Audio Journal : 27/09/2010

Fans of electronic music / dance music read on; those not that bothered can skip to the end (if you want some tracks by me) or hit delete. Your choice.

I go through phases of eschewing and then returning to electronic music. I have a wide interest in electronica of all hues and variations – from Eighties synth-pop to often erratic, deconstructed soundscapes. Two recent purchases in the latter field were ANBB's Ret Marut Handshake (Raster-Noton, 2010) and Iconicity by Incite/ (Electroton, 2010).



The former is a collaboration between Alva Noto (an alias for electronic musician and artist Carsten Nicolai who runs Raster-Noton) and Blixa Bargeld. Bargeld is the stimmung of cult Berlin noise-merchants Einstürzende Neubauten who has more recently developed processed spoken-word performances ('rede') into his repetoire alongside his day job fashioning unexpected sounds from guitars and detritus in Neubaten. Nicolai on the other hand is the poster boy for lowercase glitch-based electronics, notable for early works based on the error sounds made by skipping CDs. The combination of two mavericks on Ret Marut Handshake finds Bargeld's voice surprisingly suited to Nicolai's cracked electronics, leaving you feeling slightly cheated that they only crafted five short tracks. The album is named after Ret Marut, a shady, chameleon figure that Bargeld found intriguing. One can only hope for more from this unlikely pairing.

Iconicity by Incite/ (the back-slash is not a typo, such keystrokes being pretty commonplace in the outer reaches of electronica) is also a short-form release; a 3" CD-R in a tiny transparent DVD case with the typography appearing to float over the box, an image doesn't really do this justice. Iconicity is interesting, absorbing electronica in a similar vein to the ANBB release above, though sharing much more in common with the sort of warped, distorted beats and odd time signatures of Autechre.



If skeletal beats and broken electronics aren't your bag, Jarl & Fotmeijer's Lifesigns (Innertrax, 2010) might be more your thing. Lifesigns captures the essence of the minimal, arpeggiating Detroit techno of the early Nineties laced with grid patterns of upbeat 4/4 beat alongside stasis-dominated ambient passages. The most insane thing of all is that the duo / Innertrax have elected to release this album free. I almost feel guilty downloading it it's so good. Those who don't share my sentiment can locate it here.



And so, finding myself once again enthused by these music forms as I frequently am, I'm making available three of my own electronica compositions, via my revived Nominal Musics label. You can get the Elliptic Paraboloid EP by Sketching Venus here.

Audio Journal : 20/09/2010

Two albums that I was particularly looking forward to were released last week. The first was Grinderman's Grinderman 2. Grinderman is a four-piece band comprising Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn P Casey and Jim Sclavunos. Grinderman is designed to be an alternative to the band members' day jobs in Nick Cave's main band The Bad Seeds, and also allows Cave and Ellis a departure from their relatively high brow soundtrack work.

Grinderman, for those familiar with Cave's work with his earliest band The Boys Next Door / The Birthday Party and, from 1984, The Bad Seeds, is intended to be more raw, less refined, less planned. Cave describes it himself as more 'fun'. I got into Nick Cave in 1993 when I saw him perform the seminal 'Red Right Hand' on Jools Holland; I'd been aware of him already through the NME's continual praise, but also because he was (and still is) signed to my favourite label, Mute. Up to that point I'd only heard a unrepresentative B-side on the Mute compilation International, and hearing 'Red Right Hand' encouraged me into his back catalogue. My good friend Neill and I saw The Bad Seeds live at Brixton in 2004 and it cemented my belief that Cave is indeed one of the best performers in the business. More reviews of The Bad Seeds, The Birthday Party etc can be found over at my Documentary Evidence site; the full review of Grinderman 2 can also be found there too. If you can't be bothered to read that, it would appeal to anyone with half an interest in loud, rough rock with a fuzzy edge.

The other album was Interpol, by Interpol. Yeah, yeah, how many times have I mentioned that band here? The recording of their fourth album saw the departure of bassist Carlos Dengler, a key member of the group and throwing doubt on whether this was the end of the line for the band. Recruiting ex-Slint bassist Dave Pajo for live duties, the band appeared to have shrugged off any scepticism and refocussed.

Interpol is probably the band's most polished album yet. There's still the melancholy edge but there are brighter spots too, marking a progression of sorts. Some of the best tracks are the ones that start quietly and build toward epic crescendos – 'Lights' and 'Always Malaise' are the two critical cases in point, both consisting of layered elements which coalesce during the course of the song. Drummer Sam Fogarino makes his kit sound like a drum machine set to 'Krautrock motorik' setting and the piano sprinkles that crept into singer Paul Banks' solo album (as Julian Plenti) are liberally applied across the album. The brilliant single 'Barricades' is about as upbeat as this band is going to get, while other tracks court a punky ska vibe. I love it, but you'd have probably guessed as much.

Vinyl corner



A business trip to Luxembourg City and a degree of free time meant I found my way to CD Buttek Beim Palais, a treasure trove of vinyl and CDs spread haphazardly across a scattergun array of genres. I bought a second-hand 7" of Pete Shelley's 'Homosapien II'.

A late-night conversation a few weeks ago with Steve, a colleague, reminded me of this track. I only had a Simple Minds version of this (remixed by Erasure's Vince Clarke), and that conversation reminded me I should try and track the original down.

Well, this isn't actually the original. 'Homosapien' was released in 1981 from the album of the same name by the Buzzcocks frontman. The BBC banned it for the same reason that Frankie was silenced a couple of years later (thus ensuring the single cult and popular success). This 1989 re-recorded second version is credited to Pete Shelley and Power, Wonder And Love and recasts the electronic original as a floor-filling dance track with decent techno sounds. It doesn't knit together terribly well on first listen, and initially I thought it was a Stock, Aitken and Waterman record (the fact that the initials of the collaborators forms PWL didn't help). The B-side, an instrumental version, is better and would have dropped neatly into DJ sets, though it is definitely of its time.

Then again, it's hard to get too disappointed when you've only spent €0.50.

Audio Journal : 11/09/2010

Going to see Muse was always going to be a rather unusual experience because I'm neither a fan nor terribly well-acquainted with more than one album in their back catalogue. That said, we spent an evening at home watching their Glastonbury performance with barely concealed awe at its sonic precision and theatrical stage spectacle, and found ourselves tracking down the last God-awful seats available for one of two dates at Wembley Stadium.

Since we booked those tickets, my enthusiasm has waned and despite my principal stipulation was that we must make a concerted effort to gen up on their back catalogue, we wound up there only really knowing 2006's Black Holes And Revelations which we bought when it was released; a good album, granted, but one I've only really listened to a few times and which never got added back into my iPod after I lost all my songs.

My interest was piqued, however, when I saw White Rabbits on the line-up. White Rabbits are a band hailing from Brooklyn whose 'Percussion Gun' single from last year featured a dense barrage of burundi drumming and some of the most impassioned vocals I've ever heard. The intensity of their performance was nothing short of thrilling. And the crowd seemed pretty appreciative too – not bad for the first band on the bill.

White Rabbits were followed by The Big Pink, whose first song sounded like the groove from 'Supermassive Black Hole', only like it had got stuck. I'd describe The Big Pink as a potentially interesting Muse-lite electronically-infused doom-prog. The singer looked like Ralph, the teddy-boy rocker from Dear John. There was absolute no justification for the dreary a capella cover version of 'These Arms Of Mine' by Otis Redding, which made you realise what sort of Johnny Borrell-sized ego their singer must have. 'Dominoes' was probably the highlight. 'Ohhhh,' said the woman behind. 'So, that's who they are.'

I can't bring myself to write about Lily Allen, I just can't. I don't have anything bad to say about her, and I also don't think there was anything wrong with her performance (apart from a weird junglist breakdown), but I just don't think she really fit the bill.

As for Muse; well, after watching the Glastonbury footage, they were everything we thought they'd be. The performance was ludicrously, ridiculously and fabulously over the top. During one song they ejaculated streamers over the crowd; they rode out into the crowd on a revolving, ascending stage to perform 'Undisclosed Desires'; during an encore a giant UFO was floated out above the crowd and a Cirque De Soleil-esque acrobat burst from the bottom to perform acrobatics while hanging from the bottom of the spaceship. That sort of thing. You get the picture. Totally Spinal Tap.

Add to the enormous stage set and unabashed pomposity a performance that was delivered with the band's trademarked flawlessness, and I think I began to understand just why Muse are regarded as such a vital stadium act, and also why our side of the stadium seemed to be dominated by hordes of loyal European fans who obviously schlepp around the globe watching them. For three unassuming guys from Devon (Matt Bellamy's silver suit aside), their stage presence and enormous progtastic sound way exceeds their relatively diminutive stature.

Having an appreciation of their wider catalogue would have stopped me feeling like a fraud – I normally hate those people at concerts who only know the hits – but my highlights were probably 'Starlight' and the glam-prog 'Personal Jesus'-meets-'Doctorin' The Tardis' strains of 'Uprising'.

Audio Journal : 06/09/2010

Over the past year or so, I've focussed this blog on things I like. Now it's the turn of the things I don't; specifically, albums that I've decided to delete from my iPod.

The first is Hot Fuss by The Killers. I bought this album to scratch an itch, and itch duly scratched I realised I didn't like it very much and that quite honestly I preferred the itch. Growing up listening to Eighties synth-pop and hearing some of that electro / New Romantic sound evoked in the singles taken from Hot Fuss made The Killers appealing as a concept, and I listened to the album repeatedly when I bought it. Then I just went off it; Sam's Town killed turned me off them completely and now it's time to say farewell to Hot Fuss. CD sold on eBay and deleted from my iPod.

After my wife played me 'Slow Hands' I fell for New York's Interpol in a major way around the time of their second album, Antics. In New York in 2005 I caught up with their back catalogue and bought Turn On The Bright Lights from Other Music in the Lower East Side. However, I was frustrated by the paucity of their back catalogue. And then along came Editors, rising from the somewhat less glamorous Midlands, with The Back Room, which seemed almost to be a carbon copy of Interpol. I loved it. And then Interpol released Our Love To Admire and suddenly I had no need of Editors. Plus since then they've become altogether Killers-esque in their leanings. See above. CD sold on eBay, deleted songs from my iPod.

We all liked Keane when their début Hopes And Fears came out didn't we? The album was released at a time when introspective, emotional music was in focus – Snow Patrol, Elbow etc – and for a while Keane were leading the dour pack. And to think they didn't even have guitars. I had a couple of their songs pegged for inclusion on my hypothetical soundtrack to the film adaptation of the book I haven't finished writing yet, but finding the album again and giving it a listen I've decided they're just boring. Deleted.

Bloc Party's A Weekend In The City was a major disappointment for me. I liked Silent Alarm, their 2005 debut, and I figured I'd like the follow-up. The sleeve – with its slightly eerie shots of the Westway – is weirdly moving; opener 'Song For Clay (Disappear Here)' is named after Clay, the main protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis's seminal Less Than Zero, with the parenthesised section being a phrase that has appeared in every one of Easton Ellis's novels. Sadly, given Less Than Zero's air of casual detachment from the events unfolding around Clay and the sonic possibilities that could be created using that reference point, the Bloc Party track is hugely disappointing. As is the rest of the album. The closest the band get to that vibe of chilly aloofness is on the thinly-veiled 'On'. Sold / deleted.

Vinyl corner



I used to buy a lot of records from charity shops. Back in the days of my first website / blog (Red Elvis Central), most weeks I would just write about 7" singles I'd bought that week in Colchester's many charity stores.

Occasionally I'll still go into such shops and look for things, but it's without the enthusiasm of my early twenties. I'll flick through vinyl absentmindedly, smile at 7" singles I own and ruminate on how it's generally Eighties pop tracks that you find there these days. Back in the mid-Nineties it was Eighties stuff that I'd buy, feeling excited when I chanced upon a Human League or Tears For Fears record, if only because they were unusual in amongst the vast swathes of dumped Jim Reeves records. Now I can't be bothered.

However, a couple of weeks back I found a copy of Owen Paul's 'My Favourite Waste Of Time' from 1986, a song I saw performed on children's TV at the time and have had buzzing round my head at various points ever since. With maturity I began to think of the song as a bit of a guilty pleasures and that's exactly how I felt when I finally bought it for 25p a few weeks back.

I haven't heard 'My Favourite Waste Of Time' since it was released, and I'm impressed that I had even remembered how it went after 24 years, but that wasn't the most surprising thing - the surprise was the fact that I may have remembered this as a cheesy pop track, but it's actually a reasonably mature example of proper pop, in the same way that Nik Kershaw or Talk Talk transcended chart-bothering naffness. Sure it's anthemic, soulful, joyous, whatever, but it's not naff at all. It has a pleasant acoustic guitar running throughout the track, and true to this point in the Eighties, it has a sax solo; I wonder whatever happened to sax solos.

B-side 'Just Another Day' is a delicate, laid-back mixture of skipping percussion, Michael Karoli-esque Krautrock* guitar atmospheres tucked away in the distance and a heartfelt vocal.

According to his Wikipedia entry, Owen Paul McGee to give him his full name, 'is now back on the road as the lead vocalist for Ex-Simple Minds', a fact that I only mention because he was never a member of Simple Minds.

* Ian - you might be disappointed to know that Krautrock comes up as 'geriatric' on my BlackBerry spellcheck.