At Home With Fourstar

My good friend Alex recently posted the following question over at his blog:

What is your favorite "at home" phrase?

and it led me to think about the nonsense I spout on a semi-daily basis. Now I have distinctly different "at home" and "at work" phrases (as should everyone...) but for the purposes of this exercise, there is one Pharaoh of phrases, an Excalibur of exclamations, the Prince of proclamations, which is:

"Everyone's a winner, petit dejeuner"

Back in the heady days when I used to play sax in a touring soul covers band, we shared the stage with two of the most hilarious guys I have ever met. Tony (trombone) and Shaun (guitar) had known each other for years and had such a natural rapport they could easily have been working the clubs as a double act. They would have the tour bus in stitches at their tales of derring do and natural affinity for the absurd, which lifted the spirits of those humour-sapping drives across, say, for example, to pick somewhere totally at random, Lincolnshire.

However, whenever something went particularly well (which could be anything ranging from a well-paid gig in Dublin to a delicious sausage roll from a Sunderland truckstop), without fail Shaun would exclaim "Everyone's a winner!" always followed closely by Tony's rejoinder of "Petit dejeuner!".

Now quite why a French breakfast should be the epitome of delight for two jobbing musicians from York, I have no idea - and I'm not sure they did either. However, it stuck with me and to this day, when something goes well at work or at home, this is the line I come out with.

All That Jazz

Our team Christmas lunch this year was at Ronnie Scott's jazz club, where you can enjoy an afternoon of food and wine accompanied by sets from three different performers (credit to Dei, our editor, for this inspired idea!) We heard a piano trio, then a great tenor saxophonist and finally a female vocalist, who really whipped the audience up into a festive frenzy, especially with her versions of classic Christmas numbers done in the musical style of the audience's choosing (the dub reggae 'Silent Night' was hilarious). It was a pretty tremendous way to spend an afternoon.

However, part of the deal is that everyone joins in for a big number at the end on kazoos (nicely laid out with the cutlery at each place setting). This was great fun, but even better was when they asked for volunteers to come up for a jam on the famous Ronnie Scott's stage, which has been graced by innumerable all-star names from the music world, past and present.

I didn't need asking twice, but I did let Jeremy go first for a microphone level test; old habits die hard. What's that? Is there a recording of this spectacular event? I thought you'd never ask:

And massive thanks to Alex for his off-the-cuff iPhone camerawork :)

Harry Up

Spotted a poster on the tube at Moorgate for new film 'Harry Brown' starring the legendary Michael Caine. Looks like another great British urban movie which I hope to be able to check out sooner rather than later, but the killer for me is this awesome bit of driving drum & bass over the credits from Plan B (who also stars in the film...) with Chase And Status:

Hot Or Lot

Recently, I've seen a bit of a fuss about Salem. At first listen, the Cocteau Twins Do Dubstep would seem the obvious comparison but certainly the chilling & ethereal electronica is an appropriately autumnal alternative to the big bright bangers of the summer. And some of their videos are, quite frankly, disturbing. Anyway, this is their latest offering, 'Frost':


Yes, I like it, but why do I feel the sudden urge to put a jumper on?

From The Flames

So, Phoenix then.

Fantastic group, formed out of the ashes (hence...) of Air's early backing band and one of the first incarnations of Daft Punk. That's not so much 'cool' in my book as '−459.67°F' and falling.

I remember loving their first LP (whose name eludes me without firing up some reference site or other) but which had the standout track/single 'If I Ever Feel Better') way back in 2000 and then the brilliant 'Alphabetical' in mid-2004. If you haven't heard 'Everything Is Everything' then you haven't lived. You haven't? OK, here you go:

Anyway, thanks to Spotify I recently discovered they have a new album out entitled 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix' (the title of which appealed to the uber music geek in me, obviously). Here's a sample, 'Lisztomania' which is the first track off the album, and another absolute winner IMHO:

So, y'know, get into Phoenix. Yes, I know they're French but it works for them.

NeRoux

You know I really like La Roux.

You know I bloody love dubstep.

You know I rather admire Nero.

Love the brooding quality he brings to the original, just by slinging it into the minor key and slapping a filthy bassline round its chops (thanks to Chris for the heads up).

You can also have a lot of fun by opening two copies of this page and playing the tracks slightly (3/8 works) out of sync...

...oh, just me then?

Jaguars Earlobes

In fact, no tasty Roman nibbles here but another excellent mix from the Ocelot boys (who did a really great reworking of Dragonette's 'Competition').

Ocelot July 2009 Mixtape

When you see Toxic Avenger back to back with Timo Maas & Felix Da Housecat you know it's worth checking out. So, er, check it out.

Lemons

Sleevage is a wonderful site and today's featured album provides a very interesting look behind John Squire's artwork for one of my favourite albums of all time:

Sleevage: The Stone Roses

The painting featured on the cover of The Stone Roses is titled Bye Bye Badman, as is one of the songs on the record. Both the song and the painting are about the May 1968 riots in Paris, which explains why the tri-colours of the French flag are featured on the cover.

I did not know that.

Code Red

I have been wittering about La Roux for a while and now - finally - the eponymous album is released. OK, it's not actually out until Monday but there's this thing called the Internet...

So, having seen the savaging that the Little Boots LP took a few weeks ago, it might have been whispered that the kooky 80s lady synth pop revival championed by Radio 1 et al at the end of 2008 might be over before it has really begun. However, there is a lot here to shout about, not least Elly's soaring (others might say strident but I disagree) voice and the apparent return of the well-crafted song. The arrangements are deliberately simplistic (think 1981/82 Depeche Mode) but none the worse for that; a whole host of remixers have pounced on the space left around the vocals and created some amazing club tracks which have clearly helped to keep La Roux from the 'sharks' for the moment.

