers- When You Were Young (video)
6. Junior Boys- In The Morning (mp3)
7. Massive Attack- Live With Me (video)
8. Tiga- (Far From) Home (mp3)
9. James Figurine- 55566688833 (mp3)
10. Justin Timberlake- SexyBack (video)

2006: Year End Survey

In a stunt never before attempted by me I will be summarizing the year that was 2006 in three convenient installments. First up is this lovely survey created from stolen questions.

Favorite Remix of The Year: Madonna- Sorry (PSB Maxi-Mix)
Favorite B-side: Camouflage- Conversation
Favorite Video: Hot Chip- Over & Over
Most Consistent Single/EP Package: Junior Boys- In The Morning
Favorite Song Title: The Coup- Baby Lets Have A Baby Before Bush Do Somethin' Crazy
Most Hated Song: Sandi Thom- I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)
Song That Most Sounds Like Bands Biggest Hit: Covenant- Pulse (An almost exact carbon copy of “Dead Stars” that uses the same chords, bass and melody with lyrics that also mention “stars“)
Most Played Song Released In 2006 Using Itunes: Dangerous Muse- Give Me Danger/Portishead- Requiem for Anna (8 plays each)
Program I Used Least Often To Actually Listen To Music: Itunes
Album that Should Have Been A Disaster But Wasn’t: Bananarama Drama
Least Surprising Album Not To Be Released In 2006 Despite It's Announcement: New Order’s 2006 album that they talked during promotion for Waiting For The Sirens Call
Most Bizarre Album Credit: Additional Vocal Production- Stuart Price (on Scissor Sisters Ta-Dah)
Most Regretted CD Purchase: Imogen Heap Speak For Yourself (Not for the music which is quite lovely. The cd is not supposed to be one of the sony rootkit discs but whatever it auto installed made my entire computer buggy for a week and permanently disabled my favorite program to rip and burn cds. Thanks sony!)
Favorite PopJustice Post: Debunking Banksy's lazy "art" stunt mocking Paris Hilton
Biggest Disappointment: Goldfrapp's absolute minimal promotion of Supernature in the US
Worst Music News: Tower Records closing

Trapped In The Past

Listmania is upon us as the year comes to a close and as the next few days should attest I am not immune from the fever sweeping across the entertainment press and blogs but I did stumble into a piece on Connect Savannah that makes an interesting point. Given the amazing amount of albums released in a year across a sea of genres each year top 10 lists function as a "media Rorschach test" so that "critic’s allegiances can truly be ascertained". The article's author demonstrates his point by taking apart a couple of bigger outlets lists noting that "the average age of the top three artists on Rolling Stone’s list is 48" which "doesn’t bode well for your openness to new and different sounds". In a year where blogs have come into their own and taken over the arena of championing new music you might wonder what the editorial staff at Rolling Stone was thinking. Perhaps they were too distracted getting down with the kids with their new mtv reality show to focus on music that reflects 2006. Regardless the hidden agenda behind some lists is something to keep in mind when you're skimming the many top 10 lists out there.

Flashback: Saint Etienne "I Was Born On Christmas Day" (1993)

A couple of albums into Saint Etienne's career they realized that "when you're in a pop group, you want to do a Christmas single, don't you?" which led to their Xmas 93 EP. The highlight is the duet with The Charlatan's Tim Burgess "I Was Born On Christmas Day" which is a danceable uptempo love song in the tradition of The Waitresses "Christmas Wrapping" that is much less interested in Christmas so the song can be enjoyed year round.
The video keeps things light with Sarah and Tim meeting up for the wedding suggested in the lyrics and getting down at a wedding reception in a low cost "discotek" decorated with a Christmas tree. Having gotten married around the holidays myself the Christmas tree in the video brings back fond memories of the tree at the corner of our reception that snuck into more than a few of the wedding photographs:



: Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley was born on Christmas day so do wish him a happy birthday if you happen to run into him somewhere on this side of the international date line. While the Xmas EP is long out of print "I Was Born On Christmas Day" can be found on the North American versions of Tiger Bay and on some of Saint Etienne's singles collections.

It Takes A Village

The original Cowboy from the Village People has a new solo album out which finds him covering Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and Robbie Williams among others. Most interesting is the cover of PSB's worst single ever (which just happens to be a Village People tribute) “New York City Boy” which is described as "in your face with the brash, hairy-chested treatment, complete with blazing NYC horns that the Pet Shop Boys version lacked." Preview the disc at cdbaby to get a feel for it.

Thanks to the PSB Fans myspace for the tip.

Video: Sharam "PATT"

Sharam is half of house heroes Deep Dish and his latest effort is an effective reworking of Eddie Murphy's classic "Party All Of Time". The video is a must watch so be sure to give it a look:



: Compare with the original Murphy video here and visit Sharam's myspace for more from him.

Free Download: The Knife- Christmas Reindeer

The season of giving is upon us and that hasn't escaped the notice of The Knife. For the rest of the month they are offering the song "Christmas Reindeer" for free on itunes and on their site. If a Christmas song coming from a group that has been exploring all sounds cold and creepy recently seems like an odd combination that is only because it is. They don't compromise their ideals at all avoiding the more accessible route and never loose their un-cheer which makes "Christmas Reindeer" all that much more unique for it.

