Taking Sides: New Order v. Joy Division: "Speaking in terms of wine and grapes. It is concentration vs. dilution.

Joy Division is a very concentrated almost black wine smelling black currants and pressed from around 40-50 very ripe grapes (songs) of an amazing quality which have been hand-picked. New Order is like a light sparkling wine made of much more grapes (100+) with most of them still unripe. A few are very sweet nevertheless. The bouquet is full of lemons. Especially the electronic production methods do not add to the longevity of this wine. In short New Order's music is more fun but short-lived whereas Joy Division is stronger and for the cave. You won't regret tasting either of these wines. Both should be consumed in moderation.

Some more thoughts on JD/NO in a recent post tomy music blog. -- alex in mainhattan (alex63@***.com), October 17th, 2001 12:00 AM. (link)"

It must be winter in Brazil now though it's probably not too cold on the Copacabana. In Germany summer seems to have arrived to stay for a couple of days and it's time for a caipirinha and some relaxed music from the other side of the equator.

For a start there is the stunningly beautiful Cibelle from Sao Paulo who released a bossanova album with an electronic touch and a lounge jazz atmosphere last year (npr audio review). Christopher from The Suburbs Are Killing Us offered two mp3s on the 26th July. On Waiting her voice is even sexier than in the Portuguese songs. The track uses noises of beeping cash-registers in the middle.

Another release covering similar ground is by Nouvelle Vague (=new wave), a French project taking new wave and punk classics and performing them in bossa nova (=new wave) style. The additional charm is coming from the fact that the female singers (most of them being French) did not know about the originals before the recording. Copy, right? has the Dead Kennedys cover Too Drunk to Fuck online today. One of the more upbeat songs (with laughing and screaming) of the album.

Dialogue: Elle: <> Il: <<Si. Si. Si.>> Chanson Elle: <>

My favourite is the light version of the dark wave classic A Forest by The Cure. There are tropical birds singing in this forest full of sunshine. It's a rain forest on the beach with African percussions. Never have The Cure sounded so uplifting and easy going. God I need a Blue Lagoon right now.

were one of the ground breaking electronic bands from Germany at the beginning of the 70s. Other notable teutonic groups from this time are Neu!, Faust and Tangerine Dream (please forget the mostly awful Kraftwerk). As TD Cluster came from Berlin: graphics student and barkeeper Dieter Moebius and musical autodidact Hans-Joachim Roedelius who had been in the East German army NVA and had deserted from it. Their music was instrumental, kind of meditative or cosmic, foreshadowing Eno's ambient music with early synthesizers. I assembled a couple of tracks I found on WFMU with the correct real audio entry points. Here they are (release years, album titles and lengths in brackets):

• Side B, Tk 1 (1971; Cluster 71; 21:17; unfortunately fades into Shamen's despicable Move Any Mountain after 13')
• Plas (1972; Cluster II; 6:17)
• Im Süden (Cluster II; 12:53)
• Live in Der Fabrik (Cluster II; 14:45)
• Umleitung (1976; Sowiesoso; 3:25)
• Zum Wohl (Sowiesoso; 6:50)
• Tzima N'Arki (with Brian Eno; 1977/78: Old Land)
• Oh Odessa (Curiosum; 1981; 3:28)

Further reading:

• CLUSTER: I have fallen in love with this band, please help
• the turntable: "The Blindingly Simple Genius of Cluster"
• Roedelius
• Hans Joachim Roedelius - Official Homepage
• Hans-Joachim Roedelius interview with psf 97
• Krautrock II Companion - Cluster album guide with samples, covers and succinct reviews
• German Rock Lexikon - Musikerverzeichnis Roedelius interview 2002 in German
• Cluster - Hans-Joachim Roedelius - Dieter Moebius - Conny Plank band history in French
• D>Elektro - PROTAGONISTEN - short history of Cluster - by Russ Curry
• Cluster on MP3.com
• Michael Rother
• Krautrock Side-Projects

Excellent mp3 blog focussing on indie rock: Spoilt Victorian Child (discovered via the mp3 blog aggregator). Recent offerings included a rare early version of New Order's Ceremony, tracks by Jesus & Mary Chain, Pavement, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Creation, Slowdive and the Talking Heads.

Heike kannte ich nicht. Ihr Blog habe ich immer nur so überflogen. Sie war Journalistin; ich glaube schon länger arbeitslos. Sie ist am 13. Juli vom Hochhaus gesprungen (s.a. hier). 37 Jahre alt.

Einer meiner besten Freunde in Luxemburg ist im Frühling 1997 an einem Freitag nachmittag dort vom Euratom-Gebäude gesprungen. Das hat mich so schockiert, dass ich Luxemburg nach 7 Jahren verlassen habe. Die Vibes waren zu schlecht dort. Da wo ich jetzt bin, sind sie auch nicht besser. Diesmal weiß ich aber absolut nicht wohin.

P.S. Peter Praschl schreibt über seine Geschichte mit ihr. Eine Art einseitige Liebesgeschichte.

Worüber man (mit niemandem) sprechen kann, darüber muss man (zu vielen) bloggen.

"I was down in Dixie Land, played a silver fiddle. Played it loud and then the man broke it down the middle. "

[Neil Young - See the Sky About to Rain (mp3)]

At the end the pedal steel guitar, Neil's humming and mouth harp play are the sweetest good-bye of any song ever. My heart is broken by the sadness and welded together by the consolation at the same time. A part of life has ended and a new one has begun. The rain can wash away the past now.

Die Zeit - Homepage: "Preisbloggen Bester Blog "

Mann. Zeit. Ihr loser. Es heißt DAS blog. Warum? Weil Google sagt 35.100 : 11.300. Und Google hat immer recht. Zumindest was DAS web angeht. Und semantisch ist ein log ein Protokoll. Und das ist nun mal ur-sächlich. ok?

The wonderful music blog one faint deluded smile with some info on a new Fripp/Eno collab called The Equatorial Stars (with two 45s samples). The cover alone (a star map) makes me want to have this RIGHT NOW! Apparently it is a pretty calm affair without much happening. Exactly what I have been mainly looking for in music recently.