Waiting For The Sirens Response

Peter Hook did a lengthy chat on XFM this week covering the many projects of his lengthy career. Hadn't heard before that he wrote the melody for "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and that the song was written in about three hours but pretty much everything else about his past has been fairly well documented. On the news front his all bass playing project Freebass, which he has been talking up for the past four years, finally has a completed album in the mastering stage and he played a track from the project. "Stalingrad" is a reggae track that lacks a distinct vocal or anything to really latch on to. NewOrderOnline suggests fast forwarding the archive to 1:41:00 to hear the track but it doesn't sound like something that will make the album.
Most importantly Hooky revealed that he has been talking with Stephen, as Bernard is consumed with Bad Lieutenant, about releasing the half+ album they completed while recording Waiting For The Sirens Call. Is it too much to hope comes out within five years of it's originally announced 2006 release date?
Hooky's book (autobiography?) How Not To Run A Club is due in October so stop by his myspace for all the latest.

Flashback: DeeJay Punk-Roc "My Beatbox" (1998)

After an introduction borrowed from LL Cool J's "I'm Bad" warns all cars to be on the lookout for mean fellow with dimples carrying a beatbox we are launched into one the great jams of the big beat era. DeeJay Punk-Roc amps up the track with robo vocals and truly break dance worthy "Planet Rock"-style electro beats that drive the track to extremes. To this day I am puzzled as to why more people don't know about the song.
Maybe it is the video which is definitely of the time when all electronic music video were silly because Fatboy Slim had such crossover success with the intelligently silly "Praise You". This one doesn't quite cut it:



: DeeJay Punk-Roc's debut album ChickenEye, now out of print, contained a wider range of styles than "My Beatbox" suggests adding a heaver dose of the turntablism and old school hip hop. There was some controversy at the time in some of the UK press suggesting that Punk-Roc was just a Milli Vanilli-type front man for his co-producer Don Sergic, who has only a few credts to his name like his remix of Ill Disco's "Keep The Jam Going", never had substance behind them and were dismissed by Sergic. Stuart Price turned in an early and utterly fantastic remix of the track that didn't make the single, which did contain a Big Audio Dynamite mix, but can be found on the Respect Is Burning compilation.
DeeJay Punk-Roc released his follow up album Spoiling It For Everyone a couple years later to a quiet reception. After putting out a couple of mix discs Punk-Roc has all but disappeared. I hope we hear a comeback soon.

Coming And Going

Bernard Sumner recently announced that his new project Bad Lieutenant will release an album this fall telling the BBC "I'm very proud of it, it's a very good album. It's pretty guitary too because we've got three guitarists in the band." He also spoke a bit about New Order's breakup "we split into two factions, there's me Steve and Phil. The other is Peter Hook." Ouch. Also of interest is that he made the initial announcement via fansite NewOrderOnline which got no press attention for a couple of weeks. See my previous post on Bad Lieutenant for more info on the project.

Founding Freezepop member The Duke, aka Kasson Crooker, is leaving the group to concentrate on his day job at Harmonix. His departure doesn't come as a huge surprise given he stopped touring with the band last year for the same reason. What music Kasson has time to make will be released as Symbion Project, an alias he has used for more than a decade as his outlet for electronia. As for the remaining members of Freezepop they have promised that new music is on the way.

Video: Depeche Mode "Peace"

Revisiting the electronic sound of Some Great Reward is something that DM have never done before and it works exceptionally well on "Peace". The punctuated bass line, helium fueled leads, sparse arpeggios and even the string pad of doom that underscores a few lines all stir something deep within my soul that remind me why I became a Depeche fan. However I can't help but expect something more from the song. Perhaps it is just heightened expectations from listening to Violator recently, but there was a time when you could expect Martin Gore's songs to take you on a trip around the world and back developing organically in the course of four or so minutes which doesn't happen here. I have been trying to put my finger on exactly what draws me out of the song and while I have discovered that I am not a fan of the aimless organ part what is the deal breaker is the build up in the middle eight that leads to a cop-out fade out. It is like loading up the car for a road trip getting on the interstate and turning back around because you forgot where you were going. What does it say that this is definitely one of the two tracks that Sounds Of The Universe will be remembered for:



: The "Peace" single is out this week in most of the world although in the US the release seems to be limited to an addition to the content of the DM itunes pass. I'm sure depeche mode dot com has details buried somewhere on it.