Stream more from The Knife at their myspace.

Keep Your Eyes On The Real Killers

The Pet Shop Boys site just announced that the Boys are currently in the studio remixing The Killer's upcoming single "Read My Mind". This is the track on the generally rock Sam's Town that is the most likely to translate well into a PSB mix because it's heavy on the synth pads that Boys so often employ giving them a great starting point. Coming on the heels of the underrated "Bones" and their semi-charity Christmas single "Big Red Sled" this next single could be a turning point in The Killers career. Hopefully it inspires a return new wave on the next album.

Here is the video for "Big Red Sled" and if you haven't heard it yet (which as a blog reader and music fan reading a post about The Killers you probably have by this point) keep in mind that it is one of those songs that sounds like a complete mess the first five listens but grows on you after that:

Video: Client "Lights Go Out"

Client made an unexpected return in the US this week with the digital "Lights Go Out" single. Taken from their forthcoming 2007 album Heartland the track first appeared on the PopJustice CD to generally favorable reviews that often employ PopJustice-ish buzz words like "pop" and "amazing".

"Lights Go Out" is one of those woman-returning-to-a-former-lover-despite-knowing-she-will-end-up-hurt songs and has a great pop line offering to be "your guilty pleasure". Musically the song is sort of a mishmash of ideas that they have explored before borrowing the swinging beat of "Pornography" and the ominous string sound of "Radio" but without the clarity that defines that stronger material. Client have been working with Youth and Stephen Hague on the new album, but having bought the single from itunes there is no info attached to the music (note to itunes: if you're selling music downloads then have someone copy the liner notes because it's the right thing to do) but the song doesn't really have anything resembling the sonic signature of either producer.

The video captures the trio performing individually on rotating platforms with the added enhancement of some very cheap special effects that might have looked cool in a 60s tv show but are now standard issue extras in digital video editing programs. It's a no frills production that reflects the band's new diy status (more on that in a moment) that makes the cheap videos they made for mute look like epics. Sadly even no budget efforts from band's like Freezepop show more imagination while using the same effects.



: Client broke off their relationship with Toast Hawaii/Mute earlier this year citing a disinterest in the corporate nature of Mute as an arm of EMI and they are now planning to go it alone in their native UK and are working with various interested labels to spread their muisic across the world. Finding the single online was something of a shock because Client have been promoting their cover of Adam Ant's "Xerox Machine" (hear Ant's original here) as the album's first single and that has a February release scheduled on Metropolis Records in the US. Itunes lists this single being from the band's German distributor Out Of Line and Client's myspace and official news page has no information about "Lights Go Out". It's only a message buried on Client's forum that explains that the band aren't promoting the single because it's a Germany-exclusive release and that it is intended as Heartland's third single elsewhere. One almost gets the impression that Out Of Line overstepped their rights and that this single might be pulled from itunes rather quickly. This might be the stumbling baby steps of a self release strategy but someone got a Client single online and available as a download in the US. That's more than Mute pulled off in their two album's worth of releases with the band.

The Artists The American Recording Industry Deems Important Are...

The new Grammy nominations are out and while the awards have little to do with the actual artistic quality of the nominations (I know of people who work at major labels who were told to sing as part of a chorus to make them eligible to vote as artists thus getting around that whole "it's artists celebrating other artists" thing that gives the award some legitimacy) it's still interesting to see what gets nominated. Here are the categories I care about:

Best Dance Recording
(For solo, duo, group or collaborative performances. Vocal or Instrumental. Singles or tracks only.)

Suffer Well
Depeche Mode
Ben Hillier, producer; Steve Fitzmaurice & Ben Hillier, mixers
Track from: Playing The Angel
[Sire/Reprise/Mute]

Ooh La La
Goldfrapp
Goldfrapp, producers; Mark "Spike" Stent, mixer
Track from: Supernature
[Mute]

Get Together
Madonna
Madonna & Stuart Price, producers; Mark "Spike" Stent, mixer
Track from: Confessions On A Dance Floor
[Warner Bros.]

I'm With Stupid
Pet Shop Boys
Trevor Horn, producer; Robert Orton, mixer
Track from: Fundamental
[Rhino Entertainment]

Sexy Back
Justin Timberlake & Timbaland
Danja, Timbaland & Justin Timberlake, producers; Jimmy Douglass, mixer
[Jive Records/Zomba Label Group]



Best Electronic/Dance Album
(For vocal or instrumental albums. Albums only.)

Supernature
Goldfrapp
[Mute]

Confessions On A Dance Floor
Madonna
[Warner Bros.]

A Lively Mind
Oakenfold
[Maverick]

Fundamental
Pet Shop Boys
[Rhino Entertainment]

The Garden
Zero 7
[Atlantic]

Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical
(A Remixer's Award. (Artists names appear in parenthesis for identification.) Singles or Tracks only.)

Be Without You (Moto Blanco Vocal Mix)
Moto Blanco, remixer (Mary J. Blige)
[Geffen Records]

Damage Thorn (Buick Project Remix)
Buick Project, remixers (Tiefschwarz & Tracey Thorn)
[Fine/Four Music Productions]

Deja Vu (Freemasons Club Mix - No Rap)
Russell Small & James Wiltshire, remixers (Beyoncé)
[Columbia/Sony Urban Music]

Talk (Thin White Duke Mix)
Jacques Lu Cont, remixer (Coldplay)
Track from: Talk Remix EP
[Capitol Records]

World Hold On (E-Smoove Remix)
E-Smoove, remixer (Bob Sinclair)
[Ultra Records]

: All the songs nominated in the Best Dance Recording are great with the exception of PSB's "I'm With Stupid". Why they didn't release another song as the single is beyond me. The Best Electronic/Dance Album category has a more deserving PSB nod and the category has some good choices even if the Zero 7 and Oakenfold albums got no buzz at all after they were released. Perhaps I'll finally get around to listening to them. I haven't heard most of the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical although it is worth noting that Stuart Price's Coldplay mix could be seen as the front runner because remixes a rock "cover" of a Kraftwerk track and that E-Smoove's reputation in the industry must be alright despite his public legal issues with Kanye West. If you're interested in listening to the "Damage" mix it is currently up at Tracy Thorn's myspace along with a track from her forthcoming 2007 album (thanks xo!).

A quick summary of the rest of the nominations:

• Gnarls Barkley nominated for Record Of The Year & Album Of The Year.
• Imogen Heap's nominations as Best New Artist and for Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media (for "Can't Take It In" from The Chronicles Of Narnia — The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe).
• Ministry & NIN nominated in the metal & hard rock categories.
• The Killers scored a nomination for Best Rock Song & Short Form Video with "When You Were Young".
• Busta Rhymes Daft Punk-sampling "Touch It" is up for Best Rap Solo Performance.
• The 80's revival is spreading as Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie and Prince compete for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.
• "My Humps" was nominated for a Grammy. Shame they passed on "London Bridge".

Wrote This Post A Long Time Ago

I was going to post this back in September when this blurb was first published in the UK's Mirror but I never got around to it:

FIVE years and millions of pounds later Robbie Williams has admitted what we knew along - he'll never crack the US.

He will not be releasing his critically mauled forthcoming album, Rudebox, there. "They're not having it, I'm not releasing it there," he told Capital FM's Johnny Vaughan.

Robbie, 32, added: "The only way an album of mine is going to be in the States is if I leave it there or leave it in Tower Records. I'll go with a bunch and just leave them."

: The album is actually available online in the US making it much easier to nab the quite good PSB produced tracks, and the big download services gave Rudebox more attention than your average American would expect. Months later I still love the image of Robbie rushing into a closing Tower that has already been stripped of at least 90% of the big sellers with a pile of discs. That's his career in America in a nutshell.

Flashback: Chemical Brothers "It Began In Afrika" (2001)

First played live in late 2000 "It Began In Afrika" is the Chemical Brothers single that almost never was. A few months after the song's debut, but long before the Chems had a version they found satisfactory, they sent the song out in acetate form to a few select producer and dj friends for feedback but as they continued to tinker the track developed a life of it's own. Appearances in high profile mix sessions from their superstar dj friends created buzz for the track and several publications predicted it would be the "anthem of the summer" as far back as May of '01. Despite the praise it appeared that The Brothers couldn't bear to part with the track before it was fully realized and in the age of Napster it may have cost them. With no single in sight versions of the song and clones that sampled the title phrase flooded p2p networks by mid-summer as it became more than just an anthem but a product of the collective imagination of dance fans across the globe.

Why then was there a long wait? I believe it comes down to two factors. First off it is one of the most straightforward club tracks that The Chemicals had released as a single at that point. The song maintains the classic four-on-the-floor throughout and while it works the template fantastically there is nothing definitively "Chemical Brothers" about the track. The other factor is Norman Cook. The title sample and most likely some of the percussion are taken from proto-rap spoken word and soul artist Jim Ingram's "Drumbeat" but Norman Cook used them first in his 1988 one-off project The Urban All Stars on a track called "It Began In Africa". They were working with material their friend and competitor had already cheekily committed to a "dj and producers only" sample disc (track 30 if you're interested) so I suspect they wanted to be sure that when it was released every ounce of floor filling potential was maximized.

An official video for "It Began In Afrika" was never created and it came out nearly six months before their next album leaving the impression that they never really finished the song but it had just reached the point where it had to be released. It charted at the number 8 position on the UK singles charts which is respectable for a track that had the opportunity to tire potential buyers who had download options available for months in advance.

Also of note is the US release date on which other events of a much more important scale overshadow anything else about the song. Reminded of the release date I do think it was my intention to pick it up that day before I woke up to the worst news my generation has witnessed.

Listen to it by way of this unofficial video (actually The Chemical Brothers song over the visuals from a Cassius video):

Stream BBC Radio's "Back To The Future"

Electronically Yours notes that this week is "Back To The Future" week on BBC Radio 6 where they are celebrating the breakthrough of synth music into the British mainstream some twenty-five years ago. Over the course of the week they are featuring the remarkable documentary "The Great Bleep Forward", a countdown hosted by OMD's Andy McClusky of the top ten synth riffs of all time, interviews with Gary Numan, Hot Chip, John Foxx & Daniel Miller and they will be playing live sessions from Kraftwerk, Ladytron, and Depeche Mode. BBC Radio archives their broadcasts for one week so click here while you still have a chance to pick a session to give a listen so you can enjoy the synthetic goodness while it's there.

UPDATE:

Gary Numan's "Are Friends Electric?" came out as the Top Synth Riff Of All Time and Daft Punk's "Da Funk" was the only track dating later than the mid-80's to make the top ten. "Da Funk" would have been my pick if I had only remembered to vote...

Breaking And Entering With Underworld

Underworld make a return next week with the release of the soundtrack to Anthony Minghella's Breaking And Entering in which they collaborate with established film composer Gabriel Yared. A recent feature article in The Independent went deeper in their history than most articles noting that Karl Hyde spent some time as touring guitarist in Debbie Harry's band after Freur and that their post-rave rebirth came when:

Smith had been working from his bedroom on remnants of electronic equipment. And it taught the duo something useful. "You don't need much money to make work," says Smith. "In the Nineties, we made albums we were proud of in my spare bedroom on so-called crap equipment. It sounded good to us."

: The past couple of years has seen them focus on their RiverRun Project of download only releases available at UnderworldLive. Their motivation:

"We were touring, selling records, earning good money, having a nice time," says Hyde. "That is not a creatively stimulating environment to be in," he says. "We needed to get some uncertainty back into our lives."

"It's nerve-wracking when the culture around the selling of music is saying 'Hold it back, keep it secret and then unleash it'," says Smith.

"That implies it's all you've got, doesn't it?" Hyde says. "So that's it, is it? Everything's precious, and tight, and you're releasing stuff as if you'll never write anything again."

: Breaking...is just the tip of the iceberg for Underworld as they are working on another soundtrack for an epic sci-fi movie directed by Trainspotting's Danny Boyle, and they plan to release their next proper album sometime next year.

Stop by Underworld's myspace to listen to a couple of tracks from Breaking And Entering or dream of the next proper album with this video for Underworld's "Jumbo":

It Feels Good

One of the kids from Fall Out Boy, ooh felt a bit of my soul die just typing that, interviewed his "idol" and fellow hairstylist victim Robert Smith for this week's Entertainment Weekly. High points include the revelation that Smith initially had no Gothic pretensions preferring just to be in a pop group and that he has found after a tour "making a sandwich becomes really, really intense." Perhaps that is how he's acquired the nickname "Fat Bob" in recent years. Smith also confirms my theory that artists, in particular established ones, have no idea what their strengths are:

We did an album in '96 [Wild Mood Swings] and we had a song on there called ''Mint Car'' — it was the single, and I thought it was a better song than ''Friday.'' But it did absolutely nothing because we weren't the band at that time. The zeitgeist wasn't right. It taught me that sometimes there's a tipping point, and if you're the band, you're the band, even if you don't want to be, and there's nothing you can do about it.

: So "Mint Car" is a better song than "Friday I'm In Love". Let's take a listen to both:





: You tell me which song just sits there and which one brings a smile to your face. Obviously Smith has never thought much of "Friday" saying that it was "just a stupid pop song" when the single was released, but it is also a fun tune with some energy and clever lyrics behind it even if they are less than mind blowing in their depth. As I discussed with friends at the time "Mint Car" sounded like he was going back to rewrite the same song, or at least revisit the same "silly" vibe with a similar guitar riff, but it came across as a mix of trying too hard and just tired. It's almost as if he was saying if you thought that piece of crap was something than listen to what I can do when I try to make crap. If he wanted to play up better songwriting from when the "zeitgeist wasn't right" for The Cure he should be talking up The 13th. Now there's a song that is different and stays with you.

Wrote This Song A Long Time Ago

Just a little over ten years after his death Tupac has a new album out today. The phenomena of these posthumous Tupac albums has always amazed me and even more so now that this is his sixth studio album since his death equalling the number he recorded when he was alive. For proper perspective let's look at a sketch from the final aborted season of Chappelle's Show:



: Click here to listen to listen to Pac's Life for the rest of the week. It opens with gunshot samples.

Video: Johnny Cash "God's Gonna Cut You Down"

Earlier this year I posted about Johnny Cash's "God's Gonna Cut You Down" and now it has an official video jammed packed with celebrities from the worlds of music and Hollywood so you can forever associate the music of Cash with Justin Timberlake and Kid Rock:



: Cash's recording of the song was most likely inspired by Moby's "Run On" from his Play album which took samples from early folk field recordings so casting the video with the rich and famous adds another layer to a complex cycle of inspiration.

UPDATE: Apparently the video was Justin Timberlake's idea. He pitched the concept to Cash's producer Rick Rubin before American V was released. Also of note is the number of Rubin's clients like RHCP, Jay-Z, Bono and Dixie Chicks that feature in the video.

