The New Plagiarism

3/20 Dr. Dre- Detox

2011-07-07T22:29:00.001-07:00

Would love to give this a write up, 'cept it keeps getting pushed back. Maybe next year...

2/20 Panda Bear- Tomboy

2011-07-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

Alright, dalliance number two in wur quest to assess 'the' releases of 2011 and evaluate their rights to status-signifying inverted commas.

First off, full disclosure, I hate, hated Merriweather Post Pavilion. I thought it was a big jump away from everything that made Animal Collective interesting, towards the bland summery vibes of a Williamsburg frozen yogurt joint. For those who disagree, you can probably see where this is headed- go get this record, all I ask is you get some Black Moth Super Rainbow at the same time. Trust me.

For those still reading- cheers for that- here comes some nyumphing. See, Tomboy is probably the most frustrating record I've listened to in a long time. The production is immaculate, creating a kind of resonance usually found in choral music. Tracks build and shimmer in a way that must have taken an awful lot of talent and time to achieve.

Problem being, all that effort seems to have gone in to making as nice an album as possible. There's none of the tension which the title or the cover suggests to be found anywhere. In fact, you could probably play this to your grannie without her objecting, or perhaps even noticing the pleasant burbling vocals that lunge between the incomprehensible and the inane.

Ultimately, mulch is mulch.

1/20 Kode9 & The Spaceape- Black Sun

2011-06-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Kicking off my sporadic analysis of the 20 records wot Fact reckons are the most anticipated of this calendar year, at number one (sans bullet): Kode9 & The Spaceape's second full-length.

Now it might just be the fact that he too is a supplanted weegie, but I've always really enjoyed Kode9's stuff- seeing him spin a year or two back with Flying Lotus was a particular treat. He clearly knows his stuff theory/production-wise (if that's your bag) but also knows his way around a good banger.

I can't say the same about The Spaceape unfortunately, who I've always suspected owes his success more to his ability to whisper very earnestly than to MC proper. Por lo general, hushed stoner paranoia can yield some interesting lyrical results (see Tricky, et al.) but unfortunately the Spaceape's lyrics have a tendency to sound more teenage than tortured.

See for example, 'Am I' which opens with the execrable 'I am a killer with a gun shooting rounds of inspiration?' and toddles along in pretty much the same vein for the rest of the track. It's not all bad, but those kind of moments lead to a grimace that tends to only wane during the instrumental sections- like the brilliant title track.

Overall, it's not a wholly disappointing experience, but I am left with the nagging wonder of what Kode9 might be able to do if he could just let his style roam across an album without having to worry about buffeting a vocalist.

good enough for me

2011-06-13T19:02:00.001-07:00

20(0/1)1

2011-06-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

And more...

2011-06-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

R.I.P.

2011-05-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

Recent listenage

2011-05-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

and much to my surprise...

Aspiration

2011-04-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

Having just about completed the old graduate studies, a return to bloggery seems in order. To kick things into gear, I have purloined FACT's list of 20 records to look forward to in this 2011 and am working to try to come up with some legible thoughts on what to make of them as and when they come out (working title: The Shlock of the New). Will refrain from gazumping the FACT peeps by re-upping the list, but having got sticky mitts to the new Panda Bear and Kode9/Spaceape albums, they ought to be coming along soon.

Saludos.

Spring sprung

2011-03-21T11:29:00.001-07:00

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

RIP Trish Keenan

2011-01-14T15:44:00.001-08:00

Just tragic.

Blue Christmas

2010-12-22T08:30:00.000-08:00

The Best Female MC Around Today

2010-12-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

Is not Nicki Minaj. I really, really, really don't get what the hype is all about. Full disclosure: I have not heard the album, only a couple of less-than-impressive tracks. I have however listened to super-collabo-Kanye-doggerel 'Monster' a whole bunch of times, and, well, it is not good.

I tend to be dismissive of folk touting 'authenticity' as some kind of all-encompassing musical virtue. It's not like naivete is demanded of other art forms. But it does seem to say a lot to me about the current sorry state of hip hop that the first wunder-rap of this bold prodigy relies heavily on a weird mockney accent and, yep, a fake patois.

Now there's nothing wrong with an MC having a good old-fashioned split personality thing going on, but when you're simply mugging what seems to be hip right this second, surely someone has to call shenanigans? Maybe I'm getting older and grumpier, but I just don't hear anything fresh at all. I dunno, maybe she'll prove me wrong, but right now I'll stick to MCs with a little, y'know, bite:

'mon the Mogwai!

2010-11-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

Local legends return with a cheeky wee single ahead of the new album. Have a swatch for free here.

Recent listenage

2010-08-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

Remember the Vines?

2010-08-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

Turns out if you dilute their sound homeopath-style and toss in some horrendous cover art:

you too get to be the next big thing. Try it kids!

2010-07-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

Themselves' Doesone and friend release what to me is a rather revealing mix as far as cloudDEAD and that lot's influences go. Grab it here.

Sleigh Bells- Treats

2010-07-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

I have to admit I approached this record with severe reservations. It all seemed a little neat- schoolteacher meets waiter in Brooklyn restaurant, they sign to MIfrigginA's label and release noise-pop LP. Sounds like a recipe for 'edgy' bilge to your correspondent. The washed out cover art does a little to allay such fears, looking more like a Team Dresch cassette than, say the desperate clutching for cool of a recalcitrant truffle fry fan (ooh, burn as my lil blister would say), but I must admit it took me a couple of spins to see it.

Happily this ain't your typical indie kids trying to sound like MBV (for the purposes of namechecking, spelling out 'My Bloody Valentine' is simply not done, Ed.), nor the kind of polite record that keeps its 'noise' elements in the kind of nice airy sonic space lest we hurt our ears. Though there are electronic elements a-plenty, truth be told this is much closer to, say, Sleater Kinney or Jonathan Richmond than Gang Gang Dance.

Certainly nothing here would feel out of place on a comp like Rough Trade's excellent Rock and Roll 1, which I suspect is part of its appeal to folks like me who came of age listening to parent-bothering hardcore. In short- it's bloody loud. That alone should be recommendation enough.

2010-07-09T06:09:00.001-07:00

So Wiley's had a wee falling out with his manager and, in a bit of good news for the likes of you (yes, you laddie) he's plopped a whole lot of tracks onto your internet gratis. Check out grime forum for some linkage.

Black Stars

2010-07-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

Look at this fucking record cover #2

2010-07-01T13:14:00.001-07:00

Thanks for that, Mr. West

Big Boi- Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

2010-06-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

Streaming here.

R.I.P. Rammellzee (1960-2010)

2010-06-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

Nice couple of pieces from The Wire here and here.

She want neo-soul, this hip-hop is old...

2010-06-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

Afro-futurism:

filfy fackin' futurism:

and a bit of British curatorialism:

Summer in the District

2010-06-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to all the kids in DC- Fuck The Curfew

Missing the zeitgeist

2010-06-18T22:23:00.000-07:00

Man oh man, I wish I had remembered this before the end of the playoffs. I have it via superlative 'American Hardcore' soundtrack.

File Under: Politically Questionable

2010-06-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

For your consideration: Two rather bumping tracks comparing the farer sex to, erm, cars...

Dear Santa,

2010-06-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

This please.

Organic Techno

2010-06-14T19:01:00.001-07:00

Having found meself with a little bit of time between things in which to blog, I thought I might have a go at (catching some zeitgeist)/(pissing about inventing genres). Delete as appropriate. Anyway, there was a point back there a few years back where I almost wanted to not like Robert Hood. He goes and drops this feat of engineering:

and all of a sudden there's an aesthetic out there for folks to ape. And some folks aped it very well. And some did not. Now Rob wasn't on his own I know, you can see Kraftwerk's cool robotic hands behind the curtain; Steve Reich's if you care to. Not to mention the rediscovery of this slightly influential long player:

Anyway, whatever it was, Minimal (always with a capital LOLZ) Techno was pretty darn inescapable for a while there. Which is no bad thing. Some of my favourite dance records are those which find Mr. DJ at his most straight edge, of which 'Decks, EFX and 909s' is perhaps supreme example:

Wherein Richie Hawtin is at his leanest. It's dodgy territory to wander into I know, but I can't avoid adjectives like 'tribal' in thinking about this mix. The constant rhythmic trickery propels you forward constantly, maintaining a feverish tension that never climaxes and never dissipates, just keeps propelling you on. Seriously stick it on back-to-back with Reich's 'Drumming' and try to remain static.

Anyway, what I find fascinating in this late period is the extent to which things have come full circle. Enter Messr. Aguayo:

Who only goes and releases an LP built- I think- entirely from samples of the human voice. On Kompakt. Now words like 'joyful', 'emotional' and, well, 'vocals' don't tend to come up too often when discussing minimal, but I would argue that this is an evolutionary rather than reactionary response to stripped-down orthodoxy. (ay ay incidentally is how the chorus introduces itself in Greek drama, feel free to reach for the Lacan and theorise to your heart's content)

It is certainly in the tradition of a record like Ricardo Villalobos's 'Alcachofa' (that's artichoke to us gringos) whose veggie-referencing is an overt attempt to break from the cold industrial associations that tend to go along with minimal. But even here I'd argue this stops short of apostasy. The beats are still crisp, the palette spare. The tones are unquestionably warmer, but Romanticism this ain't.

