Finally a book on Flying Nun written by the guy who started the label. Haven't read it yet. Here's a podcast from the other day with the author and a bunch of old film clips. Can't help but think this might be quite boring though, like that podcast. How sycophantic is that interviewer as well? Bruce Russell once hinted that Flying Nun's signings weren't necessarily based on aesthetics or great judgement but just whatever bands existed on the south island and other parts of NZ at the time. They were lucky there were so many good ones. This was further demonstrated in the late 80s when, after Flying Nun did some major label deal, a lot of the better acts started getting their work rejected. Anyway I hope it's good or do I?.........I wonder if the Axemen will get a mention?
I kind of liked it when you knew very little about underground music from NZ or Flying Nun. In the 80s I reckon there were only like 5 videos that ever got played on Rage. You'd see a small news article on The Clean or Verlaines in RAM back then plus the occasional review or bit on The Clean or The Chills in NME and Melody Maker. In Clinton Walker's 1983 (published in 84) book The Next Thing, which was about the current state of Australian rock, there was one paragraph at the end of the book mentioning The Clean, Victor Dimisich Band, The Chills and The Gordons. Walker speculated that perhaps there was something cool going on over there in the land of the long white cloud. He wasn't even sure if The Clean were still together! That's how little information there was at the time. Finding a Flying Nun record was like discovering treasure. Now all that fabulous mystique has gone and we're way too over informed more and more each day. I miss the mystery. I don't wanna know how much a Bats LP cost or how many copies they manufactured. It was all about these peculiarly beautiful tunes that seemed to come out of nowhere or maybe from a parallel time and universe. New Zealand seemed so mysterious and so far away then, even though it's just a short flight from East Coast Australia.
Whilst moving house recently a printed out image of the cover to this tape came out of one of my boxes. I'd printed it out a couple of years ago as I thought it was an incredible piece of pop art as previously mentioned. I'd only seen the cover and heard one of their tunes back then but a few months after that original post I found a cd in a second hand record shop in Melbourne. It was a little confusing though as it was credited to The Birth Of 5XOD. It was only like $6 so I bought it anyway. When I finally got home and did the interweb research I discovered it indeed was the same album Minimal Wave had reissued. I'd just never heard of 5XOD (or Five Times Of Dust) but I soon discovered they'd released 4 tapes in the early 80s and contained members Mark Philips and Robert Lawrence who were the original band Dadacomputer. Confused? Anyway it wasn't until blog Die or DIY? put up a file of 5XOD in 2014 that I ever heard them. Last year Johnny Zchivago of the aforementioned blog put up a whole lot of stuff from Mark Philips, Robert Lawrence and other associates of The Dadacomputer/5XOD and fuck that was like an avalanche of revelation.
Getting back to the original Dadacomputer tape from1981, it has since become a cult classic at my home, on the internet, amongst electro fiends and.....er... hipsters and continues to grow in stature by the minute. So much so that a tune from the tape has been included on the 4 CD compilation of UK electronic music from 1975 -1984 Close To The Noise Floor. In fact it's the first track on that collection, as if the compiler was trying to make a statement about the merits of the band. There's also a tune from 5XOD included as well. Anyway The Dadacomputer tape is a classic of it's ilk. The primitive melodic electronics are like an unholy union created in the interzone of Computer World and 20 Jazz Funk Greats except it is fabulously unique. Which makes that description kind of deceptive. The contents range from computer-y disco to proto-house to trippy journeys into sound to minimal pre-IDM through to the just plain weird/normal. The Dadacomputer are neglected alien space babies lost inside el cheapo computers from 1981. On the surface it seems sonically rudimentary but on closer inspection it is perhaps sophisticated. Had enough paradoxes, oxymorons, confusion etc? Well I'll stop there.
Eventually I'll do a post on Map 7 which is an epic 10 tape series by Map (ie. Mark Philips 1/2 of The Dadacomputer) from 1981 because it is awesome.
I will explain in this little post the reasons for the continuous interruptions to transmissions of my blog suffice to say health problems and a David Toop style dry patch have played roles in this. Didn't Toop retire from The Wire because he couldn't write about or listen to music anymore? Since last November there's probably been only 7 or 8 days where I've wanted to listen to music. This has made writing my blog a bit hard as it's primarily music based. Culture is a funny old thing, when you are really ill it ceases to have any meaning whatsoever for me. So in the past at least 7 months I've seen it as trivial and inconsequential. That could be the art of Rembrandt, Mike Kelley, Christian Marclay or whoever to music like Miles Davis, Love, The Fall, Omni Trio or Young Thug to beloved movies like Bring The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, Don't Look Now, King Of New York etc. I don't want to be disengaged by the things I admire artistically and time will tell if the passion can make a return. I mean I'm pretty much done with movies, particularly those of the last 20 or so years but also retroactively. Such as films I once admired as a younger person. I cannot imagine sitting through a Hal Hartley film now (or at any time in the last 10 years) but I once rated him very highly. So anything could happen with regards to me and culture high or low (like there's any distinction in my brain with regard to that anyway) in the future.
Had the 7" of the above back in the day but fuck I should have bought the 12" as it's way better and still so good.
One of Prince's great gifts to the world was his songwriting, producing and playing with women. In the case of the above Vanity 6 tune he plays a woman in the song. He wasn't going to be pinned downed by society's sexual conventions. I was going to write a long personal post about sexuality, hating aspects of my own sex etc. with reference to Morrissey, Robert Forster, Michael Hutchence and of course Prince but I thought fuck it the past is the past. I didn't want to write a self therapy session. Don't get me started on Therapy! What a load of shit. Anyway here's an article by Simon on Princehere.
Pearsall Presents - Beyond Ecstatic: Hardcore Goes Jungle.
Another excellent mix from Pearsall from SonicRampage. These are tunes from 94/95 at the intersection of hardcore and jungle. I didn't really know what to expect from this mix as it all seemed a bit recalcitrant and probably not something I would have dug back in 95 but it's a bewdy and I think he achieves his goal. I suppose you can decide for yourself. Tunes from Ratty, House Crew, Essence Of Aura, DJ Seduction etc. Many of these are lesser known tracks by these well known artists, at least by me anyway. Pearsall describes Beyond Ecstatic as 'Jungle from hardcore producers, jungle released on hardcore labels, jungle remixes of hardcore tunes …'
Pearsall Presents - Truly Dread: A No U Turn Crew Special.
This is another classic mix from early Feb that's on the Tech-Step tip and it doesn't disappoint either. We've got the cream of the Tech-Step crop here Nico, DJ Trace, Optical, Ed Rush, Dom etc. Get battered darkness points here. An hour and a half of 90s gold.
Law - Hidden Agenda Mix
Only really knew a handful of Hidden Agenda tunes before this. Most jungle with jazzy vibes gets a bit tedious but Hidden Agenda do something right that doesn't lure you to the off button. Props to Law from the great Drumtrip site for this killer mix. Am I getting old? Or just realising stuff you liked a bit in the 90s is 200 times better than anything currently being released?
God I could on forever. Don't get me started Peter Hook, Tina Weymouth, The Contortions, Gang of Four, The Fall, The Moodists, ESG, The Slits, Ian Rilen, The Pop Group, 70s reggae, PIL, liquid Liquid, Joseph K, Can, every band from the 60s, Michael Henderson, Bootsy fuckin Collins, every soul/funk band from USA in the 70s, Paul McCartney, Fire Engines, Minutemen, Jon Entwhistle, Died Pretty, Pete Wells, Gary Gary Beers, Mark Ferrie, James Freud, Steve Hanley, Andy Rourke, Bruce Lose/Will Shatter, Debbie Googe, Grant McLennan, Steve Kilbey, Kim Deal........somebody stop me.
I wrote this bit about bass players in July 2012. Now I wonder if they've all been covered. I've noticed some omissions though ie. Well I missed Carol Kaye but I guess she's included because I said every band from the 60s and hey she was on every second record made in that decade, the Meat Puppets and all of 80s New Zealand but did Kim Gordon, John Frenett (Moonshake/Laika), the dude in Les Rallizes Denudes, Paul Raven etc. get mentioned in the Bass Bits celebration?
Honey and Heat is a mesmerising off kilter urban dub tune with see-sawing samples. The samples here are meticulously crafted and create an entirely unique peculiarity.
Red River could be a Moonshake tune with it's squalling sax, tense noisy guitar shapes, claustrophobic minimal bass and tumbling out of control beats
Paul Raven plays the bass here with great vigour...a bit like a 60s/Noo Wave guitar style with that chopping of the strings thang. I like this song but I also think it's kinda funny....the seriousness of it all. No mistaking that 80s vibe though. Did Killing Joke make it to the stadiums? Probably only as a support act I'd say.
The sound of late 80s Australian indy psych pop bass. Beautifully melodic and swirling. There's even a break at the 3.08 mark, nice. What's not to like? Always thought it was the dude Mark Lock who was the bass player on all Died Pretty's recordings up to1988 but discogs tells me it's Steve Clarke who took over bass duties in 1989 from whence this tune came.
Classic Flying Nun bass from Robert Scott in 1981! Written by Peter Gutteridge (RIP), later of Snapper.
How could I forget this one? Not played by Kim Deal who'd moved onto guitar but by Joesephine Wiggs. Her name's rather apt here as she fully wigs out here.
GOOD(idea) TRIBUTE
David Barbe does an incredible impersonation of Kim Deal here. Sugar fully admitted this was their homage to The Pixies. Very bloody faithful.
After my previous post on Debbie Googe I thought I'd put up this old bit I wrote on on Loveless.
MY BLOODY VALENTINE - LOVELESS [1991]
Really do I need to spill another word onto a page about the merits of this LP? This recording is one of the most pillaged albums in rock’s history. The Jesus & Mary Chain laid down the blueprint via Phil Spector, The Beach Boys, The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Dr. Mix & The Remix, Aeroplane Runways and more. Dinosaur Jr., Husker Du and Sonic Youth added the extra flavour and My Bloody Valentine made noise rock at its most beautiful, blurry, melodic, disorientating and come on I have to say it, BLISSED OUT (er..thanks Mr Reynolds). Kevin Shields provided his considerably unique guitar talents along with Belinda Butcher. They together did their extraordinary girl/boy vocal thing. The rhythm section was none too shabby either with the aforementioned Deb Googe on her heavy, dubby and sometimes pummelling bass. Colm O'Ciosoig provided the drums as well as occasional sampling/production/engineering duties. It all began to come together in 1988 with the release of the You Made Me Realise EP and Feed Me With Your Kiss followed by the brilliant LP Isn’t Anything. My Bloody Valentine were on an incredible roll that turned into an avalanche with 1990’s Glider EP & 1991’s Tremolo EP followed by Loveless! Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation may have taken rock to its furthest reaches but Loveless took it beyond the universe and even into un-rock regions ie. ambient and ultra vague dance-rock. This was future rock’s cherry on top. We thought ongoing sonic exploration of rock was to continue but this was it. Loveless has now become an almost melancholy sonic document, like modernist Russian architecture that’s now in ruins, because it was never bettered. Don’t let that get you down though because this is a hell of a peak for rock’s innovation to go out on. Here come the cliches. Loveless was hazy sweet languidity with a noisy and chaotic undercurrent played with frenzied and laconic enthusiasm. Like the band’s name suggested a conundrum was at work here where apathy and hysteria were used to describe the same song. Did I say deliriously indolent? No? Well I have now. What about listless exhilaration? One tends to forget this record also fucking rocked as well as swimming in oceans of intoxicating euphoria, sometimes all at once. Oh yeah, Loveless is also pop music at its finest. Ecstatic aural pleasure at its Zenith.
Someone once commented 'Why didn't they do a whole side of the sort of stuff like Touched and the in between track hazy ambient gear?' That would have been great wouldn't it?
Best opening tune to an LP ever?
That's a good game: Best opening songs to albums. Simon should rally everyone for that can of worms.
The mythical Instrumental 2 from My Bloody Valentine. This was issued on a 7" with the first few thousand copies of 1988's Isn't Anything. Deb Googe was soo good. This predates stuff like Aphex Twin, Seefeel, all your dub/hip hop influenced post-rockers and Boards Of Canada by many years. Incredible stuff!
Then there's this. The opening tune to Isn't Anything where Googe gets heavy (wo)man.....She would later get lost amongst the euphoric guitar storm on later records. My Bloody Valentine could have been a whole different band had they continued down these paths......just a thought.
*Sorry if these have already been covered elsewhere in Simon's Bass Bits party, which continues on, but I've only sporadically been able to follow the discourse (due to the rupture in my life's flow).
There's a good 2 hour special here on Royal Trux, who were the most consistently great rock group of the 90s. This is a career retrospective of the band and Jennifer Herrema is interviewed throughout by Ajay(?).
Herrema has now got her own dublab show named after an old Royal Trux tune The Banana Question. There are 2 episodes so far and it's an amateurishly ramshackle affair with 80s hip-hop, metal, disco, classic rock etc. all sort of shabbily dub mixed. Quite entertaining. I imagine pro DJs will hate it.
Take the 90s Avant-Rock challenge here with Twin Infinitives. Hey, it took me a couple of years to realise this was a mental scuzzy masterpiece.
They started to get a bit more accessible after Twin Infinitives. Driving In That Car was a few years later from the great 1993 Cats & Dogs LP.
Morphic Resident is reaching almost FM worthy commerciality but they're still them. I'm pretty sure the story goes that the band handed over these tapes to Greg Archilla and he just did what he wanted with the mix. The band liked it and 1997's Sweet Sixteen was the result, another classic.
Always loved the bass in this. I can't get enough of this type of bass. It seems particularly British, I've got loads of Jamaican reggae and dub records from from the 70s but the bass lines aren't quite like this are they?
This bass style is so versatile. Here it's in more of a soulful context. Geez...nice.
The bass here, played by Harvey Williams (From many a Sarah Records group), is similar and soo good. I guess there are hints of The Specials and Jah Wobble here which makes me think this particular dubby bass style comes from a post-punk heritage. Feel free to let me know if you know from whence it came.
Another version where the bass is a bit more....I dunno...pointy or something. Still very bloody nice.
Heavenly bass. Heavenly tuuune....oh.... no pun intended. Wasn't everything on Foxbase Alpha sampled though? I could post most of that LP here but I'll spare you, just go and listen to it.
Similar bass style to the above to tunes but in more of a hardcore rave context. Me like.
The bass is great in this I just wish it would come even further forward.
More from the Suburban Bas(s)e label. Wicked bass on this in that classic style, I've been talking about.
That Safe From Harm bass is sampled from a Billy Cobham tune Stratus. It's only part Cobham's track where it comes in at the 3.05 mark but Massive Attack make it their whole tune here. It's like a warm blanket which befits the title of the song nicely!
I don't mean to be so obvious but how could you go past this and didn't it get sampled a couple of times. Bass Most Awesome!
The Buggles
Video Killed The Radio Star
Probably not an obvious choice but I used to love the bass in this.
Bootsy's Rubber Band
Munchies For Your Love
I couldn't sign off without the greatest funk bassist of them all. It starts off slow then his bass starts bubbling up unexpectedly then eventually goes intergalactic by the end of this epic. Timeless bass gold.
Simon Reynolds is doin a bit on bass bits so I thought I'd put in my Tuppence worth. Well I wrote these a couple of years back anyway.....Immediately what sprang to mind was Tracy Pew of The Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party. There's a reason why he's on the cover of that HITS compilation because he was the heart and soul of the band. He drove them and without him on bass they would have been nowhere and nowhere near as fucking great!
The first one I love is The Friend Catcher particularly when the guitar/clarinet/sax(?) end up following his bassline every now and then. I could post entire LPs but I'll spare you. Mr Clarinet and Happy Birthday are much tighter and clipped but no less effective. A Catholic Skin is so good for the most part it is just one bass note propelling the song forward. Hats On Wrong is a much looser Pew and an indication of what was to come, geez he was good.
Then there's The Red Clock where Rowland S Howard does the old Ozzy Osbourne trick of following his vocal melody with whatever Toni Iommi guitar is playing (or was it the other way around?), except with Rowland's vocals it's to Pew's bass.
King Ink is possibly Tracey Pew's finest moment of bass glory. It's just so fucking grimey, muck is pouring from his fingertips. Human Skin and electricity fusing for a pure expression of filth. How does he keep playing that bassline amongst the rest of the shitstorm that is going down in this song.
Zoo Music Girl's bassline is just dirty funky fun for all the family. I could go on. Tracey Pew's bass on Nick The Stripper and Figure of fun are killer.
Lastly there's Yard off Prayers On Fire. This is fucking incredible. Pew plays the bluesiest and most lonesome bass I've ever heard in my life. I think it's the only time he ever played double bass on a Birthday Party record.
Well how could you go past this iconic bassline with a little bit extra thrown in on the jam. Lou's group are fuckn cookin' right here (not Velvets as stated). That's Robert Quine on guitar dunno the other two but they're also awesome. Live in 82, rude form!
A Tribe Called Quest Can I kick It
Then it was sampled here to great affect! Tribe kickin it to Lou in the goal square!
The Original LP version. Gotta give Herbie Flowers his due. He played two basslines on it, one double bass the other electric so he could get paid twice or so the legend goes. This has been an FM staple since it came out and with good reason. It's probably where I first heard about givin head. Double the bass pleasure!
Surely Friday On My Mind should be Australia's national anthem. Strangely, I had written an entire post about this song for my 2015 wrap up but never posted it because I thought it was too negative. It was about how this tune ceased to be my weekly anthem as I'd given up the booze and finishing work on Friday had become something to not look forward to....blah blah blah...anyway after a couple of years I decided to have a wee drink on Friday nights again and well...the song's status may well be restored soon, I hope. Stevie, the lead singer of The Easybeats, died a few days ago. He had hedonistic demons that nearly destroyed him at one point. Wright suffered brain damage due to controversial treatment of his addictions in the 70s. He made several comebacks though. I saw one of these appearances that he made on the telly late one night and it was heartbreaking yet triumphant at the same time. That brought me to bittersweet tears which is no mean feat for the hard arse I thought I was at the time. So this guy touched me like few artists ever have plus he was fucking awesome! RIP.
Reflekzionz/Enttropik EP - Ekoplekz
Another great LP from Nick Edwards and the EP has two of his best tunes ever. He's on a hell of a roll and is quite possibly the best living electronic artist on the planet.
Lost Themes - John Carpenter
Carpenter knocks his clones out of the park with this classic epic slab of prog-horror. He just does what he does and that's the beauty of this album.
Playclothes From Faraway Places/Why Does My House Make Creaking Moises? - Moon Wiring Club
MWC are still intriguing, captivating and delightful after 10 years. This is his best since Today Bread, Tomorrow Secrets and that's saying something as that's probably his 2nd best work. So this could end up at 1 or 3. This conjures images of ye olde English spectres breakdancing in dank haunted houses. Like Stereolab before him he makes writing about his music pointless as the song titles say it all 'Hide & Ghost Seek' 'Cobwebby Whodunit' 'Chic Exorcist' 'The Hushening' 'Haywire Assistants' 'Timeless Tea Gowns' etc. What is all that whispering about?
Barter 6/Slime Season - Young Thug
How the fuck does he keep it up? Two great releases from rap's weirdest tripper with the most original flow in hip-hop's history? Me like a very lot.
Nightvision - Mark Van Hoen
Mark continues on his merry way outside of trends and makes a little gem of an electronic LP in the process. Did anyone even notice?
Thrilla - Boosie Badazz
Ignore his stupid name change, he's still Lil Boosie to me but as he says he's a 'bad ass mother fucker.' He sounds like a real slime ball with the most menacing swagga in the game. When he gets in a maniacal zone it's as intensely infectious as prime Iggy Pop. Why isn't he as big as Kanye?
Rudeboyz EP - Rudeboyz
Mesmerising tumbling rhythms that bounce around amongst gloomy minimalism.
DS2 - Future
What a year Future's had, especially when you consider his inconsistent previous year. This album is just the tip of the iceberg of his 2015. This is his unapologetic paean to nihilistic hedonism and something tells me this all ain't gonna end well...
EVENIFUDONTBELIEVE - Rustie
Rustie makes a fine return to form and sets us adrift on memory bliss. It's so hard to resist this cheesy, cheap and cheerful noise.
Rich Off Mackin - RJ & Choice
Everyone wanted to write off DJ Mustard in 2015 (including my barber) but Rich Off Mackin can't be denied. This is gold and really feels like a true collaboration between RJ, Choice and Dijon. It's party time, people!
Houston 3AM - Beatking
Beatking continues to kill everything he does and Houston 3AM is up there with his best LPs/Mixtapes. The King is the most un-PC rapper in the game. Bret Easton Ellis needs to do a podcast with this guy!
Safe - Visionist
Everything about this on surface value make me wanna be sick ie. the cover, the artist's name, the song titles etc....omg I want to punch this C*** in the face. So it's with great disappointment then that I have to announce this music is good stuff: Minimal, thin & empty with occasional flourishes into neon lit sound. Hauntological Grime, anyone?
OTHERS I ALSO LIKED Slime Season 2 - Young Thug The Hateful Eight OST - Ennio Morricone Cub OST - Steve Moore
London Overgrown - John Foxx Tales From The Black Tangle - Howlround Don't Let The Sauce Fool U - Sauce Twinz I'm Movin' To Houston - Starlito Beast Mode/56 Nights - Future 3 Weeks/Club God 4 - Beatking Candy, Diamonds & Pills - Gangsta Boo Life II Death - Amber London What A Time To Be Alive - Drake & Future 12 Reasons To Die II - Ghostface Killah WHAT'S WITH THESE??? John T Gast - Excerpts
Puts in perspective how good Scorn were circa Evanescence and Ekoplekz are now. Switch it off. Father - Who's Gonna Get Fucked First?
Awful Records is a rather apt title for his label, innit? Arca - Mutant
It's alright I'spose but am I gonna play it a 4th time? No. Helm - Olympic Mess
Olympic snooze-fest.
*I could go on and on and on some more but that'll do.....
TELEVISION Girls: These characters are so fucking awful, I hate them. Genius.
Better Call Saul was alright particularly the comedy gold of the Bingo scene in the final episode.
The American TV Golden Age didn't last long did it? Beginning with the first episode of Sopranos and ending somewhere around the last episode of the fourth season of Breaking Bad, I reckon. Britain however has pretty much been in a TV golden age since the 70s.
MOVIES
Remember when they used to make good movies?
OK so no stuff I already have, just gear I've been turned onto because it's been reissued or is different or better quality than previous issues. So no Cassie or Martin OST.
User 18081971 @ Soundcloud - Aphex Twin
So this was 230 trax from the Aphex archive dumped on soundcloud for like a week. It was like he realised 2015 was a very lean year in music so he gave 2015 a gift in 20 albums worth of top material. Some of the fan made comps of this stuff were great ie. Selected Ambient Works 3 & 10 Mellow Tracks For Free. This puts Mr James back in the spotlight as one of the greatest living electronic producers. So much goodness!
Individuals - Sunnyboys
My fave Sunnyboys LP in its original form before LA people fucked with it. It's one of the best Australian rock LPs of all time and this version is gold - the best.
Muscle Up - Patrick Cowley More funky cosmic disco jams and spooky atmospheric exotica made for porn films.
Fridge Trax Plus - General Magic & Pita Delve into the strange netherworld of droning fridges. Classic Mego 90s electronica.
Industrial - Allesseandro Allessandroni Great intense library LP fom 1971.
The Guest OST- Steve Moore
2014 synth soundtrack action from Moore who's one half of Zombi.
Rosso Sangue OST - Carlo Maria Cordio
The one I was waiting for. Choice Italian horror soundtrack from 1981. This contains some of the best synth soundz I've ever heard.
Electronic Calendar: The EMS Tapes - Peter Zimofeiff
Plenty of primitive synthesiser, electronics, atonal sounds & so much more from a forgotten figure of the 20th Century's Avant Garde.
All The Rest of The Rudeboyz Stufff - Rudeboyz
If the 4 trax on the EP weren't enough for you, a bunch of other tunes were available here on the interweb.
Documents 1975 - Harmonia
Krautrock's most underrated group give us more magic as you would expect.
Best Friend - Young Thug I Got Hoez - Beatking Feturing Short Dawg Mitsubishi Song - Rudeboyz OD - Young Thug Halftime - Young Thug Quarterback - Young Thug I Serve The Base - Future Constantly Hatin - Young Thug featuring Birdman Round My City - Lil Boosie Playin Tricks - RJ & Choice Throw Some Mo - Rae Sremmund featuring Minaj & Thugga Broke Boy - Iamsu! featuring RJ & Choice Big Rings - Drake & Future Get Down - Rudeboyz In My City - Starlito featuring Sauce Walka, Young Dolph, Killa Kyleon & Sosa Man Get Rich - RJ & Choice Fuck Up Some Commas - Future Where Ya At - Future featuring Drake Rarri - Young Thug featuring Young Ralph Blow A Bag - Future Thought It Was Drought - Future March Madness - Future
Houston's Beatking and Atlanta's Young Thug have just released another quality album each. For me right now there are four rappers who stand out from the pack Young Thug, Kevin Gates, Future and of course Beatking. I love me Lils too ie. Boosie, Duke, Durk & Herb. HBK, MPA and Sauce people are real good too. It's hard to leave out the perennially underrated Starlito. Then there's Gangsta Boo, Youngs Dolph & Scooter, Zuse, RJ, Choice and a bunch of others. One thing I'm way not getting is the Awful Records roster. Every artist on this label seems to get a great critical response with every album they issue and yet I couldn't name you one that I thought was any good and I've listened to at least half of Awful's catalogue. Some things are for other people I guess, people not like me.
Those 4 aforementioned rappers are just several notches higher than the rest at the moment. Kevin Gates usually has the best quality control of these four but he's only released one short mixtape this year Murder For Hire that was a bit hard to handle as the djs were a bit overbearing, smothering Kev's idiosyncratic tunes. So really apart from those 7 tracks so far we've only got 4 tunes that are slowly trickling out of i-tunes from his LP Islah which now has a release date for 2016. What's goin on Kev? We were getting two quality albums/mixtapes for the last three years running and that was an unsurpassed winning streak for recent rap. Perhaps I should give Murder For Hire another chance. So 2015 has been a tad disappointing for Gates fans after those previous three years. I don't read gossip columns so maybe I'm missing something like record company troubles, parole violations, legal issues, personal problems - possibly all of the above. Of the remaining 3 it's hard to say who's on top. Thugga and Beatking have released 3 albums/mixtapes each in 2015. Young Thug can be a bit erratic while Beatking is very consistent but can be a bit samey so it's a toss up between those two. Future's released 3 albums/mixtapes as well this year but he has the edge I reckon because he did that collaboration with Drake What A Time To Be Alive which is surprisingly good. Anyway it's not football so we can enjoy everyone's season and I'm pretty sure before the year is out Young Thug and Future could have at least one more release left in them each. As Gates says these four guys 'don't get tired.'
I used to think this was a top tune/racket, still pretty good innit?. Those Big Black records were good as I recall. The Rapeman album and the first three Shellac 7"s I thought were classics back then, sure I haven't listened to them in years but old Steve had a bit of talent. I couldn't get fully into Shellac's debut album At Action Park so I didn't really follow his work after that. Dog And Pony Show is the outstanding tune I remember from that LP. He did a great job recording, producing, engineering (whatever he used to bloody call it) particularly on that first Breeders LP, Pod and of course Surfer Rosa from The Pixies. He recorded a million bands, most of which are probably not worth listening to. Steve produced some non angry men like Labradford and Low. He even produced a couple of good Australian bands ie. Crow and Dirty Three. One aspect of Albini's personality that really endeared me to him was that he was a huge Wildlife Documentary fan. Rock people didn't say shit like that in the 80s/90s. I thought that was pretty bloody punk or was it anti-punk? It certainly was not cool or in any way fashionable. I also liked Albini's writing. He might have been the reason I first got turned on to Slint's Spiderland as he wrote a review of it in the pages of Melody Maker, I'm pretty sure. He also produced their inferior debut Tweez. Come to think of it I'm pretty sure I read an article that Steve wrote where he went through a bunch of records he'd recorded and he slagged off Surfer Rosa. He was was just being honest, many thought he was a c***. You used to be able to just write what you thought back then and it was ok. Now all these sensitive little kittens would call him a bully or a troll, wankers! I think I'd rather be a c*** than a troll. Trolls just remind me of those stupid little dolls with pink hair.
Anyway enough words have been spilled onto pages about Albini and I'm not trying to get a job at Mojo so the reason he's being discussed here is because there's a recent podcast with a conversation between Albini and Ian MacKaye from Minor Threat and Fugazi. I was having a depressing Sunday and trying to take a nap so I thought 'Why the hell not? This might lull me into sleep'. Funnily enough the only time I ever saw Shellac was when they were supporting Fugazi at The Collingwood Town Hall in Melbourne, perhaps in 93 or 94. Shellac were an incredibly impressive live unit, Fugazi were alright but I think I may have left during their set in search of a pub (no booze at these shows, god even the Puritans loved their booze). This podcast chat is a couple of old geezers reminiscing about the good ole days. One thing I didn't know was that MacKaye had done a project with Al Jourgensen, he of Ministry and immense drug taking fame. So that must have been weird because wasn't MacKaye straight edge? How on earth did they get along? Anyway I've never heard that record by Pailhead....I might check it out....nah I doubt it. Ian and Steve discuss recording, the UK, crashing at people's houses, Chicago, Touch & Go, Wax Trax, a mutual love of Adrian Sherwood, boring shit, more boring shit and there's plenty of arse kissing despite them being occasionally critical of one another. It wasn't as boring as I thought it might have been. I must admit I did nod off towards the end, hey it was long, they are musicians ie. they sometimes make good music but that doesn't mean they're dazzling conversationalists and geez...guess what? It's only part 1 apparently.
Anyway this goes out to Ant, my first blog member who loved his Fugazi back in the day and followed Shellac long after I did. Let me know what part 2 is like as I don't think I'll be downloading that one.
A better podcast featuring Albini sans tedious twat MacKaye is here. Albini discusses his love for Baseball and it turns out he's he's a celebrity poker player and lover of cats.
I loved this cover of Supernaut when it came on the radio in 91 but I don't even think I knew it was a Black Sabbath tune at the time. All I'd heard of Sabbath back in 91 was the Paranoid album which I had on a cruddy tape and on the other side was Pink Floyd's Piper At The Gates of Dawn. That's a strange combo but I guess they both became beloved by my rock brain. I can't say I was a Ministry fan, like my mates were but this is Jourgensen and co along with Trent Reznor on vocals. Now, I did not know that he was singing on this until yesterday. Is it true? and who really cares? I still like it despite being aware of the Black Sabbath version for like 20 years now. Steve Albini would hate it.
I don't think I posted this before but it's a toss up between this and the previously posted Best Friend for best tune of the year for me I think. Young Thug should do a whole album of tunes with the vibe of those two tracks, that'd be the best LP of the 2010s don't ya reckon? Barter 6, Slime Season 1 & 2 have 53 tracks. I've made a mixtape featuring the best 29 songs from those three releases called 2015 THUG, if he'd released that it would have been an all time classic. Then there's all his features including 5 on Gucci's Brick Factory 3 and that Metro Thuggin mixtape bootleg and so many more I didn't include. You could probably make another classic mixtape of the best of all those, I'm sure I've missed a bunch too. Does anything recorded go unreleased? Beatking on his closing monologue from 3 Weeks calls it 'the mixtape grind'. I kinda don't get it. Do the rap guys feel they have to keep pumping out so much stuff just to remain constantly visible? Anyway over 29 top choonz in a year is pretty bloody impressive.
Good old Robin The Fog is back under the Howlround moniker with a terrific new record Tales From The Black Tangle. This one is definitely heading further into the darkness. This LP is engulfed in fog. Foggy drones, foggy playgrounds, foggy cities, foggy horns, foggy radios, foggy sirens, foggy trains in foggy shipyards and foggy miscellaneous sounds all add to the foggy magnificence of this eerie little, shall we say, foggy gem. The foggiest record of the year. Thanks to Foggy Robin and his foggy friend. In a word Foggy.
I didn't think the video was dark or foggy enough, so i turned down the brightness to its lowest, changed the picture quality to its worst and slowed the music by half, fuck that was cool.
Well it's been quite a couple of weeks for new releases, a bit like the old days when you didn't know which releases to get because there were so many that you wanted to hear. Now though the ones you don't buy you can just download, I suppose, plus many are free downloads anyway. Beatking and Young Thug releasing new albums/mixtapes in the same week is a good week which ever way you look at it. God I'm still getting my head around Thugga's Barter 6 and the first volume of Slime Season and now we've got Slime Season 2. His new mixtape Slime Season 2 (after only a couple of listens) is quite possibly up there with his two classics Black Portland & 1017 Thug.Young Thug also has a collaboration mixtape with Migos about to drop at any moment plus another official solo LP. He's the new James Brown ie. the hardest working man in show business. Beatking's 3 Weeks is his third album of the year as well and his quality control is usually the highest in the rap game only rivalled by Kev Gates. Beatking has signed with Sony and he made an LP for them in 3 weeks. It's not as dementedly bangin as something like Gangster Stripper Music 2 from last year but he's still funny, profane, non PC and hey it wouldn't be a Beatking release without a version of Kiesha, surely this is the 17th time this tune has turned up, I expect a version on all his albums till he retires now. Is earnestness starting to sneak in to his array of aesthetics though? He may be stupid but Beatking's not dumb so naming this album 3 Weeks feels to me like a disclaimer as it's probably the lesser of his three releases this year. He's letting you know this was chucked together very quickly. Hopefully I'll have some further thoughts on this stuff once my mind has processed it all. Boosie Badazz (some of this sounds outstanding, after one initial listen), Zuse and Amber London have released worthy new material in the rap zones too in the last week or so. Recently Gangsta Boo, Skipper, Ty Dolla Sign and Lil Herb have put out mixtapes worth listening to as well and I reckon I've probably missed a few too.
In electronic zones Rustie creator of possibly the best record of the 2010s (well at least one of the top 9), Glass Swords, has a new album called EVENIFUDONTBELIEVE and it sounds really bloody good compared to last year's disappointing Green Language so that's exciting news as I was ready to write him off. Arca and Mark McGuire have new LPs plus I just discovered Steve Moore's synth soundtrack The Guest that was released earlier this year. That Visionist album Safe still has me transfixed and slightly perplexed as I can't quite pinpoint why I like it so much. Then there's the archival box from Harmonia which I guess is really only of interest as it includes the previously unreleased Documents 1975. I believe this is getting its own separate release which I can't wait for, in fact I'm gonna have to download that right this second I think.
Then I discovered That Bret Easton Ellis does podcasts. I've checked out the episodes with Kim Gordon, Ariel Pink and Doors drummer John Densmore, which are all worth listening to. This guy can talk and then talk some more. Sometimes I wonder if he needs guests at all. His epic intros are gloriously verbose. It's all about Bret and it's fascinating as is his obsession with LA. Finders Keepers Radio did an excellent Halloween special although their shameless self promotion is starting to wear thin. These guys are obviously massive music fans but business and marketing are starting to cloud their vision slightly.
Last but not least I've discovered the dudes from the legendary but now dead sharity blog Mutant Sounds have started doing podcasts as well. They've done two episodes so far of Mutant Sounds Radio. If you loved the Mutant Sounds blog you'll know what you're getting here ie. Seminal music from subterranean fringe dwellers brought to public consciousness by counter obscurism.
Oh and one last thing......I was going to post this tune last week as I've been getting into the 2003 Ricardo Villalobos LP Alcachofa and then I noticed this has been issued on a 12" recently which is weird. Anyway me love this tune a lot.
This is on the other side of the 12" and is the opening track from Alcachofa and it might even be more awesome than Dexter. Legendary.
Oh then there is more stuff..... this time in Hauntological zones......maybe next time......
