Hypothetical mixtape: July 2012

There are months where you just can't find what you're looking for. Or maybe you were just in a cranky mood when playing back the stuff you were able to find. Or maybe, even, you just had the winter blues. We are talking here about what I was able to find, on my regular internet trawls, in July of last year. Which is not to say that everything that follows is a stinky dud; just that the culling process wasn't as agonising as it often is. First world problems. On with the show.

"The Shadow Of Your Smile", by Jack McDuff. The stereo separation on this is so extreme that your brain will tell you the Hammond is coming from one corner of the room and the guitar from the opposite corner, some way from where your speakers are actually parked. Hammond jazz as a genre, done well, I find irresistible. This is done well.

"128 Harps (Anthony Naples Remix)", by Four Tet. I have a mental list of people whose work I will jump on when it comes out, reviews be damned. It isn't a huge list, but nor is it made up exclusively of old fogeys. Kieren Hebden is on that list. Here is a track from his last album, "Pink", something of a tentative, explorative step towards the dancefloor (at least that's one way of reading it), remixed. We went through that last time.

"Comenius Garden", by The Field. Free music! On the internet! (Last year!) Man, I love this place.

"House of Jealous Lovers", by The Rapture. It's interesting to listen to this after the wave has subsided. This really, in many senses, was where DFA records came in. The opening bass line is straight off "Metal Box", the guitars are pure No Wave distortion. Cowbells and disco cymbals are obviously of importance. The bass changes up to New Wave propulsion (am I thinking Liquid Liquid here? I'm not quite sure) and the guitars that come in are within a lawsuit's distance of Gang of Four's "Entertainment".

"Is Your Love Big Enough?", by Lianne La Havas. Okay, so this is more or less standard 21st century soul singing (you can hear elements of both Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen, should you choose to do so) but the song itself is way catchy, and the guitar carries with it the faintest scent of African sands. Do African sands have a scent? What does that even mean?

"Fineshrine", by Purity Ring. This rather sounds like R'n'B with its insides pulled out. I can't say I entirely understand its musical language, but I like it. Maybe you will, too. (I have no idea what is going on in this video. I will probably have bad dreams now.)

"Only In My Dreams", by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. I had an idea that Ariel Pink was some kind of postmodern pop-music faker, or, uh, "artiste". I don't know where I got that from. If I have ever heard a more perfect pop song that this IN MY ENTIRE LIFE I don't know what it would be. As that ad says, it's got everything you could possibly want. And a little bit more.

"Oh! Tengo Suerte", by Masayoshi Takanaka. Spellbinding. Kind of as if Manuel Gottsching got stranded on a Pacific Island with only his guitars and a box of effects pedals, and something to crack open the coconuts. Bonus: album cover of the month.

"Robots In Heat", by Lem. There is, or at least there used to be, a blog of that name that posted rare and/or unusual tracks at a rate of one per day: perfect source material for someone like me. I take this opportunity to thank them. This is early '80s angsty-and-angular, herky-jerky electronic pop (you know the one) of the highest order. Oh. It's actually from 1977. It all gets a bit hazy from this distance (and at this age!) but that seems surprisingly early to me. Well done them. Brief pause: this actually reminds me, a little bit, of Tiga. Weird.

"Choreography", by Modern Eon. Similarly, this 1979 business sounds like it could have come from a couple of years later. (Although on the other hand it would have fit in quite well with "A Forest"; and also with "Vienna" and "Fade To Grey" (both 1981 -- I get so confused!).) Check it; it's a lovely song.

"Space", by Magic Wands. This on the other hand, although it is a 2012 production, might as well be a lost chart hit from 1981. Is it just "A Forest" with different vocals? Would it even matter if it was? Listen to it and try to stop your arms from pinwheeling.

"Brolene", by Welcome Stranger". Being a re-edit of, of all things, "Jolene", by Olivia Newton-John. When your old dad sits you down and says, "What's a re-edit, son?", you say, "Well, dad, that's when some tech-head with musical instincts pulls apart an existing recording and puts it back together leaving intact just the punctum (not a word your old dad would have used) and none of the padding. It either works or it doesn't, depending on the coincidence of your own taste and the taste of the dude doing the re-editing". And he will probably just nod his head and smile. Or you could just play him this, at which he will say something like, "I remember this song, but I don't remember it being anywhere near this good; or, really, any good at all". Which, in a nutshell, is the mark of a successful re-edit.

"Dancer", by KZA. Another re-edit. Same principle; different source material. Solid result.

"Inaccessible Mystery", by Jack White. Proof, if proof were needed, that Jack White's B-sides are better than your A-sides.

"Smoke Rings", by David Wiffen. Seems like we come to this point near the end of every damn playlist: a lost country-tinged gem that either sounds like it came from LA in the early seventies or, in fact, did. This one came from Canada in 1973. Which is close enough. Will have you crying in your maple syrup.

"Crystals", by Thom Janusz. Funky electric-piano-based "jazz" number from 1975. From an album called "Ronn Forella ... Moves". Who is Ronn Forella, and why does he "move", will have to be left for another day.  

Japanese commercials of the day

First we watched this one:



And then we watched this one:



At which point we were in danger of culture-shock overload. So we stopped.

(Links courtesy of our in-house student of Japanese. I have a sneaking suspicion this is what they "study" at school.)

Song of the day

"Reach for the Dead", by Boards of Canada.

When they are good, they are very, very, very good.

And they have always been, and continue to be, good.

Daft Punk is playing at my house

Sasha Frere-Jones writes at length about "Random Access Memories", while veering into various sub-topics of a broader cultural nature, on the New Yorker blogs. He casts some doubts on the negative portrayal of the effect of album leakage on record sales. He echoes what I wrote on these very pages about "Get Lucky" not so long ago. (Him: you can play it eight billion times without tiring of it. Me: even when you have heard it so many times that you never want to hear it again, you want to hear it again. Personally, I think I like mine better; but then I would say that. I wrote it.)

He also owns up to writing his New Yorker column on the album after having listened to it one time. I'm not sure how I feel about that. One expects New Yorker criticism to be actual reasoned criticism, not first impressions. (Is the magazine so caught up in the endless, blog-driven new-release rollercoaster? I wouldn't have thought so, and I certainly hope not.) Nevertheless, it is also surprising how well he dealt with it after such brief exposure, and how closely his conclusions, doubts, and confusions, mirror my own.

Also worth noting is how well the old dear (the New Yorker, that is) has, after a shaky start, come to grips with the new world of the Internet and how it might be used to enhance, rather than cannibalise, the paper-and-ink magazine. Apparently this is being reflected in overall subscription numbers (especially international; makes me proud), which is pleasing to those of us with a recurring wake-in-fright nightmare that any issue could be the last. Sasha's blog post, which largely explains, builds upon and to some extent questions what is cast in stone in the magazine itself, is a good example.

Well, kids, I think it's time to listen to "Get Lucky" for the eight-billion-and-first time. (Contains some of the smoothest moves you will ever see.)

Song of the day

"Masters of War", by Mark Arm.

Monday marked the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan's second album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", the album on which Bob found his own voice and, essentially, became "Bob Dylan", for better or, as Bob himself might have argued afterwards, for worse. (The entry for this album is one of the more informative Wikipedia pages I have stumbled upon.)

Listening to its fifty minutes through, it seems much easier, even now, to attach it to what came after rather than what came before, even though in form, at least, it drew heavily on the music of its own past. It, "With The Beatles", and the first couple of singles by the Rolling Stones tell you that 1963 was a pivotal year for popular music; a year when the past was left behind and the future opened up, with infinite possibilities and infinite hope. (That future, at a generalised and simplistic level and with plenty of hindsight, proceeded to play itself out magnificently over the rest of that decade, until things took a dark turn around 1969.)

