Herbie Hancock Jamz

Doin' It - Herbie Hancock (1976)

Once you get past the fact that these tracks ain't gonna be no 60s jazz or 70s jazz-funk-fusion you can free your mind to enjoy this handful of sweet delights that Hancock recorded amongst some absolute dross in the second half of the 70s and early 80s.

On Doin' It look out as this is one hell of an insidious groove. At the start you may think "Oh this is just ok" but by the end you will be in a funky trance that you won't want to end. As far as intergalactic disco-funk jamz go it doesn't get better. Infectious.

I Thought It Was You - Herbie Hancock (1978)

Vocoderized vocals over mellow grooves progress to driving funk then into a robotic vocal workout on this futuristic toe tapper. It was either Kraftwerk or Herbie who were the first to use Sennheiser VSM 201 treated vocals on recordings in 1978 but Man Machine was released before Sunlight, I think.

Stars In Your Eyes - Herbie Hancock (1980) 

Oh boy the magic happens on this one. For a start the glorious groove is laid down by legends Freddie Washington and Alphonse Mouzon amongst a bed of exquisite Hancock keys. The strings are just splendid, then Ray Parker Jr's sublime guitar hook enters at 2:22 and you know greatness is upon you. Not to mention the wonderful vocal from Gavin Christopher. Impeccable from all angles. Undeniable stone cold R&B classic. 11 minutes just isn't quite enough.

Satisfied With Love - Herbie Hancock (1981)

Another top slow jam with Gavin Christopher on vocals. Washington & Mouzon lay down the groove once again, I mean that is some funky shit emanating from the fingertips of Freddie Washington innit. Deluxe. 

Roy Ayers - Wanna Touch You Baby

Roy Ayers - Wanna Touch You Baby (1978)

Obsessed with this track this year. The fact that Carla Vaughn's vocals don't infuriate me is a testament to the restrained approach on the production of this record. Producers Ayers & Vaughn reign this shit in to a flawless degree.

That synth/guitar/whatever break at 2:54 is in that perfect controlled zone, what could have gone berserk is reeled in, just. Again this tune is all about balance.

Years ago (pre-youtube/streaming) I decided to investigate the Roy Ayers oeuvre but I entered his catalogue in an incorrect place and got the wrong end of the stick. So I thought he was not for me but ten years ago I discovered this sweet spot which is the You Send Me LP from 1978. It wasn't a consensus record back then but it might be a bit more on people's radar today. You Send Me might not be the 60s jazzers or early 70s jazz-funkateers choice but these grooves are just fine by me. The soul jazz is heading further toward what would become known as R&B. Smooth, sensuous and melodically spacious, it's got the subtle luxurious vibes. 

KENNY LOGGINS * Keep The Fire

Kenny Loggins - Keep The Fire (1979)

Was this the inspiration for Spirit Of Radio by Rush? I feel like I can hear bits of it in here. Both songs were recorded around the same time so...who knows? Anyhow this is peak Loggins. Peak FM pop really. You either love it or hate it

Kenny is a surprisingly interesting cat. He was in a 60s garage group, The Second Helping, who were later included on Greg Shaw's seminal compilation series Highs In The Mid 60s. Kenny was even in The Electric Prunes for like a minute prior to forming a duo with Jim Messina of Buffalo Springfield and Poco fame. Loggins & Messina had a very successful run of six LPs from 1971 to 1976, selling over sixteen million records. 

Anyway fast forward to 1979 and the release of his third solo LP of which Keep The Fire is the title track. Amazingly this single only just cracked the top US top 40 reaching number 36. 

 

The Second Helping - Let Me In (1966)

Before becoming yacht rock royalty and the king of Hollywood in the 70s and 80s Kenny was in The Second Helping. They released three singles. Let Me In is ramshackle diy garage pop, that's almost proto-indie, with girl/boy vocals. Wait for psych lead break at 1:55. Good fun 60s stuff. 

James Brown - Make It Funky Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4

(1971)

When you hear this you immediately think of hip-hop from the late 80s/early 90s. That's how ubiquitous James Brown samples were then. This tune was famously sampled by Ice-T and Marley Marl along with literally hundreds of others.

Anyway who cares right because this tune is better than anything it was sampled in. I can't stand how the only way to discuss legendary artists is through who they influenced. 