Video: Felix Da Housecat "Kickdrum"

Near the beginning of the decade Felix Da Housecat had an amazing run of singles and remixes that tapered off with his album from a couple of years ago. Virgo Blaktro & The Movie Disco was only three tracks deep, one of those being a rewrite of a Stuart Price remix, with nothing that rivaled the heights of the material that made him an electroclash icon. Things might be turning around for Felix on his new single "Kickdrum" which finds him singing the praises of drum machines. It is loud, raw and could have been banged out with Reason in about 10 minutes but you leaves wanting more just like a teaser single should:



: July brings He Was King. Hopefully his old magic will be back. Felix Da Housecat's myspace is the place for more info.

Video: The Prodigy "The Warrior's Dance"

Prodigy's Invaders Must Die is a bit shy of standout tracks but their recent top 10 UK single "The Warrior's Dance" is definitely one of them. After the band's initial attempt at recording new material resulted in months of writers block things improved when Keith Flint challenged Liam Howlett to write something to be played live at last year's Gatecrasher festival. Howlett's retro track takes it's inspiration from two rave records released in 1989 with Final Cut's "Take Me Away" providing the vocals and a sample from Addis Posse's "Let The Warrior's Dance" helping the beat. The video is a self-aware edgy affair, they posted a preemptive notice of what to do when the video gets pulled from youtube, that features the band as literal firestarters, in the form of animated matchbook men, who controversially take on cigarettes:



: Visit Prodigy's site if the video does not work.

Video: Moby "Pale Horses"

Moby has been talking up the uncommercial nature of his upcoming album as he has been doing the press rounds. So far his singles choices bear that out. The vocals for "Pale Horses" were recorded in a completely unconventional way pointing to the words, which include the line "all my family died", to a friend singing the song for the first time. The effect is not unlike one of the quieter tracks on Play. The video is an sad little animated treatment of the song that brings Moby's alien sketches to life:



: The single release of "Pale Horses", due June 22nd, features remixes from Gui Boratto, Apparat and Jason Bentley. Wait For Me is out June 29th.

Video: Pet Shop Boys "Did You See Me Coming?"

The second single pulled from Yes is a rather nice example of PSB hitting their electropop stride with a generous touch of Johnny Marr guitar added to the mix. The single package should be amazing as it features three b-sides (one of which is the current Popjustice song of the day), Stuart Price's PSB Brit Award medley and a number of remixes including one from Richard X. However for the official video they take the performance video approach playing the song in front of the large video screen. Why shouldn't they remake the "Minimal" video a couple of years later and take out the interesting bits?:



: Actually there is a really great part where Neil works the jazz hands routine for a couple of seconds. "Did You See Me Coming?" is out June 1st (please release it digitally Astralwerks) and petshopboys.co.uk has all the info you need to keep track of the various formats.

Video: Rex The Dog "Bubblicious"

Rex The Dog might be stalking Vince Clarke. Rex developed his distinct sound after buying a Korg 700S because it was used on Depeche Mode's first album so one of his first moves was to turn in a storming remix of "Photographic" that was one of the few redeeming tracks on DM's cash grab Remixes 81-04. Rex's most recent video moves the timeline ahead a year or so later borrowing Alison Moyet's vocals from "Midnight", an album track on Yaz's (that's Yazoo to those outside of the US) debut Upstairs At Erics. "Bubblicious" is an exhilarating track that marries the essence of synthpop's age of innocence with the spirit of today's retro-flavored floor fillers. The video finds Yaz reconnected through the magic of stop motion cardboard albeit with Rex stepping in for the mysteriously absent Vince:



: I held off posting on this song for some months now because I had hoped to post news of Rex The Dog's album being released in the US. Unfortunately that still hasn't happened and nothing has been announced that suggests it will happen which is a terrible shame.

Techno From Unexpected Faces: UB40

Taking their name from a United Kingdom unemployment form UB40 were discovered by Chrissie Hynde who invited the politically minded reggae group to open for The Pretenders. Things really took off for the group in 1983 with the release their covers album Labour Of Love that featured their massively popular version of Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine" giving the band a formula for success. They would go on to have hit covers of "The Way You Do the Things You Do", "I Got You Babe" and "Kingston Town" before having one of the biggest hits of their career in 1993 covering Elvis Presley's "(I Can't Help) Falling in Love With You" for the Sliver soundtrack. The song reached number one in seven countries including the UK and the US but the single was backed with a song that revealed a more musically daring side to the group. While the instrumental “Jungle Love” has been referred to as “an oddball "dub" mash up” it actually is an early drum ’n’ bass track that boldly wears it’s jungle influence down to the pitched up mc vocal sample. 808 State had released a “vs.” remix of the band‘s 1981 single “One In Ten” just the year before and UB40’s sound at the time heavily incorporated electronics so it was not a totally unanticipated move but discarding vocals and traditional songwriting to throw themselves into the deep end of the then emerging jungle scene is quite an unexpected move from a group that so often plays things safe. Ultimately the track didn’t quite hold up at the time and in the years that have passed it sounds really quite confused as if they attempted to distill an entire genre into a single track. However they do get points for trying:

Video: The Crystal Method featuring Matisyahu "Drown In The Now"

In the last five years The Crystal Method created the first nike/itunes epic running routine download, mixed a compilation, built a studio, wrote a soundtrack and re-released their first album while fans waited for them to recorded a follow-up to 2003's Legion Of Boom. The wait is almost over as we have the fist single from Divided By Night in our figurative hands. "Drown In The Now" finds the duo courting the alt-rock audience, as they always have done, bringing Matisyahu in for vocal duties on a track that is less about raw beats than a fully formed song. Despite my reservations about the vocalist's popularity, that the only reggae hit on rock radio in the last decade is by an overtly religious white guy suggests novelty act to me, the track works well taking TCM in a direction they have not explored before:



: Divided By Night is out May 12. The Crystal Method will be touring in support of the new album and their myspace has details.

Video: Pet Shop Boys "Did You See Me Coming?"

Even international major label artists can create low quality fan music videos. Shot on the lot of a German film studio, perhaps while shooting the official video, the Pet Shop Boys tour manager filmed this with his camera phone. According to Neil "It seemed like a good idea at the time":



: The "Did You See Me Coming?" single is out June 1st featuring three new b-sides plus remixes including the Richard X take on penultimate Yes track "The Way It Used To Be". You will undoubtedly find the official video at the Pet Shop Boys youtube page when it is unveiled.

Neil Tennant Silenced

The forthcoming Chinese release of Pet Shop Boys Yes will feature an instrumental version of the album's closing track "Legacy" because the lyrical content offended government officials:

"Governments fall/Glaciers melt/Hurricanes bawl"; "Resentment remain/both east and west/Police expect/an arrest"; "They're raising an army/in the North/from York Minster/to the Firth of Forth/A pilgrimage of grace/you won't believe it/Such a human face..."

: While this is hardly incendiary material in the West this is right in the mode of the Chinese government's reaction to Bjork performing the "unapproved song" "Declare Independence" last year and I'm surprised I haven't found more in the press about it.

Super Synthpop Tuesday

Both Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode have new discs out today. Click on the links to stream both albums.

Video: Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Zero"

Better bloggers than me pointed this out months ago but Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Zero" is rather amazing. Their new album It's Blitz! finds the band adding electronics to the mix to great effect when paired with strong songwriting. The video finds Karen O out and about on the streets of San Francisco dancing on the roofs of cars in a neighborhood I've parked in before:



: The band, um, blitzed the late night circuit last week and left me wondering how such a moody group ended up with such a pleasant drummer. Listen to more Yeah Yeah Yeahs at their myspace.

Video: Moby "Shot In The Back Of The Head"

After a couple of months of hinting Moby made the official announcement about his next album Wait For Me today. Inspired by a David Lynch speech about creativity without concern of a commercial audience being a good thing Moby recorded the album in his home studio with a few friends as guest vocalists. I'm not expecting a pop record. The first single has a faintly disturbing video directed by David Lynch:



: Wait For Me is out June 30th.

UPDATE: "Shot In The Back Of The Head" is available as a free download at Moby.com.

Video: Freeland "Under Control"

Adam Freeland made some changes to his approach before embarking on his second album of original material Cope™ imbibing a shot of rock and roll to loosen up his decidedly club oriented roots. Despite the changes there is something incredibly familiar about the album's first single "Under Control" because the project's new singer Kurt Baumann channels LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy (who you may have heard is massively influenced by Mark E Smith) so precisely that it seriously distracts from the song. Like Freeland's previous hit "We Want Your Soul" the lyrics work on a political level this time taking on the war on terror as the powers that be tell us to "relax 'cause nothing is under control" but all I hear is "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House":


Freeland - Under Control - Official Video from Freeland on Vimeo.

: Freeland offer a free download of the song in remixed form at their site. Cope™ is due this June.

