Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements

My favourite album by Stereolab, one of my favourite bands. It brings together the band's love of krautrock, 60s garage and easy listening, whilst striking the perfect balance between experimentation, repetition, melody and marxism (probably) - managing to be both derivative and innovative.

It's also housed in one of my favourite record covers, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the band like to wear their influences on their record sleeves too - I picked this up from King Bee Records today, "Hi Fi Sound Stereo Test Record" from 1974.

Even the track names (or "tests" as the album calls them) could be Stereolab titles. my favourite being side one, test 2: "Lateral modulation for determination of tracking pressure in conjunction with bias correction".

Lovely.

Record Store Day 2011

So, another year, another successful record store day, but the question is – what next? Looking at the number of people queuing up outside record shops, and the number of exclusive records that were release for the day, it did remind me a bit of valentines day – a lovely sentiment, but surely people should be making the effort all year round. It’s all very well people spending a heap of cash on records one day a year, but that alone isn’t going to keep the independent record stores afloat. And as for the artists and labels – much as I love them making these exclusive releases to celebrate Record Store Day, surely EVERYTHING they release should be exclusive and a little bit special. If not, why are they bothering to make or sell music?

The queue outside Piccadilly Records - Saturday 16 April 2011. 7:20am

Anyway, cynicism aside, I did pick up some good stuff although I missed out on a couple of things I really wanted (Suede 7” and the Far Out Psych 7” box set). I must get there earlier next year; I hear that some people started queuing at midnight, so I think I’ll start queuing the day before at about 5pm - whilst the shop is still open.

So, here’s the lovely records I picked up :

Arp – Pastoral Symphony remixes 12”

Franz Ferdinand – Covers 12” EP (Debbie Harry, Stephen Merrit, LCD Soundsystem, ESG and Peaches all covering FF songs)

KORT – Please Don’t Touch 7”

Yeasayer – End Blood 7”

Clinic – Ladies Night 10” EP

Mute Records’ Vorwarts LP&CD

Some were even on lovely coloured vinyl. Mmm mmmm

The couple in front of me each bought a copy of the Radiohead 12” – the last 2 in the store – I presume this was either to sell one on ebay, or they were hedging their bets about the long term prospects of their relationship and didn’t want the headache of sorting out who owns which records at some future date.

Nice to see so many of the records already going for a fortune on ebay too – I’m sure that will do wonders for the independent record stores.

Oh, and I also got this excellent bag, which came with a free mix CD (or was it a mix CD with a free bag?). I think it sums up the day quite well.

Holy Ghost! this is good

Now, I like this a lot.

Missing LCD Soundsystem already? This 80s tinged disco-rock from James Murphy's DFA label might help fill the void.

Listen: Holy Ghost on Spotify

Two songs from The All Seeing I, plus a letter from Phil Oakey

A couple of songs from the wonderful soap opera album that is "Pickled Eggs and Sherbet" - an album that embraces multiple generations from the Sheffield music scene.

Yuri Gagarin might have been the first man in space, but he never told the story quite like this....


...but this is Phil Talking, with a letter on returning to earth - "now everyone's a rocket man, as long as it's served with a balsamic dressing"


And, here's Walk Like a Panther - Tony Christie's sequel to Is This The Way To Amarillo...

Visual Playlists

When you've got a record collection so large, how do you decide what to listen to? To help me, I'll often set myself rules that will help draw out music that, otherwise, could be neglected for years.

Earlier last year, Jocelyn gave me the idea of putting the records I was listening to out on display, to give a bit more colour to the room - this led to the question "why not chose a visual theme to dictate my listening habits?"; and here's the occasional results so far.

Try doing this with your mp3 playlists!

Day Glo - April 2010

Beck - Midnite Vultures

The Irrisistible Force - It's Tomorrow Already
Stereolab - Peng

De La Soul - Three Feet High and Rising

Etienne De Crecy - Super Discount

Stereolab - Switched On

Vector Lovers - Vector Lovers

Brain Donor - Love, Peace and Fuck

Neu - Crazy/Euphoria

V/A - Deutche Elektronische Musik

Run DMC - Raising Hell

Ultravox - U-Vox

Animals - June 2010

Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling

Grinderman - Grinderman

Basement Jaxx - Where's Your Head At?