This is another jam that was only ever released on one of those three great James Brown Polydor comps from 1996: Make It Funky (The Big Payback: 1971-1975).

I don't recall anything much about the way JB approached his music in this peak period but I assume it's similar to the way Miles Davis and Can operated. Doing long jams then editing them later. Parts 1, 2 and 3 of Make It Funky were all edited down to singles. Parts 3 & 4 were included on the classic double LP Get On The Good Foot (1972). I gather this raw twelve minute jam is where all the material for the Make It Funky releases comes from. However I don't think he was so much into the splicing or overdubs in the way Teo Macero and Holger Czukay were, I may be wrong... 

The exalted musicianship makes me smile and laugh out loud at the sheer ease of their audacity. In particular the bit where everything turns on a dime at 1:48 and Fred Thomas's world famous bass line drops. Glorious.

It makes me think these jams are somewhat composed if not completely...

 

James Brown begins a list of soul food at 2:49.

Fred Wesley barges in with his trombone at 8:33 for a bit of dick joke banter. They continue with Brown getting Wesley to imitate what he's doing vocally on his trombone which is just brilliant. All the while Jabo Starks and Fred Thomas are holding down a mother of a fucking groove, that is a stone cold hard funk rhythm like no other. 

At 11:16 Brown yells out to guitarist Robert Coleman to give him a bit of BB King and he proceeds to lay down some blues licks.  

Down and dirty and base this all is.

The JBs line-up for this session on July 13, 1971, Rodel Studios, Washington, D.C. was

Organ, Arrangement - James Brown

Alto Saxophone, Vocals - Jimmy Parker

Bass, Vocals - Fred Thomas
Drums, Vocals - Jabo Starks
Guitar, Vocals - Cheese Martin

Guitar, Vocals - Robert Coleman
Tenor Saxophone, Vocals – St Claire Pickney
Trombone, Vocals - Fred Wesley
Trumpet, Vocals - Jasaan Sanford

Trumpet, Vocals - Russel Crimes
Vocals - Bobby Byrd 

Vocals - Danny Ray 

Vocals - Martha Harvin  

Vocals - Vicki Anderson 

*So we've got the aforementioned Robert Lee Coleman on guitar here. He was a fellow Georgian who put in a good couple of seasons for The JBs in 1970 and & 1971. He'd previously done a six year stint with Percy Sledge. He played on and possibly co-wrote Hot Pants (1971) and played on Think (About It) (1972) by Lyn Collins...er that makes you a legend.

Michael Henderson - Solid

Michael Henderson - Solid (1976)

Wow!

Some minimal cosmic funk right here and it's glorious. A bass masterclass. It makes me wish I knew all about the musician-y stuff so I could appreciate what is going on here even more. That groove, oh my. All of the musicality moves...yes sir!

When you hear stuff like this it's hard not to think the perceived achievements by rock critics of things like Remain In Light or My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts as dubious and way overrated. 

Also that guitar is just outrageously splendid. It could be Michael but it's probably one of these two legendary guitarists who have a credit on the LP: Bruce Nazarian or Ralphe Armstrong.

I really should just go through Miles Davis's 70s bands and make sure I've checked out each members other projects and solo releases to make sure I've not missed more great stuff like Solid. All I knew for 30 years was that Michael Henderson was a fucking cool bass player because he was on all those amazing 70s Miles albums. When I say that I mean he played wicked bass on ten of the best LPs ever made! I think I had some years where pretty much all I listened to was Big Fun, In Concert, Live-Evil, Get Up With It, Agharta, Dark Magus etc. So Michael's bass has been rolling around in my head for eternity but my awareness of Solid is brand new. 

This cover. Yes.

All of it. 

That font. Recently a restaurant nearby took down its old signage which was in this exact font and from the same era, that was a depressing day.

...but wait also check out those glasses. He's giving his old mate Miles, on the cover of Get Up With It, a run for his money.

Insane jazz/funk/fusion eyewear is probably a much under-explored subject. Then again there might just be an entire website devoted to it. 

JAMES BROWN - THERE WAS A TIME (I GOT TO MOVE)

"the band

the long version

best record"

That's what I had written down as notes for this tune. Need I say more?

This tune and parts of this tune had been recorded and released previously on several high profile James Brown records between 67-70 including as part of a medley, a single, an album cut and several live versions. 

