mp3: Except for the Ghosts

website: http://www.lisagermano.com

I first fell heavily for Lisa Germano around 1998/99. There was a 4AD compilation distributed by Uncut magazine at the time, and while I was already into a bunch of 4AD artists, it set me off on a major voyage of discovery. That year, Germano released her album Slide, which was represented on said comp, and it was to become a major staple in my auditory diet for some time. And like all records you really love, it started my quest to own her whole catalogue, which took an extra year or two. As an aside, Slide, was produced wonderfully by Tchad Blake, who I’ve already mentioned today, so this could be a recurring theme in my posts, but I’ll come back to it another time.

Over the years, Germano has toured with a bunch of artists. I remember her coming to Glasgow once in support of Eels. Actually, she was also part of their touring band at the time, and while I didn’t see the gig, it was a delight to see her playing violin for them on mainstream TV shows, dressed up in silly costumes. In the end, I did see her play live numerous times–maybe five or six–but that was when she was part of Neil Finn’s band around 2001. And at least she was allowed to perform some of her own material.

Since, she’s gone through phases of locking herself away from the public, swearing off songwriting, eventually resurfacing in LA/Largo, and recording a scattering of understated piano-based albums. They haven’t really collided with me in the same way Slide and all that early material did, but it’s still Lisa–melancholic, solemn, pretty, violins, piano and her unmistakable voice. So I do still have a soft spot for her, and for this post, I’ve upped ‘Except for the Ghosts’ from her latest album In the Maybe World. It’s a pretty sparse/basic collection of songs, but it has its moments, and I chose this song because it reminds me of New Zealand. Admittedly I’ve never been to New Zealand, but there’s something about the atmosphere of this track which captures the mood of the soundtrack to the NZ film Rain (2001), of which she also featured on the soundtrack–see how my mind works?

And she does start her European tour next week (including one NL date in Haarlem).

09/11/06 : Tanned Tin festival - Castellon (ES)
10/11/06 : The Cube - Bristol (UK)
11/11/06 : The Luminaire - London (UK)
12/11/06 : Botanique – Brussel (B)
13/11/06 : STUK – Leuven (B)
14/11/06 : Patronaat – Haarlem (NL)
15/11/06 : Gleis 22 - Münster (D)
16/11/06 : Point Ephemere - Paris (F)
18/11/06 : Starclub - Dresden (D)
19/11/06 : Brotfabrik - Frankfurt (D)
20/11/06 : Schocken - Stuttgart (D)
21/11/06 : Palace - St. Gallen (CH)
22/11/06 : Usine Ptr - Geneva (CH)
23/11/06 : L’abordage - Evreux (F)
25/11/06 : L’Entrepot - Toulouse (F)
26/11/06 : Conservatori Superior de Musica - Mallorca (ES)
27/11/06 : La Pedrera - Barcelona (ES)
28/11/06 : Los Picos - Liérganes (Cantabria) (ES)
29/11/06 : Teatro Circo - Braga (PT)
30/11/06 : Teatro Circo - Braga (PT)
01/12/06 : Moby Dick - Madrid (ES)
02/12/06 : Santiago Alquimista - Lisboa (PT)

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mp3: Something Dark is Coming

website: http://www.bearmccreary.com/

Inspired by getting carried away this morning and ordering the Battlestar Galactica Season 2 set…

I’m a big fan of BSG. It’s pretty much my favourite thing on TV these days, and an extra part of its appeal to me is always the fantastic soundtracks, which are created by Bear McCreary. Worryingly, in the process of writing this, I’ve learned he’s actually one year younger than me, which just seems wrong. Someone creating a score for a show like BSG should be at least 48–especially when it’s this good. Gee, thanks again for making me feel like an underachiever, Bear.

Anyway, I still love the work. Often militaristic and percussive–his use of kodo drumming is my particular favourite–he’s gradually experimented throughout the series, touching on Irish folk, opera, contemporary classical and even a bit of rock. This track from season 2 doesn’t sit easily in any of these categories. In fact, it has more in common with the modern post rock instrumental bands than anything else, but the bass…ah the bass. Such a beautifully warm and rounded bass sound. The track is open and sparse and slow, leaving huge gaping holes, but what a collection of resonating bass notes filling it out, stretching on for nearly nine minutes. Along the way it does touch on some of the styles I mentioned above, but I can only reiterate: the bass!

I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it since Tony Levin got put in a cave by Tchad Blake–but that’s maybe another story for another post down the line.

As for the title, ‘Something Dark is Coming’, it just seems representative of the entire show.

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mp3: Momus - Tape Recorder Man

Pretty much Nathan Barley in 20 years’ time, Momus has the unerring capacity to amuse and irritate in equal measures, sometimes within the same line of a song, never mind an album. Having moved relatively recently into the world of writing about, to quote Armando Iannucci, “things with curves in”, ie design, he seems less and less interested in the musical side of things, which is a blessing in one way, but I still have a soft spot for him. When he’s good, he’s very good indeed. He is however a master of sabotaging the slickness inherent in pop, adding bitter or gauche ingredients that make him less palatable and usually putting off those who won’t make that final leap towards appreciating his music.

And this song typifies that music very well - opinionated, witty, catchy, but just as you’re sucked in, out come the irritating vocals that force you to decide whether to stay in your seat or not. It’s a pretty funny and barbed little song, and while his last few albums haven’t registered with me in the same way, I’m happy to wait in the meantime while he chucks out a few more articles about minimalist Stuttgart body-based voice collective MediaSlurp or Laotian turmeric chairs.

mp3: Pulp - Mile End

Pulp’s B-sides were often more interesting than the albums as they gave Jarvis just that little bit more slack lyrically to really have a go at someone, whether it’s himself, dirty old perv teachers or just southerners in general. Take the fantastic The Professional, for example, after Jarvis appeared to hit some sort of post-mega-success meltdown; whereas This Is Hardcore showed the more palatable effects of his angst, The Professional was just embittered, unhappy, self-loathing at its best: “I’m only trying to give you what you’ve come to expect/Just another song about single mothers and sex/You’ve heard it before, it’s nothing special - you can do it the hard way, or you can be…a professional.”

Or PTA, on the Mis-shapes single: “I’ve never had a woman before/I was too scared to touch the girls in the Poly/And I don’t know what it’s like to be young/Cos all my life I’ve been knocking on forty”.

So it is with Mile End, one of my favourite Pulp songs. It’s so bloody jaunty for a song about the absolute dregs of humanity. When I visit our office in London, the Underground stop is on the Central Line, and as we whizz rapidly westwards, I see Mile End just sitting there towards the easterly side of the route and I wonder if it really is anything like how he sings: “The lonely kids come out at night, they kick a ball, and have a fight, and maybe shoot somebody if they lose at pool… The pearly king from the Isle of Dogs feels up children in the bogs, down by the playing fields, someone sets a car on fire…” The best part is all the northern jibes at the end at the expense of bloody southerners - “Leave it ahhht!” “Lend us a foiaahhhver!” It’s a mess alright, it’s…Mile……….End. And the noise after he sings the title at the end of the chorus sounds like something from The Thing. Aptly.

mp3: full album download

website: http://www.swearingatmotorists.com/

Old news. So old that I downloaded this album a month ago. At the time I simply assumed everyone would have read about it elsewhere, and I hate to sound exactly like everyone else. But tonight I’ve changed my tune having seen this lying untidily on my desktop and remembered that this is a temporary offer. The album is due to be pulled offline on the day of the US midterm elections. That gives you around a further week to grab it.

The story: a solo acoustic album recorded in the most basic form while sitting in a Berlin subway. The full details can be found in the link above, so no need for me to copy and paste them here. Likewise, there’s nothing I can say about the music that you can’t find out for yourself by just listening to it. Basically, it’s a lovely concept, beautifully executed, and completely fascinating. It takes very little effort to download, and for free, you’ve nothing to lose.

mp3: Madder Rose - Swim

Summer 1992.

1. I’m back from university after my first year. I’m all excited as I’ve just bought Spiritualised’s Lazer Guided Melodies and I listen to it all the time. It makes me feel like I’m like, different yeah? My aunt, normally a missionary nun in Venezuala, has set down those admirable duties briefly to come to my horrible no-horse town which sits equidistantly between Liverpool and Manchester in order to visit her relatives. On her way downstairs, she walks past my bedroom. “Is that U2?” she says, genuinely curious. “Um, no”, I reply, trying to shield the disgust - she’s my favourite aunt.

2. A few days later. I’m sitting again in my bedroom, it’s really hot outside, I’ve got all the windows and door open and I’m listening to Henry’s Dream by Nick Cave. My exciting signed copy. Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry starts. My aunt walks past again. “Hmm… Is THAT U2?” she asks, hopefully. “Um, no”, I say, a little bit more sympathetically than last time, wanting to let her down gently. “It’s Nick Cave”. “Well, I like it. It’s kind of like what the band plays in our village - very dramatic!” “Ah, right.” Off she goes.

3. Undetermined time after this, maybe a day or even a few hours later. I’ve put on Madder Rose’s album Bring It Down. I only like Swim and Beautiful John - the rest seems kind of boring, but I like “The way they stared, you thought that they adored you” as a line from Beautiful John, and the lovely glissando guitar of Swim makes me happy. I’m just moving it back to Swim and yes, my aunt comes by again. She stops at the doorway. “OK, is THIS U2?” she says, smiling. “Yeah, it is”, I reply. She beams at me, says, “See, I’m not so out of touch!” and carries on down the stairs.

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mp3: Taking Up Serpents

website: http://www.curtiseller.com

Last written about here in April, the madman of bluegrass is back with his banjo, his yodelling and a chair to stand on. A little-known songwriter but a fantastic and memorable performer, Curtis is heading back out on European roads this week. So I’ve upped a track from his 2004 release Taking Up Serpents Again for you to embrace…and here are those tour dates:

November 03 - Patronaat, Haarlem
November 04 - De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam
November 05 - De Bakkerij, Castricum
November 09 - Coventry
November 10 - Leeds
November 11 - Manchester
November 12 - London
November 14 - Bath
November 15 - Hull
November 16 - Newcastle
November 17 - Edinburgh
November 18 - Sheffield
November 19 - Leicester

See here for complete venue information.

mp3: African Challenge

website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toumani_Diabate

One of the things I’ve been delighted with this past year is more exposure to music from around the world, and in particular, the glorious sounds of Western Africa. Toumani Diabaté has been one of those blessings.

An amazing kora player from Mali, I first heard him as his collaboration with Ali Farka Toure–In the Heart of the Moon–was such a huge worldwide hit. And it’s a wonderfully impressive piece of work too. But what I really love is his most recent ‘band’ album, Boulevard De L’independance that sees him back with his magnificent Symmetric Orchestra. It’s so energetic, so vibrant and so beautiful, and I just keep returning to it over and over.

They just hit Amsterdam on Friday there and I had no free time to see them, so in tribute I just wanted to share a song in case it inspires others to check him out in the future.

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mp3: Mermaid (part B)

website: http://www.conchords.co.nz/

Yes, it’s New Zealand’s 3rd or 4th most popular comedy folk band–but they’re aiming for the world now.

Back during my Danish road trip this summer, I finally got around to going through the Flight of the Conchords BBC radio series, first broadcast in 2005, I think. I knew nothing about the band initially, but had grabbed it because of the weekly inclusion of a brief phone conversation with Neil Finn during the show. The premise being, the Conchords and their manager had move to Britain to crack the non-sheep market, and were facing a new collection of trials and tribulations each week as they fought for comedy-folk stardom. And whenever situations had dipped to an all-time low, Neil would receive an unwanted call from the manager asking advice.

It was a pretty good radio series actually, but it’s worth remembering that the Conchords are a real (comedy) musical entity and have released an actual album and toured like crazy in their native New Zealand. And as well as the success of the UK stuff, they also recorded an HBO TV special in Texas last year, which I now have to watch too. So I’m feeling inspired to share a Conchord track from their Folk the World album. Yes, they’re silly, but so what? It’s only the seedy, combative world of comedy folk.

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The Crane Wife. Will it? Won’t it?

Apparently their new album The Crane Wife is officially released in Europe/UK this weekend/tomorrow. About time. I don’t agree with breaking up releases into different markets, and in this day and age when the internet rules, I only see it as harmful. And while I did already admit recently that we’ve now waded into the greatest hits time of year, I’d have been furious if Rough Trade really did postpone the album until January or February, as has been the key speculation of late.

Anyway, here are the European tour dates (lifted from the old spitfork news article, hence the backward dates):

02-02 Sheffield, England - Leadmill
02-03 Dublin, Ireland - Village
02-04 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC
02-05 Manchester, England - Academy 2
02-07 Nottingham, England - Trent University
02-08 London, England - Shepherds Bush Empire
02-09 Southampton, England - University
02-10 Brussels, Belgium - Botanique
02-12 Cologne, Germany - Prime Club
02-13 Hamburg, Germany - Knust
02-14 Berlin, Germany - Postbahnhof
02-16 Fribourg, Switzerland - Fri-son
02-17 Bologna, Italy - Estragon
02-18 Munich, Germany - Ampere
02-19 Vienna, Austria - Flex Club
02-21 Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Paradiso
02-22 Paris, France - La Maroquinerie

Now don’t go selling out Amsterdam before I defy my ‘lazy’ and order tickets.

One of the first things to capture my imagination on the Nintendo DS has been Electroplankton. Yes, it’s one of the non-games the DS is renowned for, but it’s so much fun.

Back when I first began taking my DS onto public transport, I was wary about gaming under the watchful eyes of nosey strangers. Especially when it came to ‘cartoony’ style adventures that look quite childish if you aren’t actually lost in the game. So when things got crowded around me, I had a tendency to switch on Electroplankton and lose myself to it for an hour or more.

The premise is simple–there are ten varieties of plankton, and each can be manipulated in different ways to produce a variety of sounds and music. The only catch is, it’s completely performance based, so you can’t save your masterpieces while out on the road, you just have to keep on producing new music.

Back in the early days of usage, I was immediately drawn to plankton like Luminaria and Beatnes. Both are very musical and heavily quantised, so it’s difficult to create anything that doesn’t sound good. In the former, you’re altering the course a specific plankton can take by flipping arrows in a grid on the touch screen. In the latter, the array of FX from Mario games are all recreated, with a friendly dance beat running in the background while you tap out musical notes or sound effects, which are then looped for a few bars, allowing you to layer patterns. Anyone can do it and make it sound good, but it’s always different, so it remains fun.

But moving away from the easy starters, Lumiloop quickly became my train favourite, tapping into my experimental drone side. The faster you spin the plankton with your stylus, the higher the pitch it produces, and the more you spin together, the more tonal integration you’ll hear. You can also alter the sounds being produced, but I just love the choral droning. And the funny thing is, you probably look way more stupid to any onlookers as you spin these plankton as hard as you can, than if you were just playing a standard computer game, but it’s so easy to find yourself caught in a drone trance and spinning for ages.

Of course, with headphones on, no-one else really has a clue what you’re up to. There’s no hint of gameplay or purpose. There is visual action on both screens, but it’s purely nonsensical. The only real reward is aurally. And again, a lot of humour can be obtained when you’re using the sampling plankton out in public. Volvoice and Rec-Rec are two such examples, where you can capture real-life sounds and manipulate them in real-time. It’s tremendous fun to record the sounds of the train or fragments of conversation and turn it into a very temporary piece of art.

For me, the real thrill of Electroplankton is that it’s creative. Considering my current lifestyle is so crowded that I don’t manage to pick up a musical instrument let alone record anything, it’s remarkably fulfilling to experiment with plankton on the move and actual tap into a fun, artistic outlet instead of sitting like a passive zombie on a crowded train. The concept is simple, and is no more complex than those silly flash sites with music loops which you can interact with using your mouse. But port it over to a DS with its innovative user controls and you have one of the coolest little “games” around.

mp3: Throwing Muses - Bright Yellow Gun

Again! You’d be forgiven this is a bit of a cop-out, all this constant Muses applause, but when the random factor lights its light on one of your favourite songs, you shouldn’t ignore it.

I’ve always been unsure about the album (University) this single’s taken from; Bright Yellow Gun is just majestically great, but this was the first of any of Throwing Muses’ albums where I found I actually - whisper it - didn’t like some of the songs. The song University reminds me of Ozzy Osbourne/Lita Ford ballad Close My Eyes Forever, which I am convinced to this day has the same guitar sound and also a striking similarity between Ozzy’s seemingly fifty-tracked vocals and the cooing babyish echo of the screeching baby Kristin rather indulgently features.

If you can’t love Bright Yellow Gun for it’s great lyrics (You eat one apple a week to survive…), then admire it for it’s ace A-minor to G to A-major to G verses and D-minor to C coda, and the fact it doesn’t actually have a chorus. It’s a classic of simple songwriting, which is why, despite dodgy production here and there which is no better exemplified by the samey University, Kristin Hersh still reigns strongly over my musical life.

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I’ll be honest, I’ve not been much of a gamer since I was a teenager. I started young. I got my first computer when I was probably only around 5 years old (though I had small handheld games even before then), and how I loved my ZX Spectrum. Eventually I progressed upwards to an Atari ST, and had a dot matrix printer way bigger than anything I currently own sitting next to it. But in my later years at school, I was talked into getting an Archimedes, which was fine and all. Cool processor. Cool business computer. But the dullest thing ever for computer games, and I think that’s the point where me and gaming started to go our separate ways. Sure I dip into the latest version of Pro Evolution Soccer every year, but it’s very minor–I can’t let a stupid game get in the way of work or my internet addiction.

But a couple of months ago I started on a new path by purchasing a Nintendo DS Lite. Portable gaming is an especially foreign concept to me having never owned a portable console, but I was spending so much time travelling on trains that the idea became appealing to me. Plus the DS is such a sweet little thing, and the more I read about it, the more it won me over. It just seems like such an innovative beastie, and while the Sony PSP was also quite appealing to me with its snazzy graphics, I was eventually convinced that the DS would provide a long term future of happy gameplay.

Lo and behold, everyone who said so was right. The DS is now one of my favourite things, and train journeys, plane journeys, and just general times when I’m waiting around for something to happen dissolve away when I start it up. So I’m really happy with the purchase, and hugely impressed with the line of official Nintendo games too. I was never a fan of Mario as a teenager, but man, those Mario games are some of the most creative and rewarding games I’ve ever experienced.

My point is, I plan on adding the odd bloggy bits about games I’m currently playing. It won’t take over from music, but I think it will be fun to write about a new form of media with my new-found status as an intermediate gamer.

mp3: Your Town

website: http://www.deaconblue.com

I’m basically delving into my childhood now, but it’s that ‘greatest hits’ time of the year. Deacon Blue technically had a very successful greatest hits album back in the ’90s already, but there’s a new singles collection out now and it’s brought the band back to my attention.

Chances are, if you’re outside Scotland you won’t even remember (or have heard of) Deacon Blue, but when I was about 10 years old they were my favourite band, carrying on until bands like Crowded House and Faith No More eventually took over in the mid-’90s. I really, really loved this band, and it’s just a shame that most of what I own is trapped on cassettes, because I’d remember to listen to them more frequently if I could see them on my CD shelves.

The one album I do have on CD is Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, which was probably their least successful album of all, and in fact led to them breaking up. And oh, how gutted I was when they played their final two farewell shows at Glasgow Barrowland and I was too young to be allowed in. And it actually still irks me that I’ve never seen them live, because they have in fact reformed in recent years and released new material–although I’ve never actually listened to it. The band live primarily in my memories now you see, but it’s very good memories.

So I chose ‘Your Town’ to stick online, which is from the aforementioned album. I still feel it’s a really good song (and album) and pretty underrated. I don’t expect the world to suddenly sit up and take notice, but it’s nice to pay tribute to one of the key bands which helped form who I was and what I became.

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mp3: Being a Girl (part one)

website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansun (seems appropriate)

I’m not quite sure why it is, but I kinda regard Mansun as something of a guilty pleasure. I was never really into Britpop when it was happening in the 1990s. Sure, I liked bits of it, and I was young enough to be open to possibilities, but for some reason, in my formative years I always had an aversion to English guitar bands. At least moreso than Scottish or American stuff. It wasn’t a personal choice as such. I just often didn’t like the way English bands sang.

But then there’s Mansun, who somehow stuck out to me, and I’ve never understood why. I just really enjoy their music and, in fact, own two of their albums, and I’m looking to buy their new greatest hits, which came out last month in Britain.

The band never sounded retro to my ears, although having heard comments about them sounding so ’80s whenever I play them, I’m actually starting to come round to that way of thinking. I’ve also never really considered them as prog, which is another thing I regular hear about them. And all in, it means I have very little to say about them, because it’s just Mansun to my ears. Beyond that, I find it hugely difficult to analyse. I may call it complex guitar pop just to appease those who demand a label. Anyway, I’ve upped a track called ‘Being a Girl (part one)’ from their second album Six, which is shorter and sharper than much of their tracks. That means it might not be completely representative, but it’s good fun.

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