Category: Music

Virgin CDVX2325
1980 reissued 2001
Ah, good old Black Sea. This, along with Big Express (remaster), turned up used and cheap at Morninglory Music. The Mummer remaster was lovely and made me re-evaluate a few songs, so I grabbed this quickly. Black Sea is the last really rockin’-out XTC album, one before the blossoming of English Settlement. On one hand that means it’s consistent in tone–the Black of the title and the deep sea diver cover really suit the dark music contained within. On the other, Andy Partridge’s skill at melody hasn’t yet developed and is still battling it out with his desire to aggravate with yelps, shouts, and mono-tunes over rock riffs (the interminable “Living Through Another Cuba”). It’s Colin Moulding’s songs that hold up best, which here include “Generals and Majors,” “Love at First Sight,” and the bonus track “Smokeless Zone.” The best Partridge songs turn out to be the singles: “Respectable Street,” “Sgt. Rock,” and “Towers of London.” It’s songs like “Respectable”, “Towers,” and “Paper and Iron” that look towards the dissecting of England that is to come on English Settlement.
Pros: The hardest XTC has ever sounded. “Respectable Street” rocks! As does “Travels in Nihilon”
Cons: Sonic palette not as varied as future releases.

If you stop by this page wondering why it’s not updated often, it’s not that I don’t buy records and CDs. In fact it’s the opposite. I buy, burn, copy, and devour music non-stop, so I’m stuck as to what I should write on. I don’t have the time to write on everything, so I’m thinking maybe I should just write on what I purchase. Just a thought.

Monkmus’ newish video forBadly Drawn Boy’s “Year of the Rat” is very cute, especially the doggy.

Not that you see many videos on MTV anymore, but Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” is one of the best, animated by Jonas Odell. This Quicktime version doesn’t do the work justice. Maybe there’ll be a DVD single (keep hoping)…

I came across this post from Woebot while searching for something on the composer Mauricio Kagel. I like the idea that this guy makes his living providing very expensive rare vinyl to arty types who can justify the expenditure. I know what seeing such records feels like. Oh Woe!

SWAG
Wonderboy makes very good money on the side as a record dealer. Bar possibly one or two people (he insists they exist) he’s Europe’s pre-eminent dealer. His list of clients is beyond scary. Interestingly a major part of his trade is in Modern Jazz; selling Argentinian Trios to Japanese collectors, and Tubby Hayes records to the highest bidder. Apparently he’s losing interest in the dealing game, becoming buried deeper in making his own stuff. I picked up four records off him, which I could scarcely afford, however we don’t hook up all that often. I’m going to keep the identity of those ones a secret, but I thought you might be interested to know what else he had in his bag; records I didn’t buy. He’d already sold three apparently amazing Bruno Nicolai Italian Soundtracks before he got to me.

Sony SRCL-5415
2002.09.19
Glad I caught up with what Mr. Okuda’s been doing. I wasn’t hot on “Car Songs of the Years”–half of that being older songs, and an excuse to get a few new songs out. When Okuda is in top form, he’s one of the best rock musicians out there, writing pop-rock in the Beatles/Stones tradition. When he’s off, he’s a noisy rock band in search of a hook.
“E” came out a little while ago, but the thing’s a corker. With little of his trademark Harrison-like slide guitar solos, but with a solid band behind him, he manages to put out an album of 19 songs that never feel like it’s in need of an editor. (Admittedly, some of these songs are one-minute reprises of previous tracks).
Okuda manages to coax something new out of the standard rock palette, with sneaky inclusions of marimba, female backing vocals (a first!), and some grungy Hammond (or some sort) organ playing.
Highlights are the title track, a meaty, beaty, big and bouncy number with a one-note melody and twang-bar heavy fills. “The Standard” brings out the Beatles Mellotron and a one of Okuda’s soaring, heartfelt choruses that immediately make me nostalgic for times I didn’t even know I lived through. “Gomen Rider” is also fantastic with a wicked fuzzbox arpeggio solo.
Okuda remains Japan’s best-kept secret.
A selection of songs and promo clips are here. Check out the one called “matatabi.mov” as Tamio sings a medley of his songs in under two minutes with a selection of props. Very funny.

Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music is an indespensible guide to the hundreds of sub-genres collected under the title of electronic music. If you want to know your Gabba from your Ambient Jungle, here’s where you need to go.
Great graphic flowcharts, sound samples galore, and snarky commentary make this a must!

Small Room/Universal Music Thailand, UM054506
2002
A friend of mine from Thailand, who is part of the group nolens.volens sent me a huge care package of CD goodies in exchange for some mp3-age the other day. I’m slowly going through it all, seeing what I like.
Bua-Hima popped out because of their promising cover art (!) and bizarre title track. Of the groups I was sent, this seems to be the most schizophrenic. The opening tracks are an interesting blend of repetitive cello, twangy guitar, and Moog-like synths. A man speaks over the top of this while a quiet whooshing storm brews in the electronics behind him. Then some breakbeats, and it seems like it’s going to turn into a Buffalo Daughter-like prog jam. It splits up into the old “go through the radio dial” tactic, then settles on a vocal sample and loops it, before returning to the jam again.
Elsewhere, Bua-Hima nick ideas from Point-era Cornelius, has a child singing about birds and balls, gets all lounge-lizard on us, go minimalist and funk-housey, and dabble in bossa-house.
With the exception of a few typical gloppy ballads (track 3 and 4) this is an adventurous outing for what I’ve heard of Thai rock, though still pretty enthralled to its Japanese neighbors. It does seem however, that it put all of its best ideas into the first two tracks.
One website lists this album as a “concept album”–I would like somebody tell me what that is, as I’m sure missing it…

Tigersushi Records TSRCD003
2003
With Mu’s “Afro Finger and Gel” I finally get that feeling that I’m hearing something so different, so strange, that I can’t really compare it to anything.
This was passed on by a friend and on first listening, it seemed very noisy, confrontational, and intentionally ugly. But unlike a lot of music that uses this tactic, that was just the surface. There’s a lot of things underneath, disturbing, murky things, along with some heavenly brilliance which may be sunlight, but may be me passing out.
In no particular order, here’s what caught my ear.
They love timbales. They love ’em like early ’80s hip-hoppers and producers did. Anytime is great for a timbale break. Except these breaks are coming in the middle of dark, electronic hell-rides. There’s also drum breaks that remind me of the African tribal kick that made its way into pop during Malcolm McLaren’s reign (remember Bow Wow Wow? Peter Gabriel? Adam and the Ants?)
The Japanese female singer here is completely nuts, in the tradition of Frank Chickens and Yoko Ono–it’s threatening, smeared-lipstick fuck-you delivery, occassionally manipulated into flanging and distorted squeaks. “My Name Is Tommi” features vocalist Mutsumi taking on several roles in a recreation of a cheesy “adulterers caught on tape” tv show. She plays announcer, jilted girlfriend, and narrator, while the guy in the band plays the part of the philandering male (or is that her?). What was probably once a distancing encounter on the original TV show, is split open into bloody emotions of jealousy and hatred, and is one of the most unnerving things I’ve heard since Throbbing Gristles “Hamburger Lady” on their Third and Final Report LP.
Each track is about 5 or 6 minutes. Within that time Mu go in several directions at once. “Let’s Get Sick” starts off with a rhythm based around a skipping CD machine, but ends in a beautiful ambient mist. Yes, [looks at CD machine] this is the same song.
I don’t know too much about Mu. They are credited as Maurice Fulton & Mutsumi Kanamori, and they’re married, it seems. He’s from Baltimore. Baltimore rocks! They live in Sheffield. Sheffield rocks too!
For those who grew up during the turn of the ’80s, there was a brief time where the art rock crowd and the freakazoid hip-hop people engaged in a musical dialogue. Afrika Bambaataa, Liquid Liquid, Talking Heads (Mu nicks “Once in a Lifetime”‘s vibe for the final track), Grace Jones, some of that stuff sounded so new it was scary, another-planet material. “Afro Finger and Gel” is like that all the way through. It’s one of my favorite albums of 2003.
Here’s a brief article on them and Mr. Fulton in particular that explains a little more Mu. But not too much. I mean, where does Mutsumi come from?

Don’t ask me why, but I went on a Beatles bender the other day and found some great links.
The first is Alan W. Pollack’s Notes On series, in which every Beatles song has been pulled apart and examined from the view of a music academic. Far from dry (well, okay, some of the stuff is pretty dry, and it helps to know music), Pollack’s analysis makes some connections–mostly between the early songs and the later–that haven’t been pointed out before.
For an even more in-depth analysis, Ian Hammond makes a pretty convincing argument that Revolution 9 is actually a coherent and structured piece and not just John Lennon assing about with magnetic tape. Even if you don’t agree, Mr. Hammond has bloody good ears–he has uncovered several layers of sound and things to look out for (a carnival barker calling our “thirty!” not once but twice) and identified some of the sources of the classical music heard in the piece.
Then there’s Joseph Brennan’s page on Songs the Beatles Didn’t Do including the songs they wrote for others and the ones that they never put out (such as the mythical “Carnival of Light”).
Finally, because there’s many different versions of each Beatles song (mono, stereo, remixes, etc.), Brennan has also maintained the excellent list of Beatles Recording Variations.
Apart from that, you could just listen to the music…