Mixpost 6, or soundtracks to the cave

Buses, eh?

So, when I say I’ve been locked away recording, what I mean is that I’m using my upstairs bedroom PC which is not internet enabled. I still have a job to do, and other boring things where I can at least still refer to my music library. I mean, that’s why we have them, right?

I was listening to the first Menimals release after a sweaty session the other night, and tracks 2 and 3 in particular gave me indescribable pleasure. I had one of those moments where I had to give thanks for being alive at the time when this music was made. So it seems apposite to kick off with this:

I’d forgotten about this, found it whilst going through some old CD’s I’d ripped over a decade ago. They almost out-Cave Nick on this one:

Madrugada – Black Mambo

We’ve had what we in the UK think of as a batch of hot & humid weather lately. My crappy weather app kept promising thunderstorms, but not once was a promise fulfilled. Accuweather, for that and many other failures of forecasting, I want to say publicly that you’re shite. (sidebar: what a gig weather forecasting is. If I was as good at my job as the average weather forecaster, I wouldn’t have a job anymore. Yet still we glue ourselves to their predictions. The human need for certainty is probably the root cause of all our troubles, not the crappy explanations we then argue over and start wars over and then say that’s what the problem with humanity is.)

*cough* anyway, here’s a storm related tune:

Little Axe – Storm is Rising

So, as an upshot of that Rusalnaia album I’d blogged about, I did something I occasionally do which is to click on a random fan, follow their taste and see where that led me. It ultimately led me to the collection Wahkeena Sitka, who makes the song below, which also comes with a seal of approval from my daughter, even though it’s of a type neither she nor I listen to much:

Back when Sexwitch first came out, I read a lot of utter bollocks from armchair critics who wanted to tell Natasha Khan she wasn’t allowed to reinterpret music that is of Pakistani origin even though she herself has roots there. I made the mistake of allowing that to put me off a bit and I wish I hadn’t. Music is as music does and will always speak for itself, and I fucking love what she’s done and I say do it again.

Pontiak’s new album is their best, and I really should do a post on it. While I think about that, listen to this:

and I know I only recently banged on about this, but it rules, it really does. Have it now, and have it loud:

Rusalnaia – Time Takes Away

So seeing as I surfaced from my bedroom studio to take in the new Big Blood album, I had a scan round some other crannies of the real world. This one grabbed me, gently mind, but the last song also grabbed my soon to be 7-year old daughter so much that she demanded I play it again and again.

This is folk rock in the early 70s style with a psych-tinged witchiness to it, a lazy description but I don’t like descriptions because they tax my feeble mind. The nearest reference point I have to this is Espers, but with a more lullabilic (neologism alert!) feel, particularly the aforementioned last tune. Also Horse Cult.

The album was recorded over the span of some years and is made by two witch sisters who live in different countries.

Big Blood – The Daughters Union

I have barely listened to music made by other people the last month or so, and that is because I have started recording again. However, a new album by Big Blood is a ‘drop everything’ moment.

This doesn’t disappoint because Big Blood. But also, they’ve put on their glam clothes for some of the tunes on here. And I’d like to point out that ‘Reproduce & Get Dirty,’ besides being an ace title, is one of the great Big Blood songs, which is to say, it’s one of the great songs.

I love Big Blood because they have total creative freedom and they use it. They’re not trying to please anybody but themselves. They have a huge advantage, of course, in the fact that their songwriting abilities are outrageously good, which always helps. I personally think that great material comes from having the right attitude to start with rather than the other way round.

Long may they continue to be themselves.

I don’t do activism but…

This

(which I’m doing because I don’t and won’t do twitter, but those of you who do who might agree that this is boneheadedness in an unusual capacity might want to tell the person who proposed it – assuming he’s even remotely willing to listen to a contrary opinion).

My actual views on copyright, even the very notion of intellectual property, would be very unfashionable in a materialistic paradigm such as the one I seem to be currently living in. Suffice it to say that I think it not only a legal nonsense but also completely redundant in the actual way the actual universe actually works, which will become immediately apparent to anyone who wants to spend a bit of actual time actually looking.