This time around, let's skip sublime and go straight to
ridiculous.
"Louie, Louie", by The
Sandpipers. From a 1960s that time forgot, here is a version of rock'n'roll
bedrock made to sound like "Guantanamera". It has been drained of all
life. Its reason for existing is no longer evident. It is like a slow-motion
car accident from which you cannot look away. And so you stare, spellbound, at
something that's like a thing you recognise but also, like, not.
"Fran Andra Hand Till Stranderna I
Nice", by Gryningen. This seems to have been cut from the same cloth: you
know, the kind of gem you might find hidden on some Phase 4 Stereo lp you found
at a garage sale. But -- surprise, surprise -- it's some Swedish dude from the 2010s. Go figure.
"Da Klagar Mina Grannar", by
Charlie & Esdor. If you ever thought you needed to hear more damaged-psych
clatter from Swedish hippies, embellished by excessive quantities of free-form
sitar, (a) boy have you got problems; and (b) this is for you.
"Ganglat Fran Valhallavagen", by
Kvartetten Som Sprangde. Yet more psychedelic Swedes, this time from the early
seventies and therefore with something of a prog-rock bleedthrough. I'll be
honest with you, I could probably listen to this all day. In fact, I think I
might. (No wonder this column is so far behind.)
"Gonul Dagi", by Baris Manco
& Kurtalan Ekspres. At the self-same time, weird musical excursions were
also, uh, "happening" in Turkey. If this song hasn't been sampled,
the samplers haven't been doing their job properly.
(Bonus gratuitous lookalike gag: Hey, look,
it's the Turkish Lemmy.)
"Ad Gloriam", by Le Orme. You may
also know this from the soundtrack to "Ocean's Eleven", where it was
rejigged by David Holmes. "I didn't know that, Wayne."
"Move With The Season (Beyond The
Wizards Sleeve Reanimation)", by Temples. My guess is that Temples would
be one of the seemingly countless number of bands that appeared in the wake of
Tame Impala, with inevitably diminishing returns. This sort of post-psychedelic Britpop is easy on the ear but it can struggle to generate much excitement (at
least at our house) if it doesn't have the X factor that someone like Kevin
Parker can bring to it. Enter Beyond The Wizards Sleeve, the living embodiment of
21st-century UK psychedelia. It appears this is one component of an entire
album's-worth of Temples "reanimations". Curiously, Temples' second
album was released, like, literally yesterday. Spooky.
"Alphaville (Todd Terje Remix)",
by Bryan Ferry. So this is where the idea for Ferry's star turn on TT's
"It's Album Time" album came from. Even when you know it's him, it's
still kinda hard to fathom. Mr Terje, on the other hand, he's all over this, in
the best possible way. A couple of minutes before the end it morphs into an
discourse on "Music For 18 Musicians". Or maybe that's only in my
dreams.
"Don't You Wish You Had (What You Had
When You Had It?)", by Ruth Copeland. Co-written by The Clinton That Did
Inhale. Guitar, I would appear, by Eddie Hazel. And such the voice. I am a
better person for having learned of this record's existence. Also: some of the
best use of parentheses in a song title.
"What's A Girl To Do", by Fatima
Yamaha. Thoroughly beguiling piece of electronic pop music from 2004 which,
seemingly, refuses to die. You will, of course, swoon when the voice of
Scarlett Johansson, from "Lost in Translation", appears out of
nowhere.
"Planet Sizes", by Steve Mason.
In which the erstwhile Beta Band member reminds listeners of how that band was able
to make even the trickiest of pop songs sound oh so easy. I'm not sure he
hasn't done himself a bit of a disservice here, though: combining an utterly
gorgeous song with an utterly gorgeous video, at our present stage of human
evolution, is probably more than we mere mortals can absorb in one go. I know:
watch the video with the sound off, then listen to it with your eyes closed.
That might be the best of two very fine worlds.
"I Don't Mind", by Psychic Ills.
You already know how I feel about Hope Sandoval (*sigh*). Combining her voice
with psych-haze stoners Psychic Ills is a thing I can get behind. They dial it
right back, she fits right in. It's like an earlier pairing, of Mark Lanegan
and Isobel Campbell, only -- well, I was going to say "only better",
but that would be unfair. It's all good.
"Herd of Creeps", by Sunwatchers.
You won't believe your ears. And yet here we are. Warning: may induce headaches
in the unsuspecting.
"Stereoscope (Steve Hauschildt
Remix)", by Christina Vantzou. To bring us back down to earth at the end
of a long and surprising (to me, anyway) playlist, why not some Steve Hauschildt magic. I
haven't given him anywhere near as much oxygen on these pages as he deserves (to wit, precisely none). He has been doing
some excellent work out there on the ambient/experimental/electronic fringe, nowhere
better than on his 2016 album, "Strands". This track is a presumably
roughly contemporaneous remix. Whereas the original is all ladies and gentlemen we are floating
in space, the remix is all ladies and gentlemen we are floating in a warm bath
of amniotic fluid.
