Audio Journal by MJA Smith : 22/02/2010

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We watched the movie Once (2006) at the weekend. A modern-day musical set in Dublin, it presents a week in the lives of the un-named lead guy (Glen Hansard from Irish band The Frames) and girl (Marketa Irglova). Hansard is a hoover repair man writing folksy songs and busking in his spare time while trying to get over a break-up. Irglova is an Eastern European immigrant who happens to be an exceptional pianist. After a chance encounter and over the course of the ensuing week she instils a level of faith and confidence in Hansard's songs, adding piano and direction to his songs, and ultimately encouraging him to recruit a band of fellow street musicians and to take a small loan to finance a weekend recording session. It's a simple, yet highly effective film; more of a documentary or extended music video, and is principally a vehicle for Hansard's emotionally fraught songs which are somewhere between the frailty of Damien Rice, the depth of Talk Talk's Mark Hollis and the rapturous peaks of Arcade Fire's Win Butler. Irglova on the other hand has a fragile, delicate voice best heard on the classically-informed ballads she performs here.



I don't think I've ever downloaded the soundtrack to a movie while I've still been watching it, but such is the pull of songs like 'When Your Mind's Made Up' and 'Lies', songs filled with disappointment, negativity and an emotional depth that's hard not to warm to absolutely. Hansard also lightens the mood with the wry Loudon Wainwright III-esque 'Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy' and the lo-fi synth pop piece 'Fallen From The Sky'. Great movie, great soundtrack.

While our two daughters were eating dinner at the weekend, and desperate for a break from The Wiggles on constant repeat, I grabbed the only iPod which was handy, which happened to be Mrs S's. Doing this always fills me with dread as it's in major need of a tidy-up, and also my music collection is significantly under-represented therein. So I stuck on Phil Spector's Sounds Spectacular (1974) compilation, which I recorded from my parents' vinyl copy. The songs are obviously familiar from any other Wall Of Sound compilation, as is the distinctive Spector sound, but we noticed that the transfer from vinyl gave the songs a much richer warmth and authenticity more befitting the songs than the comparatively clinical re-masters on the infinitely more expensive Back To Mono boxset. An obvious point to vinyl aficionados, I know, but one which struck me unexpectedly in that moment. And that reminded me that time was when I used to mine the Smith record boxes each week to turn up some long forgotten vinyl purchase to write about in this blog; I must start doing that again.



On a rare tentative visit to my least favourite music shop, HMV, at the weekend, I was suckered into one of their periodic 'two for a tenner' deals on CDs, and walked away with Bad Lieutenant's Never Cry Another Tear. Bad Lieutenant is a three-piece band consisting of sometime New Order guitarist Phil Cunningham, Jake Evans and New Order / Joy Division / Electronic front-man Bernard Sumner.

A sticker attached to the shrinkwrap proclaimed that 'this sounds more vital than anything New Order have done since 'Crystal'', which irked me somewhat. 'Crystal', undeniably a great track, was on New Order's penultimate album so in terms of making out that this is a return to some sort of classic period New Order sound the scope seems torridly short-sighted in its range. Typical NME.

Still, what is correct is that Never Cry Another Tear is brilliant. More akin to the second two Electronic albums (Raise The Pressure and Twisted Tenderness), with plenty of acoustic guitars and genteel lyrics, the album also finds time to throw in Power, Corruption And Lies-era synths on a few of the faster-paced songs. Sumner shares vocal duties with Evans while Stephen Morris adds drums to a couple of tracks, and Blur's Alex James drops in on bass duties occasionally. The album was released back in October of last year, and I'm annoyed with myself for not buying it sooner, especially since it's reminded me just how much I love Sumner's voice.

Audio Journal by MJA Smith : 15/02/2010

Go to: My Other Blog :: Documentary Evidence :: twitter.com/mjasmith

While tidying up the office, I came across a single by a band called Nemo from 2003 entitled 'Piccadilly In Sepia'. Nemo, which does sadly rank (in a post-Disney sense) as among the worst band names of all time, developed out of another band (Spectacle), some of whose members Mrs S went to school with. The lead track is a precise slice of authentic electronic pop that could have been released anytime between now and 1984, its chorus of 'Piccadilly in sepia / We are naked on the underground' containing the sort of Nitzschean attempts at seriousness that littered a number of classic 80s tracks, although the idea of us all being starkers on the Tube is somewhat disturbing. For all its lyrical faults, 'Piccadilly In Sepia' is a brilliant, brilliant and sadly overlooked synth pop gem.

I caught the DLR into the City at the weekend. The driver-less trains always remind me of the track by Komputer 'Looking Down On London'. Komputer, a duo of Simon Leonard and David Baker were formed out of the anarchic electronica act Fortran 5, ditching the amusing Orb-esque samples in favour of Kraftwerk synth purity. In doing so they headed back to their roots as synth duo I Start Counting, whose two albums (Fused and My Translucent Hands) were underground classics. If you sign up to Komputer's mailing list, you get a free mini-LP to download (Intercom), containing five tracks of icy, retro electronica.



If Komputer, in adopting Kraftwerk's electronic template, are retro in their aspirations, Raymond Scott's music could be described as pre-retro and authentically pioneering. Scott, who was variously a classical and jazz musician, moved into electronic composition and synth module development with his Manhattan Research, Inc. enterprise in 1946. In the process he developed new instruments which would go on to inspire the likes of Bob Moog to develop their own, genre-defining synth kits.

Arriving at a time when electronic composition was primarily the domain of scientist egg-heads and Hollywood sound effects departments, Scott's diverse synthetic palette found an ideal home as the backdrop for futuristic TV and radio spots in the 1950s and 60s; a compilation of some of these commercials and other Scott pieces was released as Manhattan Research, Inc. by Basta in 2000. Scrape your way past any kitsch connotations from the use of spoken sales pitches for bygone products and visions of a wonky future from the likes of the Bendix Corporation, and what you're left with is sixty-nine tracks of elaborate electronica that directly prefaces today's pop flirtation with synthetic sounds.

Audio Journal by MJA Smith : 08/02/2010

Go to: My Other Blog :: Documentary Evidence :: twitter.com/MJASmith

Earlier this week I took a listen to Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band, a 1968 piece by esteemed and influential minimalist composer Terry Riley. Riley, a member of La Monte Young's Theatre Of Eternal Music, along with Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad and a pre-Velvet Underground John Cale, left the dronescapes of the Theater in 1965 and carved out his own niche as a composer.



Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band consists of five pieces, all segued together seamlessly into a single, evolving piece. Layers of arpeggiating horns and fat synth tones add colour to what is a shifting, deep soundscape that has similarities with In C (1964), Riley's most famous composition, but with perhaps less of that piece's abundant euphoria. Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band is an altogether more atmospheric and menacing composition, occasionally brooding but intensely fast-paced in its shifting sounds.

From the minimalism of Riley to the dub-inflected sampleadelica of Renegade Soundwave. Renegade Soundwave first emerged from the dark depths of South London in the late 1980s, releasing tracks such as 'Biting My Nails' and 'Probably A Robbery', songs which were based heavily on borrowed sounds with a gritty, knowing savvy and occasional bursts of urban humour. Their first album, Soundclash dropped neatly into the late 80s love affair with the dancefloor; it was followed by a companion dub album which dumped some of the pop elements in favour of a raw edginess otherwise hidden under the surface of the parent album.



The latecoming follow-up, 1994's Howyoudoin? took the Soundclash ethic and added seriousness and guitars, producing the strummed guitar-dub classic 'Renegade Soundwave' as well as one of the most malevolent bad-trip tracks in 'Blast 'Em Out'. Howyoudoin? was also followed up with a dub companion, which again pared the tracks back and added new dimensions. After that, nada. Renegade Soundwave famously fell out with their label and despite a valedictory 2CD compilation, all but bit the dust. Gary Asquith from the band co-runs the label Le Coq Musique, and I'm hoping to interview him for Documentary Evidence soon.

McCoy Tyner's Tender Moments was released in 1967 on the Blue Note label, still the coolest jazz label in the world. Tyner is best known as the pianist in tenor saxophone legend John Coltrane's classic quartet (alongside Elvin Jones on drums, and Jimmy Garrison on bass), recording the watershed album A Love Supreme and Coltrane's sublime take on 'My Favourite Things'. Tender Moments might sound like a collection of mushy piano tinklings perfectly suited to the run-up to Valentine's Day, but it's anything but. This album is a fine collection of intense but accessible jazz workouts, interspersed with sprinklings of ruminative piano. 'Utopia', for example, has an cinematic grandeur that wouldn't sound out of place on Bernard Herrman's final work for the movie Taxi Driver. This album would serve as a suitable entry point for anyone looking to get into Sixties jazz but not yet patient enough to go all-out improv.