Apart from the singles 'Quicksand', 'In For The Kill' and out-now 'Bulletproof', the stand out track (and if it were me, obvious next single) is 'Tigerlily', even with the hammy vampiric spoken-word middle eight (from Elly's dad, apparently). But the rest is not filler; 'Fascination' has a fantastic earworm chorus hook and if we don't see 'Armour Love' given the South London dubstep treatment in the next six months I'll eat my blog. Definitely worth investigating.

Tooled Up

This is amazing; a free online browser-based Flash audio composing and recording tool:

Hobnox:Audiotool

Yeah, yeah, seen them before, I hear you say? No, you haven't:

(click to enlarge)

Need another gate, compressor, delay, parametric EQ, splitter, sequencer, etc? Sure, just drag it on and cable it up. Just like being on stage (apart from knocking lager all over the laptop mid-set...). Have fun.

(via the b3ta newsletter)

Trust The Remix

That nice Mr Skinner has decided to allow the great unwashed to remix his excellent track "Trust Me". I shall be having a go shortly, but for now here are the first attempts (quite liking the autotuned jungle one from Rumblejazz)

bln.kr | remix skinnermike

You Do The Moth

Burial and Four Tet have collaborated on a 12″ release, each apparently having had a hand in the production of each others tracks; a fantastic 'style-meld' from two of my favourite producers.

‘Moth’ is the most immediate with huge deep kicks and detuned synths and vocal shards - Burial house anyone?

‘Wolf Cub’ definitely has more of a Four Tet feel to the instrumentation but with those South London late-night atmospherics lending an uneasy air to proceedings.

Anyway, I suggest you buy it. Now. Go on!

(via nialler9)

Sugar Spun Sister

So 'The Stone Roses' was released 20 years ago this weekend.

As a debut album, it was astonishing - anthemic, delicate, emotional, witty, powerful and enigmatic - with hand-crafted lyrics from Ian Brown, intricate guitar work from John Squire floating above the rolling bass sounds of Gary Mountfield and Alan Wren's chugging drums keeping your feet moving, for me it was the sound of the beginning of the 1990s.

Regrettably, I don't seem to have any photos to hand of my baggy jeans, flowery hoodie and shaggy (whisper it, undercut) hair but you can get some idea of my image of the time from this:

Yes, in a totally unrelated coincidence, Freyja appeared for breakfast today dressed ready for Spike Island.

I'm so very proud (and ever so slightly wistful).

Cliff

No, not the leathery perma-tanned Centre Court crooner but a beautiful track from my man-of-the-week Mike Skinner.

And the video is very clever; I leave it to you to spot why (OK, think 'Memento'):

(Also for Tim at 7amkickoff - enjoy!)

The Prodigy Are Fags*

No, they really are, look:



Great video :)

* Oh come on, I thought that was quite good...

Kill (Slight Return)

OK, so I don't know what to do now; this Foamo* bootleg of the La Roux remix is even better!



La Roux - In For The Kill (Foamo Skream Remix Bootleg)
Atmospherics from Burial, beats from Underworld, bassline chopped out of the Skream mix and Elly's soaring voice floating above it all. That's like someone (Sylar?) lifted off the top of my head, peered in and wrote down all the things that do 'the neck hair thing'. A win of epic proportions.

* straight outta High Wycombe, he did that 'Everything Cool' thing that was all over the place last summer...

Tune.

I love dubstep.

It has to be the ultimate genre. Where else would you find half-time reggae marching drums, 808 techno kicks, massive 90s anthemic basslines, delicate twittering hi-hats, rave stabs, speeded-up jungle breaks and soaring atmospheric vocal stylings thrown together with ice-cold production, whilst retaining modern urban credibility. And that's just the middle eight...

Anyway, lately I've been listening to a lot of dubstep producers' mixes: Benga, Shackleton, Joker & my personal favourite, Croydon-based flag bearer for the modern dubstep scene, Skream. I previously posted his reworking of La Roux but his mix for "Mischka Presents..." (available here at Discobelle.net) is awesome, starting out quite sparse and 'beaty' but moving more into vocal remixes/bootlegs by the last quarter of an hour or so.

Which is where I found this:


It's an unreleased bootleg of "Blinded By The Lights" by The Streets, a classic clubbing anthem in its time but the bass drop on this just sent the hairs on the back of my neck into overdrive ('Dark Train' by Underworld has the same effect when the synths come in). The blogs/forums seem to think it is by Nero, as does Mary-Anne Hobbs (who should know) but nobody has confirmed this yet, as far as I know.

Enjoy. And hopefully it might make its way onto a flat, round, black bit of vinyl in the not-too-distant future.

Morning Has Broken

Today was the first day this year that I have awoken, showered, dressed and left the house to get my train all in some kind of actual morning daylight. Added to which, the first track that came on when I plugged in my headphones was this, which is beautiful (and given that I was about to get on a train in the light for the first time in months, somewhat apt).



Vector Lovers - 'Metrolux Forever'

Skream In For The Kill

I recently heard this on Mad Decent radio and Sinden's podcast, gave it props on blip.fm, which instantly Twittered it and now I'm embedding the YouTube on my blog. How ridiculously Web2.0 is that?


(I also just discovered the improvements to YouTube embedding: customised playback area, choice of sizes and optional 'related videos' strip. Much better :)

Peace, Lily

Right.

I'm going to stand here and say to a possibly wearisome & increasingly cynical world that I really like the new Lily Allen album, apart from (the slightly bizarre) Never Gonna Happen*.

And I also liked the last one.

So we seem to have arrived at a situation whereby either (a) she has made two utterly godawful pop albums and I sit here totally outed as the owner of a musical ear more befitting a mutilated koala or (b) they deserve a bit of an unprejudiced listen.

Your choice. And indeed, as ever, your loss.

Oh, did I mention that Spotify rocks like nothing else? I did? OK, good. Do it. Now.

* which for some reason feels exactly like three songs merged into one in an increasingly-desperate coke-fuelled last-minute ignore-the-Grade-Five-Theory-rules-of-musical-chord-progression-Dave-coz-we-have-an-album-to-deliver edit, presumably because it was.

Sing Us A Songsmith

Good old Microsoft have apparently been working on a fantastic application that takes any vocal sung into it and provides 'suitable' backing tracks. Sounds like good clean family fun, yes?

Quite apart from the jaw-droppingly Stepford-esque promo video, the good burghers of the internet have since decided to play it some acappellas of famous tracks, with astonishing results.

Microsoft Songsmith Remixes [Videos] @ Pitchfork

Clear winner has to be Radiohead's 'Creep'. They should do their whole next album like this. Utter awesomeness.

Of course, it has to be a massive spoof ... er ... doesn't it? Anyone?

I Can't Believe Its Butlins

The line-up for this festival looks absolutely amazing:

BLOC 2009

Aphex Twin / Future Sound of London / Jamie Lidell / DJ Qbert / Carl Craig / Green Velvet / Afrika Bambaataa / Skream & Benga / Busy P/ Altern-8 / 4Hero / Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry / Rusko / Ed Rush and Optical / Mad Professor / Modeselektor / Beardyman / Appleblim / Joker / Ulrich Schnauss / BassClef / Rob Da Bank / Billy Nasty / Radioactive Man (and those are just the ones I've heard of...)

Lord knows I'd like to go, but I've never been to a Butlins before - will they still have a poolside knobbly knees contest? Maybe a gurning competition might be more suitable :)

Nifty Fifty

This is genius.

The Hype Machine: Music Blog Zeitgeist 2008

Forget the magazine editors & big label marketing budgets. This is the best music from 2008 chosen by the most passionate music fans alive: music bloggers.

You can stream the Top 50 Albums individually off the site, or listen to them in blocks of 10 as a podcast. Oh, and while you're there play the Top 50 Songs by month or read the Top 50 Artist reviews, as compiled by the thousands of music bloggers around the world.

Wow. There goes the rest of the month...

Cut Copy Paris

One album making it onto many of 2008's Top Ten lists was from Ladyhawke - personally, I thought it was patchy but it did spawn a veritable slew of remixes, one of which I stumbled across on Palms Out Sounds and share with you below, because it's great:

Ladyhawke - Paris Is Burning (Cut Copy Remix)

Yes, it's a little bit Euro-nu-disco-tastic but sometimes, just sometimes, on the rainy January struggle home from work when the Tube is packed and he's forgotten his brolly, a chap needs to be transported back to a balmy summer night at Pacha watching a gaggle of po-faced European girls in spangly hotpants gyrating on a podium waiting for a fat Lebanese shipping magnate to take them home in his Bentley. Okay? Good.

Just Put Your Lips Together -- And Blow

This is this killer app that may just force me to buy an iPhone:

Smule: Ocarina

Yes, it's an ocarina.

In order to play your Ocarina, you will need to blow into the microphone (you will see a small gold arrow where to blow). The mic is sensitive, so try not to blow very hard (if you are puffing your cheeks, you are blowing too hard).

Rest the iPhone on your ring fingers and thumbs with the headphone jack facing away from you. Use your index and middle fingers to cover the four holes.

To play the highest note, you will need uncover all four holes, but don't drop the iPhone! It may take some time to learn how to balance it, so be patient and remember to play over a cushioned surface.

Let me repeat; it's an ocarina...

Rhapsody In Blue And White Stripes

Another fantastic Danny Baker moment - a version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody with every word replaced by a footballer's name. Why? Just because. Listen:


Update: since I bothered to edit the MP3 down, there is now a YouTube version with video and everything:


All together now "Cousins Sealey Mathers ... Pugh Geeeeee".

Brilliant. People are staring at me in the office, chuckling like a simpleton.

Electronic Explorations FTW

Blip.fm strikes again - just stumbled across this weekly podcast from Rob Booth (ex-R1 Breezeblock) with guest appearances from various luminaries of dubstep, minimal electronica & techno:

Electronic Explorations
Very much enjoying Week 021 (Bitesize Beats & 2562) at the moment. And if all that meant nothing whatsoever to you, you're almost certainly saner than me. Carry on.

Utter Kaos

Almost worth getting a Nintendo DS for this little beauty:

Game review: Korg DS-10

"...a perfect reconstruction of the Korg MS-10 - an analogue, monophonic synthesizer that has had rave reviews ever since it arrived in 1978. The DS-10 is slightly better than the MS-10: while it faithfully recreates the former's sound, it has a Kaos Pad interface which the MS-10 lacked. As well as a virtual keyboard and sequencers galore, it has knob-and-pinboard patch panels for tweaking synth and even drum sounds to near-destruction."

Look!

Aphex Twin Girl

I'm sure this is all over the intertubes, but it's very cool (and just the sort of thing I'd like to try with Freyja, if I ever get any free time whatsoever again :)

French Orelsan

J'aime ceci beaucoup:

Orelsan - Changement
by 3emebureau

Anyone who can rhyme "tetes des jeunes" with "Playstation" is OK in my book :)

Girl Turk*

Remember the fuss about Girl Talk's "Feed The Animals" album? Andy Baio at Waxy.org decided to compile the metadata for the various (264!) samples included in all 14 tracks, using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (on-demand scalable workforce) service.

And then made some rather nice graphical charts. I like it a lot.

Mechanical Turk Feeds The Animals

* I cannot claim this one, for shame!

