Under the forgiving guise of radio, John Peel never really aged- throughout his 37 years playing records on BBC 1, his aptitude for discovering talent stayed consistently ahead of his peers, from first plugging Captain Beefheart and David Bowie back in the seventies, to being the reason any of us ever heard of The Strokes.
Apart from directly or indirectly informing a majority of bands working today, John’s most potent recorded legacy resides in the vast number of “Peel Sessions” he recorded with some of the most notable acts of the last few decades. Originally conceived in 1986 as a means to fill air time with consideration for the BBC’s rigid broadcast standards, which limited the amount of recorded music each program could play, Peel had his favorite bands record what were normally four song setlists, rendering versions that sounded somewhere between a studio recording and a live set, with an added intangible quality that came from the legacy of studio and of the man behind the glass.
Had Peel not died of a sudden heart attack back in 2004, today would have been his 70th birthday. To mark the occasion, what follows is a compilation of some of the best of the Peel Sessions.
“Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don’t have any surface noise. I said, “Listen, mate, *life* has surface noise.”
- John Peel
The Peel Sessions.
The Wire – I Am The Fly Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps The Strokes – The Modern Age Gang of Four – I Found That Essence Rare Pulp – Babies New Order – Dreams Never End Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart The Cure – All Cats Are Grey Young Marble Giants – Final Day Mira Calix – She Keeps Her Secrets The Human League – Being Boiled cLOUDDEAD – Side A Part 1 Apparat – Van Aphex Twin – Pancake Lizard Autechre – Drane Boards of Canada – Happy Cycling Spritualized – Don’t Go The Pixies – In Heaven (Lady In the Radiator Song) Slowdive – Shine Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – The Film that Changed My Wife Smog – I Break Horses Graham Coxon – Shipbuilding
Released on the Get Physical label in 2005, this largely overlooked minimal piece is a masterwork of texture, brilliantly arranging divergent sounds that never loose their balance- the stuttering kick bleeds perfectly into the bassline, contrasting the perfectly placed synth and static accents, all tied together with a vocal that is at once both restrained and passionate. This track is not only a full meal, it leaves enough over for sandwiches the next day.
Forgoing the obvious take on the weekend bender, debauchery is simply background for this tale of adolescent complications and casual bliss. Staring with our Scotsman narrator doing his “sound bloke” routine by telling his ex-girlfriend’s new beau that he hopes there would be no animosity between them, soon realizing he shouldn’t have bothered, what follows is a play-by-play retelling of the first big weekend of a crucial summer.
With over a decade having past, My Pony seems to have held its weight as a guilty pleasure- not a track I’d keep in daytime rotation, but one that I’d accept as a gift when drunk and on the dancefloor ten minutes before closing. Sounding well ahead of its time upon its release in 1996, despite having been recorded three years earlier during a mentorship with the Jodeci camp, producer and tan-colored boot enthusiast Timberland took influences ranging from drum and bass to Zapp and Roger, with Ginuwine demonstrating why music and literary critics alike refer to him as the great American poet:
If your horny, let’s do it/ Ride it, my Pony
My saddles waiting/ Come and jump on it.
Figuring the original was ubiquitous enough, I thought I’d post the remix which samples The Art of Noise classic, Moments In Love.
This moody down-tempo piece by Swedish techno producers Minilogue eases along with offbeat rim shots and surreal vocal samples set against rich, warm pads and the crackle of old vinyl. Owing as much stylistically to David Lynch as it does to Kraftwerk, “Six Arms and One Leg” feels like the deconstruction of a dream- haunting, inspiring and abstract.
While Prince was always comfortable parading around in fishnets and high heals, he was seldom as willing to expose himself emotionally. Refusing to do interviews after being supposedly misrepresented in his early press, the purple prodigy urged his fans to understand him through his music. This is easier said than done- while there was a strange authenticity to his sonic tirades, which often involved him miraculously conflating bringing a woman to orgasm with getting closer to God, his music is generally free from biography. An exception to this is Old Friends 4 Sale, a literal account of the comedown Prince went through upon returning home to Minneapolis after the production and extensive tour that followed Purple Rain, and of his friends’ opportunistic reaction to his success.
I expect this unguarded honesty made Prince uncomfortable as he pulled the song from release at the last minute (Warner Brothers later released a sanitized jazz version on the mishandled Vault compilation). By contrast, the original take of the song, with its spacious piano and unvarnished production does much more to serve this rare, unfiltered look into the mind of the man.
While I’m sure we’re not the first to say it, it really isn’t mentioned enough- there’s nothing quite like the sight of a woman on a bicycle. This largely unsung summer treat can often be seen crossing the frame with all the breathtaking spectacle of a shooting star: a blur of blushed cheeks and cotton, leaving you feeling a little bit better about the world we live in.
During the decadent eighties our sexual idolatry was, to some bizarre extent, directed towards images of women in florescent bikinis and matching pumps seductively posing on or around expensive Italian cars, and so it is perhaps appropriate for these leaner economic times that the clever girls can do much more with a summer dress and a charity shop bike. We never really know where these girls are riding to, but we imagine it’s a place as magical as whatever they might have in that basket.
For these reasons, and many more that I would be unable to put into words, we at Electric Adolescence dedicate this installment our monthly mix series to all the pedal pushing women of the world, at the same time boldly declaring that bicycles are officially sexier than lingerie.
Chelonis R. Jones – Bathroom Mirror Legend
Jakob Hilden – Glamouflage Ada feat. Raz Ohara – Lovestoned Dop – Dein VerlangenMinilogue – Hitchhiker’s Choice Hecuba – Miles Away
The Juan McLean – One Day
Feygin – Budva (Slum Dop Remix)
DJ Ali – You Don’t Know (Ruff Cut)
Jamie Jones – Should have Gone Home
The Emergency – Fantasy (Bottin’s Morriconey Island Mix)
Mikael Stavostrand – Die a Little (Bruno Pronsato Remix)
Harry Axt – She Is Different
Different Gear – One Thing More
Faunts – Feel Love Thinking Of (Lemonade Remix)
Martin Solveig – I’m A Good Man
Joakim – Ad Me
Underworld – Cups (Salt City Orchestra Remix)
Ernest Saint Laurent – Perfect Love
Metro Area – Dance Reaction
Plej – Seasons
Walter Jones – Living Without Your Love
Holy Ghost Inc – Walk On Air (Sun and Moon Mix)
The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds (Pal Joey Mix)
The Whitest Boy Alive – 1517 (Morgan Geist Remix)
Bodycode – What Did You Say
Black Sabbath – Planet Caravan (DJ Steef Remix)
Massimiliano Pagliara – Sometimes at Night
Woolfy vs. Projections – Neeve (Permanent Vacation Tropical Mix)
Ost & Kjex – Have You Seen the Moon in Dallas (Maurice Fulton Remix)
Daft Funk – Something About Us (Love Theme From Interstella 555) Banzai Republic – Loungin With Jacko Pogo – Go Out and Love Someone Phoenix – 1901 (Pete Herrs Symphonic Mix)
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