This version however is somewhat mysterious. It appears to be a studio jam recorded in 1970 but as I no longer have the 96 compilation cd Funk Power 1970: A Brand New Thang I can't really find any concrete information on it apart from the fact that this version was previously unreleased. 

1996 was a fantastic year for for JB fans because three of his best ever cd compilations were released by Polydor: Foundations Of Funk: A Brand New Bag 64-69, Funk Power 1970 and Make It Funky: The Big Payback 71-75. In fact if you're a funky JB neophyte this is exactly where to start. It's got all his soulful-proto-funk to his funky funk to just plain funk and stops just short of where he starts integrating disco elements into his sound. These were meticulously put together collections. So this is THE primo James Brown goodness. Then if you need more there's an endless amount of releases to explore. These three stellar compilations have never been reissued though but they can be found across blogs, youtube, spotify etc. 

Going back to the band...I mean how smokin' was his band? This is quite possibly the best band of the 20th century...These guys:

Vocals: James Brown 

Organ: Bobby Byrd 

Bass Guitar: Bootsy Collins 

Guitar: Phelps "Catfish" Collins

Drums: John "Jabo" Starks

Conga: Johnny Griggs

Tenor Saxophone: Robert "Chopper" McCollough

Trumpet: Clayton Gunnels

Trumpet: Darryl Jamison

Engineer: Ronald Lenhoff

 

We've got just the one drummer here as Clyde Stubblefield left the group sometime in 1970. Sometimes they would have three drummers and a conga player on one tune. Here we've got Griggs on congas and the man behind the "Think" break Jabo Starks on drums. There's no Fred Wesley who sat out most of 1970 but then came back in 71. You could spend your life tracking and tracing the fabulous personal on each phonkay JB cut. They're like an elite footy team. They should have their own footy cards. 

Oh almost forgot fuzzy lead break alert at 4:17.  Thank you Catfish Collins, you are a legend!

The entire jam is MESMERISING

Those drums though 

Minutemen - Paranoid Chant

Andy Gill-ism.

Was gonna go on a rant about what D would have thought about Russia-gate, fake leftists now being shills for the CIA & war and so on, but I'm just sick to death of the mindless conformity. It continues on though with Biden's war on establishment dissent today with the indictment of four old school African American black power dudes. They are being accused of being Kremlin agents which just sounds like the latest iteration of Russia-gate bullshit.

......plus political terms are pretty bloody redundant nowadays. When is someone gonna come up with some relevant ones to improve political discourse?

Cocteau Twins - Evangeline

I was totally disappointed when Four-Calendar Cafe came out in 1993. What happened to the sublime? Why were they sad instead of ecstatic? Why were they trying to sound like they wanted to be on American radio? Why were there so many more recognisable words than usual? Why did they release such a pissweak album? Less than seven listens in I gave the cd away. I tried to wipe it from my memory. I mean the recent-one-two punch of Blue Bell Knoll (88) then Heaven Or Las Vegas (90) was so glorious. I just wanted to live that vibe. And the Sugar Hiccup (83) to Love's Easy Tears (87) run of 45s vibe and the other one two album punch of Head Over Heals (83) and Treasure (84). I would forever just hold on to them as the 4AD group. Whatever they did after that on another label we'll just ignore. Just try to quietly forget the fact that they'd fallen from grace and faded away into artistic inconsequence. 

I was forgetting something though. The Cocteau Twins had slumped before, you know with Victorialand (86). An LP I've listened to many times but couldn't tell you the name of one track. This was an easy album to overlook though as they released so much good music between 1983 and 1990 there was enough great stuff, you could forget a record and it didn't matter. 

By 1993 though we had been waiting for three years for a record. In the mean time a bunch of kids had stolen their sounds and made them less good in their shoegaze groups Slowdive, Lush etc. So you know you don't wanna release an album so inferior that a band of b-grade imitators are going to outdo you. Some might say Slowdive's Souvlaki is better than Four Calendar Cafe and historical consensus does seem to favour that narrative. By late 93 I couldn't have cared less though as I didn't like either. Recently though I've come round to Souvlaki so I know in all fairness I need to reassess Four-Calendar Cafe.

Evangeline keeps popping its head up in my world and yeah guess what? I've become somewhat enamoured by it. I've had to compartmentalise the Cocteau Twins into their two distinctive record company stints though. So you've got the supreme golden era of the 4AD years 1982 -1990. Then you've got the less incandescent Fontana twilight years 1993 - 1998. 