Recent developments have followed this trajectory. The vocal cut-ups on opener 'Angel Voice' could easily be found in either of the two proceeding records. The triumph of the organic over the mechanical (fights urge to make trite observations re:Daft Punk) reaches its apotheosis in 'Pablo's Heart' whose brief unadulterated sample of his godson's heartbeat is literally as vital as it gets (take that robots!).

So the question is, where will techno go from here? The answer is far from obvious, but one thing is clear: we are all cyborgs now.

La Vida Tombola (Si yo fuera Maradona)

2010-06-12T07:18:00.000-07:00

In honour of Scotland's greatest footballer's team's opening game...

A lil more Madvillainy

2010-06-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Brief blast of oddly German inflected brilliance from the Madvillain boys. Right here.

Mixin' up ear medicine

2010-06-09T12:57:00.000-07:00

Lots of great mixes burbling about your internet these days, but two recent efforts from firm faves woebot and kode9 are rather special.

Spot the Difference?

2010-06-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

New Ariel Pink Streaming

2010-06-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the L.A. Times

mayo9mix

2010-06-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

I've been coopted into making a few mixes for a friend, here's the first- last year's hits:

1. Lassu- A Hawk and a Hacksaw

2. Stick to My Side- Pantha du Prince

3. Stillness Is The Move- Dirty Projectors

4. Wobble- Maniac

5. Stars- The xx

6. Give Blood- Rain Machine

7. Joy Fantastic- Hudson Mohawke

8. The be colony- Broadcast & The Focus Group

9. Disconnecting Entirely- Oneohtrix Point Never

10. Gymnastics- Pill

11. Purple City- Joker & Ginz

12. Spiders- Joakim

13. Home- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

14. Wet Wings- Dan Deacon

Rather good

2010-06-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

Stumbled upon the works of this chap(ess?) recently on- best dubstep blog name ever?- sitting ovation, which joins a couple of the dots between wonky abstraction in the UK vein and a more propulsive U.S. tradition (motor city etc.), worth a listen.

art/rock?

2010-05-31T19:18:00.001-07:00

Some clean tunes, reasonably priced.

2010-05-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

As the swamp in these United States I've been living in gets to boiling point, this makes a whole lotta sense. Damn good dancehall, damn good spaghetti western. Thanks, Special Agent.

Hey Dorchester, if you're reading this

2010-05-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

click here.

Knowing it is gone

2010-05-23T17:56:00.000-07:00

A hundred real thalers do not contain in the least coin more than a thousand possible thalers. But in meeting each we encounter the certain knowledge of what they are not. Fecundity shrivels to impotence and the thought is gone.

It's not the commercialization, or the commodity- no miserly modern, me- but the codification. Genre defined, genre denied.

noise

2010-05-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

Another one for the 'credit where due' file, this is as concise a statement on the current cultural place of noise music, from New Yorker crit. maestro Sasha Frere-Jones. He's a chap I've always been a bit iffy about, and if I were feeling ungenerous I would be tempted to slam the piece for not really taking on the historical origins of the genre. But this ain't a piece in The Wire for those who enjoy the joining of dots (to?) from AMM to Gang Gang Dance, or Nadja, or what you will. It's an open invitation to a world of sound that most people would consider pretty hard to listen to; an extended hand. And if it inspires some to jump the fence and give this harsh- for it's inevitably described as harsh- a shot at saying something to them about their life (thanks Moz.) then that's surely a win, no?

Treme

2010-05-18T20:50:00.001-07:00

On late musicality

2010-05-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

Preach!

Wearin' My Rolex

2010-05-15T21:36:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: The New Plagiarism does not endorse the purchasing of chronographs, which are watches, nor any products related in whole or in part to the nation of Switzerland.

So the chaps and chapettes at Rolex- when not tinkering with their tiny parts (was that a knob gag?)- apparently like to throw some dough at a paternalistic 'mentor' programme for 'young' 'artists' to 'collaborate'- you get the picture. Anyways Simon Cowell must have been busy or some such because this year's musico is non other than Brian Eno. And the potential mentees are none other than Ben Frost-whose By The Throat I've still to listen to, a situation soon remedied- perennial TNP fave dj/rupture and a Colombian bloke by the name of Federico Simon Mejia, who I would welcome any and all leads on. What can I say, not too shabby Messrs. Rolex, much better than the creepy Aryan father/son combos Patek Phillipe keep slapping on the back cover of my adult magazine. Oh, and of course, to quote my classically trained lil blister: TUNE!

