[music, songs] January 30, 2006 at 8:51:00 PM CET

Lansing-Dreiden - Glass Corridor (from The Incomplete Triangle)

Synth heaven. First the bell-like keyboards, then the killer bass line and finally those yearning washes. Are we back in the 1st half of the 80s or what? New Order without their dark past which always comes through in Barney's sad seemingly uninvolved singing. Propulsive dance pop with a depth somehow. These mysterious fellows don't sound of our time. This is how I like my retro. Not emulating but reincarnating and reinventing. Sounding like a forgotten classic of new wave. Turning back the merciless wheel of time. They are from Miami by the way and have moved to New York City. They have preserved some glistening sun in this night club tune.

 
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[music, songs] January 30, 2006 at 8:07:00 PM CET

The Charlottes - Could There Ever Be (from liar - the best of the charlottes)

This was released first in April 1990 when shoegazing got going in Britain. A style I have a soft spot for as it was dominating when I got into indie rock. Combine Lush's ethereal female vocals with My Bloody Valentine's wall of noisy guitar sound and Ride's melodicity plus a grain of the Pale Saints unworldliness and you come close to this.

Definitely a lost classic of shoegazing, dream pop, drone pop or however you want to call this music which gives a counterpoint to the grinding mill of everyday routine. I still like it, I still get immersed into it. Something I cannot say about most current music. Is it only because of the recognition factor? Maybe it is the simplicity I love most about it. It was new in 1990 and there seems to be nothing new now. And the newness has survived, shoegazing was one of the last styles in rock music which did it for me. If I wasn't such a late bloomer it would have been punk or post punk I suppose.

 
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[music, songs] January 20, 2006 at 8:09:00 PM CET

False expectations

Lemonheads - Bit Part from It's a Shame about Ray

I heard this on the way to work this morning on Radio X, the local non-commercial private radio station. When Juliana Hatfield started the song by shouting

with her girlish voice and then screamed it again word by word

stressing the last word life with a yell, I was close to tears. A bit part of my life came back to me at that moment. The seven years in Luxembourg from 1990 to 1997. All those foreign languages, all those young people, all the parties, all the trips, and finally the awareness that it is a distant past which hasn't got any connection to my current life. Everything seemed possible then. Too much for me before 9 o'clock in the morning.

I have to admit that I always distorted the lyrics to big part in your life though they are pronounced clearer than clear. Before the song started I heard it in my head after Hatfield's introductory words. The speed, the melancholy, the HOOK. The power which turns into pure tenderness when Dando starts singing. I can't think of any other song which can change my mood so drastically in 111 seconds. It's a life-affirming song. A song about the energy you have when you are young. Kicking ass as hell. Looking at the lyrics now with the protagonist developing from walk-on to cameo to stand-in I get the impression he is talking of a seemingly innocent encounter with the opposite sex which turns into a one night stand without obligations:

It would fit Evan Dando, the most handsome young man in the world in the early nineties who plunged into drugs and reemerged (he is touring now). In any case it is the best song they have ever done. The one song you can melt down their œuvre to.

 
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[music, songs] January 18, 2006 at 7:49:00 PM CET

Brad Mehldau Trio - Exit Music (for a film) live (from Art of the Trio, Vol. 4)

When being in the South of France between the years (that's a German expression, no clue if it makes sense in English) I listened to some of the 4,000 or so songs on my full mp3 jukebox on shuffle in order to gain some hard disk space. I wasn't very successful though there were very few revelations (my jukebox is full of stuff I have never listened to). I could only delete between 0.5 and 1 Gigabyte of stuff. My evaluation of many tracks had to be postponed as I wasn't sure if I wouldn't maybe warm up to them one day. This song was one of the maybe ten tracks which grabbed me so much that I had to listen to it over and over again.

At first I thought I know this, isn't it Keith Jarrett doing an unknown Nick Drake song on piano? After a while I realised that this must be a composition by Radiohead. The motiv has got that unique sad and lost Thom Yorke feel to it. I must admit that I hadn't heard the original as I never bought the hype over OK Computer and I still don't buy it after having listened to the album afterwards. The song was used at the end of the Romeo and Juliet movie with Di Caprio from 1996. Which I didn't see and don't intend to see.

Anyways Brad Mehldau transforms this song into jazz in a way that it is almost something completely new. Obviously Thom Yorke's irritating and intimidating voice isn't there. Everything is much subtler here. The melody is understated, the tickling cymbals kick in after half a minute, the even more restrained bass comes in after a minute. And then there is a groove which isn't there on the original. The melancholy makes place for a playful joyfulness which then turns into improvisational jazz. Mehldau is breathing life into a body which is closer to death than to life. Thank you Thom and Brad, what a heavenly meeting of rock and jazz. Amazing how classic some of the Radiohead tunes are. I think Mehldau also does a version of Knives Out on his latest album. I am intrigued to say the least.

By the way the version of Christopher O'Riley is too slow (if you heard this one first) and sticking too close to the original if you ask me. And the other shorter version by Mehldau on Art of the Trio, Vol. 3 which I purchased erroneously (Vol. 4 is on the way) is a preliminary work which just prepared us for this ingenious definite version.

 
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[music, songs] January 11, 2006 at 7:01:00 PM CET

American Analog Set - Million Young (from Know by Heart)

You can choose the word linking to my last post. Analog or trance? Or both? When I think of AAS I think of this song. Mellow and catchy, with this fuzzy warmth which can almost save the life of a manic depressive like me. Early Stereolab made music with similar repetitive hooks but their sound was more indifferent. Maybe because Andrew Kenny's soft voice has this tender human touch which Laetitia Sadier's sexy, slightly bored voice just can't provide? Not sure about that but there is more happening here than in an average Stereolab loop song. It's propelling forward though on a relatively slow space. There is the word love written all over this song. And this band. An evolving love. I could listen to this on repeat forever.