In the 90s I did end up getting the final LP Milk & Kisses (1995) and those Fontana EPs probably twelve or eighteen months after release when they were cheap and in the 2nd hand bin. I recall liking some of the material, the more dubby out there type of stuff. When a seminally influential band becomes a chaser of a sound though, it seems a bit sad. Even if the sound they're following was influenced by them in the first place. Anywhoo I could'n't name or hum a tune from Twilights or Violaine. Perhaps I've underestimated the twilight years era. I hope that I've been absolutely wrong for thirty years. We'll see...

Anyway back to Evangeline the 1993 single. This is like an answer song to the dream pop they helped create (Julee Cruise, Lush etc.) except it's better, more emotional and in a class of its own. It's like they're saying yeah thanks that's flattering and all but we've got real emotional depth beneath the pop sheen. Plus they just up the ante don't they? with a preposterous key change that before you have time to throw your hands up in exasperation you realise it works just perfectly. BAM the masters have nailed it, goosebumps jackpot and the acolytes should be sheepish. Can't deny thirty years later Evangeline is one of the great Cocteaus moments.

Tommy Cash - Six White Horses

(1969)

I must admit the RFK assassination is intriguing to me. I'm currently reading another tome on the subject. I gotta say I know very little of the JFK & MLK assassinations outside of their historic news story synopses. I assume the CIA was behind the death of MLK too (?). Anyway these three men are the subject of this tune. They had peace on their minds which made them a radical threat to the American money making war machine establishment. How revolting is it that the deep state has ruled American politics and their foreign policy for over 60 years. So much for the Church Committee. 

Anyway this is all kinda fitting as American hegemony has taken some severe blows in the last few weeks. Look out peace is starting to break out due to diplomatic deals being made that America isn't a part of. I reckon it's time for Australia to realise it doesn't have to be a suck job ally to America anymore either. Lets hope CIA meddling in international affairs is on the way out because lets face it, it's always been totally fucked up. Gross. I mean sure it's been a good thing for American arms manufacturers and dealers, just not so good for living people who happened to be citizens in countries America liked to war with. Perhaps it's time to develop a Peace-time Industrial Complex while hopefully the military industrial complex finally dies. Although over a hundred billion dollars to arm Ukraine and Finland joining NATO seems like peak times for reprehensible corporations Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing etc. 

On another note the CIA, FBI and all the other nonsense American security bureaus colluding with the White House, big tech and establishment media to quash the free speech of the citizens has been a frightening turn of events in the past decade. Truth was being censored during covid, that's bloody outrageous...oh but it was all done out of concern for your safety. Sure. The Twitter Files have been an incredible revelation. It's a wake up call for all Americans and the rest of the west. We are not the free societies we once were. Sure perhaps that was mostly an illusion but we used to be able to make jokes without fear of going to prison.

I'm pretty sure Australian intelligence agencies like ASIO, ASIS etc. were doing the same thing here in Australia. They're all in cahoots with the CIA in The Five Eyes anyhoo. The thing is we don't actually have freedom of speech enshrined into our constitution so we're fucked because everybody likes to conform down under. Full totalitarianism is going to be a cakewalk here over the next year or two.

...anyway how good is Tommy Cash? Poor son of gun never had a chance, spotlight-wise, with a big brother like Johnny Cash but hey I like him. He seems to have had some moderate success over the years although I think he had to maintain a day job as a real estate agent to pay his bills. Terrific singer.

Van Morrison - Summertime in England

(1980)

One of the few musicians didn't put all his critical thinking skills aside to become a conformist shill for the globalists during the covid era. Then there were all the covidian turds: Neil Young, Joni, Rage Against The Machine, Louder magazine, Noam Chomsky, the majority of corporate news media... the list is endless. The masks were bullshit and the faux vaccine was almost fully useless too. I mean they literally had to change the definition of vaccine and everyone just went along with it. Nothing to see here. How's everyone going with the lies three years on? 

Anyway...

If you get to a point where you're at the end of your tether and the bad thoughts are spiralling in at 3AM, give this tune a shot. It might just save your life.

Sprawling...when he hilariously starts listing authors, how on earth do we let him get away with that? But we do, well some of us do. Then he can do what he pleases, so it's incantation time. The spell is cast upon you for fifteen fabulous minutes. I don't know if he's high on the Jesus juice or the cocaine or just high on life or all of the above and does it really fucking matter? No... it just is! Can you feel the light in your soul. Soak up the lord shining through in Summertime In England.

David Thrussell

This recent Snog tune is from last year. Some things change, some stay the same.

Here's a weird connection to the previous post. David Thrussell, of legendary Melbourne electronic act Snog not to forget Black Lung and Soma, once released a Porter Wagoner album or maybe two on his Omni Recording Corporation label. Snog of course were not that well liked here despite being signed to Universal but they garnered cult followings in Europe and America in the 90s. I think they even had a top ten hit in Germany. 

In the 90s Thrussell was host of the brilliant Rude Mechanical radio show on Melbourne's 3PBS FM. In the last couple of months it's been great to discover Dave is still around, not only with his music but as part of the podcast The No Goat Show. I'm kicking myself I didn't discover this podcast during Victoria's insane totalitarian lockdowns. Yes rubber bullets were deployed by Victoria's militarised police. The other voices on the show are playwright Michael Gray Griffith, Melbourne legend of Hellfire Club and Melbourne Underground Film Festival fame Richard Wolstencroft and Ryan Etherington a young Melbourne comedian. Anyway this motley crew of wrong thinkers are Aussie freedom fighters raising a ruckus because of the tyranny of Melbourne lockdowns. 

My favourite discovery though is Thrussell's solo show The Forbidden Book Club on the All Out Of Bubblegum channel which can be found on Rumble and youtube. He discusses controversial, underground and even blockbuster books from history. Many of which have forewarned us for many years about the oncoming authoritarianism in western democracies that has now arrived as well as stuff that's outside of the establishment narrative. It's amazing to think Robert F Kennedy's book about Fauci sold over a million copies and yet the good ole New York Times would not list the book. Anyway the latest episode of The Forbidden Book Club is one of the best as it features The Day Of Saint Anthony's Fire by John G Fuller. That is an incredible story of mass hallucination in a small French village in 1951.

Wikipedia is so fucking retarded they are referring to David as her because he did an album 10 years ago where apparently they thought he was pictured as a woman, so they all now think he's trans and are falling over themselves to conform to the groupthink rules.  

If you went to an industrial disco in the early 90s you know this tune, it made Snog (in)famous. Nothing has changed except now everybody wants to conform and please the government. The government serve you not the bloody other way round!

Porter Wagoner - The Rubber Room

The original Frankie Teardrop innit. 

Judee Sill - The Donor

Judee Sill - The Donor (1973)

If I recall correctly Judee Sill had been a teenage delinquent who was sent to a Christian reform school where she ended up playing the church organ. Later she became enamoured by hymns and channelled all things mystical into her music. At some point though I think she was even in some kind of new age cult. Sill was a fascinating woman, an erratic genius and a rock'n'roll outlaw. How has she not been on the cover of Mojo magazine ten times by now? However her infamous notoriety and ultimate tragedy usually overshadows her artistic achievements which is a shame because THE real story is her exalted music. This stuff is just elevated higher than the rest.

Judee Sill is a musical messiah offering up her divine gifts to we who are not worthy. The Donor outdoes the peak sublime moments of Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, Linda Perhacs, David Crosby, Gene Clark, Dennis Wilson et al. and foreshadows the delights of His Name Is Alive, Liz Phair, Panda Bear, Grouper etc.

The consensus in the youtube comments is that The Donor is "heavenly" and "a masterpiece" One thing I love about comments sections under great ye olde songs is that you usually get some oldies who heard the music back in the day and still can't believe how good it is. Then you have the young folk, who heard it for the first time the day they left a comment and they also can't believe how good it is. Anyway it seems everyone who hears this track is totally moved by it. Sill was aware of the effect of her music stating "my music is really magnified four part choral style. It gets to people's emotional centres quickly"

This is just one song, sure it's her most divine and epic effort but she has two LPs worth of enchanting folk pop with cosmic, classical and ecclesiastical overtones. Judee Sill came up with a term for her deceptively simple yet complex music "country-cult-baroque" which is perfectly succinct.

Speaking of perfection. It does not get better than this.