Flying Lotus- Cosmogramma

2010-05-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

So this is pretty much the most refreshing listen I've had in a long wee while. Los Angeles was a technical tour de force, but occasionally came off a little too cold. This on the other hand is a heart-felt love letter to one of the great avant garde musicians of the last century. In case the tracklist didn't clue you in ('Zodiac Shit'/'Satelllliiiitee'/'Galaxi in Janaki'/'Arkestry [hint hint]') dear reader, please feel free to compare and contrast the cover and:

Now not being a certified sunra-ologist, I don't know the significance of the whole sun symbol thing- although it does crop up a bit:

But it does appear that Mr. Flying Lotus is headed in that direction, just after MF Doom, Burial et al. had killed mask wearing for the forseeable future:

In any event, I'm still merrily wrapping my head around the sonics on this thing and unable to come up with too many insights beyond, y'know -wow-

In the words of the late Michael Jackson, 'This is it. This is it.'

Arab Strap

2010-05-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

Nothing says summer like some down-home miserableism. Have to say it's making me a wee bit homesick:

And my personal favourite, sample lyric, 'I know I'm always moanin' but you jump-start ma seratonin'':

Folked

2010-05-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

Don't step.

Husker Who?

2010-04-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

One of my all time favourite bands getting mad props from two titans of the blogosphere. First off Simon Reynolds slips in a bit in the ongoing stupidly entertaining (entertainingly stupid?) riff wars thing he's got going. Then none other than Sr. Woebot goes and slaps some in for a post on 'weirdly-Scottish sounding guitar'- he might be on to something with Little Miss Strange...

Anyway, here's my favourite track (off Zen Arcade which is always cited as their best, though I'm a Candy Apple Grey chap myself), apologies for the shitty youtube montage video accompanying:

Crystal Castles- Doe Deer

2010-04-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

CAUTION: Exposure to Crystal Castles may result in long-term dependency.

Now here're some merry plagiarists I can get behind. Still sounding like a day-glo headbutt, the closest parallel I can imagine would be being at a Master Musicians of Jajouka gig after seven days of red bull and no sleep. Absolutely caning this one (apologies for the Zane Lowe bookends).

New Flying Lotus streaming like nobody's business

2010-04-27T16:58:00.001-07:00

Yep, you the viewer can listen to the new Flying Lotus album right here. You lucky duck.

M.I.A.- Born Free

2010-04-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

So... bit of a disappointment this, if only because it's shite.

I've always been a bit of an M.I.A. booster, particularly when it came to the last record, which was kitschy as hell in places, but still pretty fun. This on the other hand is just highway robbery performed on the unsuspecting, ie. maybe if we open with a clattery drum solo they won't notice:

Now nothing wrong with ripping off Suicide, you might argue. Primal Scream did a rather fun job of it for a good chunk of Xtrmntr, except that, drug-addled gents that they were, they at least had the decency to fob off the sound, not y'know just sample the whole bloody riff and mumble some bollocks about towers and power over it...

But don't worry, it gets worse. Mosey on over to her website and you can listen to this crap with a nine minute video of pornographic violence- which is like, dead political right, 'cos the baddies, yeah, they've got American flags on 'em, and the like rebels, right, they're redheads but they've got keffiyehs on, so it's kind of like...

It's kind of like you're trying to market your mediocrity by exploiting the brand power of one of the most marginalised groups on the planet- I look forward to your self-serving defence of it in next week's Guardian supplement. You hack.

Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

And while we're at it. more happy droning...

R.I.P.

2010-04-20T22:12:00.000-07:00

An embarrassment of riches to choose from, this remains my favourite.

Nobody listen to techno

2010-04-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

Oh you do? Then check this out.

Holy Shitballs Batman!

2010-04-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

Godspeed You (!) Black Emperor (!) -delete as appropriate- returneth!

'nuther album please?

I've started...

2010-04-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

... so I'll finish.

I failed to make it to the air and space museum last week

2010-04-07T12:35:00.001-07:00

but if I had I would have had this in my head the whole darn time.

Mulatu Astatke- Mulatu Steps Ahead

2010-04-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Caning this right now, it just proliferates in all directions. Highly recommended.

Has it come to this?

2010-04-05T08:54:00.001-07:00

Hyph Mngo (Dj Dials Vocal Remix) by dj_dials

Yup, it's a mashup- but a painfully hip one.

An old favourite, recently rediscovered

2010-04-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Orchestra Baobab- Mohamadou Bamba

2010-03-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

It's beginning to sound a lot like spring...

2010-02-25T13:22:00.001-08:00

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra- Kollaps Tradixionales

2010-02-19T14:44:00.001-08:00

Whatever happened to my post-rock& roll? A considerable portion of my late adolescence was spent listening to post-rock: Godspeed You Black Emperor! (before they moved the exclamation point); Tortoise; The Sea & Cake; Slint; local heroes Mogwai- the whole bag. And of course the various guises of A Silver Mount Zion.

So when I picked this up I thought I was in for a nice bit of a nostalgic treat, but it seems sadly, like the wheels have come off a bit. What I loved about those bands- and still do- was the dynamics of the music, the bare bones themes that built and swelled until the whole fucking universe sounded just about ready to collapse on top of you.

This, on the other hand, is, well, kind of jammy. Now, don't get me wrong, there's nowt wrong with a good groove and the latter half of 'I Fed My Metal Bird the Wings of other Metal Birds' hits one rather well. Unfortunately, to get there you'll have already sat through the fifteen minutes of 'There is Light' which sounds like the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays the Music of the Foo Fighters.

'Kollapz Tradixional (Thee Old Dirty Flag)' takes things back on a blander path, not helped any by some unambiguous lyrics, reprised on Kollaps Tradicional to even clunkier effect ('Lord, I still believe!') while the guitar lines continually threaten to go a bit, err, Runrig on us. Closer ''Piphany Rambler' continues in the same vein with earnest singing on top of melodramatic instrumentation.

All a little harsh I know, but it's just saddening to find a group that sounded so confident when I was in school sounding so teenage in 2010.

Look at this fucking album cover

2010-02-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

Dusk & Blackdown- Focus

2010-02-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

DeBruit- Heart Beats 4 Haiti

2010-02-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

Buy here.

Gil Scott Heron- I'm New Here

2010-02-10T10:45:00.000-08:00

If I had to write my top ten records of all time, I'd really struggle not to put 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' in there. Nevermind all the scholastic arguments about whether or not it was hip hop, it just killed, and continues to kill whenever I manage to slide some into a mix.

I'd always assumed that Heron had slipped into benign quasi-retirement, teaching creative writing or some such, but the poor man's had a much harder run of things. Details would be crass, but clearly he's not been, and continues not to be, in the best of places (one exception: fellow weegies may not know that his father was the first black man to play for Celtic back in the fifties).

The record is a lot rougher cut than his earlier stuff. The sonics are more frantic and there's a lot more gravel in the voice. It's not the most inventive record you'll hear this year, but it might be one of the most affecting.

Cover Police! Wiley

2010-02-04T14:49:00.000-08:00

This is just plain weird...

Four Tet- Love Cry

2010-02-02T16:20:00.000-08:00

Cry love!

Further Vindication

2010-02-02T16:14:00.000-08:00

Just one more late, late show of a pitchfork album review to gripe about then I'll stop forever, I promise. Seriously, Rifts, now? It's almost as if they don't log on to boomkat at an hourly rate!

And now for something completely different...

2010-01-30T11:02:00.000-08:00

The ever-excellent Alex Ross on 'Roots of...' style Bartok dissemenation.

R.I.P. Howard Zinn

2010-01-27T20:07:00.000-08:00

Not strictly musical I know, but damn. Some people are just inspiring, and even without knowing them, you know the world has lost something.

Joanna Newsom- Have One On Me

2010-01-26T16:28:00.001-08:00

No, the good folks at Drag City haven't seen fit to give me an advance copy. They have however, been kind enough to pop a preview track on their website, which sounds all spare and sweet, and generally Joanna Newsom-y. None too shocking perhaps, but still rather lovely after a long day.

The Pill- 4075 The Refill

2010-01-26T12:45:00.001-08:00

Said real Hip-hop...

Get it for cheap, or in fact, free

New Autechre Record Due March

2010-01-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

Info.

R.I.P. Jay Reatard

2010-01-13T15:00:00.001-08:00

DRUG ALLEGATIONS ROCK WORLD OF HYPNAGOGIC POP!!

2010-01-12T19:41:00.000-08:00

Latest developments here.

Free Dirty Projectors Double!

2010-01-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

Kode9- Sinogrime Mix

2010-01-10T06:17:00.000-08:00

Yup a cheeky wee free download from Sr. Hyperdub himself, which gives a fascinating window into a singular moment in the evolution of British dance music, that I have to confess to being wholly ignorant of. It's from 2005, but given the current chic of stuff like Dam Funk's 'Toeachizown' and all sorts of soft-synthery on the wonky axis, it makes a whole lot of sense five years down the road. All praise due to lower end spasm for the enlightenment.

Is it just me...

2010-01-08T10:55:00.001-08:00

Or did Pitchfork seriously drop the ball on quite a few of 2009's quality releases?

Like, maybe, if we review them quickly at the start of 2010 no one will question why they were getting ignored by us 'forkers when they actually came out...

A little less time give cameras to the mooks from Titus Andronicus, and a little more finger on the pulse this year might not be a bad thing guys.

Vampire Weekend- Contra

2010-01-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

Yup, you can listen to the shiny new Vampire Weekend full-length 'Contra' courtesy of the good folks at FACT Magazine. Right here. My own wee review to follow...