Jim O'Rourke - Halfway to a Threeway

Julian Cope - Droolian

Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - Mighty Girl

Tindersticks - Can Our Love

Mouse on Mars - Niun Niggung

The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimajaro

Depeche Mode - Speak and Spell

Jake Thackray - Bantam Cock

Faith No More - Angel Dust

Halloween (death, demons, skulls and melting faces) - October 2010

Aphex Twin - Girl/Boy

Grinderman - Heathen Child

Amon Duul II - Live in London

The Hours - See the Light

The Damned - Phantasmagoria

AC/DC - If You Want Blood

Stump - Quirk Out

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (3)

Supergrass - Supergrass

Peter Sellers - Songs for Swinging Sellers

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (back cover)

David Bowie - I'm Afraid of Americans

The best Christmas songs...?

...the problem is that they often get overlooked as many people have been turned off by the ubiquity of a relatively small sample of the music that is out there. But it’s good that some of us can all still embrace our inner cheese, whether it’s for Last Christmas, Wonderful Christmas Time, or A Spaceman Came Travelling. It’s just that it's hard to have a rational opinion about songs that you hear non-stop for one-twelfth of your life.

I mean, I don’t really know what I think of Slade performing “Merry Xmas Everybody” anymore – I remember enjoying it when I was small and, as I love many Slade songs now, I can only presume that if I heard this song for the first time noe I’d love it too.

On the other hand, I know that I’ve never liked Wizzard’s “I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday”, which always felt like an overly cynical attempt to be Christmassy. Even as a child I recall being unconvinced by the opening line “When the snowman brings the snow” – it never made sense to me and, if anything, it would be the snow that brings the snowman. If you’ve lost me after the first line then you have no chance.

I DO know that I like “Do They Know It’s Christmas” though – with it’s melody not a million miles away from Hymn by Ultravox (and the theme tune to Z Cars). Particularly good is the Extended Remix featuring Christmas messages from some of the contributors (best quote has to go to Bruce Watson of Big Country for “Feed the people – stay alive!”)

Anyway, for those who want something new to love, here’s five of the greatest Christmas songs that your local Asda seem to overlook every year.

Sufjan Stevens – Sister Winter : there’s loads of great songs scattered across the 6+ Christmas EPs that Sufjan has done – this one is arguably the most uplifiting and moving of them all. With the full melody not arriving until 3 minutes into the song and an ending that should win over even the most hardened scrooge. If you aren’t close to tears by the end of this song then the chances are that a piece of you died a long long time ago.

Cristina – Things Fall Apart : of course, it’s not all plain sailing at Christmas. A yet to be recognised 30 year old disco-not-disco classic. My favourite line being “they’d killed a tree of 97 years and smothered it in lights and silver tears”, or maybe the rude one!

The Departure Lounge – Christmas Downer : Probably summarises 21st Century Christmas better than anyone else with the lines “is anybody gonna really get the things they want? Everybody’s hoping next year is gonna be the one”

Low – Just Like Christmas : A song about how Christmas isn’t what’s on the outside (snow and stuff), but what is on the inside (in particular feeling like a child again). It dawned on me recently that there is nothing in this song that says it is Christmas time, just that it felt like Christmas – for all we know it could be actually be a summer song.

El-Vez – Feliz Navi-nada : the PIL-sampling, punk cover of a Puerto Rican Christmas song by a Mexican Elvis Impersonator. What’s not to love?

2010 On The Way Up and On The Way Down

Following on from Recommendations Part One (5 Dec), and due to popular demand (one request and counting), here's a couple of cobbled-together playlists

2010 On The Way Up

2010 On The Way Down

Being Spotify, it only touches the surface of the things I'd like to include, so no Cats and Cats and Cats, which is a shame.

Enjoy