All of which is to say, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" is an album that stands up well fifty years later. This may be in some part because it only really contains a couple of Dylan's best-known songs, notably "Blowin' In The Wind", and therefore is not entirely caught in a time capsule. It does, though, also include perhaps my favourite song of his, "Masters of War". I can't really articulate what it is that I like about it; I think it is the structure of the song as much as, if not more than, the words themselves. Nick Cave may have learned something about the art of songwriting from this song. The chord sequence at the end of each stanza is a key to what propels the song, even if you have to listen closely to hear it.

That chord sequence is accentuated by Mark Arm in his brutal rendering of the song, which appeared as the a-side of a 1990 Sub Pop single cleverly titled "The Freewheelin' Mark Arm" (the single's cover is a nice take on the original, too; it can be seen at the start of the YouTube clip). He turns the song, as it begs to be, into a Velvet Underground rave-up. It is compelling in the way that rapidly approaching headlights are compelling to a bunny rabbit.

As for Mark Arm's voice, well, perhaps the best we can say is that he doesn't upstage Bob Dylan on that score.

Hypothetical Mixtape, June 2012 (yes, that's "2012")

At some point in the very near future I am going to be 12 months behind in my listening. That will be embarrassing. At that point I am going to give up. Or start again. Or something. Until then, as YMO once intoned, "Here we go again."

"Hung Up On My Baby", by Isaac Hayes. I could happily spend the rest of my life listening to a loop of the guitar line with which this song starts. It can't get better than this, one thinks to oneself. But it can. And it does. First, a gorgeous, watery wah-wah guitar kicks in, followed, shortly thereafter, by a third, deeper electric guitar. The groove settles in and breathes for a minute and a half. Then the horns come in. Then more horns come in. Then the fucking strings start up. You might know him only as the chef from "South Park", but Isaac Hayes was much, much more than that. On this track he doesn't even feel the need to sing. Actually, you know what? Listen to it for yourself. (You can make yourself woozy by staring at the record spinning for six and a half minutes if you like; or you can shut your eyes.)

"Brazil Express", by Liza. From the sublime to the faintly ridiculous, maybe, but I have always had a thing for records from the sixties/seventies featuring a swingin' Latin beat and a Hammond organ. Especially when they hail from Denmark! And when they round the song out with some blistering electric guitar.

"La Do Da Da", by The Blue Things. Kansas mid-sixties garage rockers. Has a slight minor-key lilt that is very affecting. It puts me in mind of the song "Matelot", by The Renegades, as featured in Aki Kaurismaki's film "Le Havre". Which, as you know, is high praise.

"Respect", by Kukumbas. The gap from Kansas garages to the garages of Lagos, Nigeria seems to have been a remarkably small one, when you imagine how hard it must have been in those days for news to travel from one to the other. Garage rock really is the universal language.

"It's A Dream", by Little Ed & The Soundmasters. I think this song contains the most subtly malevolent harmonica in all recorded music. The drumming is really something, too: not the least because the drummer was, according to the publicity surrounding this Numero Group reissue, eight years old.

"Almost Cut My Hair", by Ori Naftaly. Israeli cover of the David Crosby the-day-I-nearly-joined-The-Man reverie. Everything about this song is perfect. Hammond! David Gilmour circa "Dark Side Of The Moon" guitar histrionics! Harmonica! Bagels!

"Good Old Germany", by Einzelganger. Surprise! It's Giorgio Moroder, this time coming to you from the middle 1970s and constructing a highly listenable piece of music that will fit right in next time you mix together some Cluster / Harmonia / Eno-Roedelius-Moebius / Neu tracks for your friends.

"Oh Yeah", by Yello. As heard in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". Did I mention I got a "Save Ferris" t-shirt for my birthday this year? "Oh yeah."

"Hong Kong Garden", by Siouxsie and the Banshees. My working knowledge of Siouxsie and the Banshees is far below what it should be. In fact, it almost starts and ends with this. I must try harder. This song is in my all-time top 50, regardless. Post-punk-era guitar never sounded better.

"Hidden", by Erika Spring. AKA Erika from Au Revoire Simone. They have been ominously quiet for the past couple of years so this was a nice surprise. You might say it sounds like the product of someone who has been listening to Beach House; but that should not be perceived as a problem. And it's a song that goes places Beach House haven't gone.

"Hidden (Jensen Sportag remix)", by Erika Spring. So, when your old dad pulls you up and asks "Son, what is a remix?", you could do worse than play the preceding track followed immediately by this one. Or you could take a longer route. Words change. A bootleg was once an unauthorised recording, generally outtakes or concerts, pressed onto vinyl and hunted down by obsessive fans. "Time's Up", by The Buzzcocks, perhaps, or the early recordings of Warsaw, or live Richard Thompson or Kraftwerk. At some point a bootleg became another kind of unauthorised release, this time featuring bits of a legitimate recording squashed in together with bits of another legitimate recording, hopefully creating a unique third thing, also known as the mash-up. You know about those. A remix, back in the 1980s, was a seven-inch single extended out to 12-inch length by way of, usually, adding length to the start, middle or end of the song, and beefing up the doof doof and the cymbals for added dancefloor pleasure. Nowadays a "remix" usually involves, as here, the original recording being broken apart and/or stripped down, by another artist (the "remixer"), who adds additional parts, of their own creation, to construct a (sometimes radically) different version of the song. No, it's not a cover version, dad. That's a different thing again. No more questions.

"Why? (extended version)", by Carly Simon. It might be more accurate to label this song "Chic, with Carly Simon singing". You need this in your life, even if, like me, the words "Carly Simon" make you break out in hives. Doctor Nile Rogers and crew provide a sure antidote. (See also a certain Daft Punk song from 2013.)

"There But For The Grace Of God Go I", by Machine. Ladies and gentlemen, Mister August Darnell!

"Girls Can't Do What The Guys Do", by Betty Wright. In which Betty Wright imparts some sound advice: girls, you can't do what the guys do and still be a lady. Ugh. Guys.

"The Ones You Love", by Jeremy Benson. Sometimes the best songs are the ones where it's just a guy with a resonant voice and an acoustic guitar, singing about how you would do well to look after yourself better than he has, and where a multitracked female voice sneaks in from somewhere that sounds a lot like Heaven to harmonise on the chorus. This is that song.

"Future Games", by Fleetwood Mac. You might say there were three Fleetwood Macs. The ones you know are the Peter Green-era British blues-rock upstarts ("Albatross", "Black Magic Woman"), which ended with Green's departure at the end of the sixties, and the LA coke-soaked mega-megastars ("Rumours"), which began with the recruitment of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks around 1975. But there are also a bunch of Fleetwood Mac albums that you would only vaguely recognise, released in the first half of the 1970s, where they were neither one nor the other. That era coincides with Bob Welch's stint as guitarist. He died last year. This song, all eight minutes of it, is the title track of the first Welch-era album. He also wrote it. He plays a lot of guitar on it. You might as well say it's his song. (Although a lineup that included Mick Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie is hardly to be sneezed at.) I would say they were at this point, or at least in this song, trading in the blues influence for something that nods, ever so gently, in the direction of what Joe Boyd was bringing in to the British music scene at the start of the seventies. Also, with two electric guitarists working off each other over the length of the song (the other being Danny Kirwan), does it perhaps suggest a gentler West Coast progenitor of Television? (Probably not.)

"Expanded Dimension", by Lunar Miasma. There is a website called Dream Chimney, one corner of which, "Track of the Day", is devoted to drawing attention to individual songs. (As the name suggests.) Possibly the best part about this is the "categories" that are used. My favourite is "New age without shame". This lengthy synth instrumental, which floats on white puffy clouds made of something or other, squarely fits that description. New Age music was widely, and often for good reason, pilloried in the 1980s, but like anything that contains traces of something more substantial (in the case of New Age, that would boil down largely to Eno's landmark "ambient" releases), it was just waiting for the right time to get picked up by Brooklyn hipsters and reinvented. That time, people, is now. Enjoy the New Age Revival while it lasts, then pretend it never happened.

Song of the day

"Some Dandruff On Your Shoulder", by Jens Lekman.

Jens Lekman's most recent album, "I Know What Love Isn't", has slowly crept up on me. I wasn't sure about it at first. It contains a shift in the frame of reference of Jens' songs, in the sense that he is no longer singing about using his one telephone call from the police station to call up a radio station to dedicate a song to a girl. You might drag the word "maturity" into the picture, perhaps, but he is still ultimately singing songs about love, and he still has a wonderful power of observation. The latter is enhanced, for this listener, by the fact that much of the album is drawn from Jens' experiences living in Melbourne, the city from which we drove away, we thought temporarily, 14 years ago. I suppose that makes us "expats", although The Age remains the only newspaper we still buy on a regular basis.

Jens was there through the bushfires. We weren't, and I felt awful for finding it difficult to engage with the terrible events of that day, particularly given that I had lived through bushfire seasons on the farm in the past, and even though we had experienced our own in Canberra only a few years earlier. But it only took the first sixty seconds of "The World Moves On" to reduce me to tears. And it isn't even "about" the bushfires.

But that's a song for another day.

"Some Dandruff On Your Shoulder" is what we are here for now. It is a typical, deceptively easy-listening Jens Lekman song, right from the opening reference, presumably intentional, to The Carpenters. I'm sure that if you are a girl it will make you instantly fall in love with him. If you already are in love with him, I'm sure it will make you fall in love with him all over again. But there's plenty in it for the boys as well. You might call what he does charity-shop soul music: Jens Lekman takes other people's discards and works them into songs that are entirely his own. I don't know how he does it, but I will always be grateful that he does.

Maybe it is for softies only. But I don't really think that's true.

Song of the day AND OF THE YEAR

"Get Lucky", by Daft Punk.

This song is the most self-evident Song of the Year since "Crazy" (and, before that, "Brimful of Asha"). Even when you have heard it so many times that you never want to year it again, you want to hear it again. How did they do that?

Mark my words: in decades to come, you will see balding, slightly paunchy middle-aged MBA upper-middle-manager types dancing (badly) to this song on Friday nights at the Royal South Yarra Tennis Club and other establishments of the Establishment, and you will not even feel any resentment (perhaps the slightest amount of pity) towards them for doing so. If the Berlin Wall were still standing, this would be the song to bring it down [with apologies to Ed Kuepper, who claimed that feat for "Everything I've Got Belongs To You"].

2013 is not 1962: thank goodness

If a picture tells a thousand words, what happens when you add a caption to it?

Ad found in the New Yorker, some time in 1962.

Hypothetical mixtape: May 2012

Hot, or at least lukewarm, on the heels of the last one, here is our hypothetical mixtape, inna May 2012 stylee.

"I Only Have Eyes For You", by Oneohtrix Point Never. Last month it was Beck's turn. This month it's the guy with the partly unpronounceable moniker. He so totally deconstructs the song that it almost stays deconstructed. And yet tiny filaments of the original flicker ever so fleetingly that it ends up not disappearing up its own edifice. Although the risk was certainly there.

"I Call On One's Muse", by Rob Jo Star Band. Nice try with the English usage there, Rob, but I don't think you've quite nailed it. One calls on one's muse, perhaps. Or I call on my muse. But the two don't tend to play well if mixed together. Unless, that is, you meant "One" in the "Prisoner" sense. Yes, that could work. Cool song, by the way. I particularly like the seemingly random synthesiser farts that unexpectedly appear at various points. "What does this button do?"

"My Ancestors", by Chris Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family. Some fine African psychedelic music has been unearthed over the last few years. Is the well running dry? It would appear not.

"Right Where You Ought To Be", by Mr Elevator & The Brain Hotel. Quite. Mr Elevator & The Brain Hotel exist in the present, but sound like they have been brought up on a diet of nothing but "Nuggets". As a scientific experiment it proves the soundness and immutability of the theory that if you put four boys in a room with two guitars, a bass, drums, and a microphone, they will sound like sixties garage rock no matter what time period they happen to be living in. As a song, well, it is nothing you haven't heard before but just fine nevertheless.

"Tell Me What's On Your Mind", by The Allah-Las. As for the last song, only -- if this is even possible -- more so.

"Tattoo On Her Shoulder", by Capital Grey. Capital Grey take it out of the garage and into, let's say, Abbey Road. "Nuggets" after the drugs have kicked in, perhaps. This and Mr Elevator & The Brain Hotel were introduced to us by the ever reliable "Clifton's Corner" segment over at Aquarium Drunkard. Shout out!

"Up The Hill And Down The Slope", by The Loft. From '66 to '86, perhaps; C86 to be precise. And the distance is not as far as you might think. If this song had a fault it would probably be that it goes for about a minute too long. But that might only be because all other songs of the era cut out after two minutes, which is hardly The Loft's fault.

"Supermarket", by Supermarket. Perhaps the least Googleable song EVAH. Basically Lawrence, from Felt, with a vocoder and some keyboards. How you respond to the song will depend on how you responded to that last sentence.

"Here To Stay", by New Order. Ah, New Order. Always the same dodgy lead vocals. Always the same naff lyrics. In short, always the same. And yet always frakkin' brilliant. No, I don't get it, either.

"This Is Not The End (Gui Boratto 2012 Mix)", by Gui Boratto. From the "pop" corner of Kompakt's repertoire (and a happy 20th birthday to you, too), and clearly indebted to N*w Ord*r. In fact, you can almost sing along to "Here To Stay" while this is playing. So do you "need" both? Only you know the answer to that.

"Exercise 5 (September)", by CFCF. One of David Sylvian's finest moments, reworked, sublimated, recombined, reimagined, tweaked, reinvented, deconstructed. Some or all of the above. Or none. I should hate this, precisely because it's not "September", by David Sylvian, but strangely I don't. I'm not sure exactly what I should do with it, mind you, but that's another question.

"Belle Tristesse", by Miharu Koshi. Evidently, this little sweetie is from a Christmas compilation circa 1983 and featuring various members of Yellow Magic Orchestra. 1983 was at the height of my love affair with YMO so I can only explain my ignorance of its existence by pointing out that the Internet only came along later. That's my excuse, anyway. Astute readers will note the tenuous link between this and the previous song, being Sylvian's sometime involvement with Ryuichi Sakamoto (including on the "Secrets of the Beehive" album, from which "September" comes). Yes, we are not averse to clutching at straws here.

"Maybe Tonight (Morgan Geist Vocal Edit)", by Lovelock. The opening combination of acoustic and electric piano is the real winner here. Morgan Geist's vocals are the icing. Once again, ten minutes proves to be barely enough. Lovelock, in case you didn't know, is one of many handles of Mr Steve Moore, who has proved himself capable of doing a large number of things, not all of them sounding remotely like this but all of them worth a listen (or ten).

"Sweetness In Her Spark", by Lightships. What we have here, in essence, is a Classic Pop Song. It will remind you of the gentler corners of the Flying Nun roster, it will remind you of The Clientele, it will remind you of some band from Sweden whose name you can never recall. One day other songs will remind you of this. The wheel turns, and it will turn again.

"Equal Mind", by Beach House. Proof that a Beach House b-side is better than most bands' a-sides.

"Happy Pills", by Norah Jones. I hipped to Ms Jones through the agency of Danger Mouse, and in particular his paean to Italian soundtrack music of the sixties, "Rome", wherein she goes mano a mano (or should that be mano a birdo?) with Jack White and comes out with her dignity more than intact. Here, she is working with Danger Mouse again. They seem to be a good combination. (Note to self: maybe I need to spend more time with that last Belle & Sebastian album.)

"Blind Alley", by The Emotions. Sometimes it's better just to let the song speak for itself:

"Sister Brother", by FJ McMahon. From an album with the curious title of "Spirit of the Golden Juice". This song, together with many others like it, operates as a signal from another era, reflected out into deep space in the early 1970s and bounced back to earth only now, as the seemingly endless quantity of "lost" private-press albums, made for pleasure rather than profit and produced in tiny quantities, and bearing names you have never heard of, are discovered afresh and reissued for an inquisitive, and unexpected, new audience. Or at least an audience that might have sung its praises first time around if they had been given the chance. Well, Adrienne likes it, anyway.

2013 is not 1946; or vice versa

Cover version of the day

"My Generation", by Atom(TM).

In which Uwe Schmidt tackles The Who head-on, demonstrating that he is either very brave or very foolish.

The danger with this kind of thing is that it can seem like a brilliant idea at first but, after a minute or so, the listener says, well, I get the idea but I'm bored now, and then goes straight back to the original, which is, in this case, let's face it, unimpeachable.

And yet.

For the final minute, Schmidt gives us a Keith Moon-style freakout which, if Keith Moon were a tangled pile of electronic circuitry, you imagine that he would sound exactly like this.

Song of the day

"Buddy", by Snapper.

And speaking, as we were, of Peter Gutteridge, I learn from Pitchfork that the self-titled four-song twelve-inch from his long-running Snapper project, originally released on Flying Nun in 1988, is being reissued for Record Store Day. If you only buy one piece of vinyl this year, it should probably be this one. I went to pull my own dog-eared copy off the shelf this morning, only to find that it was gone. Insert sad face here. As fond as I am of Gutteridge's solo XPressway cassette, "Pure", this might be the one essential Peter Gutteridge release. These four songs pretty much express the entire range of his talents; he has, over the years (albeit hindered by ongoing heroin, uh, "issues"), refined and developed them, but hasn't really, to my ears, taken them anywhere that is discernibly "better" than the songs on "Snapper".

This is not meant as a criticism; it is meant as, You need this record in your life. The surprising thing, listening to these four tracks in 2013, is how far their influence has spread in the interim: from Stereolab to Wooden Shjips. The other surprising thing, if you haven't listened to it for 20 years, is just how bloody good this record is.

"Buddy".



(By the way, if anybody out there can set me up with a zeros-and-ones copy of "Gentle Hour", a Snapper B-side that has been covered by both The Clean (perhaps not surprising, as it includes David Kilgour on guitar) and Yo La Tengo, and which also appeared on the "Where In The World Is Wendy Broccoli?" compilation, I would be very grateful. Consider it as payment for how much I have enriched your life, heh heh, over the years. Email at right.)

Song of the day

"Disco Pope", by The Prats.

Everything about this song -- the running time, the format (four-song seven-inch "EP" in a black-and-white paper sleeve), the searing but also endearing amateurishness of the performance, the herky-jerk rhythm, the what I call (possibly inaccurately) "Mi-Sex" lettering, the name of the band, the catalogue number (RT042) -- is so redolent of that brief moment in time when everyone else noticed that the doorway that punk had crashed through was still open and that there was room for all of them squeeze inside and make music, glorious music, that you can almost smell it. (In fact, if you had an original vinyl copy you most probably could actually smell it.)

Oh, and with the papal appointment of a South American, there is no better moment than right now for a song called "Disco Pope".

Stand Down Margaret

Between the years 1979 and 1982 I absorbed every word of every issue of the NME. In those days the NME was not just about music. It introduced me to the films I needed to know about (but at that point in my life would have no hope of ever seeing), the writers who would mean the most to me for a very long time (Amis, McEwan). One other thing I absorbed from its pages was a kind of long-distance hatred of Margaret Thatcher. "Thatcher" was more of a name and a concept to me than a flesh and blood human being (although she did appear with some regularity on the ABC News), but I was able to grasp what she stood for and I had some sympathy for the victims of her "reforms", at least as they were conveyed in the pages of Britain's premier music weekly. (I also came to understand, somehow, through those same printed pages that it was best pronounced "Fatcha".) In fact, I think it is probably fair to say that my political belief structure was framed more by my vicarious involvement in the anti-Thatcher campaign waged by the NME than by anything that was happening in my own country. There is probably something fundamentally wrong with that, now that I think of it. But what can you do?

Much has been written over the last few days of Thatcher's impact on the UK music scene of the time. There's not much more to say, really. If you followed it at the time, you already know. If you didn't, it's not really going to mean that much to you in this day and age. I'm not, and never have been, a fan of overly political songs and/or "statements", but I also don't think Thatcher's influence was limited to knee-jerk reactions or musical middle-finger gestures. Put it this way: I don't think the fact that an enormous (new) wave of exciting, original music came out of Britain during the Thatcher years, particularly the early years, was mere coincidence.

But that's a university thesis for someone else to write. For now, here are a couple of songs that took a slightly different tack: neither is overtly "political", but in turning her voice, and her words, into part of the fabric of the song they found a way to let the Iron Lady speak for herself, and for all time. (And it don't 'alf set yer teeth on edge, innit?)

"No Alternative (But To Fight)", by Dub Syndicate featuring Doctor Pablo:



"Maggie's Last Party", by V.I.M.:



I particularly like this last one, as it has a timeless absurdist streak to it that would have appealed to, for example, the Bonzo Dog Band back in the pre-punk era, or even the Dada collagists (like I would know). It also reminds me of this fine piece of, um, "art" that fell out of the pages of RAW Magazine, which utilises, in a not sympathetic but also not polemical way, the spoken words of her old friend Ron:

Song of the day

"Turn of the Century", by Beat Rhythm Fashion.

Back when I first became obsessed with the music of Dunedin, both through regular (but infrequent) visits to Exposure Records in Cotham Road, Kew, and irregular (but frequent) deliveries of XPressway tapes into the letter box courtesy of Bruce Russell, I adopted (at least subconsciously) the view that the mere fact, let alone the quality, of the Dunedin scene was so exceptional and unlikely that it had to be singular. Hence, it seemed to me that if something out of New Zealand wasn't from Dunedin and/or on Flying Nun, it probably wasn't worth my time.

Beat Rhythm Fashion were from Wellington. They weren't on Flying Nun. They remained undiscovered (by me) until a few weeks ago, when this emotional rollercoaster of a song appeared on a FACT mix by Matthew Mondanile (whom I wrote about recently in connection with Dunedin rock royalty). I suppose you could say that it inhabits a space where a nascent New Order sit down and play nicely with early Cure, but that disregards the ineffable power of the chorus, which acts as the parting of the clouds to reveal a sunny, hope-filled new day. And couldn't we all use one of those.

(Guest mixes, it seems to me, are the new radio. They are one of the few places now where I can, if only occasionally, hear something that stops me in my tracks and demands that I track it down. (And like radio, it can also be less than easy to work out what it was that I had been listening to. Thanks, Denis, for finding what I needed.))

Smackdown of the day

"What Goes On": The Velvet Underground vs The Feelies.

Which version is better?

You be the judge*.



or



* The correct answer, of course, is: they both are.

Although what you really want is for the closing rave-up in the Velvets version to go on, like, forever. Which it more or less does, here:

Hypothetical mixtape: April 2012

I listen to stuff. I think about it. Briefly. I type some words. April 2012 wasn't a year ago. Yet.

"Are You Gonna Waste My Time?", by Zeus. If you believed this song was the product of 2012, well, you would believe anything. And yet it's true! A totally unexpected breath of fresh air that squarely hits that unlikely mid-point between Matthew Sweet and Queen. Not to mention a band name that suggests late 1960s Greek prog rock.

"Compare and Contrast", by Matt LeMay. And speaking of Matthew Sweet, there must be something in the ether, because if you had snuck this power-pop gem onto Sweet's "Time Capsule" album while nobody was looking, you would probably have gotten away with it. Which, in nobody's language, is a bad thing.

"How Deep Is Your Love", by The Rapture. This one-sided 12" from 2011 is not quite "Happy House", but it's in the ballpark. It makes me feel the way I felt when I first played the second, crucial DFA "Compilation" set: that here are a bunch of hipsters who have been listening to, and distilling into their own sound, something not unlike my own ideal record collection.

"Night And Day (Daphni Mix)", by Hot Chip. I'm not that much of a fan of Hot Chip. They do one type of song really well (viz., "Over and Over") but they also do a lot of other songs. Man of the moment Daphni takes one such and flips it on its ear. It ends with a minute of free-jazz-style skronk of a kind that you wouldn't expect to hear on a Hot Chip record. The preceding six minutes are pretty surprising, and, in fact, exciting, too.

"Rained the Whole Time (Nicolas Jaar Remix)", by Shlohmo. In the absence of anything new from Jaar himself, it's nice to be able to hear him add his distinctive electro/acoustic tinkerings to someone else's music. I haven't heard the original of this, but there isn't much here that doesn't sound like the work of Jaar. What's not to like?

"Soul Vibrations", by Dorothy Ashby. Not a song that can easily be translated into words. Check it.

"Never Let It Go", by Dolly Mixture. There is a particular type of honesty, of not being afraid to expose your own frailties, that makes much of the music recorded in the aftermath of the "punk rock" eruption a joy to listen to even 32 years later. That, and a knack for an irresistible melody. That particular, brief moment, linked in my own mind with smudged copies of the NME as it was before colour printing allowed them to better affix the text to the page, didn't last long. It probably couldn't have. See also The Marine Girls. *Sigh*.

"Angie La La", by Nora Dean. It is on the Treasure Isle label, but it doesn't bear much resemblance to what your or I would immediately call "reggae". It is certainly exotic -- including, but not only, in the Martin Denny sense. Released, evidently, on the back of a U-Roy seven-inch. Insane! (In an odd kind of way it puts me in mind of Broadcast.)

"There's A Reward", by Joe Higgs. Whereas this is reggae through and through. (Although you don't actually find that out until about 15 seconds in. Wait for it. And while you're at it could somebody please construct a song out of a loop or loops from those first 15 seconds? Thanks.)

"Clouds", by Deep Time. And thus we are thrust back into the present day. I don't mean to be unfair here by latching on to the observation that the singer can't help but be compared to Laetitia Sadier. There is much more to the song than a lazy comparison like that. But hey, it's Saturday afternoon.

"Call Me Maybe", by Carly Rae Jepson. The trouble with being behind in your writing by a year is that a song that you, maybe, recognised as something special while it was still in its embryonic phase, is that, well, by the time you finally get around to putting pen to paper it has been all over everywhere and back again. So that even you probably don't entirely want to hear it again. (At least one of your children threatens to kill you if you don't turn it off.) And yet here it is, and you are surprised, and yet also not, to discover that it can still give you goosebumps. What's with that?

"I'll Be Your Man", by Anna Calvi. We also, sometimes, like a nice twang in our guitar. This would be one of those times. It would appear that Anna Calvi did the twanging herself. Impressive. There is a certain earnestness here, or seriousness of intent, perhaps, that makes me think, "Nineties". There may well be an essay to be written about the lyrics, too. But since when have I taken any notice of lyrics?

"Girl You Need A Change Of Mind", by Eddie Kendricks. It's not only the weirdness quotient, or the ubiquity, of a song that makes it impossible to write about. A song as absolutely perfect in every way as this one resists all efforts to wax lyrical. Again: check it. (Consumer advisory: the full 7.5-minute version is even better.)

"Distillation", by H. Tical. Once upon a time, and I think it was mostly in Europe and to a lesser extent the UK, a bunch of musicians would get together in a studio and spend what by today's standards would be unfeasibly extravagant budgets recording short pieces of music in the hope that some of them would be picked up for use in film or television. Small runs of vinyl albums would be released, not for commercial sales purposes but because, well, it wouldn't make much sense to make these recording and have no way of getting the right people to hear them. Then the world forgot all about them, and these recordings, now known as "library music", grew dusty in a corner somewhere, as movies and television shows came to be populated by music specially written by one of a handful of essentially rote composers (obviously not a blanket statement; you're not going to find me dissing Morricone, for example, or Nino Rota, or Bernard Herrmann, or to be specific Jonny Greenwood's score for "There Will Be Blood" -- oh boy, now there's a doozy), or by pop songs chosen by what seem to be called "music consultants". (That's a gig I wouldn't mind.) Today, as with everything else, people collect these records and share them via the internet. They can be fun to listen to, and the record covers tend to be pretty groovy in a sixties design kind of way, and without their influence Stereolab and Broadcast, to name just a few, would sound (and look) quite different from the way either of them turned out. This is one of those tracks. It has some spirited electric guitar.

"I Only Have Eyes For You", by Beck. Evidently this was generated for an artist's installation project. If, like me, you have been lamenting the recent paucity of recorded Beck, this will remind you of what you have been missing. You might say it is doo-wop filtered through the fevered mindscape of a David Lynch movie. Or you might not.

"I Am Not Waiting Anymore", by Field Report. It may put you in mind of Phil Ochs' "I Ain't Marching Anymore". (The name might be the only reason for this. On the other hand it might not be.) It also puts me in mind of the underheralded Peter Case, which is kind of a nice surprise.

"Mirrorball", by Nisennenmondai. One is inclined to think that if Can had hailed from Japan in the early 21st century they might have sounded something like this. (Perhaps Manuel Gottsching has wandered in to contribute some guitar.) It also builds in a way that suggests they have been listening to LCD Soundsystem, masters of that particular form. After a minute or so you might find yourself screaming "Make it stop!" Five minutes later you will have lost all track of time. And there are still six more minutes to go. Who would ever have thought three Japanese chicks could make such a racket. What's that? Oh. You're right. "Shonen Knife."

Song of the day

"Planet Phrom", by Peter Gutteridge.

On the subject of Dunedin.

It may turn out that one of the reasons I am so fond of the music of Real Estate is that it contains within its crevices the latent influence of the golden age of music from Dunedin. Matt Mondanile plays guitar for Real Estate. Real Estate are not from Dunedin. They are not even from New Zealand. They are from New Jersey, which is not the same thing at all. Mondanile also has his own band/project, entitled Ducktails. Ducktails have just released a new album, called "The Flower Lane". It includes a song called "Planet Phrom". This may or may not ring bells with you. "Planet Phrom" is a song from Peter Gutteridge's Xpressway cassette, "Pure", from 1989.

Peter Gutteridge is from Dunedin. He may not be a household name anywhere, possibly even Dunedin, but his name crops up in a surprising number of places, if you were obsessed by the "DN scene" in the mid- to late-eighties. (As I was.) He appears on assorted tracks by The Chills (of which, in the early days, he was a member), The Clean (ditto), and The Verlaines, all of which are household names somewhere, if only in my own household. He was a member of short-lived almost-supergroup Snapper. He plays keyboards on The Alpaca Brothers' sublime "Legless" EP. (What's that you say? Never heard of it? Where have you been?)

He co-wrote "Point That Thing Somewhere Else". And there aren't many people on this earth who can say that.

When I first heard Peter Gutteridge the file-card system inside my head positioned him somewhere between Suicide and Spacemen 3. In fact he sounds nothing like either of them but the resonances of both are there, if not so much on "Planet Phrom."

Alan Haig plays drums on this track. There is another Pete Frame-type family tree for Alan Haig, perhaps at least as complex as the one sketched out above for Peter Gutteridge. Which is, in any event, far from complete. (Sandra Bell, anyone?)

Song of the day

"Christopher Columbus", by David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights.

A new David Kilgour song! Free! On the internet! Man, I love this place.

Visit http://archhillrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/christopher-columbus.

It also turns up three minutes into this clip. (So it's not a completely new song.)



The guys really should try to keep their guitar strings under control.

Song of the day

"Other Thematic Material", by Magazine.

I sometimes read Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck comics. They have been written and drawn over the years by many different people, but always with such a high level of craftsmanship that you never look at a drawing of Donald, or Scrooge, or Huey, Dewey and Louie, and think to yourself, "That's not right".

That is the kind of neat trick that Howard Devoto has pulled off with "Other Thematic Material". It could almost be an outtake from "Real Life". Except that "Real Life" was recorded in 1978 and "No Thyself", on which this song appears, was recorded in 2011.

The bass is not being played by Barry Adamson, and yet is instantly recognisable. The guitar is not being played (obviously enough) by the late John McGeoch, and yet it, too, is instantly recognisable. If anything, the main difference is in Devoto's voice, which clearly can't quite be asked to do what it could do 33 years ago. But Howard Devoto is the one component of Magazine that no amount of craftsmanship could mask the absence of. (Note: I am choosing not to draw attention to the lyrics.)

Okay, so "No Thyself" is never going to have the same pull as the first three Magazine albums, but it was nice, not to mention totally unexpected, to have them back.



[Side note: I heard that Barry Adamson has rejoined the Bad Seeds for the current tour, but that he is playing percussion rather than bass. This strikes me as a bit like hiring Marco Pierre White to do the washing up, but I'm sure they have their reasons.]

Song of the day

"Weakness and Fever", by The Durutti Column.

And speaking of Kevin Ayers, there are a couple of songs on the new reissue of "LC", by The Durutti Column, that suggest a connection -- which I had never noticed before -- between Vini Reilly and the earlier generation of English pastoral psychedelicists that included Ayers and Syd Barrett. (And perhaps the connection then travels further back to the land of musical Albion depicted by Rob Young in his marvellous book "Electric Eden". But we might be getting ahead of ourselves there.)

I suspect I can also detect a hint of The Cat's Miaow in here, too. But then I would say that.

RIP Kevin Ayers

Kevin Ayers, significant figure amongst the Canberbury fringe of the UK prog rock scene, has died at the age of 68. 68, from where I sit now, is not old. My mother died at 68. She wasn't old. On the other hand, she didn't live the rock'n'roll lifestyle, and was never addicted to anything stronger than a small square of Swiss chocolate every night after tea. Perhaps the life expectancy of musicians differs from that of farmers' wives.

I didn't know much about the Canterbury scene, but I did have Kevin Ayers in my record collection from surprisingly early on: so early, in fact, that I didn't really know what to do with him. The record was "June 1, 1974". I bought it for the Brian Eno tracks, was scared out of my wits by John Cale, mesmerised by Nico, and failed to grasp Ayers at all (he takes up all of side two, so an entire side of vinyl lay virtually unplayed). So little did I acknowledge his presence that when I finally discovered "Joy of a Toy" I failed to make any connection whatsoever between it and the guy on side two of "June 1, 1974". I had some catching up to do.

Nevertheless, I hope it is reasonable to observe that with the loss, now, of both Ayers and Barrett a large part of that particular generation's supply of British eccentricity has left the building.

Song of the day

"Ohm", by Yo La Tengo.

I probably don't mention Yo La Tengo anywhere near as often as they deserve; it seems like every three years since forever a new YLT album has appeared, each as compelling in its own way as the ones that came before, and yet each is as familiar as a favourite old, worn blanket.

What is the difference between YLT and bands like Sonic Youth or Stereolab? Each of them have had long, stellar careers. Their later albums are in no way inferior to the earlier works that made their names, and in every case are instantly recognisable as the work of nobody else but them. Nevertheless, there is no reason why you would listen to, say, "Murray Street", good and all as it is, when you could be listening to "Daydream Nation" for the gazillionth time. Likewise Stereolab (insert equivalent comparators here). Not so Yo La Tengo: it seems, with them, that no matter how many times, when listening to whatever at the time is their brand new record, you can play "name the older YLT song this corresponds with", their most recent album is always the one you want to listen to. No, I can't explain it. Perhaps the three year gaps are the secret ingredient.

"Fade", the new one, is no different. Familiar Yo La Tengo tropes abound. There's the "Season of the Shark" song. The "Sugarcube" one. The "Autumn Sweater" one. The ones (happily) that bear distant echoes of my personal favourite YLT album, "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out", with its crepuscular Gregory Crewdson cover photograph and matching aural mood. (Their cover art is always first rate, too. These folks have impeccable taste. And speaking of Stereolab, I should mention that production this time is by John McEntire, who was largely responsible for the sound of a high number of essential Stereolab records.)

"Ohm" is a good way into the album. It is basically a circular, mantra-like riff that runs through a number of, let's call them verses anyway, before Ira finally lets loose some of the feedbacked guitar you've been waiting for, then the vocals come back, it builds a bit, then stops. In under seven minutes it, like the whole of the album, is relatively concise by YLT standards (the album probably clocks in a good 30 minutes shorter than most!). You would imagine that they could easily have run it out to 15 minutes with no diminishing returns. (I am surprised to note that the live versions that presently appear on YouTube are, if anything, shorter than the recorded version.) This restraint, I think, works in its, and the album's, favour. "Refreshing" doesn't just apply to fizzy soft drinks.

And I apologise if noting that the underlying structure of the song bears the slightest resemblance to "Son of the Father" spoils anybody's enjoyment of it.

Song of the day

"A Day's Pay For A Day's Work", by Darkstar.

Somewhere, Brian Wilson's lawyer is reaching for the telephone ...



It might be a tad early to be hanging out the "album of the year" sign, but, by crikey, if there is a record that chimes more with this listener than Darkstar's "News From Nowhere", well, it's going to be one cracker of a year. First this, then "m b v", then a new Miles Davis live box set wherein you can hear music change before your very ears, and shortly a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album that is, in a word, fascinating (although whether that is in a positive or a negative sense it's too soon to say). In the immortal words of Mike Williamson, "It's all happening".

Song of the day

"What You Wanted", by Seapony.

The Feelies and Look Blue Go Purple had a baby and they called it rock and roll. Or jangle-pop. Or twee-core. Or ...

Impressions

What were you even doing in 1991? It really does seem like a lifetime ago. (Literally so for some of you.) Did the internet even exist? I might have somewhere, but it didn't at our house. There was the radio, there were music magazines, there were nice, and knowledgeable, people working in any number of record stores. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was "Loveless". (I'm not sure how this happened, but I made do with a taped copy of "Loveless" until around 2000, when I finally bought it on CD at the second-hand stall at Fyshwick Market. For a dollar. That is not a misprint.)

"Loveless". A goddamn mystery of an enigma of an album. All you wanted to do was turn it up, but the more you turned it up the worse it sounded. (This has been somewhat rectified by the reissue, but the underlying architecture of the thing remains as ungraspable as ever.) What "Loveless" did was open a door into an entirely new way to make "rock" music, a door which nobody since has been game enough to go through, or, if they did, they haven't known which direction then to go in and quickly crept back out again. (Exception: "Dreams Top Rock", by Pluramon.)

It is a door to which, seemingly, Kevin Shields possesses the only key.

Fast-(well, not that fast)-forward to early 2013. Most of us thought it would never happen or that, if it did, the 22 years gestation would result in some over-cooked stew that could only taint the reputation of its forebear.

I really shouldn't do this, given my almost perfect track record of fatally misreading albums on first listen (Exhibit One: writing off "Remain In Light", first time through, as a disco record). But recording one's first impressions of "m b v" seems to be today's little parlour game, so here are mine. The listening conditions: once through. On computer speakers. While somewhat distracted by other things. (Promising, yeah?)

The bulk of this record sounds much as you would have expected a follow-up to "Loveless" to sound. The songs are new, but the template is instantly recognisable. New corners of the MBV sound-room do seem to have been illuminated, but for the most part the album doesn't seem to have unlocked yet further doors. Not that it needed to. But this does induce thoughts along the lines of "What took you so long?" On the other hand, there is a song that sounds like nothing so much as Stereolab heard through 200 layers of gauze. And then there are the last two songs on the album, which are perhaps the point of the thing: two songs that sound like nothing, or at least no music, you have ever heard before. I don't know what they mean, and I'm not even sure how to listen to them. They might even represent the End of Music. One can hope they represent, for Shields, a way forward.

And that, really, is all I've got to say about it. For now.

Song of the day

"Who Loves The Sun", by The Velvet Underground.

Who loves the sun? Not me, that's for sure. If I can't be undercover or at least in the shade, I will be the first person looking for a hat and dark glasses; and usually, a little later, a packet of Disprin Forte.

Nevertheless, we are off to the beach (or what (we) Canberrans refer to as "the Coast") for a couple of days. "I have never been so excited in my entire life." (There. I said it. Now stop pointing that gun at my head.)

Still, I've got some Neal Stephenson, some Dupuy & Berberian, some New Yorkers, some Coronas, some headphones. Everything's going to be just fine.

(Ha. Imagine Lou Reed and his pals off for a day at the beach. Pale skin. Black clothing. Leather boots. Mirror shades. Sneers.)

(Can't seem to get any of the clips of this song on YouTube to work, conspiracy buffs, so here it is.)

Song of the day

"Long", by Daphni.

I have this theory that every great synth-pop album from the late seventies / early eighties ended with a quiet, evocative piece of instrumental music. These instrumentals were perfect for those of us who could dance like a robot and be reduced to tears by the sounds made by machines. The funny thing is, I can't conjure up an actual example, and I am forced to concede that I may in fact have invented the idea.

This tradition, assuming it to exist, is brought up to date by "Long", the final track on Daphni's very fine "Jiaolong" long player from (what is now) last year. Daphni, as you already know, is Dan Snaith, who is the evil mastermind behind Caribou.

Hey, where the heck did that harp come from?

Song of the day

"Last Land", by John Talabot.

Does anybody know what sample/s is/are being used in this song? There is something in there that sounds very, very familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is.

AND IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY.

I suppose one could always just g**gle it, but that would be too easy.

Song of the day

"I Don't Owe You Anything", by Sandie Shaw.

Why am I making you listen to this?, you ask. Well, first off, Sandie doesn't make too bad a fist of this Smiths song (her take on "Hand in Glove", I'm sorry to say, is awful). But mainly, I have been listening to this song in order to demonstrate something Johnny Marr said recently about how Smiths songs were made. It seems that, unlike most guitar bands, the songs weren't built upon the bass and drums. Rather, the structure of Smiths songs centred around the guitar and the bass. Listening again to a random assortment of Smiths songs with that in mind, I can hear what he was getting at. But it may be that to hear it properly you have to have Morrissey bound and gagged and placed in a box in the corner. You know, just for a couple of minutes. Give it a try. Morrissey won't mind. Much.

Song of the day

"Love Cry", by Four Tet.

Should you buy a second-hand copy of Four Tet's 2010 album, "There Is Love In You", for ten bucks? Should? The heck. How could you not? It may not carry the instant WTFness of hearing "Rounds" for the first time (especially if, like me, you had not previously heard any music made the Four Tet way). But it may in fact be the better album of the two. It also differs from his subsequent output, which, while excellent in its own way, seems to be a series of exercises in envelope pushing. "There Is Love In You", on the other hand, gives the impression of having been made as an album, and certainly benefits from being listened to all the way through.

Nevertheless, "Love Cry", which was also released as a 12", can easily be severed from the album and stuck up on your wall with super glue, as we have done here.



(Incidentally, the B side of the 12", "Our Bells", is a mighty piece of work in its own right, taking his music in a kind of Brian Eno direction. (Like I know what I'm talking about.))

Song of the day

"Are 'Friends' Electric?", by Tubeway Army.

So. Around years 9 and 10, that would be 1978 and 1979, I went off the rails. 

This statement must be put in context: an only child living on a farm four miles from the nearest town, in a small rural community, has limited opportunity for going seriously astray. But he can nevertheless find opportunities, if he works at it, for letting his parents down.

How did I do it? Largely by misbehaving at school, which was easy enough, and in retrospect relatively harmless: mostly I came across to my teachers as an annoying pain in the butt and general smart alec. This was in aid of "forging" my own "identity". (Which started and ended, if I'm being honest, with my buying from the Melbourne Show, and gamely wearing once or twice, a badge that read "I'm Antisocial", in "punk" lettering. (Why am I thinking, right now, of Rik Mayall's character in "The Young Ones"?))

I got one opportunity to take things a bit further. And, perhaps unwisely, or for the wrong reasons, I took it.

My best friend in primary school, and even as far back as kindergarten, had been Malcolm. My dad and his dad, and a few of their respective brothers, had made up the bulk of a cricket team, Fish Creek West, that played on a lopsided cow paddock a few miles out of town. So our families saw a bit of each other, even though my mum and dad's social life didn't really exist. By this time the cricket team had disbanded. Its members had either moved away or given up cricket for lawn bowls. Malcolm's dad died and they moved into town. Malcolm rebelled before I did. This included his disowning me as a friend, or at least telling me that I was uncool (true) and that my dad was an idiot (manifestly untrue, and by far the more upsetting of the two things -- but, given his own loss, it might have been understandable to me if I had been old and "mature" enough to make the connection).

Malcolm thus had two advantages over me: he lived in the town, and therefore had access to things that could be obtained in a town, viz., cigarettes and alcohol. He also had an older brother (adopted, as it turned out; not that that is relevant, but it does go some way to explaining how two people who resembled Laurel and Hardy could be brothers), who was able to facilitate access to same.

At the same time it had become clear to me that I had to win back Malcolm's friendship, and that I could only do this if I could prove to him that I could be a Bad Boy. It didn't seem like a good idea, but I didn't see that I had any choice, if I wanted to put an end to a long period of school-bus bullying and ostracism. 

The Blue Light Disco came to town. I had permission to go to this highlight of the Fish Creek social calendar. I was dropped off at Malcolm's house beforehand. Malcolm had come across cans of VB, which he had stashed behind the railway station. Alcohol had never before passed my lips. I had no idea what it was supposed to do to me. I drank two cans. Malcolm drank, I think, a few more. We went to the disco.

I was, even then, a music obsessive. I gravitated straight towards the DJ. I was flicking through his record crate when I found, to my amazement (I really did think I was in a world of my own, with my surface-mail NMEs and my night-time access to 2JJ), a copy of Tubeway Army's "Are 'Friends' Electric?", which was yet to make its first appearance on Countdown and was therefore still largely unknown in Australia. I asked him if he would play it. Some time later, after either the two cans had kicked in or, more likely, I had convinced myself that they had, that opening synth line came on, louder and in better sound quality than I had ever heard it before.

And then, dear reader, I went nuts. I was was an acne-spotted stick insect. I had long, lank, straight black hair and black horn-rimmed glasses. I wore a polyester Miller shirt of some combination of brown and orange. I wore desert boots. I "danced" around the room like a lunatic, crashing into people, spinning my arms about, and jumping hither and yon, for the entire length of the song. I danced myself under the table. Literally. I stayed there for some time, wondering what had just happened, and, more ominously, what was going to happen. The adult help, all of whom were known to me and, worse, to my parents, escorted me from the premises and arranged for them (my parents) to collect me.

I doubt that I was actually drunk (although for a time I endured the cruel and vicious nickname "Two Can Stan") but beer could still be smelled on my breath. (Or was it teen spirit?) I underwent a necessary interrogation when I got home. (The car ride itself was awfully silent, and silently awful.) Mum was in tears in bed for some time. Of course I denied, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, that I had been drinking (I said it had been Malcolm, and that the smell must have got on me somehow). Mum made me promise that I would never do it again. (That was a promise that was easy to keep, if only because of lack of further opportunity. Eventually the hormones settled themselves down, I knuckled down at school in year 12, and I threw away the "I'm Antisocial" badge.)

I had made my mum cry. I had made my dad look at me in a way I had never seen before, and didn't much like. I had made an utter dick of myself in front of my peers. I had to live with all of these things at once. I think I discovered, and not for the last time, that going off the rails was not for me.

I still get goosebumps when I hear this song.

Hypothetical mixtape: March 2012

Coming not exactly hot on the heels of our February 2012 hypothetical mixtape, here is what we cooked up, or reheated, for March. Um, that would be March of last year.

"The Motorcade Sped On", by Double Dee & Steinski & Mass Media. It starts with these things: the introduction to the Johnny Carson show. The opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night". JFK. Three gun shots. A news bulletin. All in very rapid succession, such that, if you were listening in 1985, you really would not have had any musical framework into which to place it. It also would have been deeply confronting to anyone with personal connections to the assassination or who had been old enough in 1963 to have been scarred by it. I wasn't even born then, but I still find the track, even at this late date, surprisingly affecting. It also paved the way, eventually, for DJ Shadow's "...endtroducing" (among other things), and so has a cultural legacy of its own.

"Driving Away From Home (Wicked Weather For Walking)", by It's Immaterial. There are several songs that, throughout the earlier, less self-assured, years of my life, I harboured an affection for that was deep but secret. They were songs that I didn't think fit the way I saw myself, or more likely the way I wanted others to see me. "Rio", by Mike Nesmith. "Baker Street", by Gerry Rafferty. "Wicked Game", by Chris Isaak. "Driving Away From Home" is another one, and one, I must admit, that I had completely forgotten. I still like it. (I still like all those others, too. And now I don't even care who knows it. [Insert blogging as self-psychotherapy alert here.])

"I Don't Know Why I Love You", by British Electric Foundation. From the less well-known second volume of their "Music of Quality and Distinction". Featuring the one, the only, Green Gartside on vocals. When your young grandchild says to you, many years from now, "What did the eighties sound like, grampa?", you will play this, and they will know. (So it was released in 1991. It's still eighties to the core.) What's that you say? There's an extended version? Oh crap. [Cranks up the Google.]

"I Keep Mine Hidden", by The Smiths. And, speaking of the eighties: ooh, look, a Smiths song that doesn't seem to have appeared on any of the 25,000 (and counting) Smiths compilations that continue to litter the countryside. B-side of "Sweet and Tender Hooligan", apparently. Warning: contains whistling.

"Exactly Nothing", by Real Estate. We can always get excited about a Real Estate b-side. This is a song (and Real Estate a band) that probably, at some level, wouldn't have existed without The Smiths. I really like what Real Estate can do with guitars within the framework of the humble pop song. They can give a song both air and density at the same time, which is kind of a neat trick.

"Imaginary Girl", by The Silver Seas. The piano makes you think "Ben Folds Five", only I never much cared for Ben Folds Five. In my ideal world, every time you switched on your car radio this would be playing.

"Friend Zone", by Spectrals. We've said it before and we'll say it again: everything sounds better with reverb.

"Goldilocks Zone", by Grass Widow. Conveys the spirit of Electrelane (and, perhaps, The Raincoats) sufficiently well that how could we say no? It's the guitars, innit?

"Ohio / Machine Gun", by The Isley Brothers. Sometimes a piece of music has to go for nine minutes in order to find the sweet spot. The Isleys here take two anti-'Nam/Civil Rights Movement talismans, fuse them together, and travel so far into The Zone that there ain't no coming back.

"Police On My Back", by The Equals. Another anti-establishment song, then. At first blush it sounds a bit stilted in comparison with the agit-punk of The Clash's cover. But stick with it. Who knows, you may end up preferring it this way.

"Miss You", by The Rolling Stones. What have we here? Only the second-most ridiculous thing you ever heard: not just The Rolling Stones, but The Rolling Stones in a "Special Disco Version". The third-most ridiculous thing you ever heard? It works! Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts really come into their own over this song's 8.5 minutes. (You have to try to ignore M*ck J*gg*r. But you've been successfully doing that for the last 30 years anyway so that shouldn't be too hard. Focus instead on the electric piano.)

"Pacific State", by 808 State. Having sat through a lifetime of Dancing Stones, you need to have your palate cleansed. This will do nicely.

"Movie Show Dubwise", by Junior Delahaye. Okay. It goes like this. In the 1970s, heyday of dub and roots reggae, Lloyd "Bullwackie" Barnes recorded and released, on the Wackie's label, a bunch of crucial reggae tracks before relocating to New York, where he continued to do much the same thing. In the early '00s a couple of likeminded Germans, Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, who had already been responsible for practically the only post-early-'80s reggae worth listening to (they understood the essential yin-and-yangness of bass and space) under the Rhythm & Sound moniker, undertook a spit-and-polish reissue programme of a choice selection of Wackie's material. It holds up particularly well, and it is hard to argue that old-school dub has ever sounded better. This is a good example. Its A-side, "Movie Show", also appears on an album called "Showcase", which I have, and which is as good a place to start as any.

"Domina (Carl Craig's Mind Mix)", by Maurizio. As fate would have it, this, too, is the handiwork of Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, subtly tweaked by that man Carl Craig. While this may not fall under the rubric of "reggae", it, too, has bass and space. In quantity.

"Kohoutek-Kometenmelodie (Parts 1 and 2)", by Kraftwerk. Somebody took this 1973 (i.e. pre-"Autobahn") seven-inch single from Kraftwerk, fused both sides together into one long track, and gave it up to the internet. And we thank them for it. 

Song of the day

"Hymn of the Big Wheel", by Massive Attack.



Today's question is: do you really need to buy the 2012 remixed/remastered version of Massive Attack's "Blue Lines"? I haven't heard the 2012 release, but listening to the original CD, from 1991, I can't say that I can find, with the passage of 21 years, any particular deficiency or negative legacy in the original. In fact, I would happily say it still sounds as vital, as fresh as a daisy, as it ever did.

On the other hand, if you don't already own "Blue Lines" in some form, there is only one answer: grab a copy with your Ears Pinned Back.

Impossible, it is (as Yoda might have said), to single out any one track from what must be one of the most solidly excellent albums of recent years. But today we are going with the closing number. For a reason. Possibly an entirely spurious reason, but a reason nonetheless.

Listening this morning, with slightly more open ears than usual (holidays, after you have been on them for long enough, will do that to you), I was struck by the similarity, in one of the synth lines, between this song and Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream", which is, as you already know, one of my favourite songs. Neneh Cherry is responsible for the backing vocals on "Hymn of the Big Wheel", and also (I now discover) co-wrote the song. There is, as you also already know, a previous connection between Massive Attack and Neneh Cherry: Robert "3D" Del Naja co-wrote "Manchild" (which happens to be another of my favourite songs). All of this elaborate joining of the dots leads us to: last year's unexpected and surprising (and entirely successful) cover by Cherry, with jazz collective The Thing, of "Dream Baby Dream".



Which is a long way from Massive Attack, admittedly, but I suspect they would approve.

Big wheels within big wheels, indeed.