John Fahey & His Orchestra- Of Rivers and Religion

2010-01-04T17:34:00.000-08:00

I know I should be listening to this when I'm back south of the Mason-Dixon, but even in snowy Scotland it still makes wonderful sense.

Festive Five- 2009

2009-12-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

After all that fair-usagery, here comes my own lil contribution. I'm still feeling a lil guilty for my failure to get through my top ten of the decade, but hey, you never do know what might happen in the next week (ahem). Anyway, without further ado, my utterly objective top five records of these past twelve months:

5. Fuck Buttons- Tarot Sport

In which our heroes stay noisey, but bring the tunes. I spent a good amount of this past year goggle-eyed at the title track's video, which is pretty impressive seeing as I haven't really given a damn about a music video in quite some time (probly when Boards of Canada found some rather cool parachute footage). Purists may sniff at the, well, dynamics, on show here, but it really is just some nice young kids having a really swell time. And who could hate that?

4. The Flaming Lips- Embryonic

Finally the cartoon rockers are taking acid (again). After the iffy 'At War With the Mystics' had us worried that our old pals had gone all MTV (or whatever the contemporary equivalent is now that MTV only shows primate reality TV), 'Embryonic' was dark, angular and, well, a little bleak. Which was awesome. And we got to see Wayne Coyne's old chap too. Which was also awesome, if that's what you fancy.

3. Zomby- Where Were U in 92?

I was eight. But that's ok because I'm pretty sure it's my generation that's clutching this record to our collective bosoms the hardest. Because we weren't there. Raves were something thumping away in the background, but by the time we were old enough to start sneaking out the zeitgeist was long gone. We experienced the supposed golden age in flickers, sat playing Streetfighter 2. Which is the point with this whole hauntology/hypnagogic trip innit? A false reproduction of a constructed memory, and don't it sound good...

2.Joakim- Milky Ways

The cover looks like someone slapped a prog record over the front of the first Arctic Monkeys album (as well one might). My iTunes reckons this is an electronic album, but fails to include the caveat that this is the one to play your friends wot don't like albums wot don't have guitars. At times techno-thumpy, at times downright funky (and at one point doing a passable vintage krautrock impersonation) this is just fun from start to finish. It's kinda like what I thought the Klxaons might sound like before I was unfortunate enough to hear 'em.

1. Dorian Concept- When Planets Explode

When I saw the title I was expecting to be kicked in the face with some apocalyptic bass for a good while, but bass is firmly in the background here as squiggly synth lines scrawl their way across your brain in a- yes- explosion of colour. While all praise was rightly being given to Rustie, Joker, et al for some superlative singles, this Austrian chap dropped in and done changed the game. Still loving Wonky? Fuck yes.

Adventures in Modern Music 2009

2009-12-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

For those of us stuck on the wrong side of the Atlantic for such things, here's the ever excellent Wire Magazine Best Records of 2009:

50.

Hildur Gundaottir- Without Sinking

49.

Cold Cave- Love Comes Close

48.

Black to Comm- Alphabet 1968

47.

Glenn Jones- Barbacue Bob in Fishtown

46.

Fuck Buttons- Tarot Sport

45.

Elian Radigue- Triptych

44.

The Stooges- You Don't Want My Name, You Want My Action

43.

Lionel Marchetti & Oliver Capparos- Equus

42.

Subway- Subway II

41.

Richard Youngs- Under Stellar System

40.

Sun Araw- Heavy Deeds

39.

Billy Bao- May 08

38.

Julie Tippetts & Martin Archer- Ghosts of Gold

37.

Belbury Poly- From An Ancient Star

36.

Position Normal- Position Normal

35.

Emeralds- What Happened

34.

Black Dice- Repo

33.

MEV- MEV 40

32.

Moritz von Oswald Trio- Vertical Ascent

31.

Pan Sonic & Keiji Haino- Shall I Download a Blackhole and Offer It to You?

30.

Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion

29.

Dam Funk- Toeachizown

28.

Kevin Drumm- Imperial Horizon

27.

Peter Evans- Nature/Culture

26.

Group Bombino- Guitars from Agadez Vol. 2

25.

Leyland Kirby- Sadly the Future Is No Longer What It Was

24.

Courtis/Moore- Brokebox Juke

23.

Gary War- Horribles Parade

22.

Flower-Corsano Duo- The Four Aims

21.

The xx- xx

20.

William Basinski- 92982

19.

Hecker- Acid in the Style of David Tudor

18.

Matias Aguayo- Ay Ay Ay

17.

Masayuki Takayanagi- Archive 1

16.

Mordant Music- SyMpToMs

15.

Atom TM- Liedgut

14.

Sa-Ra Creative Partners: Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love

13.

Shackleton- 3 E.P.s

12.

