With few things in this life less obvious than a love song, you have to give credit to the writer who brings something new to a subject exploited more frequently than a woman with father issues. After all, there is such a fine line between a song that stirs your soul to one that makes you feel the way a male model might about his first week in prison.
Striding the right side of that line is the often inspiring Smog, most of whose fantasies involve making someone else cum. This sort of line might come across as crass at closing time at the bar, but our man convinces of his need to simply be of use: like a spindle, like a candle, like horseshoe, or like a corkscrew.
Smog – To Be of Use(right click to download) 5:41 mins/ 160 kbps/ 6.52MB
I know that many people search music blogs as a way to help make themselves more hip, so I thought I’d cut to the chase and post an all out instructional tape on the subject. Recorded by Del Close and John Brent for Mercury Records in 1959, this tongue-in-cheek record was no doubt taken seriously by more than a few wannabe hipsters.
Still, as it never hurts to brush up on the fundamentals, here’s an edited copy of the album for stream or download. Don’t be a drag, baby. Dig it!
Del Close and John Brent – How to Speak Hip(right click to download) 20:00 mins/ 256 kbps/ 36.62MB
While arguably the greatest soul artist of his generation in his own right, D’Angelo has never hidden his desire to follow in Prince’s footsteps. His debut album Brown Sugar was made in the model of the Minneapolis Genius, complete with the trademark ‘written, produced, arranged, composed, and performed by’ credit. Taking a long five years to release his follow-up, Voodoo, D’Angelo transformed his live show from his low-key man-at-the-piano setup to a large stage show modeled after Prince’s seminal Sign O’ the Times tour, and the result was as strong a concert as I’ve ever witnessed, and one I followed across two states to take in twice.
Even being as big a Prince fan as Christians are of Jesus, I admit that D’Angelo clears the bar Prince set in all but one very important way: his debut was fifteen years ago, and his only follow-up was released when the Twin Towers were still standing. When Prince was at the same point in his career he had 17 albums released and a rumored thousand more songs in his infamous vault. Add to that 3 feature films and two theatrically released concert films, and one is reminded of a comment Woody Allen once made: “It’s not the quantity of your sexual relations that counts, it’s the quality. On the other hand if the quantity drops below once every eight months, I would definitely look into it”.
That said, with rumors of an impending double album including a collaboration with Prince himself, D’Angelo is parlaying his lack of output into the sort of hype that preempts a Terrance Malick film or a lunar eclipse, and with the darkly themed “1,000 Deaths” recently leaked, it becomes easy to assume that the album will take some interesting directions and even be worth the long, if not frustrating, wait.
I am 11 and half years old and live in Jawbone, Kentucky.A creek runs behind our house where I live with my mother. She met you once some years ago. You are probably my one of, if not the, favorite person I’ve ever studied.I plan to be either:
A – an oceanographer
B – an architect, or
C – a pilot.
Thank you very much for your good work.
Sincerely, Ned Plimpton,
Blue Star Cadet, Zissou Society.
P.S. Do you ever wish you could breathe underwater?
Bobby Conn applies a Jackson 5 inspired rhythm and string section to this cautionary tale about the compromises one must endure along the road to success. That said, his assertion that you’re never going to get ahead by giving head to the man is probably more morally than factually sound.
Bobby Conn – Never Gonna Get Ahead(right click to download) 3:42 mins/ 160 kbps/ 4.25MB
ailing from St. Pauls, Minneapolis, the birthplace of Prince, production duo No Regular Play makes no attempt to hide their affinity for Uptown’s favorite son. With altered vocals and a washed out backing track, Wolf and Lamb labelmate Nicolas Jaar provides a dense and dramatic remix that makes no attempt to compete with the original.
While a decision was made upon this blog’s inception to stick strictly to music and not splinter off into weightier topics like philosophy or politics, I seek a reprieve this Valentines Day with an issue that encompasses a bit of both. I’m writing, of course, about how people don’t slow dance at clubs anymore. Like the unfortunate phasing out of bench seats in automobiles or dueling to settle a grievance, our generation forgoing the slow dance strikes me less like a cultural evolution as it does a misguided regression by a society that has lost its way.