Depeche Mode's Strange Highs And Strange Lows

Depeche Mode's The Best Of Volume 1 hits the streets this week and like the infamous remix album from a couple of years ago it's available in three versions to keep DM fanatics on a diet of ramen and tap water to support their problem. The most prevalent criticism that the compilation has received is that it is pointless because they released their definitive singles collections two albums ago. It's hard to argue with that but in the band's defense it has been eight years since then and "Martyr" is available to download giving fans interested in the music rather than "collecting" an avenue to avoid shelling out too much money to get a taste of the collection's sole new track. I've given the album a listen and it is more of a success than I expected. Avoiding the chronological approach The Best Of works in the disc's favor avoiding the storyline of changing times and evolving sounds that unconsciously came across in The Singles instead finding common ground across the different eras of the Mode. A recent PopMatters article echoed a sentiment about Depeche having never released a bad album but The Best Of has enough sense to skim the generally dull Ultra and only include the one amazing track from the otherwise completely dreadful Exciter. Do I expect to buy it and own these songs for a second or third time? No. But it’s definitely recommended for casual fans who don’t feel the need to own all the albums. If you fall in that camp it is worth your time.

Perhaps if you read blogs you may have noticed that Depeche Mode won "Best Group" at the MTV Europe Music Awards a couple of weeks ago over competition from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Eye Peas, Keane and Pussycat Dolls. That inspired an interesting post by at Electronically Yours about the group's low profile in their native country despite their status as Britain’s most successful musical export. It's something to contemplate as you watch Fletch's brief acceptance speech here.

Click on the link to stream Depeche Mode The Best Of

Video: Faithless "Bombs"

Faithless return with a new album To All New Arrivals later this month (although there is no word yet on a US release) and the video for "Bombs" has been gaining praise across the internet. Continuing the anti-war sentiment first expressed in "Mass Destruction" a few years ago the video highlights the common humanity of mankind in an attempt to communicate the horrors and disruption of war by setting violent military action in the Western World where life remains largely unaffected despite the military actions enacted by our governments. The shot where a man sits watching the distant destruction on TV in the comfort of his living room as suddenly it bursts through into his living room is a particularly striking image.



: Stop by the Faithless myspace to listen to remixes and more from the band.

Fly Me Away

Ask Goldfrapp's fans in the US for their thoughts on Mute US and you tend to get some unpleasant sentiment. After all they failed to get the band out to properly tour the States and then let them get away with only doing a one-off gig opening for The Strokes and Kayne West in New York last month. So it is in the face of the album's buzz killing delayed US release and these touring issues that Mute US told Billboard this week, a mere 14 months after Supernature's international release, that they have a marketing plan:

"Our strategic goal [with "Supernature"] was to proactively expand the licensing support from the start, [using it] as traditional marketing plans use radio airplay to garner mainstream exposure," Mute director of marketing Nicole Blonder says.

Mute is also taking "Fly Me Away" to radio in different formats. "We have some programmers coming to the table," Blonder says, but adds, "we're on track to achieve our sales goals without major support from commercial radio"

: It's good to see they set "realistic" goals.

A Short Audio History Of Techno

Kings Of Techno is a double disc compilation of mixes from Carl Craig "one of the most important names in the Detroit second generation of techno producers" and French DJ/producer/label owner Laurent Garnier which taken together creates a history and explores the genesis of techno. Garnier's disc is titled "History Of Detroit" and he chose to start his mix with The Stooges very rock "No Fun" going on to drop tunes from Aretha Franklin, The Temptations and Funkadelic before finally settling into anything with a purely synthetic pallet and sequenced beats that define the genre. The unconvential approach does wonders at demonstrating a common thread across the Detroit music scenes with the propulsive beat of proto-punk, string laden grooves of Motown and the minimal psychedelic noise of P-Funk setting the stage from the emergence of techno as genre that explores the depths of all those ideas.
Carl Craig's disc is titled "Influences & Developments" and finds him looking primarily towards electronic music created in Europe while using a similar approach it takes Craig seven tracks before getting into music that is traditionally classified as part of the techno genre. Making a larger argument for trends and traditions in electronic music across the world the mix finds common ground in the new romantic, Italo, synthpop, and EBM scenes. The compilation is a great find for those puzzled by the genre, I'm looking at you American journalists that spent 3/4ths of the 90's writing endless about the need to use drugs to enjoy the music, because it provides a context for a genre that seems to appeared from nowhere.

Click here to stream the mixes for the next day or so.

Fundamental Issues

When Pet Shop Boys Fundamental was first released I linked to Tremble Clef's remarkable multi-part breakdown of the thematic lyrical and musical elements of the of the album. I have not seen anything else that reached that level of insight anywhere else so I was intrigued when I saw a wikipedia entry on "Numb" reference a review that contains similar ideas. The review was written by Anton Marshall and is published on 24.com, which a google search reveals as "the online arm of the South African newspaper group Naspers". The striking thing is how much of the review echoes one particular Tremble Clef post and you can't help but wonder why that is. Here is a collection of citations from the two articles and for the interest of clarity the 24.com review quotes will be in blue and those taken from Tremble Clef are in green. All italics are mine:

Pet Shop Boys have always delivered personal and social experience as a narrative to their material, but Fundamental is a more political album than usual thematically, discussing not just the typical "evils" of politics, but actually where politics pervade the personal.