Johnny Cash - They Killed Him

Johnny Cash's influence on the whole hypnagogic chillwave scene has been underestimated. The heavenly reverberating production on this is just gorgeous. Plus that ghostly kids choir moment is an unexpected creepy delight. It's a shame he didn't do an entire double LP in this style. It would have been the best album of the 80s. I dedicate this to the only holy son of man I know me. How this was not a number one smash across the globe in 1984 still puzzles me.

They Are Gutting A Body Of Water

Kmart Amen Break (2022)

Well I guess I was expecting some kind of of retro Amen smasher 94 style with a dash of shoegaze but that's not really what we get exactly. Actually I'm not even sure what we've got here. TAGABOW are another group from the the current Philadelphia scene. I can hear hints of their forefathers like Blue Smiley and early Spirit Of The Beehive. This is noisey shoegaze jungle (There's some kind of breakbeat science submerged under that racket) goes slowcore hypnagogia with a chipmunk choir singalong. As far as song structures go this is anarchistic. The kids might have a name for this kind of genre mash up, who knows? It's something you might have imagined James Ferraro doing once upon a time instead of whatever crap he's actually doing right now. Unpredictable, strange, psychedelic and ultimately quite fabulous.  

Menthol Box (2021)

This one has an audible assemblage of breaks jungle stylee. I can't make out if it's an Amen or not. Anyhow it's a pretty faithful facsimile of a 93/94 jungle rhythm with added My Bloody Valentine-esque noise. It's as good as anything Third Eye Foundation ever did... only thing is they did it in the 90s when it was, you know like... a happening thing. Nevertheless it's pretty infectious. Back to the future.  

Stephen Kilroy

ON XPRESSWAY

Stephen Kilroy - When Planets Align (1991)

Killing Capitalism With Kindness: An XPRESSWAY Compilation - Various 

I wanted to show an example of the "no-fi diy psych drone ambient noise" that had been going on in New Zealand before Flying Saucer Attack renamed it rural psychedelia and called it their own. These are peak examples noise-y psych drone from the late 80s/early 90s. 

Kilroy is mainly known for being an engineer and producer. He's recorded some of NZ's most legendary artists like The Clean, Snapper, The Terminals, The 3Ds, The Cake Kitchen, Sandra Bell et al. Naturally he has engineered some of Roy Montgomery's most well known music as well as being a fleeting member of 90s Flying Nun groups Chug, King Loser and a duo with Peter Jefferies.

Anyway he really could have had a promising tiny career as a cult guitarist doing these little noisey psych-folk/space-rock jamz but that was not to be. He only ever had a few tracks released.   

Stephen Kilroy - 45 Degrees Below Frozen (1988)

5 Xpressway Pile=Up - Various (cat no. X/WAY 5) Cassette

Full Body 2

Full Body 2 - Mirror Spirit (2022)

I wonder if the members of My Bloody Valentine realise the enormity of the spell they have cast over generations young regional guitar bands. They are more popular and adored than ever before. Go on youtube, bandcamp or spotify and you will find a gazillion kids from all corners of the globe doing spirited replicas of all things shoegaze-y. 

Full Body 2 are a relatively new group on the Philadelphia scene. It's hard not to like Mirror Spirit's electrifying buzz.

 

Full Body 2 - 2g ether (2022)

This one's even better. A jubilant sonic sherbet bomb.

For the shoegaze nut who lives in a perpetual 1994, this is what we would have really preferred instead of the disappointing bullshit of Slow Buildings, Carnival Of Light, Souvlaki etc. and the non arrival of any new My Bloody Valentine material.

*I must admit I've now come round to Souvlaki. Only took 30 years. The other two records? Fuck off. 

Full Body 2 - Dancer's Theme (2022)

93/94 style ambient jungle meets the fizz of Glass Swords era Rustie. I like how Full Body 2 have no qualms about mixing in all these elements so long as an ecstatic goal has been reached. They get the mission statement of My Bloody Valentine. 

Another influence on the more adventurous of bands in this milieu seems to be Sweet Trip whose dream-pop, shoegaze, IDM, drill n bass,  ambient, glitch and noise amalgam seemed a bit too obvious and clunky when those early records appeared on Darla at the turn of the millennium. However, as is often the case, the next generation has picked up on these ideas, particularly 2003's Velocity:Design:Comfort, and found them useful. 

  

Full Body 2 - Sprite Ocarina (2021)

Quite the impressive sound design, Sprite Ocarina goes off the beaten path into some glitch-y gloomy doomcore and ends up in some strange Steve Reich goes ambient techno jam or something. A lot going on here. 