It might sound fantastical to readers born post Purple Rain, but it wasn’t so long ago that a DJ would pitch things down and play a ballad at peak hour, and why not? It’s well recognized, if not largely unspoken, that an establishment can charge eight dollars for an ounce of down-market alcohol in exchange for creating an opportunity for semi-consensual human contact. So why have we forsaken an imbedded social custom whereby a simple change in music would speed this process along?
Perhaps it’s a cultural shift from those of us raised in an era where sexuality was presented bathed in blue light and accompanied by a saxophone solo on scrambled pay per view, to a generation whose visual representation of sex comes by way of sallow pornography made on the brutally honest medium of digital video. For all of the drawbacks of prudishness, maybe having a bit of shame about sex forces one to be more seductive when asking for it. Or maybe we’re just living through the blowback from rave culture and the libido crushing stimulants that traded the ritual of a slow dance for a 90 minute shoulder rub in the “chill-out room” like members of a benign, sexless cult.
Whatever the reason, I’d like to take this day of romance to offer a plea to those responsible to drop a few ballads at the club so we can all get a bit of touch. The following is a slow dance starter kit, a selection which also makes for a compelling Valentines Day mix whether you’re celebrating with a long time partner, courting someone new, or are at home alone, cutting yourself to recapture an ex-lover’s fancy.
Winter Family – Garden Soko – I Will Never Love You More The Velvet Underground – Some Kinda Love (Closet Mix) Tommy James & the Shondells – Crimson & Clover Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg – Je t’aime moi non plus Beach Boys – Disney Girls Hall & Oates – I’m Just A Kid (Don’t Make Me Feel Like A Man) Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – The Way James Carr – What Can I Call My Own Natural Four – Can This Be Real? Otis Redding – I’ve Been Loving You Too Long BloodStone – Natural High Johnny Daye – Stay Baby Stay The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes for You Duke Ellington and John Coltrane – In a Sentimental Mood Chet Baker – My Funny Valentine Os Mutantes – Baby shelly duvall – He Needs Me Steve Martin & Bernadette Peters – Tonight You Belong to Me Leo Sayer – When I Need You Prince – International Lover D’Angelo - Feel Like Makin’ Love Rufus featuring Chaka Khan – Sweet Thing Shirley Murdock – As We Lay
Electric Adolescence – Bring Back the Slow Dance(right click to download) 80:00 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB
Forged with sense of grandeur normally reserved for period musicals and aging actresses, this obscure Balearic offering from Escape From New York is as astounding as it as impossible to classify; combining elements of new wave, disco and several other subgenres yet to be invented in 1984. With the original release near impossible to find, the reissue is only slightly less illusive as a white label pressing limited to 300 copies.
A tip of the hat goes to Konrad Black, who introduced me to the song, proving why he remains to Berlin’s techno scene what egg is to French toast.
Escape From New York – Fire In My Heart(right click to download) 5:14 mins/ 192 kbps/ 7.19MB
Providing a pitch-perfect account of one of our languages’ most intangible concepts, this impeccable folk ballad by Jason Molina under his Songs: Ohia moniker is written and performed with such sincerity that the result could bring a robot to tears.
Songs: Ohia – Soul(right click to download) 5:33 mins/ 192 kbps/ 7.63MB
Slow and hypnotic, the aptly named title track from Richie Hawtin’s seminal 1998 release is a masterwork of minimalism, utilizing a clockwork bassline and muted kick as a canvas for a series of restrained acid and techno flourishes.
Musicians covering each others work has been as longstanding a staple in music culture as substance abuse and misogyny. While the motivation to do so is often the child of an unholy marriage between lazy opportunism and musical sacrilege, in worthy hands it can be the most respectful of endeavors, often providing a useful roadmap to the covering artists influences. With emphasis on the latter, the following post is a mix of some of the more interesting cover versions I’ve collected on my travels.