 
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[music, songs] January 10, 2006 at 11:09:00 PM CET

Aphex Twin - Didgeridoo

The encounter of electronic dance rhythms with one of the oldest and most organic instruments, the didgeridoo which is made out of a tree branch hollowed out by termites was certainly one of the more surprising fusions in recent popular music. The Cornish analog synthesizer nerd Richard D. James aka Aphex Twin who (surprise surprise) apparently does not have a working website seems to have been the first who made this kind of electronic world music on his first major EP. The didgeridoo which usually has an enduring vibrating droning sound as the player uses circular breathing has been speeded up to create a beat which seems to come out of the oral cavity quite similar to a jew's harp. The dance rhythm originates in the mouth and radiates towards the head. It is like a synthetic trance. Maybe that's why this kind of music has been called acid (techno). There are also some ambient noises (electronic crickets, birds etc.) around which give this an even more authentic touch. When harder and faster beats arrive in the second half we definitely have moved far away from any songlines though. Back from dreamtime into the fast, short-lived brutal present so to speak.

 
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[music, songs] January 9, 2006 at 9:13:00 PM CET

The Sugargliders - Will We Ever Learn? (from We're All Trying to Get There)

The Sugargliders were a band from Melbourne who released a couple of singles on Sarah, the UK label which incarnated the genre label twee pop in the early nineties. As I just found out they turned into The Steinbecks (which are still going) after The Sugargliders' demise in 1994.

This song is a breezy jangle guitar pop affair which to me seems a fitting way to start a new year of music blogging. A slow understated beginning then a guitar break with the melody, straight emotional lyrics, an acceleration of pace, a backpedalling, a return to the tune and then suddenly it's all over. Much too soon of course.

There is something naive and light about this music. As if it would be possible to start from scratch again. The point where hope and melancholy meet. Where a new life begins.

 
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[music, songs] December 19, 2005 at 7:46:00 PM CET

Gonzalez - Manifesto

Gonzalez is Jason Beck, a Canadian who has been living in Berlin for the last five years and moved to Paris recently. I don't know any of his previous records but they must have been quite different (to put it mildly) from 2004's Solo Piano where this comes from. This is to electro-rap what zen meditation is to the war in Iraq.

On his solo piano record Gonzalez conjures up Robert Schumann's romantic Kinderszenen, Frédéric Chopin's atmospheric Nocturnes, Erik Satie's feathery Gymnopédies and Pascal Comelade's toy piano pieces from September Song (with Robert Wyatt's unworldly voice). Ravel as well I suppose but I don't know any of his piano works by name.

Manifesto, the second track on the album reminds me most of Keith Jarrett's solo adventures on the piano though. You can hear someone taking off for the sky here. A lyrical, impressionist, wistful piece which is just perfect for the winter landscape around me right now. Majestic and holy. No colours, just black and white keys.

Further info on the album:

• French article from Radio France Internationale translated into English
• German article

 
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[music, songs] December 17, 2005 at 11:07:00 PM CET

Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil - Haiti (from Tropicalia 2)

A song about racism in Haiti. About mostly black soldiers beating up black slackers and almost white ones so poor they are almost black.

Caetano Veloso raps but it doesn't sound like aggressive North American rap at all. It's slower, smoother, more human. It swings and has sex appeal. Revolution the Brazilian way. Naive, I know. The deep-resonating bass. The martial marching rhythms apparently provided by a drum computer which I don't recognise as such. And then the song changes into its longing falsetto refrain. Gets even mellower. That's really quite unbelievable.

 
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[music, songs] December 16, 2005 at 11:14:00 PM CET

And now for something different

the Jesus Lizard - Monkey Trick (from Goat)

Hungover from a party at work which finished in the pub. Just me and a colleague who is into heavy metal. He always tries to convince me (or maybe himself?) how technically proficient musicians playing in metal bands are. How close metal is to classical music. But he knows that it is totally useless. As I cannot overcome my gut feeling that metal is dumb as it all sounds the same to me. And I have the feeling there is no point yet in trying to open him up for different styles of music. We have been exchanging a fair amount of CDs, the only one of his I kind of liked was by Kyuss, a stoner rock band from California. I recently gave him Goat and he told me that the first couple of songs were ok but then it got dull and uninspired. And that they are not very good at their instruments. I felt a little offended though he is probably right. He has been playing guitar for twenty years and should know. But to be honest I have never cared for virtuosity.

It was interesting what he told me after. Up till now he hadn't given me any of his most beloved CDs as he was afraid I would say that I didn't like them and that they were nothing special. To be honest I didn't give him the music I love most neither. He always tried to give me stuff he thought I could like, stuff not too far from rock and I did the same by trying to find the albums which seemed closest to metal in my collection.

Anyways the song I uploaded tonight is not metal at all. It is visceral, intense and very powerful. The lizard who walks the water made music which could be called psychcore. David Yow, the singer who allegorically true to the band name used to surf the crowds during concerts without stopping singing, lets loose a screech after one minute into the song which is like a cry releasing the bad spirits slumbering in his soul. I love that outburst of energy. During most of the song there is a slow heavy bass riff which is then counterpointed by the slightly warped and fuzzed-out guitar. It's all pretty oppressive but addictive as well. Steve Albini produced this dark raw gem in 1991 and I could imagine it being played by the devil in a hell which would be a cage in a cave.

 
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