Seeing as no fucker's around to Plug tonight here's a 2016 album you will have missed because most of you have got your heads stuck so far up hip-hop's arse that you never look at my year charts anymore. Swines.
Here's a record. It's from Australia, a country which for some reason seems to be having a rather good year of it musically (much better than their rugby and cricket teams, that's for sure). Made up of four people who used to be in bands. I think one was in Dick Diver or maybe that's the name he goes by when he's starring in (Castlemaine)XXX(X)rated films. They sound like an amalgam of lots of your favourite indie-pop/twee/C86 stuff, assuming of course that you have such a thing and aren't still listening to The Beatles ad infinitum. For example, the song ramshackled shamblerama 'Alfred' sounds like the Vaselines getting into bed with Beat Happening over a bassline which is nicked almost entirely from 'Jesus Don't Want Me For A Sunbeam' (note correct placement of inverted commas. Some people have no idea when it comes to syntax). Album opener 'Moscow' has a very rude word in it and makes the wee lass who's doing vocals sound like she's in an Antipodean Kleenex/LiLiPut tribute act (except she isn't). There's two songs about Uncle Greg (whoever he may be), one of which gains extra kudos for using the word "bifter" and appearing to have dragged Dolly Mixture off the street to provide background 'la-la-la' backing vox. Lead single 'Don't Say Sorry' starts by sounding it's on the edge of a twee cliff, over-trebly guitars and all, before the drums kick in and turn it into a glam-punk garage stomper. It's ace. And 5 of the songs are less than 2 minutes long. You've probably spent more time reading this far, in all honesty. I think 'Chitter Chatter' is my favourite - ominous indie-pop (if there could ever be such a thing) with a wonky guitar string and some good use of alliteration in the song title. It's all rather exciting if you wear tank tops. Or maybe 'Third War', which could be the result of an Australian Bowie/Syd Barrett bastard child who's just about to be beamed into space by whoever the Australian equivalent of Scotty from Star Trek is.
Macintosh Plus/meme sleeve art notwithstanding this is far from the vaporwave the lilac-and-lavender hues and palm trees may have you believe. No, this is acid house and tribal techno from Barcelona, dragged by the straps on Altern-8's dust masks into the 21st Century. Similar sound to other techno renaissance merchants (Stellar OM Source in particular), but packs a lot more of a punch. In fact in places (3rd track "Always I Come Back To That" especially) I'd put it on a par with 80s Detroit-era techno/Orbital's harder tracks from their first 3 LPs. Yeah, it's THAT good. EPs already sold out after being released only 2 weeks ago, which is a pig as it's ace. Oh well.
(EDIT: after a lot of Googling just managed to order it from Yoyaku in Paris - happy days. Especially as the Discogs sharks have already got it listed for 50 squidlets)
I've been sitting on this LP for a while and having just taken the plunge and nabbed the 1980 Cha Cha press from someone online have been listening to it loads of late. So-called because they played until dawn as it was too dangerous to leave Jamaica's Channel One studio in the middle of the night, the 'Players' riddim tracks are mashed and manhandled here by Crucial Bunny, who apart from a couple of LPs with Scientist and Jammy I haven't heard much of. No matter though - this set is all killer, and in fact to these ears is probably one of the more original LPs of the early 80s dub boom. Check Toussaint l'Overture, which is dub meets 70s TV comedy theme meets Bruce Haack if he'd worked as a Radio Shack keyboard salesman. It kicks hard as. Or Malcolm X, which takes an obscure lovers tune and skanks it to outta the bedroom and inna the dance. Hotly recommended, as is:
Which is quite simply one of the best Tubby dub LPs I've ever heard - certainly in his top 10 for me, and easily on a par with the likes of Mudie's Dub Conference 1 or Dub From The Roots. Credited to Roots Radics bassist Flabba (who supposedly produced it, although not according to the sleevenotes) this is a Ranking Joe set through and through although the bass is simply delicious. From the 'end-of-the-pier' organ on both Flabba Dub and Screw Face Dub to the type of bottom end that would blow lesser speakers on closer Super Special Dub, this is dub par excellance. There's the usual Tubby subtly, sure, but just enough wizardry to keep those who prefer their dub to have a little more going on interested. It's just been repressed on Ranking Joe's imprint outta The Bronx - any fans of early 80s Tubby/Scientist/Jammy need this like right now.
You know the best thing about indie-pop-types? The fact that you can e-mail the guy from the band, have a natter about how much you like his band's stuff and then he offers to send you their debut LP (going for nuts money on Discogs) for nowt. Gawd bless ya Dusty and your beautiful jangly fuzzy stuff - well worth a spin for the uninitiated:
Another day, another dub. This one's sketchy af, in fact I can't find much about it anywhere apart from the fact that it's got a version of Marley's Caution on it (the second track, Hooligan Stew, which has got some Mittoo-esque organ at the start before it disappears down a mile-long train tunnel and into an echo chamber) and some of Delgado's riddims from his own Effort LP. Anyway, all you need to know is it's all killer - well worth tracking down if you like this sort of thing (by the way, welcome back Gabe. There's a chart you might want to have a gander at...)
Every now and again I feel compelled to click random LP leaks just to see what they're like (got nowt else to do 'cos telly's a load of toss). I have no idea how I came by this record, or from what blog/site I discovered it. Suffice it to say I've just been going through a load of recent downloads, decided to finally give this 2016 effort by a Japanese ambient guitarist a play and I'm sitting here not only compelled to write something about it, but also mesmerised by it's haunting beauty. Comprised of two tracks (which you can sample for yourself via Bandcamp, see above), it sounds to me like a cross between Eno's Ambient LPs, a female James Blackshaw with all the technical proficiency and without the noodling, and crucially for me Catherine Ribiero's stellar 70s French prog/psych LP Paix (and specifically the two extended tracks from it - "Paix" itself and "Un Jour... La Mort", more in terms of structure and aesthetics than musically). And that's just the first track, which is made up of various repetitious finger-picking passages and floaty-like drones that collide into each other like little fluffy clouds. The second track follows a similar vein, although it's a 'game of two halves' with a blissfully looped, Japanese-tinged country rock coda giving way at more-or-less the halfway stage to serene drones and ethereal, eerie wailing that for me recall a cross between SOTL, the vocals from Music For Airports' 1/2 if it had been recorded on a Dictaphone in a Shinto temple and Spritiualized's Symphony Space.
A normal night - hanging around in Plug waiting for someone to spin some tunes with but no sod turns up, nothing on the telly, and the wife's turned the heating up too high so I feel like I'm in a sauna. So prompted by the forthcoming Independent Label Market due to take place at Spitalfields on 1st April (my wedding anniversary ironically - will probably have to take the missus out in the evening, hope she's OK with a Nandos) I thought I'd dig deeper into some of the labels that I've never heard of who've got stalls. And whilst doing so I came across Clay Pipe, who at first glance come over as some hip folktronica label. So I decided to stream their latest release. And you know what? It's absolutely gorgeous:
Sounding like some ghosts have got into the machines of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a downtempo Broadcast and the incidental music you got in the bridges between Independent Television For Schools & Colleges in the 70s and 80s, the album takes it's inspiration from the sights and sounds of a London that's either disappeared from view or been largely ignored. Call it the sound of the seedier side of the city before gentrification set in if you will, but that would detract from the beauty that's here. Dripping sewers and market chatter mix with Moogs, Mellotrons and a perversely positive moroseness, an oxymoron which you'll only fathom if you listen to it and imagine yourself trudging in a trenchcoat through the backstreets of what used to be the unfashionable East End before the hipsters moved in. It's nostalgic, true (and in essence you could almost see some of these tracks being used in a 70s urban sci-fi pastiche) - but claustrophobic at the same time, and totally hooks you from the start. Instrumental throughout, it's cinematic and (dare I say it) ever-so-slightly twee in so far as it harks back to a past where we all imagined we'd be in flying cars and wearing suits made of tin foil in 20 years' time.
PICK - the penultimate track "Harringey House", which sounds like Stina Nordenstam got kidnapped by Bowie and Eno and forced to remake the second side of Low on a keyboard that sounds like it's disintegrating before your very ears. It's completely divine. _________________ 'Reggae' & t'ing Folk 'n Stuff SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG
So far in fact that all you can see are Pitchfork reviewers... :wink:
Excuse me if I can't trust a supposed reggae fan who doesn't love Gregory. 😉 _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
Jimmy DreadOld skool like Happy ShopperModeratorProfile 555 Dub Street
Any Basic Channel/Rhythm & Sound fans reading this might recognise the name of the first member of this double act - it's Tikiman. I haven't got the foggiest who Rhaunder is but I'm guessing he's a German producer. Regardless, this is totally down my street, especially given all the extra beats and bleeps that I'm currently listening to since the BETH tourney got underway, as well as Tikiman's vocals. It's going to get Rhythm & Sound comparisons all day long, natch (which isn't a bad thing at all), and part of the appeal of this is how three of the vocal and dub tracks are lined up side-by-side inna true Showcase stylee, harking back to glory days of Jamaican Dancehall albums of the early-mid 80s. But that only tells half the story, as whilst the Tikiman tracks rightfully place Derdeoc's listeners in a synthetic, claustrophobic, ganja-filled haze, the other 3 tracks are minimal techno bangers. Check out "Meanwhile" below.
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Jimmy Dread
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