Glass Candy – Iko (Dixie Cups) Vampire Weekend – Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac) Magic Arm – Daft Punk Is Playing In My House (LCD Soundsystem) The Flaming Lips – Money (Pink Floyd) JJ – Ecstacy (Lil’ Wayne) 3 Teens Kill 4 – Tell Me Something Good (Rufus & Chaka Khan) Peter Bjorn & John – Summer Breeze (Seals & Croft) The Cloud Room – Blue Monday (New Order) Plaintains – I Feel Love (Donna Summer) Monsters Are Waiting – I Wanna Be Adored (Stone Roses) The Go! Team – Bull in the Heather (Sonic Youth) California Poppy Pickers – Why Don’t We Do It In the Road (The Beatles) My Brightest Diamond – Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey (The Beatles) The Puppini Sisters – Walk Like an Egyptian (The Bangles) Clare and the Reasons – That’s All (Genesis) Thao – You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me (Smokey Robinson) Chromatic Flights – I Am a Rock (Simon & Garfunkel) Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Streets of Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen) You Say Party! We Say Die! – Nightswimming (R.E.M.) The Chromatics – Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush) Hot Chip – Transmission (Joy Division) Fischerspooner – The 15th (Wire) Theophilus London feat. Lykke Li – Computer Love (Kraftwerk) White Hinterland – My Love (Justin Timberlake) Idiot Glee – Ain’t No Sunshine (Bill Withers) Ryan Adams – Everything In It’s Right Place (Radiohead) Phoenix – Playground Love (Air) Annie Hart and Slow Club – Killing Moon (Echo & the Bunnymen) The Last Town Chorus – Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me? (Culture Club) Taken By Trees – Sweet Child of Mine (Guns & Roses) The Old Believers – This Must Be the Place (Talking Heads) Kevin Davis – Fuck Tha Police (NWA Cover) Antony and the Johnsons – Crazy In Love (Beyonce) Susanna and the Magical Orchestra – Condition of the Heart (Prince)
Electric Adolescence – The Cover Up(right click to download) 80 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB
Depending on how this year pans out, I think we should all consider moving to Detroit.
Sure, the unemployment rate of the state of Michigan rivals that of war-torn Afghanistan, and the justice system is starting to resemble that of a spaghetti Western, lest we forget this is still the city of Motown, of techno and of Axel Foley, and it’s going for a steal.
The impact of a global financial crisis striking a manufacturing city within a country that doesn’t make anything has caused housing prices to plummet to three figure sums, bringing home ownership within grasp of even the least prosperous among us. In November, an unknown Canadian company purchased the 80 thousand capacity Silverdome stadium for about the price of a one bedroom condo in Vancouver. Of course, finding a job or a store that sells fresh fruit would be akin to finding the clitoris on a mermaid, but so goes the life of a new pioneer.
Written on the precipice of the city’s decline, Gil Scott’s Heron’s open -letter to Ronald Reagan offers an earnest response to an accident at a nuclear power planet that threatened to wipe Detroit from the map.
Gil Scott Heron – We Almost Lost Detroit(right click to download) 5:18 mins/ 160 kbps/ 6.08MB
As a bonus, take this Moodyman engineered radio skit set in the shadows of the fallen city.
The turning over a new year can feel a little jarring, like the moment after a record skips when a confused room attempts to regain their collective rhythm. With the mayhem of the holidays now shrinking in the rearview mirror, ‘tis now the season for exercise regiments marked with a shorter shelf life than that of the bushels of fresh produce bought in earnest, but destined to rot in the crisper drawer. As scores of people line up to start a race that few will ever finish, I stand boldly apart, letting myself off the hook in the area of physical improvement, even if my body is starting to resemble something one might find hanging in the window of a Chinese restaurant.