Dirty Projectors- Bitte Orca

11.

Harappian Night Recordings- Glorious Gongs of Hainuwele

10.

King Midas Sound- Waiting for You

Ben Frost- By The Throat

Jim O'Rourke- The Visitor

Group Doueh- Treeg Salaam

David Sylvian- Manafon

Sunn O)))- Monoliths and Dimensions

Alasdair Roberts- Spoils

Bill Orcutt- A New Way to Pay Old Debts

Oneohtrix Point Never- Rifts

Broadcast & The Focus Group- Investigate Witch Cults of The Radio Age

Some things make you...

2009-12-18T07:09:00.000-08:00

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn...

Joker- City Hopper

2009-12-10T10:36:00.001-08:00

Latest from that purple-clad chap. Cover's particularly interesting in light of Rouge's Foam's recent musings about Burial. Have yet to get home and experience the full force on the ole subwoofer, but to my mind this represents a little more of a conservative effort- more consolidation of his signature sound than moving things in a funner skew-whiff direction. Which gets me wondering- is dubstep reaching the point where its sound has come to be codified. Is the genre running out of steam? And where's all the wonky gone in these latter days of 2009? Can our heroes resist can-nuum-isation? Tune in next week kids...

Check it out here.

Liars- Sister

2009-12-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

LiarsLiarsLiars

Mulatu Astatke- New York/Addis/London: The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965-1975

2009-12-07T21:27:00.000-08:00

Just joyous. One or two very familiar moments (Madlib?) but I suspect the whole thing will soon be deeply ingrained.

Nyumphing*

2009-12-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

First off, all praise to the ever excellent Rouge's Foam for a fantastic piece on Burial. Now, on to my moaning...

Lots of lazy blogging about at the moment, even from our own dear Woebot, on the lack of quality (defined by Sr. Ingram as 'viscerally/intellectualism'; pseudo-poles if you ask me) in contemporary music. I probably brought this on myself for hating on Animal Collective for getting rid of the nice old noise, but really folks, really? Plenty of music at any given point in history is likely to be a load of old shite, but how you effectively differentiate between that, and say, the seventies is entirely beyond me. Is the quantity, the proportion, the degree of crappiness that has changed? All of the above?

The reason the Hollow Earth bit got to me more than most was that it combined this wingeing (albeit with touches of humility lacking in similar pieces) with a general vague critique of why the problem with all this is capitalism/neoliberalism. Which would be fine, if that was the first sentence of many exploring an alternative model. Don't get me wrong, I've plenty of issues with the way the world is organised today, but if the alternative is a command economy, I know a whole lot of people would be a whole lot worse off. Venezuela anyone?

The root causes of my grumpiness were twofold. One was a text on Haiti- part of a bit of research I'm doing- which employed Bourdieu's concept of the habitus to analyse social organisation in Haiti. It was vaguely interesting for a page or two, but steadily it became all too apparent that this was all the author had to say. Like having foolishly engaged a bore in conversation at the start of a ten-hour plane ride. A whole lot of cultural analysis, not a lot of suggestions. At the risk of being blunt, you're not much of a fucking socialist if you don't devote a touch of your time to trying to suggest how we could move to a situation where these people didn't have to eat mud cookies.

The second was watching the first half hour of the movie 'Garbage Warrior' where this well-meaning prat wanders about showing off a selection of his sustainable communities. Which is all well and good, so long as your definition of sustainability requires six hundred acres of land for a handful of people, a lot of independent wealth and doesn't worry over troublesome details like the amount of petrol they use every day driving to and from their desert shangri-la or decreasing returns to scale.

Ultimately what connects all this is the failure to move past the first full stop. Yes, capitalist society can be alienating; yes, Chris/Dan Brown is goddawful and the world needs no more tosh about vampires. But what's the next sentence? What is your solution? Analysis is ultimately worthless if it doesn't generate change. So go. Create. The world won't do it for ya.

*This is a fantastically onomatopoeic word which 'complaining' fails to capture. Spanish's 'refunfuñar' comes much closer, that I grew up with and assume to be Scots. Googling under multiple spellings yielded nada, so I apologise if its outwith some readers' frame of reference.

Confirmation...

2009-11-26T10:46:00.000-08:00

Here.

(New) Animal Collective- 'Graze'

2009-11-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

Not that enthralled by this.

I don't want to take an asshole line and say that I liked them back when they were lesser known, as if that even means a lot these days, especially because I really like Strawberry Jam. It's just that Merriweather Post Pavilion lost the noise, and without that rupture it all becomes a lil meandering and, well, jam-my (que irony), but then I'm an orange juice with pulp kind of guy. If everything's smooth, doesn't smoothness become meaningless?

Lucky you? LuckyMe!

