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:

Mixpost 5 – Nostalgia, Flipdog style

When I was doing my degree in psychology, one of the ‘facts’ I was spoon-fed was that the music taste that someone has when they’re twenty defines their taste in music going forward, like that moment is frozen in time and and people don’t deviate from it because. The same bloke who ‘taught’ me that went on to say that he was certain that there would be a scientific explanation of creativity, a statement of faith if ever I heard one. I’m still waiting, Dr North…

Of course, that’s bollocks, like an awfully high percentage of stuff that gets giddily reported from the social sciences. I can think of at least two different interpretations of those observations although they tangle up in the following sentences to seem like one, but there are probably many more.  Twenty is the time of many people’s ‘golden age’ before they get trapped into the drudgery of working for a living day in and day out, possibly with extra domestic responsibilities too, and unless music is some kind of huge passion, they’ll just stick to what they know. Those of us who are consumed by music don’t ever stop listening to the new stuff, but it actually takes an effort because if you stick to the mainstream gatekeepers of taste then you will come to the conclusion very quickly that you’ve checked out all the possibilities, so shallow is the pool from which they select; a pool that is only getting shallower in these times of fear and insecurity where people want comfort blankets in every aspect of their lives.

But anyway, here’s a selection of tunes that I liked when I was around that age. My taste has proper moved on now – if you’d have told me then that an older version of me would like some jazz, for example, that version of me would have told you to fack right off – but I still love these. Very little commentary is necessary, except to say there is no order to this list.

Can you believe someone wrote a pop song in the 80s that only had 1 chord? Maybe my love of minimalism and repetition stems from this:

and finally…

Mixpost 4

Because 2016 was so very, very interesting in so many ways, I am now in the position where I am unlikely to be buying much in the way of new music for a while. I mean, my finger and the pulse are better described as acquaintances rather than friends under the best of normal circumstances anyway, but it’s going to be straying far and wide as I do the next best thing to finding new music by rediscovering stuff I’d forgotten about.

Equally as much fun is music that other people recommend because they get a platform on which to do so; Dusted’s Listed feature is such an example and I recommend it to those who don’t reckon their music taste in terms of genre.

And, completely without planning, I’ve somehow made the following flow quite well…

I’m going to start with something poppy and popular because I love it. We did a kind of stoner version of it in my old One Dog Clapping band back in 2005 which was riotous fun to play (I ‘sang’ it an octave lower), but I make no secret of my love for the mighty Goldfrapp:

It is disappointingly hard to find any music by Appliance over the web – Mute Records, aren’t you supposed to playas? What are you playing at? So you’ll just have to take my word for it that if you spot one of their albums somewhere, snap it up. Amongst the very best artists from the turn of millennium.

I first discovered Kaophonic Tribu on MySpazz back in the Noughties (do peope call it that?), and I downloaded a song from their page which I played many, many times. Sods law, I can’t find it now, but I have found the album éliso déli, a delicious mix of electronics and ‘ethnic’ (i.e. not your standard dadrock bands instruments) sound sources. There’s a few of their tunes on the Googletube, this is one and rather good:

Because of this Listed, I found this, which I subsequently found is also on Bandcamp, and has been added to my hopelessly long wishlist:

It seems a bit lazy to then put the next song from the same feature, but damn this is good:

Henry Flynt is my kind of outsider, having rejected places in some ‘cool’ crowds over the years. I could wax on about why I personally think that’s a good thing, but I don’t think he did it to impress anyone, least of all me. Listen to this, though, all 15 minutes of it:

Words cannot describe Catherine Ribeiro’s wonderfully true singing, and since I’ve brought you into the realm of the epically hypnotic, then let’s finish with this:

 

 

 

Mixpost 3

Seeing as the last mixpost was an exclusively dub one, let’s start with more of the same. I discovered this whilst sitting in Mad Arawak’s lounge as he DJ’d it last Wednesday evening. I don’t know if he has a regular schedule, but when he dj’s, he dj’s here.

Cyrenius Black – No Bad Intention:

I’m about to go to some session where people talk about the library of the future. The cynical part of me was immediately cynical, which is good because that’s why I give it ego room, but also proved impeccable taste in music by reminding me of this tune from the equally good album, Welcome to the Afterfuture.

Mike Ladd: 5000 Miles West of the Future:

I’m going to wax very lyrical about this album sometime soon. In the meantime…

Karina Vismara – Sooner or Later:

I cannot get enough of Fela Kuti at the moment, pretty much anything he did. People don’t realise just how psychedelic this guy was. Maybe this will wake people up to it. Not that it matters that much to me what labels people put on others music, but, y’know. If you have a pipe, stick this in it and smoke it.

Fela Kuti – It’s no Possible:

This is my first attempt at embedding something from the Free Music Archive. Obviously it’s Big Blood. There is never a period of more than a few days when I don’t play a Big Blood album. No other artist can make this claim.

Big Blood – Out of Turn:

https://freemusicarchive.org/swf/trackplayer.swf

This song just rocks.

Zulus – Gemini:

For all that I’ve namechecked Parson Sound over the various posts I’ve done, I’ve never given you a link. Here’s a 20 minute tune, From Tunis to India in Fullmoon (on testosterone). Especially for my bro.

 

Mixpost 1!

I do have albums to tell you about, and I will do some of that again soon. But I just really feel the urge to do this:

Various appalling sonic viruses try and worm their way into my head and find a formidable defender, my very favourite piece of music ever made (at least, at this moment in time). So effective is it that when, say, the theme tune to I Can Cook wants to go around my head regardless of my choice in the matter, I simply have to summon up my memory of this and Boom! my head contains quality for the rest of the day:

Because of Nadja’s turn on Dusted’s listed feature, I’ve been seriously back in the love with Pharoah Overlord. The album from whence the featured track came (Lunar Jetman) has proven to be impossible to get hold of from all my sources – even Ektro Records doesn’t list it, and it allegedly came out via them! These Finnish avant-garde types are definitely originals; I can’t work out their distribution methods at all. Marvellous music, though. Any suggestions welcome, subscription services need not apply:

Thanks to the Can You Get to That blog, I now know about Kraftwerk doing a song about Heavy Metal (or something):

Back in the very early years of this century, I quite relentlessly played the self titled debut album from Sona Fariq. Since it was on a major label and everything, I thought it would be the work of a click to find my favourite track from that on Youtube. Not a bit of it. The best thing I can find is this live video which has appalling visual quality. What gives? Which means that I currently have to shelve the post I was going to do about this album unless I create a youtube account, figure out how to marry music to visuals, and upload it all myself. Ha!:

I’ve started toying with a cosmology that enfolds the idea that life as we understand it is functionally equivalent to performing on a stage, and that after it’s all over you go back to the audience and watch the rest of the show, maybe even jump back in occasionally wearing a new costume. This song has been going around a lot in my head. The two strands are related, though it may not seem immediately obvious:

Finally, this. Just because this song is fantastic, hasn’t worn off after nearly 20 years of regular playing, and is way more psych than much of the revivalist stuff coming out these days. Does anyone know if they ever did an album? Me wants to know: