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Saint Etienne - Relocate
Pop sensibly
It must be about 15 years since I first heard Saint Etienne's Only Love Can Break Your Heart and felt it was one of lifes lyrical truisms. Later records such as Nothing Can Stop Us Now also reflected on that feeling of 'this is my life right now'. I forgot about them in about 1993 as Foxbase Alpha vanished from my collection.
Then five years later I was working on Creation Record's website and I ended up in posession of a large amount of their back catalogue and started listening to it again. It felt more like background music then, music that didn't cause offence but also felt good. The records got filed into my collection and left for a while.
Then Angie started playing them. I remember the songs, but not really the lyrics. When I noticed they were going to play at the Barbican's Only Connect series this year I thought I'd buy tickets for Angie and I to go along. I was interested more in the Film they were presenting, about London's Lea Valley, and new Angie would enjoy the music.
The week before I though "I wonder what they've been doing lately", so bought their latest album Tales From Turnpike House and gave it a few listens. What struck me most wasn't the music, which is as pleasant and un-intrusive as always, but the lyrics. Or rather the lyrical content. It seems that Saint Etienne has grown up with me.
The concert was, as you'd imagine, full of 30 something Guardian readers. I was one of them. Their film, "What did you do today Mervyn Day?" was great. It was interesting, beautiful, emotional and inspiring. It was story and documentary. See it if you get a chance.
Which is what this song is.
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Afrirampo - Love You
Japanese Mutant Rock
Afrirampo are Oni on vocals and guitar and Pikacyu on vocals and drums. The hail from the same scene in Osaka that brought us The Acid Mothers Temple Collective and Boredoms. This track is from a re-issue of
A' their first release on the Acid Mothers Temple label.The girls play their instruments with almost animalistic tendencies, pure power and passion coming from them into their instruments and out into their songs. There also is a slight feeling of Japanese humour in it, deep down, but maybe it's only me that get's that.
The recently release another fantastic album, Korega Mayaku Da on the wonderful Tzadik label.
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Alice Coltrane - Journey In Satchidananda
Love at first note...
I can't help feeling my spirits life every time I head the begining of this track. The pace, warmth and depth of the Double Bass just make me know I'm going to spend the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds in rapture.
This one goes out to my friend and musical mentor of 15 years, Mr H., who's birthday it is today, and who first played me this track.
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Duke Garwood - Sweet Back
Blues to make John Lee Hooker proud.
Just listen to this track. The sound and the voice really open up a feeling of the blues, the history of it. You wouldn't think it was recorded in Brixton, London in 2004.
I got this 7" from Loog Records after having seen Duke Garwood perform as part of the Little Wet Horse Orchestra earlier this year. I'd gone to see Sir Richard Bishop, and whilst left dry by his performance - he's a great guitarist but it didn't work in a Hoxton basement bar - the support acts.
The next day I tried to buy some work by the artists. It seemed that Little Wet Horse Orchestra had never recorded anything, but searching around led me to Duke Garwood, so I got this 7".
When it turned up I played the A side over and over again all evening.
Duke Garwood has an album out, came out in September apparently, it's called Holy Week. I've not heard it yet, but I'm eagerly anticipating it, and hoping it's as good as this single.
One of the weird things about digitising this 7" was noticing on the back that it was produced by Pete Lazonby. Pete is the brother of Andrew 'Plug' Lazonby, Mr President at Hostess Entertainment Unlimited, who are my partners in Digital Convenience. Pete's first record, 'Sacred Cycles' was a regular in my DJ sets 12 years ago. It's a bit different to this.
The other group that played that night were called aUm sahib. I ordered some releases from Perhaps Transparent but they never arrived, and PT have as yet not responded to any of my emails regarding the order. -10 for customer service. update:.. I emailed them today and apparently my original emails never got to them and they are going to reship. methinks it's the hotmail.com email address.
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Pest - Ogres
So hi-tech you can download beef.
This is a release from the lovely people at Ninja Tune. Taken from Pest's second album All Out Fall Out
It ticks a lot of boxes in a genre I'd become quite bored of due the rise of too much gangsta rap and r&b which seems to be going nowhere...
This one's got clever lyrics well delivered, good beats, use of a phat Drum & Bass style bass line and nice orchestral samples making it distinctive - whilst still using those distinctive post processed , and a bunch of film samples dropped in the break for good measure. It's format is actually quite cliche, but it's put to gether so well.
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Circle Jerks - Junk Mail
An introduction to a new series
I decided to start an 'mp3 blog'... except I had a problem... I tend to rip my CD's in as AAC so I'm going to have to convert the files from AAC to MP3 for the ease of listening. I sussed that - open m4a into quicktime player pro, export sound to wav, then change wav to mp3 (using -aps, obviously) in lamebrain... Ok it's a bit lossy but it saves me getting off my lazy ass and finding the CD to re-rip from.
So now I have MP3's to upload. Once up I'll leave files for one week before they are removed, leaving nothing but a gaping hole of silence. Listen to 'em while they are hot.
If you like the music please buy it, if you don't please don't save it. Good musicians are worth supporting, and the majority of them aren't living it up with millions of pounds to their names; especially a number of the one's I'll be putting up tracks by. Wherever possible I'll provide links where you can buy a release by the featured artist.
If you are an artist or label who want's a track removed, just ask... sorry for liking your music.
Sometimes I may have something to say on a track, or an anecdotal story, or a little rant... sometimes I won't. I don't promise any amount of factuality or relevance in what I say... like most of the Interweb. What I'm listening to will probably affect what's put up. I might use the space to plug the work of friends and family.
In terms of a musical theme... there is none. You'll see.
So, without further ado, first up is Junk Mail by Circle Jerks. I don't really know much about the Circle Jerks, just stumbled across a couple of tracks on the soundtrack to Repo Man, and so bought Golden Shower of Hits, a Circle Jerks greatest hists compilation... that this is taken from.
Why start with this? Well, 'cos as any regular reader will know I have a lot of problems with mail, especially CDs and records not arriving, and also as a sysadmin I get, and deal with, a lot of spam. This is an ironic salute to a piece of non-junk mail that actually got to me.
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