First Look: Bad Lieutenant "Sink Or Swim"

Last month Bernard Sumner did a lengthy sit down interview special for British television. Bernard Sumner Songbook is one of the best interviews I've ever seen with the legend as he opens up on his songwriting process and discusses the entire span of his career including how he & Hooky would fire early drummers with a box of chocolates to the demise of New Order being brought on by his love of electronics. Over the course of the special a song each from his major projects ("Love Will Tear Us Apart", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "Getting Away With It") was performed with acoustic accompaniment and they premiered a song from with his new project Bad Lieutenant. Here is the acoustic version of "Sink Or Swim":



: Bernard announced Bad Lieutenant at the Control premier a couple of years ago and it appears they have been logging some serious studio time. The group picks up where NO left off involving Stephen Morris and Phil Cunningham while adding Jake Evans, Matt Evans (Rambo And Leroy), Alex James (Blur) and Jack Mitchell (Haven) to the mix. No word if the project will release any of the songs written for New Order's never finished 2006 album that would have included their work with producers Brian Higgins and Tore Johansson.

Flashback: The Trip Hop Test, Part One (1995)

The very definition of trip hop was in flux when Moonshine Music released The Trip Hop Test, Part One in January of 1995. The term had already surfaced in the US characterizing the downtempo music coming across the pond from Bristol producers like Tricky and Massive Attack but those listening closer to the underground also described rave music influenced equally by hip hop and psychedelic music by the same name. Was it the same movement? The Trip Hop Test doesn't answer the question but instead presents evidence allowing the listener to decide. Compilations almost always take related tracks to make a statement on a scene or time so taking the risk to ask questions about a scene is one of the most endearing things about the collection. Impressively the disc also manages to catch many of the major players of electronic music before they came to prominence in the later half of decade. Here is the track listing and some thoughts:

Saint Etienne "Filthy"
Originally the b-side to "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" the oldest track on the collection dates from the Saint Etienne's early days when they only had guest vocalists here featuring British rapper Q-Tee who was only 15 when she recorded the track.  The song was later remixed by Monkey Mafia and included on the band's Casino Classics remix collection.
The Dust Brothers "My Mercury Mouth"

Actually a track from The Chemical Brothers taken from the last EP they released as The Dust Brothers before going chemical for legal reasons.  The reason to buy the disc since the track is closer to delicate ambient techno than anything Brothers have released since becoming album artists.
Step Disk "Boing Dragon" 

The disc's first misstep from a group that faded away shortly after releasing this.  Notably "loose" production emphasising samples demonstrate the sound of the time but it is extremely repetitive.
Skylab "Sea Shell" 

This was a massive track on college radio at the time that introduces an unusual laidback beat to an ambient template. This group effort is the first time future Bjork and U2 producer Howie B appeared on my radar.
Paul Weller "Wild Wood (Portishead Mix)"

Who would have guessed the sole representation of the Bristol sound would come from The Modfather?  Portishead weave their Dummy-era sound around the original song's structure incorporating the best of both worlds.  A must for Portishead fans.

The Aloof "Society"

This group is probably better known for their work in other projects which include The Sabres Of Paradise, Red Snapper and the vocals to Luke Slater's 2002 electropop masterpiece Alright On Top.  This track is a bit shouty and has sirens but fails to effectively convey the talent involved.

Tranquility Bass "They Come In Peace"

More music branching out of ambient adding hip hop beats to the mix.  While they would go on to release higher profile albums this is as good as Tranquility Bass ever got.
The Crystal Method "Dubeliscious Groove"

American electronica's great hope turn in an early ambient techno track that sounds unfinished.  Try the far superior Fly Spanish Version from the Keep Hope Alive EP for something that will stick to your brain. 

Single Cell Orchestra "Transmit Liberation"

Another college radio hit here from San Francisco artist Miguel Fierro.  One of my favorite ambient techno tracks of all time.
Lemon Interupt "Minneapolis"

When Karl Hyde and Rick Smith left behind the gothic gloom of their first Underworld outing they added Darren Emerson and gained some techno edge but chose to release their initial offerings, and production on Saint Etienne's Tiger Bay, under the name Lemon Interupt.  This b-side to "Dirty" shows them working their new sound out even if it falls short of essential.

Tales from the Woodshed "Brainclog"

Proto-big beat from a duo that would shorten their name to The Woodshed before disappearing a few short years later.  

:  Moonshine Music would go on to release another two volumes of The Trip Hop Test before branching off into other ventures but they deserve credit for taking a snapshot of electronic music at the crossroads and not giving us the answer key.

Hot Cover Alert: Faith No More "Glory Box"

Sometime before going on hiatus the best hard rock band of the 90s Faith No More played a version of Portishead's "Glory Box" live. It's pretty fantastic: