(In which the author can’t seem to figure out if he is an “I” or a “we”.)
Okay, we seem to have fallen behind in our regular collocation of hypothetically downloaded songs. This bunch was put together back in March. That would be March of 2005, obviously.
1. NAMCO, “Katamari On The Rock”: rollicking bongos, female “choo choo choo” vocals, male “la la la” vocals, a rich mix of instruments; irrepressible; a jaunty 60s mindframe. Not a million miles from Pizzicato 5 (which is somewhere we like to hang out). Thus we start off on the front foot.
2. Inner Dialogue, “Yesterday The Dog”: as in, “Yesterday the dog ate the turtle.” Anti-war propaganda (Vietnam, that is) dressed up as a soft-focus Seekers-esque fairy tale. Just as you are lulled into a trees-and-flowers comfort zone, you get king-hit with “Yesterday the gun ate the people.” Sneaky.
3. Can, “Turtles Have Short Legs”: possibly the only time we will ever be able to run a segue from one song about turtles into another song about turtles. This may not be the most earth-shattering moment Can ever committed to tape, but how can you resist Damo Suzuki singing, English-as-a-second-language-style, “Turtle have a short regs, not for da walking.” One is put in mind of Roberto Benigni’s star turn in Jim Jarmusch’s “Down By Law”, wherein he delivers his lines almost phonetically owing to his then lack of understanding of English. “Not enough-a room to swing-a a cat.”
4. Holger Czukay, “Cool In The Pool”: more Can-related hilarity, as dictaphone-wielding Holger creates a new genre, Teutonic tropical. Hmmm, perhaps this was the precursor to Uwe Schmidt’s Senor Coconut project.
5. Eurythmics, “Never Gonna Cry Again”: forget what they did later, this early Eurythmics track, with no small involvement from the boys from Can, is sublime, understated motorik pop.
6. Cluster, “Heisse Lippen”: of course we know Cluster from the work they did with Eno, and we recently fell upon “Cluster 71”, a not immediately scrutable album but one we feel sure we will go back to. This is closer to the former: all melody, echo, space, drift.
7. Jeans Team, “Wunderbar”: more synthy, drifting, pop ambience. Not much motorik here, but somehow solidly krautrocky, nevertheless.
8. Michael Rother, “Stone Cold”: Rother was in Neu!. Over the summer I surreptitiously made a copy of Rother’s “Katzenmusik” which was buried in our good friend Doctor Jim’s expansive collection of stuff. That album is full of nice stuff; this is a totally nice track, too. Is “motorik” really a word? If you were attempting to give it a precise meaning, this track might be a good place to start.
9. Gary Numan, “Cars”: Mr Numan’s finest moment. Sampled almost to death, but clearly works best in its original, undiluted form. Some kind of debt clearly owed here to Numan’s krautrock forefathers, but paid back handsomely, even if he did wander off into his own black-leather-and-makeup Neverland from about this point on.
10. Stereo Total, “Ich Bin Nackt”: something like what “Ca Plane Pour Moi” might have sounded like if concocted by Germans. Carried along by a slightly out-of-tune analog synth line straight out of the DAF songbook (we still await the DAF revival). Also borrows generously from “Turn Up Your Radio”. And throws in some really nice guitar right at the end. I have my suspicions that “Nackt” should be “Nacht”, but what would I know?
11. 2raumwohnung, “Spiel Mit”: more perfect German electronic pop. I never thought I’d say this, but the singer reminds me of ...
12. Fox, “Sssingle Bed”: ...Noosha Fox! Mainstay of every Countdown-watching boy’s dreams in the 1970s. The surprising thing is how great this song sounds today. The other surprising thing is how the suggestive nature of the lyrics completely escaped this farmboy. Vocoder!
13. M83, “Don’t Save Us From The Flames”: no real segue here, but earlier this year I could rarely be found not listening to this (German? The vocals are definitely coming from the mittel-European end of things somewhere) big-screen pop masterpiece. Everything is turned up to eleven, we have excessive contrast between sustain and release, and it still takes this listener into the stratosphere every time he listens to it. As with many other of my short-term favourite songs, this probably couldn’t have existed in a world without My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless”, but could you pick a better template?
14. Out Hud, “One Life To Leave”: this is one example of (loosely) post-punk-funk exhumation that gets it perfectly right.
15. Psapp, “Rear Moth”: I have always thought squeaky children’s toys have been sadly underutilised in pop music. I know nothing about this band. I have no idea why I (hypothetically) downloaded the song. Serendipity rools!
16. Barbara Morgenstern, “Aus Heiterem Himmel (Dntel mix)”: at which point we slip into yet another example of what we assume to be the dreamy world of German electronic-inflected pop music of the present day.
17. AK-MOMO, “Greasy Spoon”: now that CocoRosie have gone all pretentious on us, this is where we must turn for our faux-naive faux-folk faux-girl-pop fix. Actually, there is no small resemblance between the backing music on this and the Michael Rother, Jeans Team and Cluster tracks appearing further up the page. And furthermore, it strikes me now that the singer here also reminds me of Noosha Fox. No, I must surely be imagining it.
18-21. Marine Girls, “Love You More”, “Lazy Ways”, “That Day”, “Seascape” (John Peel sessions): we feel comfortable putting these four tracks together on a mix CD because (1) they are inseparable and (2) we have included individual songs with longer running times than these four put together. One song is a Buzzcocks cover. Our good friend Russell (get well soon, Russell) owns both of the Marine Girls albums. We have always been insanely jealous of him for this reason, although we have never told him this. The real question, however, is: whatever happened to Jane Fox, the Marine Girl who wasn’t Tracy Thorn?
22. Yoshimi and Yuka, “Elegant Bird”: we are gently brought down to earth by this brief instrumental interlude from the girls of Cibo Matto.