Instead, my delightfully achievable New Years resolution involves a shift to more organic music, if that word still has any meaning. Having spent the better part of last year compiling mixes of obsessively arranged electronic music, I now find myself craving some audio roughage. In that spirit, this month’s mix forgoes laptops and synthesizers for a deliberately inconsistent blend of punk, funk, soul and psych; sounds to fill the silence as we sit with baited breath, waiting to see what the New Year might bring.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring – You Let Me Be Honest With You Yuya Uchida & the Flowers – Intruder The Pixies – Hey Underworld feat. Brian Eno & Karl Blau – Beebop Hurry WU LYF – Heavy Pop Om – Cremation Ghat I Andwella’s Dream – Cocaine Mandre – Masked Music Man Ofege – It’s Not Easy Mister Holmes and the Brotherhood – Thrift Store Find Soulphiction – Intermission 13th Floor Elevators – Blue and Peaceful Paul Parrish – English Sparrow Idiot Glee – All Packed Up Nite Jewel – The Kamera Song Airport One – Two Days Gil Scott Heron – Where Did the Night Go Ian France – High Places David Shrigley – Don’t From Bits and Bobs The Knife feat Mt. Sims and PlanningtoRock – Coloring of Pigeons Prince – People Without (Live) Sarah Webster Fabio – Juju For Grandma Skull Snaps – It’s a New Day The South Side Movement – Everlasting Thrill Bob James – Nautilus The Crystal Mansion – Somebody Oughta Turn Your Head Around Moodymann – The Day We Lost the Soul O.V. Wright – Motherless Child The Persuasions – Another Night With the Boys Black Merda – Think of Me 24 Carat Black – I Want to Make Up Jackie McLean – Soul Sam Cooke – Medley: It’s All Right/ For Sentimental Reasons
Electric Adolescence – Baited Breath(right click to download) 80 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB
The strongest single from this polymorphous kiwi band comes from their original incarnation of their 1986 debut album, Kaleidoscope World. Band leader Martin Phillips wears UK influences such as Joy Division and Wire plainly on his sleeve, at the same time innovating what would later be called the Dunedin Sound.
The Chills – Pink Frost(right click to download) 4:01 mins/ 192 kbps/ 5.52MB
Half Cousin’s MySpace page, describes the band’s sound as “Acousmatic”, the sort of made-up term I’d tend to deride if it weren’t so accurate. Their recent single release includes an entry by Brighton-based Fujiya & Miyagi, who successfully claim the song in their own sonic terms.
Sweet Songs is a track I’ve only just managed to get my hands on again, concluding a long-running search made difficult by my failing to remember the names of either the song or the artist, thus requiring me to recite pieces of seventies sassy-black-girl slam poetry over and over, an embarrassing experience that inadvertently degrades both black and white people in equal measure.
Sarah Webster Fabio – Sweet Songs(right click to download) 5:10 mins/ 160 kbps/ 5.92MB
But the ends more than justify the means as my successful hunt not only yielded the afro-picked funk jam that alluded me for so many years, I was also introduced to another gem from the album- a lush and passionate piece of blues poetry that makes me feel like I’ve just tracked down a long lost love only to fall in love with her deep and sultry sister.
Sarah Webster Fabio – If We Come Soft as Rain(right click to download) 3:18 mins/ 160 kbps/ 3.77MB
Evaluating this decade from a cultural standpoint feels, to paraphrase a report card comment from my 11th grade English teacher regarding my ability to focus, a little like nailing Jello to the wall. Unlike the eighties which brought us Back to the Future and hip hop and crack cocaine, this decade was rather short on original iconography, defining itself more by the manner in which past trends were recycled than the rate at which new ones were created. Even Bin Laden’s iconic attack of the World Trade Centre was so obviously lifted from the 1992 Steven Segal action blockbuster, Under Siege.
If forced to find a label, this decade this could perhaps be regarded as the age of irony, a generational fetishizing of bad taste that allowed brashness to trade as talent and cynicism as charm. While certainly a cultural masterstroke on the part of reality television hopefuls and sallow hipsters with no fashion sense who could pass themselves off as hip by hiding under fluorescent sweatshirts and trucker hats, what should have been a summer fad has all but consumed an entire decade, leaving some of us feeling how one does after eating dessert in lieu of dinner.
In summing up this decade’s output, I refrained from doing the standard list of the hundred or so greatest albums and songs, assuming I’d wind up with something as arbitrary as those greatest films lists which attempt to put titles as diverse as Star Wars, Annie Hall, and Casablanca in a definitive order of quality. Instead, I assembled a couple of super-sized mixes of some highlights from a decade when we used to listen to music on CDs, talk about how the Iraq war was really over oil, and about how we still had time to save the environment. It seems like only yesterday.