Just A Blip?

Ian Tait over at crackunit thinks this might just be the best thing ever:

Blip.fm | Global Music Radar

As he says:

It’s like the best bits of last.fm, twitter, and muxtape all rolled into one. And it plays nicely with all the web stuff it ought to.

Agreed - get up and join blip.fm at once. Just do. See you over there...

Smelly Bears Seen Exiting Woods

Following on from this and this, come the (renegade) masters of the bleedin' obvious with this:

Girl Talk Flouts Copyright Law (NYTimes.com)

You. Don't. Say.

However, this line from the wonderfully titled Barry Slotnick (happy days at school, Barry?) I think tilts it inadvertently more towards Greg Gillis (but then again I never did finish that law degree):

“What you can’t do is substitute someone else’s creativity for your own.”

No, that would be stealing. But there is a long history of putting bits and pieces and sounds together and calling it musique concrete, no? So who decides how much is a substantial part and how much is just a relatively insignificant bit of a larger work - that has to be the courts. This could get interesting, if someone really wants to challenge him. It's not just one (highly recognisable) sample looped over and over whilst MC Thingummy does his schtick over the top - this is possibly a new genre.

Of course, if they have any brains left up their noses, they will simply do the sensible thing and clamour like mad to be part of his next compilation - think of the publicity, dudes...

Thoughts?

Watch Girl Talk

After offmessage posted about the brilliant Girl Talk mashup album, 'Feed The Animals' (well worth checking out if you can still find it) there are now video versions of a couple of sections of it which have popped up on YouTube:

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals (2 of 14)

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals (3 of 14)

Very nicely done, sir.

Tellier What

When we used to live in Hong Kong, I distinctly remember my father bringing home some cassettes of Jean Michel Jarre (I initially thought it was The Concerts In China but that wasn't until 1981 so it must have been something else - Equinoxe?). Whatever you think of his concerts (and looking back with the jaundiced eye of a some-time electronic artist, they were perhaps rather pompous) with his banks of massive synths and radical laser shows, it fair blew the mind of this 8-year old boy and I was definitely hooked on all forms of electronica from then on.

Anyway, thirty-odd years later, recently perusing one of the many (27 and counting) MP3 blogs in my RSS reader, I came across a remix of a Sebastian Tellier* track (the ridiculously titled 'Sexual Sportswear') which took me right back to those early days of JMJ discovery:



What do you reckon, Dad, have things come full circle?

* Yes, the very chap that represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest this year. He came 18th; the UK came joint last with Germany and Poland. No, my pleasure...

Square Arrow Triangle Dance*

So I stumbled across the AMVI theory via Neatorama and it seemed like an interesting idea:

AMVI: Associative Musical Visual Intelligence
"Associative Musical Visual Intelligence is a type of intelligence that's difficult enough to define, let alone test. Many creative people can associate across sensory domains: they "hear" hints of shapes and can "taste" the essense of colors. At its most extreme this phenomenon is called syntesthesia. However, I believe that creative people subconsciously employ elements of syntesthesia every day when attempting to think of things in new ways. This test attempts to measure one's ability to associate musical phrases with abstract shapes and symbols."

So I take the test (disclosure: I do have A level music and Grade 8 flute but at the time of the test I had also sunk a couple of fairly large gins) and get 95% (19 out of 20) which is :



Maybe I'm wasted in investment banking. At the very least, I should pick up the saxophone again :)

* this will mean nothing unless you take the test - in fact, I'd be interested in your scores -> comments please!

Ding Dang Dung

Yikes.

It seems to be time for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest already. Since the success of the magnificently inappropriate Lordi in 2006 and bespectacled radical Flump Marija Serifovic in 2007, I have absolutely no idea who might win. To be fair, neither do I give a flying muskrat. What I do know is that they will be hard pushed to scale the dizzying heights of Teach-in from the Netherlands in 1975. Now I'm pretty sure they weren't miming, coz that ain't allowed, so the sync on the video must be terrible. Anyway, enjoy:



Despite the fact that the start of the middle eight is a dead ringer for the Grandstand theme, get a load of the pianist's trouser/boot combo as well as the fact that the guitarist on the right is clearly about 8'3" and wouldn't have been out of place in the aforementioned Lordi. Genius. Altogether now:

"Ding-a-dong every hour,
When you pick a flower,
Even when your lover is gone gone gone..."

Awesome. Especially the face on the xylophonist* at the end.

* I imagine it might be some sort of vibraphone but 'xylophonist' was too good to resist. How many times a year do you get to put that in a blog post, eh?

Dubstep Allstars In Their Eyes

I remember last year flagging up Fairtilizer after stumbling across it chasing some Klaxons shit or other. Anyway, they very kindly emailed me this dubstep playlist which is very much of the bomb, in my humblest of opinions:



The Rusko and Benga tracks are particularly, er, vibrant :)

Bananas

Freyja is very funny at the moment. She especially likes (and gets the terrible giggles to) the song I sing when she brushes her teeth. Now this is not your regular classic Dad version of "This is the way we brush our teeth, brush our teeth, brush our teeth..." (repeat ad infinitum)

Hell no.

For some reason which currently eludes me but which I imagine I ought to think about, I have somehow led her to believe that teeth should be brushed to the strains of the Banana Splits theme tune:



So far, so great-fun-remember-it-well-happy-days-thanks-very-much. Ah, but wait, there's more. You see, I couldn't remember the words to the TV show theme tune so I just sung the the ones we used to sing at junior school. Which were ever so slightly rude...

And so now I have a dilemma - do I adapt the teeth-brushing song to reflect the actual TV theme tune words and risk Freyja noticing and refusing to brush her teeth ever again and costing me a fortune in dentistry bills? Or do I carry on in the vague hope that she is laughing too much to pick up on the puerile WWII era genitalia references?