It's not, to put it most bluntly, simply a record filled with platitudes how politicians are evil, or that we just need to get along. However, the politicization of the personal does occur in more intriguing ways across the album as a whole. Since the theme of
Fundamental, we keep getting told, is "politics today," we can't help but regard many of the other songs in that light, even when they don't appear immediately to be so.

Some obvious examples are "Indefinite Leave to Remain", which clearly reflects on immigration laws' prejudice towards gay partners; and "Psychological", which talks cleverly about a living in a society submerged in fear.

To begin with, much of the album's political targets are at least somewhat novel: an amazing song about ID cards ("Integral"), one about love and nationality, and specifically how immigration laws often disadvantage gay couples ("Indefinite Leave To Remain"), and most pervasively, about the culture of fear ("Luna Park," "Psychological").

Even a Diane Warren contribution, "Numb", can be heard as a comment on human reactions to the climate of terror-attacks and anxieties.

This happens most obviously with the dramatic orchestral ballad "Numb." Composed by Diane Warren (a revelation that I admit I was appalled by), the song first comes across as a straightforward song of heartbreak. (It would have seemed even more so had it appeared, as was the original plan, on PopArt.) But in the context of the new album, its opening lines -- "Don't wanna hear the news/What's going on, what's coming through/I don't wanna know" -- reminds us that it's now a song about the desire or even need to zombify oneself as a way of coping with a world gone mad.

: To paraphrase Kayne West, I'm not saying that Marshall is a plagiarist, but I don't see how this much similarity could be coincidence.

Obligatory Holiday Post

There was a time when I thought I would create a clever Halloween post with some appropriate music, but that's before I discovered blogs that have been doing that for a month and realized I don't have that kind of interest. Check out Dsico covering Ministry's Everyday Is Halloween and be sure to listen to my favorite Dead Or Alive track "Something In My House":

Stream Scissor Sisters Halloween Show

Scissor Sisters live show at Brixton Academy on Halloween will be webcast by way of anti-global warming site Global Cool. Here is the info:

To view the webcast simply sign in or sign up with www.global-cool.com before 10pm on Tuesday 31st October, which you can do from the link below.


Those who sign up will not only be able to view the Scissor Sisters’ once in a lifetime fancy dress performance, they will also be treated to unique backstage footage and an exclusive interview with the band.


All we ask in return is that you pledge to turn off your computer at the end of the night.

Free Download: Trentemøller- Always Something Better (Trentemøller Remix)

Trentemøller's Always Something Better (Trentemøller Remix) is a free discovery download this week in the US itunes music store and it's a fantastic piece of gothic electronica that reminds me of Underworld circa-Dubnobasswithmyheadman. Does the name sound familiar? Trentemøller remixed Pet Shop Boys, Röyksopp, Moby and The Knife in the past year and has a had a substantial run creating records for the 12" dj-only crowd. Skrufff recently interviewed him touching on his time teaching music at a kindergarten and getting a bit more in-depth about the motivation behind his album The Last Resort which was released earlier this month:

I’m not making music for DJs, this album was made from my heart, much more than my dance music. Because making dance music involves more workmanship in a way while this was much more personal to me, if people are disappointed, I don’t care.

: Be sure to snag "Always Something Better" while it's still free and check out Trentemøller's myspace to listen to more tracks.

Flashback: Sarah Cracknell "Anymore" (1996)

Sarah Cracknell, the sexy front woman for consistently brilliant Saint Etienne, put out a solo record Lipslide in the UK in 1997, only released in butchered form during 2000 in the US, which was an attempt to distance herself from her apparent "just a pretty face" reputation by proving her artistic and songwriting muscle outside the group. Ultimately the album flopped commercially despite a few fantastic songs on it. She had this to say about why:

I had a lot of trouble with the label I was on [Gut Records]. They weren't very nice to me. It wasn't a great relationship, between me and the label.
I think they were just trying to turn me into something and the thing was I don't think they ever listened to a Saint Etienne album, do you know what I mean? I didn't realize it at the time. It's one of the first thing you'd do, I would think.
So, it was a real struggle and I was very unhappy. I was very happy when the album was finished and I'm proud of it, but they then pretty much didn't put it out. They put it out just about. They didn't promote it at all or do anything.

: I think that's a fair assessment. I remember hearing that they deleted the second single "Goldie" for some odd reason and the maybe-it-exists-maybe-it-doesn't third single "Desert Baby" has the exact same sleeve as the "Anymore" single.

Speaking of "Anymore" I've become re-enamored with the song recently and have been listening to the single on repeat in the car recently. The most striking thing about this Stephen Hague produced the track is just how completely effortless it sounds. Purely electronic for most of the song it has a subtle build that goes from quiet digital pianos to Hague's trademark lush sound with a live Motown-esque horn section introduced in the last third of the song that is just the right thing to take the song to the next level at just the right moment. Even if pop perfection might be a bit of an overstatement it is a great song that deserved a better showing than peaking at number 39 on the UK singles chart. The video has Sarah doing a bit of acting as a pout-prone gas station attendant which doesn't work that well just like most other pop stars pretending to work at dull every-day jobs videos:




: According to some Sarah will next be heard covering Dusty Springfield's "I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten" with Marc Almond on his forthcoming 2007 album. Just don't look for any information on his site because it's the most paranoid promotional site that I've ever encountered where you can't copy-and-paste anything from the site and it's "news" section largely consists of denying rumors.

