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I like to think there's always been a dance element to this blog. This has been blowing my mind all week. Incredibly, recorded in 1979 or something. I find I can't get behind stuff like the Silver Apples and Delia Derbyshire, and perhaps this starts to betray its origins towards the end a bit, but really an early electronic track that doesn't embarrass itself at all.
Bruce Haack Stand Up Lazarus
Hearing, at around the same time, Tomorrow Never Knows and Don't Stop I remember thinking, "If I ever record an album, I'll do all the guitars backwards". I was unaware until about a week ago that such an album had been recorded by the Teenage Filmstars. (But only in 1997, conceptually I was years ahead of them.) They don't just do the guitars backwards - everything is, except the drums. It doesn't blow me away to be honest but I salute their er, indefatigability or something.
Teenage Filmstars H.U.M.
While reading about Trinity House I found a link to this - through a link to London's only lighthouse Trinity Buoy Wharf, which is now a venue for cultural happenings and flagship host of Longplayer, which I'd never heard of before. I think it's truly mindblowing. Not the sound so much (though I do really like it) but just the thought of it. It reminds me a bit of the vestal virgins keeping the flame going in their temple.
Years ago I was walking along the Embankment with my dad and looking across the river I commented on the ugliness of the South Bank. My dad, with a faint smile, said that the war had just finished and they'd all needed cheering up at the time. Since then I've taken a great liking to the place and when I saw that Broadcast were playing the Queen Elizabeth Hall I bought up some tickets (after a bit of dithering that meant we ended up sitting on the very back row).I only got into Broadcast through their most recent album "Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age". It topped Wire magazine's 2009 run down and it's got a really cool cover and that was good enough for me. I've listened to it a lot during my commute. The extremely varied tracks come and go so quickly - there are some I'm not mad on but mainly I wish a lot of them lasted longer, ones like "One million Years Ago"and "Let It Begin".While I can think of half a dozen things that may have influenced them it's still the most original album I've heard for years. I was walking along the other day when my right headphone konked out, "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" continued to grate into my left ear but the other was getting the sounds of a car alarm and some passing children and the high street in general. Maybe that sounds terrible (try it) but it was not dissimilar to one of the less great tracks on the album. It's the same with bus brakes and the start of "Never Understand".Anyway, the concert. We got there just in time to hear the remaining support act furiously sawing away at his cello for about thirty seconds before the lights came up and we spent the next half hour in the bar. Broadcast started off facing each other over dimly lit consoles that they tweaked to produce a heavy track that went on for a bit too long really, a good ten minutes at least of electronic vipp noises with percussion that sounded like some huge wooden sprocket and treadle.After that the male half of the band picked up one the guitars that I had assumed had been positioned on stage for feedback purposes only. The track they then played was "Corporeal" - good enough for me to be buying its album.From this point on the music got more interesting with the noises becoming more intricate and Trish Keenan's vocals more focussed than the earlier portentous wailing. The guitar got another outing for a naggingly familiar riff. It did my brain in until I finally placed it - it was from "I Could Be Happy" - the bit where the guitar really breaks about halfway through into an oriental sounding cascade. I hadn't expected that.Visually the show was dominated by a continuous flow of images onto one screen - it started off with what seemed like footage from an old black and white sci fi film giving a distorted, alien's eye view of the planet. Other images in conjunction with some effects-channelled vocals often gave off an eerie vibe - which I'm sure is their aim. The Wicker Man, at the instigation of the likes of Jonny Trunk and Bob Stanley, seems to have been seeping through this corner of indie for years.Probably the most effective image was when the singer cast a stark shadow onto a brightly coloured backdrop for the duration of an almost lullaby-ish song. Standing in front of the black space of her own shadow, bathed in the multi-coloured projection, it looked as though she'd stepped out of the image.Then all of a sudden it was over, and I knew we weren't going to get an encore. Brilliant.
As soon as I’d done the Pebbles post below with the two embedded tracks I thought of doing a post on Zaireeka. I was mighty intrigued when I first heard about this album and, after some prolonged pondering, I made the purchase. I hadn’t heard much by the Flaming Lips and what I had I thought was merely okay. I’m not a big fan of Wayne Coyne’s vocals. But I think that this is such a good idea that it just has to be tried out.
I could have a go at playing it through various bits and bobs (when the ipod docking station comes back from the repair shop anyway) but they’re all of relatively low quality. And besides, one of the most appealing elements to the album is the coming together of people (and their stereo systems) to play it. Eventually I’m sure I’ll get together with a couple of my more audiophiliac friends and we’ll have the whole thing on four proper separate stereos. In the meantime I thought this was worth a pop.
This set up, coming out of just one set of speakers, is not to hear it as its creator intended. Also, unless you know a magical way of setting off the players below simultaneously, you’ll not have the cueing that he’s fairly insistent on. Not sure why about that bit – if the songs are never meant to sound the same.
The track above is "March Of The Rotten Vegetables" and this is what the liner notes say about it:
I envisioned this as music for a cartoon about a group of determined vegetables who feel like the place where they're growing is..no good. So they uproot and head for better soil..encountering hardship and heroism along the way..as they parade through Meatville they are BOOed, then they are attacked by bats, but eventually, before they rot, they must find better ground..cd No.1 plays the main theme. Cd No.3 takes over during the "here come the bats" part and all the cds join in as the bats"attack". You may hear this as a freakish drum solo.I've just had a go and you can synch them up within a few seconds as you go along. It actually works quite well.
While reading about Trinity House I found a link to this - through a link to London's only lighthouse Trinity Buoy Wharf, which is now a venue for cultural happenings and flagship host of Longplayer, which I'd never heard of before. I think it's truly mindblowing. Not the sound so much (though I do really like it) but just the thought of it. It reminds me a bit of the vestal virgins keeping the flame going in their temple.
Years ago I was walking along the Embankment with my dad and looking across the river I commented on the ugliness of the South Bank. My dad, with a faint smile, said that the war had just finished and they'd all needed cheering up at the time. Since then I've taken a great liking to the place and when I saw that Broadcast were playing the Queen Elizabeth Hall I bought up some tickets (after a bit of dithering that meant we ended up sitting on the very back row).
Today, after eleven years of intermittent pursuit, I got my hands on "Death of a Robot" by E.A.R. - their tribute to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but really to the late Delia Derbyshire, a women who could have been described as the thinking electronic music fan's crumpet. Sorry, I shouldn't detract from her sonic achievements - there's her definitive version of the Dr Who theme tune - the most otherwordly, I would say. And the 'dance' track among the sound clips on the link there really does sound like early acid house twenty years before its time. I'm not too fussed by the "White Noise" album though, which in contrast sounds dated.
As soon as I’d done the Pebbles post below with the two embedded tracks I thought of doing a post on Zaireeka. I was mighty intrigued when I first heard about this album and, after some prolonged pondering, I made the purchase. I hadn’t heard much by the Flaming Lips and what I had I thought was merely okay. I’m not a big fan of Wayne Coyne’s vocals. But I think that this is such a good idea that it just has to be tried out.