Vote now, if the thingy wotsit below works. If it doesn't, just feel free to tarnish me as a terrible parent and go about your day:

Lord Bono Of The Sparkling Stream

I have nothing further to add:

ITTODBTBIA: Bono - Better Than Me

Humph

Obituary: Humphrey Lyttelton

Very sad. He was great.

Golden Amen

Well how very really jolly interesting. Your actual classic breakbeat building block is a fundamental fractal structure! Coo, well I never, stap me vitals, etc:

Amen Break / Golden Proportion

Junglist massive indeed.

Muxing It

Rampaging through your bandwidth like an RIAA spokesperson on crystal meth, it's Muxtape. Everyone loves making compilations, don't they? Here's what I had lying around at work on the top sekrit (shhhh!) Z: drive...

Enjoy it while it lasts :)

More Galvanised Marmite, Tintin?

No, I don't know what it stands for, but I like it:

MGMT: Time To Pretend

I'm thinking half a pound of Tears For Fears, with a couple of heaped tablespoons of Depeche Mode (on Mogadon) and a pinch of Talking Heads.

You?

ONOZ, TEH BONOZ!!!111

Good grief...

U2 in 3D

So not only are they (still) utterly crap, but the IMAX now makes them bigger and the 3-D makes the buggers nearer. Never has the phrase "Don't stand so close to The Edge" been so apposite*.

* I'm here all week, try the soya protein-based meat-substitute cutlet

Lurvecast

Heh, someone who snubs Valentine's Day nearly as much as me:

The Lurvecast @ Song, by Toad
Great track list:

01. Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night? (00.23)
02. The Velvet Underground - Femme Fatale (08.06)
03. The Raveonettes - Little Animal (10.57)
04. R.E.M. - The One I Love (13.57)
05. Half-Man Half-Biscuit - Paintball’s Coming Home (20.54)
06. The Pierces - Boring (25.43)
07. (The Real) Tuesday Weld - Terminally Ambivalent Over You (31.03)
08. Shane MacGowan & the Popes - Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway (34.41)
09. The Wave Pictures - When I Leave You For Somebody Else (38.30)
10. Pulp - Pink Glove (45.33)
11. The Raincoats - Don’t Be Mean (50.15)
12. Rufus Wainright - One Man Guy (59.34)
13. William Shatner - Ideal Woman (66.34)
14. The Sequins - Nobody Dreams About Me (71.45)
15. The Smiths - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (77.31)
16. The Walkmen - Don’t Forget Me (82.58)

Recurring Theme

So Freyja was given a very nice box set of Charlie & Lola books as a ChristBirthdayYuleMas present and they have soon become her bedtime book of choice (with the collected adventures of Mog a close second).

Anyway, contained within the package was an audio CD of the aforementioned stories, read by the actors children who voice the TV series. And preceding each story is the theme tune to that TV series. And having had this on all weekend, much to Freyja's delight, I now can't get the blasted thing out of my head. It may well be a perfectly tuneful ditty with a definite hint of late-70s sitcom...


...but when you are whistling it at 7:15am whilst waiting for the coffee machine at work, you know it's going to be a long day. All together now, dah pappa dah dah pah-de-pah, de doo pappa...

I think I possibly need to say that the Charlie & Lola theme music is (c) Tiger Aspect but if anyone from Tiger Aspect is reading this I shall be (a) amazed and (b) offering my services to do a hardcore rave remix...

Thunderbreak!

This is crazy-good-euro-synth-pop-funtime:

Tony-b Machine
There goes the evening...

(via rubbishcorp)

Your Face, My Sleeve

I'm a bit late to the party on this, but only because I was debating which one I was actually going to do:

sleeveface

"one or more persons obscuring or
augmenting any part of their body or bodies
with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion."

Anyway, since I haven't decided yet, I thought you, my lovely reader(s) could vote! Shall I attempt to do:

a) Whatever People Say I Am (Arctic Monkeys)

b) State Of Mind (Holly Valance)

c) Is This It? (The Strokes)

Over to you, vote in the comments...

Free At Last.fm

Many have tried, but this looks like the mould has finally been smashed on the floor:

Last.fm Blog : Free the Music

"As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website ... free full-length tracks are obviously great news for listeners, but also great for artists and labels, who get paid every time someone streams a song. Music on Last.fm is perpetually monetized. This is good because artists get paid based on how popular a song is with their fans, instead of a fixed amount ... we already have licenses with the various royalty collection societies, but now unsigned artists can put their music on Last.fm and be paid directly for every song played. This helps to level the playing-field—now you can make music, upload it to Last.fm and earn money for each play ... the business model is simple enough: we are paying artists and labels a share of advertising revenue from the website. Today we’re redesigning the music economy. "

Welcome to the future?

Mini Moog

These are utterly brilliant:

Miniatures: An Electronic Ensemble

I Want To Be Your Friend, Ro-land*

When you've been hands-on with Reason, this seems a bit lonely all on its own, but rather lovely all the same:

aM laboratory: Roland 909

All together now, booka chikka booka chikka booka chikka lakka chikka (repeat)

* 25 points awarded for spotting '80s cultural reference

He's Got Form(at)

This is one of the most hilarious music videos I have ever seen:

DJ Format - We Know Something You Don't Know

(by Ruben Fleischer in case you were wondering)

Thanks for that, Chris!

Sony And Yet So Far

John Scalzi on the gaping voids inside the heads of Sony BMG MusicPass execs:

Why It Won’t Work

Gift cards. Genius. Not.

Symphony Numero Onion

For some reason, I couldn't help but think of Antonia and her fighorn:

the vegetable orchestra

Bring on the leek violin, cucumberphone and pepper trumpet (and stop sniggering at the back...)

Very Burial

I have been boring everyone silly with how good the Burial albums are; I think I still prefer the eponymously-titled first one, despite the reviewers raving over 'Untrue', (which is still awesome).

Anyway, there is a fantastically-moody and yet still dancefloor-friendly remix by Boy 8-bit which I hope will whet the appetite for more of the same:


via Nialler9 and Mad Decent and do contact me via the comments if I should take this down or something...

Pardon?

I am officially old.

Yesterday I went for a 'business lunch' with a colleague and, once seated at our table, felt the need to ask the staff to turn the music down. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Time was when a mere high-street hostelry could not have dreamed of matching my decibel capacity but here I am, the wrong side of 35 and heading towards the Ovaltine and comfy slippers. It's a sad, sad day indeed.

Those of you who saw Probemeister rocking the (sadly-missed) Arts Centre in York with an aural onslaught of thundering beats and analogue synths will remember remarking, "There goes a chap who'll never be defeated by a slightly intrusive blast of KT Tunstall of a lunchtime and no mistake" but I fear I have let you all down. I can only beg for forgiveness (quietly).

Waitress: "Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?"
Me: "Look, I can't hear a single word you're saying; can you possibly turn this dreadful racket down a bit?"
Waitress: "A Malibu & dry ginger, a pint of snakebite and a pair of Campari shooters?"
Me: "Yes, but can we have one with mash?"
Waitress: "No, it's the last door on the left, can't miss it."

Appa Days

Afternoon. Just testing the new embedded flash player. Have a listen if you like, it's 'Appa' by Badmarsh & Shri (one of Freyja's favourites):


Yep, that seems to work. Now to try and change the default colours (although I'm a fan of grey, luckily).

EDIT: colours changed! Thanks, Alex...

L B O

I saw a sticker on the tube the other day promoting this lot, so I checked it out:

London Breakbeat Orchestra

"Taking the orchestra to venues more commonly associated with DJs and rock bands, the London Breakbeat Orchestra demonstrates that orchestral instruments can be used for far more than classical music. Killer grooves, turntablism and FX plus 30 virtuoso instrumentalists combine to create floor fillers live. LBO is at the forefront of the underground electro-acoustic dance scene."

Rather fun crossover project. They've done Radio 1 sessions and that. Some tracks on the website too.

Overheard #29

Ahem.

There was a very good interview in the Observer with Girls Aloud. Actually, it may have been a bit frothy.

RCRD LBL

Here's an interesting idea; rather than treating their customers as criminals, a group of record labels (including Warp, Modular and Kompakt for starters) have teamed up with a variety of music blogs/websites (Drowned In Sound, Seen) to offer ad-supported online content for free:

Seems to have only been going less than a week, but I imagine many more will want to jump onboard. They ask you not to 're-host' anything you find but in return offer a variety of widgets for your website/blog so that you can have auto-upating content direct from the RCRD LBL site (although if I'm honest I tried to get the Warp Radio widget to embed here and it wouldn't so some work to be done there. Or perhaps I am a muppet. That's more likely.)

Anyway, this was the weekend roundup of the posted MP3 - some interesting stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. More details of the usage policy and the Creative Commons license in the FAQ. Sign up, looks good.

All The Fun Of The Fairtilizer

Strange name, but excellent site for new original music, remixes and covers:

Fairtilizer

Stumbled across it via a Klaxons version of No Diggity by BLACKstreet(!) which is in this playlist of interesting covers which also includes two versions of Gin And Juice (one lounge and one country), an electro Song 2 and Robyn's gentle pizzicato take on Since U Been Gone:


Cool embedded (yes, Flash) player too :)

Take The Last Graph Home

Another nice little last.fm widget - this one charts the evolution of your last.fm listening profile over time (output as SVG or PDF). Admittedly you have to wait for it to process (current queue length = 136) and mine was a 3Mb PDF!

LastGraph

Interesting to see at a glance how your tastes have changed (or not...ahem)

Sweet As Suga

I have to admit to the reading public (yes, all four of you) that I have a soft spot for the Sugababes and in particular their new track (as of yesterday, Britain's Number #1 single), "About You Now":


And it comes as no surprise to anyone with their finger vaguely on the pulse of finely crafted pop to discover that it was written by Cathy Dennis.

Rubbish video, mind :) I mean, yellow?

Deezer Geezer

Just become aware of this French website which offers free access to user-uploaded MP3s to listen to online.

"What the ... ?!" I hear you cry.

Apparently it has an agreement with SACEM (which as I understand it is the French version of the PRS/ASCAP) to pay it an agreed portion of its advertising revenue in publishing royalties.

Deezer

Remains to be seen if the RIAA will flex its international muscles (like it did with the Russian site, AllOfMP3) and wade in with the helicopter gunships. Although Universal is said to be somewhat unhappy and might beat them to it (having just signed an exclusive agreement with a different French ISP, neuf.fr, with whom they share a parent company, Vivendi).

Worth a look, streams fine, not a bad selection. Is it the new Napster?

And obviously there's a Slashdot thread.

Hit And Myths

Well done to Klaxons for winning the Mercury Music Prize; still enjoying Myths Of The Near Future on my journey to work (and yes, I do sometimes sing the falsetto bit in Golden Skans as we pull into Lewisham station, so what?) and I really should have stuck a tenner on them; could have got 9-1 apparently :(

Anyway, day-glo leggings on, horns in the air, whoop, whoop, whoop!

Last.fm (But Not Least.fm)

Gadget alert - this last.fm Normaliser re-ranks your last.fm favourites by actual listening time (rather than number of tracks consumed). So a couple of Orbital albums and a bit of the Floyd can easily make amends for that secret passion you know you really have for Girls Aloud and/or Lawnmower Deth. Nice.