This Ain't No Disco

After over a year's worth of fuss New York's legendary club CBGB's finally shut down last week. Once the epicenter of the American punk movement the club became a something of a pop culture icon in it's own right after a number of bands playing there in the 70's like Blondie and The Ramones broke through into the mainstream and the venue got a shout-out in a Talking Heads song leading to a the omni-present CBGB OMFUG (it sounds dirty, but actually isn't) clothing that I see people wearing all the time even though I live on the other side of the country. Despite the past year's worth of obituaries and articles lecturing the fine points of the importance of the club Voltage noted that not everyone was sad to see it go or even had fond memories of the place. One generally positive reader response to the Village Voice article that Voltage references points out that "CBGBs in a way was a morgue and a tourist attraction. It became a parody of its former self" which is behind general tone of "good riddance" comments about the closing. Voltage picked a great quote from the negative ones, but I really fond of this response to the haters:

Don't be so negative. If you don't have something nice to say then don't say anything at all.

: How punk rock is that? Mom would be proud that someone is still giving that advice.

Good news CBGB fans, while the music has come to an end CBGB Fashions will remain open at it's current location until the end of the month so there is still time to buy some merch. Now that is the true spirit of punk.

For A Little While

Pet Shop Boys released “Numb” as a single this week and I’m still a bit ambivalent about the song. I like that it’s different than anything else they’ve done and that it has one of Neil Tennant’s most emotional vocal deliveries but it still doesn’t sit entirely right with me because Diane Warren’s fingerprints are still all over the song making it a little too much not PSB (yes I am aware that I like and dislike the song for the same reason, but that‘s why I‘m ambivalent you see). I’ve previously mentioned that I didn't want the song to be a single because it's edging out better songs that could have better demonstrated the albums strengths, but I have to admit that they did an amazing job creating a solid single package. I picked up the good stuff at 7digital so I can tell you that the two b-sides are utterly fantastic, visit The Zapping if you want proof, and the Ewan Pearson remix of “Psychological” finally makes the song soar in a way that was missing from the original and the Alter Ego mix on the bonus disc of Fundamental. Also of interest is the original PSB demo of “Numb” which clarifies Trevor Horn’s contribution as those futuristic chimes over the quiet moments and amping up the wall-of-sound orchestra. Then there is the creepy cover art with the Boys wearing Plague doctor masks that might be a commentary on our times.

There are two other PSB releases out this week: the two disc live album Concrete and the book chronicling the sleeve designs of the Boys work Catalogue. Both of those are on my maybe lists and if I see them for the right price I’ll pick them up but having listened to the BBC stream of the concert I didn’t find that much to get excited about. Maybe I’m not just a live album kind of guy.

Here is the offical video for "Numb" done in the style of early Soviet cinema. I wonder what gave the video directors that idea?

Numbers

LCD Soundsytem were pretty quiet about their new album 45:33 before today so it was a bit of a shock to see a myspace bulletin shouting about a "NEW LCD SOUNDSYSTEM OUT NOW! exclusively on iTunes" when I checked my account this morning. This single track release, with a running time that is the same as the RPM of 7" singles, is the second in the series of nike/itunes workout music releases that started over the summer with a mix from The Crystal Method. Pitchfork quote the press release with James Murphy explaining that he was approached by the shoe company:

to make a long piece of music built around an arc designed for running, appealed to me because it was so anathematic to what you're typically asked to do as an artist: make easily digestible lumps of music for albums, or the radio, or whatever. I'd been thinking of the records I love in which people made one 'song' that took up the entire LP, and realizing that releasing something like this would otherwise be a virtual impossibility for me, I became excited when the project came along.

: Does this making music on demand for corporate giants signal the end of the hipster DFA empire? I doubt it. They've already gotten over the whole almost worked with Britney Spears thing and once you've admitted to that how could you do wrong? The real question is if it's worth the price itunes is charging. I like LCD Soundsystem and their album was one of my most played last year, but $9.99 for one track that you can only hear a thirty second preview of...that's asking a bit much. Admittedly I'm very intrigued by those thirty seconds, and Riff Market was impressed enough to declare "these weird goofy product branding tie-ins, ARE the NEW ALBUM" (wonder why that LCD Soundsystem bulletin linked to that review) but I really like pop songs. Well, if not traditional "pop" all the time, at least something that knows when to finish. There have been exceptions like the extended version of Orbital's "The Box", but usually if a track lasts more than fifteen minutes I just can't get into it. The Orb's "Blue Room" has an hour long version that I've never made it through even though I love the radio edit, and "Video 5-8-6", New Order's original version of "Blue Monday", tops the twenty minute mark and never justifies that running time. So ten bucks sounds a bit pricey when we are talking about a track that "ends with eight minutes of ambient echoing". Here's LCD Soundsystem doing what they do best in a short-form on "Tribulations":

Hot Trend Alert: Live Looping

The question of authenticity has always been an issue with live performance from electronic musicians and it's been one of the biggest complaints of those who refuse to acknowledge the possibilities that technology provides. I recently noticed a number of videos that address this by demystifying the process and recreating the process by looping material live. Here are a few examples:

Kid Beyond hails from the hip hop side of things and this cover of Portishead's "Wandering Star" is fantastic as he creates a fairly dense soundscape only using his voice.


Venus Hum are all about synthpop and here they create the foundation for the song live and work from there.


I had previously mentioned her technique, which is what first brought this trend to my attention, but here is KT Tunstall doing her folk pop thing with a little help from a loop pedal.

You're Back Into The Bog

A recent Tremble Clef post asked if there are any successful Madonna covers and the one that immediately sprang to my mind was BiGod 20's take on "Like A Prayer". Originally appearing on the EBM band's third single "On The Run" it ultimately received more attention from college radio than the a-side or it's remixes in no small part because it transcends it's jokey premise which trades the relative polish of the original for a "scary" industrial sound complete with growling vocals. Do a technorati search and you'll find that it's still getting club play at gothic/industrial nights to this day.

There is more to BiGod 20 than a fun cover but their story is a perfect example of how to remain fairly obscure. Talla 2XLC (who had previously been involved with in even more obscure projects Moskwa TV and The Microchip League) met up with Jallokin in the late 80s and after a couple of primarily instrumental 12" singles they teamed up with Front 242's Jean Luc-DeMeyer to record their industrial classic "The Bog". The song was an international success and got them signed to Reprise who released the single stateside in 1990. The following year saw the release of the Dead Poets Society-sampling "Carpe Diem" but it wouldn't be until 1992 that they finally found permanent vocalist Zip Campisi and released their debut album Steel Works!. Obviously the two year gap between the "teaser" single and the album didn't help sales. Steel Works! also had some strange decisions like including the originally released in 1988 and very much sounding like it "America" while dropping "Carpe Diem" making it less of a great album and more of just a good one. The band's 1994 follow-up Supercute didn't really get much attention, in part because of changing trends in the industrial scene that found guitar-led material more in the mainstream and because the album's only single "One" just wasn't as catchy as their earlier material.

The band drifted apart but they remain active producing music. Jallokin has released material as recently as last year and Talla 2XLC is a working dj and produces more techno and trance flavored material like this 2002 Depeche Mode cover. Here's the video for "The Bog" which is fantastic simply because it helps us remember a time when black rain ponchos were a fashion statement:

Music From A Wider Angle

Cinematic electronica superstar's Hybrid have a new album out this week and I Choose Noise finds them balancing the dancefloor filling ways of their sophomore effort with the orchestral vision they prominently displayed on their debut. Well, I've never actually listened to all of either of Hybrid's two previous albums but I gather that is the story. It's just that despite the presence of New Order's Peter Hook on a few tracks of their second album and all the hype surrounding their first record which helped them land an opening spot for Moby when he first toured to support Play I've never felt any real passion for Hybrid's music. They seem to be the sort of folks I would like because they do things that interest me like record trance songs with orchestral accompaniment and drop Pet Shop Boys samples in their remixes (or at least in their remix of BT's "Never Gonna Come Back Down"), but their tracks consistently clock in around the eight minute mark and they never have kept my interest that long. Of course their crowning achievement to date has been getting "Finished Symphony" used as the music for the final segment of SSX, the game that "is still one of the prime reasons for owning a PS2". SSX is something I can get passionate about. Hybrid not so much.

Regardless I Choose Noise is a solid effort that overcomes the presence of Perry Farrell, who may or may not be attempting to channel Madonna at one point in his vocal appearance, so feel free to stream the album for the remainder of the week here and see if it sparks a more passionate response in you.


Sidenote: Two years later when Moby was still touring Play he had New Order and Outkast opening for him. What a difference bringing Gwen Stefani on for a guest vocal and a video appearance can make.

Still Alright Then

TrusttheDJ posted a news item about Luke Slater releasing a new EP this November. For those unfamiliar with Slater he's been around the underground techno scene for ages and his early work got him a shout out on Daft Punk's "Teachers" before he even released a proper album. Here's Skrufff's take from the article:

The new tracks feature guitars, electro sounds and Luke’s (somewhat scratchy) vocals on top and are distinctly more eclectic than the techno he’s usually associated with. In fact, as long as five years ago, he was actively distancing himself from the genre, telling Skrufff in 2001 ‘The whole discussion about techno is old news- I am a club DJ’ and in 2002 embraced proper songwriting with ex-Aloof singer Ricky Barrow on ‘Alright On Top’.

“I tend to go for themes that are more abstract whereas he’s more into straight talking. A few of the songs are about ‘leave me alone, I just can’t handle it anymore’, which is definitely a feeling that has cropped up on me,”

: I haven't been able to find any videos from Alright On Top, which is one of my favorite albums of the 00s, but it is a techno pop masterpiece well worth streaming via free services like Napster or Rhapsody. Here's the video for Slater's "Love" from 1997's Freek Funk.



Samples of the Head Converter EP can be found at his own label Mote-Evolver's site.