2009-11-14T16:35:00.001-08:00

I definitely lose weegie muso points for not being up on LuckyMe sooner- I made the foolhardy error of leaving Glasgow just as I was discovering how ridiculously good Rustie is. Anyway, he's got some friends from our lovely spot on the central belt, and together they are LuckyMe, and lucky they may be, but you are lucky for certain, see?

Here'sss Terror Danjah's Glasssglow Mix, just one of a host of fine downloads available for zip, zero, nada over there...

Nice to know that no matter how bad we get at football, my homeland will always have tasty beats.

Synergy

2009-11-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

I still maintain the guy is a mook, but nice to see we can all agree on some thing(s)

No. 9- dj/Rupture- Special Gunpowder

2009-11-06T15:01:00.000-08:00

Of all the records on this lil list, this is the only one I find it hard to believe that anyone could dislike in its entirety. Individual tracks might grate, the opener 'Watermelon City' is something of a curveball (the other bookend, 'Mole in the Ground' on the other hand is just plain charming), to use the Nueva World expression, but really, this is just splendidly diverse.

Unlike a lot of folks I know, I'm a big fan of seeing DJs live, and this chap is pretty damn near top of the list of those I want to encounter in the flesh before popping my clogs (Richie Hawtin might pip 'im, but only because he's, y'know, Richie Hawtin) although I have a worrying suspicion that the crowd is likely to be trendy in extremis...

While there's far too much adulation of 'global' music for its own sake these days, this really sounds like the work of someone who's travelled a bit, has his own distinct preferences (most of which I am rather unschooled in, although many long South American bus rides have exposed me to a fair old whack of cumbia, now intriguingly hip). If all crate-digging were this joyous, I would be too.

New Madvillain Snippets

2009-10-27T18:32:00.001-07:00

Yup.

Minilogue- Animals (Short Version)

2009-10-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

Friend popped a link on my book o'faces. Pretty fun stuff.

No. 10 - The Zephyrs- When the Sky Comes Down it Comes Down on Your Head

2009-10-23T10:19:00.001-07:00

Listening to this album in the day time feels pretty strange. This may be simply down to the fact that I've been listening to it while on the verge of falling asleep, or walking my dog at night, for quite some time. It's not that the music is soporific, or dark, or anything like that. It's just that the album has that weird intermediary feeling, of being in a (critspeak alert!) liminal space. Between day and night, consciousness and unconsciousness.

Scottish indie has always had a wee bit of a fixation with dreams (see Belle & Sebastian, Ballboy, etc.) and although it's not so explicit in the lyrics here, there are lines that just hover with me a little after they've been sung. The production is lush throughout without being overdone, just warm and comfortable. Now I realise that describing music as soothing is something of a double-edged sword, but I can't think of a better adjective for this, many a night's cool balm.

No. 11- Yo La Tengo- I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

2009-10-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

'If you ask me for a nickel, I'm gonna give you a dime' is a pretty telling line here. This is simply an unfailing generous album on all fronts. Few others could open with a ten-minute long track and have anyone make it on to track two. It's hard to resist quoting John Peel's famous assessment of The Fall- always the same, always different.

Beautiful, burbling 'Black Flowers' may be the most affecting track on here, but there really is something, even for people who like strawberry centres. Things get menacing once in a while- particularly on woozy trip 'The Room Got Heavy'- but even when they do it's hard not to notice the sheer joy underlying their playing.

That exuberance is hard not to like, even though it would be easy to harpoon them for putting a near nine-minute instrumental slap-bang in the middle of the record, but then you listen to just the kind of elegantly spare track that Loren Connors wouldn't be ashamed of, followed with a brilliant pop bludgeoning, just in case you'd stopped dancing.

None of your Bruce/Jon Bon Haircut, you want New Jersey's finest, look no further.

No. 12- Outkast- Stankonia

2009-10-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

The last great hip hop album. Seriously. Post-1999 Wu offshoots continued to deliver the occasional tasty LP and Clipse have their moments, but really, think about your favourite rap records. Any from this millenium? Any at all?

In retrospect it might have been inevitable that gangsta rap bringing this music to a truly mass audience in the early nineties would lead to the insipid likes of Kanye or Lil Wayne. The Carters, the grandee and fresh prince of these latter days, are not without their witty moments. But the anger has gone.

Stankonia has humour, and it has passion. Strikingly prescient politics on Gasoline Dreams and B.O.B. is fused with bumping production. Toilet Tisha and Ms. Jackson take things personal, family breakdown spat over melodies that sneak sweet into your subconscious. Oh, and there's the best pre-club-vamping track ever bar none, in So Fresh, So Clean.

Final track Stanklove pointed to the self-indulgence and mixed results that were to follow, but back then it was just a weird, wonderful end to a crazy Cadillac trip.