The Pope Don't Work

Like, Dylan, man.
You know, Dylan.
Woah.
Man.
Dude, like Dylan, y'know?

Dylan, by me (courtesy of some web jiggery pokery and that)

You can too, here. Cool.

I'm A Slave 4 U(kulele)

So, back from our summer holidays, what do we fancy listening to as we lurch back to work?

Awesome. And England are leading the ODI series, Arsenal are unbeaten and I found twenty quid in my suit jacket this morning. If I wasn't so stiff from playing cricket at the weekend, I'd jump for joy :)

More! Proof! Of! Youth!

Exclusive! last.fm! preview! of! more! tracks! from! The Go! Team's new! album!

Click to play >>><<< Click to play

23! days! and! counting!

I'm Just A Lush

OMFG - this could absolutely 1000% so easily be me:

Because Midway Still Aren't Coming Back

"...is about indie bands. Proper indie bands from the later 1980s and early 1990s. When indie bands were real indie bands, and when they released their music on big lumps of vinyl; like God intended."

Of the 27 bands currently on the site, I own 9 CDs, 12 vinyl LPs, 17 12" vinyl EPs and 4 limited edition coloured vinyl 7"s. I have also seen live gigs from Dr Phibes (forgettable), World Of Twist (mental), Teenage Fanclub (amazing), Jesus Jones (overrated), Ride (noisy), New FADs (moody) and Ned's Atomic Dustbin (silly) as well as the wonderful Lush, from whom lead-singer Miki signed my T-shirt (much to the chagrin of my friends on the night, who had to wait for me hanging round the side of the Newcastle Mayfair stage like a lovesick puppy until the diminutive Japanese/Hungarian beauty found her magic marker...)

Now, bring on The Wedding Present, please...

Toxic Mash(up)

Nothing to do with green potatoes, this is another really polished album of pop mashups. So far; so last year. However, they're all based around tracks from a long-forgotten LP called 'Hot Boppin' Instrumentals', lending a rather pleasant 'lounge' feel to recent chart smashes from (amongst others): Spears, Aguilera, Stefani and even The Jaxx:

Forgotten Hits

Check it out and let me know your favourites...

Within Tent To Kill

Too good not to share. Brooker goes to Glasto:

Oh good, it's raining again

(Yes, yes, I know it was published two weeks ago. So sue me for being in a dial-up wasteland in SE6 eating cold beans. Off packing cases. With chopsticks :)

Proof Of Yoof

Go! Team! Album! Out! Soon! But! Here! Is! A! Taster!



Do! You! Yahoo! etc!

Watch The Birdy

This is awesome (thanks, musiclikedirt). French outfit Birdy Nam Nam* were DMC World Team Battle Champions and last year released their self-titled debut album as well as a live CD, 'Stephane'. Anyway, not content with just your clever-fancy-tricksy scratching, they use the decks like an instrument. I'm really impressed:



* apparently their name was taken from that great Peter Sellers film, 'The Party'. So now you know...

Shaking That Brass

I like this - the Central Band Of The Royal British Legion's re-working of Gravity's Rainbow by lovable Nu-Rave mop-tops, Klaxons:

Gravity's Rainbow

Remember that Acid Brass CD by the Williams Fairey Band from back in the day? 2001!

No Direction

So Dylan you know like man just totallyyyyyyyyy.

(insert punctuation as necessary)

MetalRex*

Billy Corgan has taken the latest incarnation of The Smashing Pumpkins on the road again for the first time since December 2000, ahead of the July release of the new album, Zeitgeist:

And ThePumpkins.net has some bootlegged recordings of the Paris gig:

Smashing Pumpkins; The Grand Rex, Paris

* long story...

More Smoke On Camera Six

I've only recently discovered Pickard Of The Pops, a weekly column on the Guardian website in which promotional music videos of the popular genre are dissected and analysed like an unsuspecting frog in an O-level Biology practical. Laid bare, scene by scene, they really are exposed as either (a) pompous heap of overblown pretentious tosh, (b) feeble excuse for pre-watershed semi-nudity or (c) shoe-string budget gibberish made by orang-utangs on uppers. My choices, in the aforementioned categories, are:

(a) I Don't Love You
(b) Umbrella
(c) Nuff Buzzin

Enjoy (or something)...

Spiderman Of The Rings

Perusing some random music blogs this afternoon, I stumbled across a reference to someone called Dan Deacon and a link to an MP3 of a track called Snake Mistakes. Cool title, I think, wonder what this sounds like. Four minutes and twenty-two seconds of kids toy bleeps, slide bass, playground hand-claps and catchy-as-hell pitchshifted* chorus later, I am on the hunt for his album:

Hails from Baltimore, part of the Wham City art collective and composer of unpretentious, engagingly garish electronica who did his last tour by Greyhound bus. Utter lunacy - carry on...

* thinking about it, after that Battles track, is pitchshifting the new Provence? :)

Battles - 'Atlas' (Warp)

I meant to post this after stumbling across it a while ago. Still not sure I can make up my mind as to whether it is genius or just plain weird, but I keep coming back to listen to it. Throw half a pint of glam rock stomp into a juicer with four early Casio synths. Stir in some essence of Chip 'n' Dale and mix until frothy. Serve with an intense garnish.



More on Battles at MySpace and bttls.com. Yes, I think I like it...

Ten Thousand Spoons?

Following on from a recent lengthy and vociferous debate on IRC as to the merits or otherwise of the genre-challenging post-modern Ibsen-esque "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas, I notice that none other than Alanis "no, that would just be a bit coincidental" Morrisette has done a cover version, complete with parody video:



Milky, milky cocoa indeed...