Part One – A Decade in Computers
Dapayk & Padburg – Black Beauty Matthew Dear – Don and Sherri Mandy vs. Booka Shade – Body Language (Konrad Black Remix) Roxy Music – The Thrill of it All (Mandy & Booka Shade Mix) Alex Smoke – Make My Day (Luisine Mix) Matias Aguayo – New Life Dave Aju – Crazy Place !!! – Shit Scheisse Merde, Pt. 2 Chromeo – Needy Girl Junior Boys – In the Morning Metro Area – Miura Miss Kitten & the Hacker – Madame Hollywood Fischerspooner – Horizon Radiohead – Idioteque Ricardo Villalobos – What You Say (Edit) Stephen Beaupre – Fish Fry (a)pendics Shuffle – Looking for Me (Mossa Remix) SCSI 9 – Mini Enliven Dop Acoustics – The Dust (Enliven Deep Acoustics Mix) Moodymann – Freeki Mutha F cker Soulphiction – Get It Right Elektrochemie – Don’t Go Invisible Conga People – Cable Dazed The Knife – One Hit The Postal Service – Such Great Heights Amadou & Mariam – Sabali Woofly vs. Projections – Starlight Jurgen Paape – So Weit Wie Noch Nie Kraftwerk – Elektro Kardiogramm Air – Run Boards of Canada – In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country Fever Ray – If I Had a Heart (Familijen Remix) Clipse – Grindin’ Aaliyah – Try Again Farah – Law of Life Cassie – Me & U (Chopped & Screwed Version) Theophilus London – Aquamilitia Kid Cudi – Day and Night Tessio – Luomo Mount Kimbie – 50 Mile View Damian Lazarus – Moment Daft Punk – Something About Us Playgroup – Hideaway The Chromatics – Night Drive The Orb – Before Because Dntel – Anywhere, Anyone Burial – Archangel Ratatat – Cherry Cassius – Nothing Schneider TM vs. Kpt Michi Gan – The Light
Part Two – A Decade in Bands and Singer/ Songwriters
Andrew Bird – A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head Fujiya & Miyagi – Collarbone Of Montreal – Gronlandic Edit Takka Takka – Everybody Say These United States – First Sight Angus & Julia Stone – Paper Aeroplane Stars – This Charming Man American Analog Set – Aaron and Maria The XX – Basic Space Phoenix – If I Ever Feel Better Yeasayer – 2080 The Polyphonic Spree – Solider Girl The Duke Spirit – Masca The Strokes – Last Night The Concretes – You Can’t Hurry Love You Say Party! We Say Die! – Downtown Mayors Goodnight, Alley Kids Rule Serena Maneesh – Her Name is Suicide Sonic Youth – Peace Attack American Watercolor Movement – Sweet Thursday Panda Bear – Take Pills Electralane – The Valleys Amnion – Praise God For the Light Within Me Wilco – Radio Cure Yo La Tengo – Don’t Have to Be So Sad Gregor Samsa – Jeroen Van Aken The Owls – Isaac Beshevis Singer The Wooden Birds – Seven Seventeen Wildbirds & Peacedrums – I Can’t Tell in His Eyes Taken Too Young – Too Young Brightblack Morning Light – Everybody Delight Sam Baker – Odessa Alela Diane – The Rifle Gravenhurst – The Diver Goran Gora – Slow Down Kings of Convenience – I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From Iron and Wine – Lions Mane The Rosemont Family Reunion – Ho Ho Ho Sebadoh – Beautiful Friend Antony & the Johnsons – Hope There’s Someone Papa M – So Warped Sigur Ros – Staralfur Alaska In Winter – Horsey Horse D’Angelo – One More Gin
As featured on August’s Sexier Than Lingerie mix, this impeccable remix from the illusive Salt City Orchestra camp turns this respectable Underworld track into something I would comfortably refer to as classic.
Born in Kansas before transplanting to London for a stint at St. Martin’s and some British pedigree, pop/ folk artist Piney Gir has recently released this earthy single, perhaps as a purge before embarking on a reported electronica project.
In a perfect world, this song would be ubiquitously popular as I imagine it being played in a centuries old pub with the patrons singing along red-faced, joyously swinging their pint glasses back and forth with the rhythm and knocking them back with a roar of unspecified laughter when the tune is finished.