Blue Smiley - Return

21st century shoegaze bands really haven't appealed to my 80s & 90s soul. I couldn't stand Deerhunter and Atlas Sound. Then there was a glut of groups which were so awful that I can't even recall their names. There was a Welsh group I heard once and liked. I didn't mind Belong and Winona Dryver had an excellent song. Then blackgaze and the whole doom and whatever metal crossed with Shoegaze... just nah... no thanks...nope... and I love me some old school and second wave Black Metal. M83 were sometimes ok whatever their sub-genre was. I've never checked Grouper's Liz Harris in her shoegaze outfit Helen which is weird because i'd probably like them. I didn't understand how Spirit Of The Beehive's consummate throwback to 90s slacker alt-rock & psychedelic grunge got tagged shoegaze but whatever...

So that brings us to Blue Smiley who were contemporaries of Spirit Of The Beehive in Philadelphia during the mid 2010s. Blue Smiley's Return mini album from 2016 is probably the only innovative shoegaze record of the new millennium. They did the impossible and made shoegaze fresh, fun, exciting and unique again. Its got heavy use and abuse of that chorus effect (sorry I'm no gear head, is it chorus?), frantic shimmering jangles, helium cloud synths and ecstatic lawn mowing lead breaks. 

  

If the Pale Saints were fully obsessed with all the fluttery bits of guitaring from rock's history, had the brevity and dexterity of Minutemen and were produced by Scott Cortez it might have sounded like this. This is some of the most buoyant shoegazery put to tape. The sonic shapeshifting's like squishing marshmallows. These fizzy to fuzzy and back again tunes burst into life like fireflies, just a flash and then they're gone.

.

Talk about leaving you wanting more, not long after the release of this all too brief album of supreme sherbet bomb shoegaze the band's mastermind Brian Nowell died. He was just 26. The twenty minutes of Return has already proved influential though, inspiring the current crop of groups in Philadelphia including They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, A Country Western and Full Body 2. 

Flying Saucer Attack

Flying Saucer Attack - Everywhere Was Everything (1994)

This is right in the sweet spot of all the converging things noise-pop, shoegaze, space rock, lo-fi, drone-y psych-folk and whatever else I've forgotten. Such fresh exciting territory at the time, it gave new hope for those of us still wanting the ultimate in psychedelic pop noise.

Flying Saucer Attack - For Silence (1995)

Probably my favourite FSA jam from their second LP Further. Starts out out all mellow, lo-fi & folky then ends up in a meteor shower space rock storm. Peak FSA.

Cocteau Twins 1984

Cocteau Twins - The Spangle Maker (1984)

You can't ignore this musical statement from 1984. You can ignore all the cliches ever written about the band though. All you need to do is listen and you will realise why so many idiots have made fools of themselves trying to come up with superlative adjectives to explain their awe while listening to Cocteau Twins. 

Cocteau Twins - Pearly Dewdrops Drop (1984)

Is this their best tune? Glistening guitar waterfalls cascading into fluffy clouds, celestial alliteration and ecstatic glossolalia coalesce in this sublime, enigmatic and magic music.  

I have recently read a lot of absolute crap on the internet since I started posting stuff about Twin Peaks, Cocteau Twins, dreampop, noise-pop, shoegaze etc. I have the knowledge because I was there in the 80s and 90s when it all happened. However finding old reviews written at the time these records were released is impossible. I've always thought the level of information and discourse about music on Pitchfork, allmusic, Trouser Press, wikipedia was poor but boy are they are scraping the barrel way worse than ever now. So many bad writers with so little insight. The internet had such potential with regard to music, its history and the history of of writing about music but it's time to face facts: It's pretty crap. Potential not realised. I would have thought every obscure fanzine from the 80s & 90s would have been scanned and uploaded to the web by now creating an unprecedented abundance of material for fans to revel in. Where are all the great music resources? Am I just not finding them or are they just not there?  

I just read a feature article about Cocteau Twins on, I think, a Chicago newspaper's website. The story was so wrong it was backwards. The writer was asserting how much the Cocteaus were influenced by The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine and how they integrated various aspects of each of these bands into their own aesthetic. It was strange because the author was obviously a fan of the group, or at least the Heaven Or Las Vegas LP, and had a good understanding of what made them so great but had this part of their story so fundamentally wrong. The funny thing is, this was posted a couple of years ago and the incorrect article has not been taken down or corrected...

Cocteau Twins - Otterley (1984)

One of the Cocteau's most restrained efforts but also one of their most atmospheric. This dark tone is deliciously eldritch. Surely this is another track that Angelo Badalamenti loved as that haunting vibe was all over Julee Cruise's Floating Into The Night and Twin Peaks.

Cocteau Twins - Pandora (1984)

Hang on I nearly forgot this one, it might be their best tune. Luxuriate in the subtle impressionistic psychedelia of the most perfect kind. The shoegaze brigade totally missed this memo.  

Flying Saucer Attack - 1993

Flying Saucer Attack - Soaring High (1993)

Hard to believe FSA's debut single is 30 years old. This was a much needed injection of youthful exuberance into a flailing noise-pop, shoegaze, neo-psych scene at the time. Underneath the foggy hiss and distorted reverb is perhaps an indie pop gem. The swathes and waves of beautiful noise, reminiscent of early Jesus & Mary Chain and early AR Kane, are fused with the ghostly remnants of a Barney Sumner-esque pop tune. Soaring High indeed.

Flying Saucer Attack - Wish (1993)

The second single starts out all calm with low key distorted jangling and soft choir boy vocals but that soon surges into a maelstrom of supreme mangled psychedelic space rock. Such fun. Now that I'm old though, I'm wondering if they needed to rinse & repeat that outlined description or maybe they could have just ended the song at the halfway mark. Yeah nah, just listened to it again and the second round of cacophonous psych space rock is even better so er... rock on FSA.

Flying Saucer Attack - Oceans (1993)

The b-side does what is says on the tin ie. it's oceanic. Textures, ebbs and flows as opposed to going for the jugular of the previous two tunes with quiet to loud pay off dynamics. This is indebted to AR Kane's Sixty Nine, Kosmische, The Residents' Eskimo, the Xpressway catalogue and their no-fi production aesthetics. 

Cocteau Twins 1983

Cocteau Twins - Sugar Hiccup (1983)

What's amazing about this most exquisite pop tune is that it's a blueprint for what was to become The Cocteau Twins most famous record Heaven Or Las Vegas which was still 7 years away at this stage. It's also the signpost for all future great Cocteau Twins tunes.

Sugar Hiccup is a truly historic moment in pop. This is where Cocteau Twins emerged out of the post-punk and goth jungle with a lustrous template of future pop which would eventually lead them to becoming music icons.

Someone asked me in the mid 90s "Why on earth are you still listening to this?" As if it was the most anachronistic and lame thing to be spending my time doing. As if to say "You left high school five years ago. Grow up. This is so 80s it's embarrassing that you are still listening to this right now" This was a dumb comment then, as it is now.

What they were really saying was: "Timmy why are you listening to one of the most delightful tunes in history of pop music?"

Timmy: "Gee I dunno because it's the best!"

For new artists The Cocteau Twins are still a popular name to drop as an inspiration in interviews apparently. They ended up becoming one of the most influential groups ever. The thing is nobody who has employed a Cocteau aesthetic has ever bettered them. Not one artist influenced by them has come anywhere near capturing their essence. That would be impossible due to their supreme uniqueness. Even capturing their spirit or showing a proper understanding what they were achieving artistically seems elusive to the countless artists who have cited them as influence.  

Cocteau Twins - When Momma Was Moth (1983)

If you stripped the vocals and drums off here, this would sound like a Burzum intro from 1992. 

Also this is produced by John Fryer, just before The Cocteau Twins took over producing their own records. Nobody talks about him any more but he was good at the ole producing and stuff. I mean this fella fiddled the knobs on Song To The Siren as well as for 80s legends Fad Gadget, Depeche Mode, Clan Of Xymox etc. He later produced Nine Inch Nails & Pale Saints.

Impressively Cocteau guitarist Robin Guthrie quickly became a consummate producer so by 1984 he was also producing other artists. By the time he got to 1987 he had produced some legendary records for some great artists like Felt, Gun Club, Edwyn Collins, Dif Juz & AR Kane. Not a bad roll call for somebody who'd been producing for less than five years.

Anyway this has an epic nocturnal vibe. Their goth-y post-punk moments are underrated. Also very bloody strange.