UPDATE: I actually beat b3ta to this one, for once...

Yeah We Love You RB

I have recently discovered the wonderful Blackwood 's Vintage Dry Gin, available (exclusively?) at Oddbins which describes it thus:

"Blackwood's flavour is fresh, with delicate citrus and herbal notes. Meadowsweet and Sea Pink add a floral undertone to the earthier elements of juniper and angelica root and bring a subtle sea-green colour to this exceptional gin."

And it really does taste fantastically like the sea (no, not in a fishy way, what do you think I am, mad?)

Anyway, whilst enjoying a small libation of the aforementioned botanical spirit (with a splash of Fever-Tree Tonic Water) I was reminded of that other famous Blackwood - Richard!

Far from only being famous for examining his poo on television, being a third-rate Will Smith and declaring himself bankrupt, he is also the cousin of Junior who had a hit with 'Mama Used To Say' in 1982. And here is the promo video which obviously then went on to inspire the 1988 fantasy horror film, Paperhouse [Are you sure? - Movie Ed.]. Enjoy...

Have A Nice Triptych

Fred Deakin (yes, him out of Lemon Jelly) has just released "The Triptych", a fantastic 3-CD album in which he ushers us on a musical meandering in a clapped-out campervan through the busy B-roads of his extremely extensive vinyl vaults. Eclectic? You bet. Ninety tracks of juxtapositional jump-cut and segway surprises await...

I got my copy from those extremely nice people at (pigeonhold-endorsed!) Disque who casually mentioned that there was a 'mystery' 4th CD containing tracks that they couldn't licence for the official release. So they sent me that as well! And then, they threw in some promos to make up for the extra cost of the postage! Two thumbs up for the mighty Disque please, people.

In The RED?

(or, How To Disgruntle A Totemic Bono)

Bloomberg.com: U2 exclusive

"Bono doesn't invest his own money in RED, the U.S.-based marketing venture he introduced at the Davos meeting in 2006. RED is an alliance between the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and six international companies: American Express Co., Nike Inc. subsidiary Converse Inc., Gap Inc., Giorgio Armani SpA, Motorola Inc. and Apple. "

Advertising Age: Costly RED campaign

"There is a broadening concern that business is taking on the patina of philanthropy and crowding out philanthropic activity and even substituting for it," he said. "It benefits the for-profit partners much more than the charitable causes."

I think you all know my feelings about bog-trotting-holier-than-thou-short-arsed-pub-musician Bono.

No further comment, m'lud.

Fork The Police

Remember The Adam And Joe Show? Well, Adam Buxton will be appearing soon in a BBC3 comedy series called Rush Hour, set in a traffic jam (honest). Anyway, my particular favourite preview is:


Brilliant. Go swimming with Lorenzo. Word.

Jaxx Of All Trades

Following on from the Lily Allen post the other week, another nice site for tracking down the, er, influences on your favourite sample-tastic artists is Palms Out Sounds which has its regular 'Sample Wednesday' dedicated to just that task.

Previously these have included De La Soul, OutKast and Daft Punk but this week it was the turn of those nice South London boys, Basement Jaxx:

Some absolutely corkers too: ESG (Jump & Shout), Locksmith (Red Alert) and Chic (Just 1 Kiss), to name but three. Smoooooove...

Bootleg Genius

Now I have been championing this guy for a couple of years now, but finally Go Home Productions (aka Mark Vidler) has got EMI to release his best work to date as "Mashed":

Not content with just slinging together some beats and an accapella, he spends a lot of time creatively splicing in tracks that work with each other musically.

You can listen to selected highlights on the site. Or just buy it :)

Track listing:

01. Franz Buffalo Malcolm McLaren vs Franz Ferdinand
02. Boogie Oogie Music Madonna vs A Taste Of Honey
03. Missing Groovejet Everything But The Girl vs Spiller
04. Horny As A Dandy Mousse T vs Dandy Warhols
05. David X David Bowie vs Liberty X
06. Passenger Fever Peggy Lee vs Iggy Pop
07. Flashing For Money Deep Dish vs Dire Straits
08. Can't Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head Kylie Minogue vs New Order
09. Hella Lola No Doubt vs The Shapeshifters
10. Doctor Pressure Mylo vs Miami Sound Machine
11. Proper Education Eric Prydz vs Floyd
12. Rapture Riders Blondie vs The Doors
13. Notorious Trick Duran Duran vs Kelis
14. Sing Back Connection Elastica vs Moloko

Alright, Steal

Having recently been 'outed' as a fan of some of Lily Allen's "Alright, Still" album (thanks, Rowan) I stumbled across this on the music-like-dirt blog:

"Here's a little compilation for you all to nab. It's the originals of [some of] the tracks Lily samples on her album, and a few others that may or may not have been influences."

*nods head in big-up-dub-stylee-come-now-my-selecta-one-time-an-ting*

Cat + Piano = YouTube

Another one for Antonia, perhaps:



*speechless*

(via BoingBoing)

Klaxons (awooga awooga)

Go and buy Klaxons' album, "Myths Of The Near Future". It's brilliant. They have somehow got the "new-rave" tag (although I read somewhere that they actually invented the 'scene' as a joke and then instantly detached themselves from it) but it is thoughtful and musical with emotive chord progressions and proper fast drumming and nice 80s influences and danceable tunes and a hint of tongue-in-cheek prog-rock hanging about as well. Go and get it, looks like this:
Magick.

Boom Boom Tizz

Yes, he is doing all that live. Incredible mad beatbox skills*
[via not-as-good-as-it-used-to-be-but-still-throws-up-the-occasional-gem b3ta]

* yes I know it should be "skillz" but I'm nearly 36, you know :)