Singaporean 5-piece girl punk/hardcore outfit. Oddly enough proving a very apt soundtrack for people stuffing their faces on Great British Menu, which the wife has on in the background. _________________ 'Reggae' & t'ing Folk 'n Stuff SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG
It's not out for 3 weeks. I've been lucky enough to have an advance copy for about a month. And I can hand on heart say that, for this knackered old indie-pop head, Girl Ray's Earl Grey is head-and-shoulders above anything else I'm going to hear all year. A full review to follow at some point, but I've not been this smitten about a band since I first heard The Garlands' S/T debut. And that's my second favourite album ever.
Plus they make great vids. I think I'm going to need more brie...
In which a pair of Dutch dub-techno heads journey into a dark forest, go searching for a Gruffalo and end up finding a box of records containing LPs by The Orb, Etienne De Crecy, Deepchord, The KLF and the Wicker Man Soundtrack (but only the eerie bits, not the songs about landlord's daughters and that kind of thing).
Anyway, the whole thing is a journey; an album to get lost in. A smooth acid wash of sound, dragging you deeper and deeper into an imposing woody vortex as you listen, like a book you can't put down. It captivates throughout, all the way to the closing track where amongst howling, unsettling winds you encounter the throbbing heart of this gothic soundspace, its pulse resonating deeply until a kindly wind arrives, suddenly lifting you out of the impending doom by a stoned Vangelis on a magic carpet of pixie dust. Suffice it to say the album's spell-binding, enchanting, mellow (take note Tilly) and simply divine, and were it not for 3 North London lasses of whom I am rather fond the best thing I've heard all year.
Pick? Well, hard to take a track out of context but personally it's "Across The River The Leaves Whisper", which sounds like The Orb's Blue Room meets something off Super Discount.
Mightily pissed off I missed out on the initial vinyl run of this (300 presses? ridiculous), but supposedly a second press is on the way. Who'll like it? Like-minded souls and groovy fuckers (Joy, Norm, Gabe, Neil, Tap, Squish, possibly Bappy as well. Hayden and Keith might dig it too I reckon). The other 95% of BEA can start threads about the best ever tracks about having a shit, debate the tits off the new Arcade Fire 'album' and look forward to the next Killers LP. _________________ 'Reggae' & t'ing Folk 'n Stuff SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG
21st century dub's a bit all over the shop - it's rare you get anything with the roots vibe of the founding fathers, and less rare that a digital dub LP clicks (heck, not even Tubby's digital dubs are anything to get over-excited about). So step forward Japanese producer Taka Noda, whose take on dub both throws up references to the classic mid-late 70s era (snippets of melodica that Augustus Pablo himself would be proud of) and 80s experimentation/atmos of Adrian Sherwood/On-U and Mad Professor, as well as some (thankfully) understated digi-dub that perhaps only the likes of Jahtari artists (and Tapes in particular) have done anything of merit with in the last few years.
Verdict? It's bloody gorgeous. Bass-heavy and authentic, but all shiny and new like a newly unwrapped chrome-plated sub to put in the back of your Vauxhall Nova. The melodica makes it, for sure, and adds a taste of JA to the whole thing, which in places sounds like Yellow Magic Orchestra slowed down to snail's pace (no bad thing). As all good dub LPs should be it's a totally immersive experience, whether or not you plan to skin up a bifter or chill out in the dark with your headphones on whilst listening to it. Not a duff track, although Under Pressure feels a bit out of place and could quite easily get you up and bopping around in a festival tent near you soon. In places it also treads a fine line between dub techno/ambient (New Horizons), but the bass is so deep it pulsates and takes over - just like a good dub should.
Ironically enough Prince (now King) Jammy released a new dub LP last week. It's actually rather good. 2nd wave of dub? I and I can only hope...
21st century dub's a bit all over the shop - it's rare you get anything with the roots vibe of the founding fathers, and less rare that a digital dub LP clicks (heck, not even Tubby's digital dubs are anything to get over-excited about). So step forward Japanese producer Taka Noda, whose take on dub both throws up references to the classic mid-late 70s era (snippets of melodica that Augustus Pablo himself would be proud of) and 80s experimentation/atmos of Adrian Sherwood/On-U and Mad Professor, as well as some (thankfully) understated digi-dub that perhaps only the likes of Jahtari artists (and Tapes in particular) have done anything of merit with in the last few years.
Verdict? It's bloody gorgeous. Bass-heavy and authentic, but all shiny and new like a newly unwrapped chrome-plated sub to put in the back of your Vauxhall Nova. The melodica makes it, for sure, and adds a taste of JA to the whole thing, which in places sounds like Yellow Magic Orchestra slowed down to snail's pace (no bad thing). As all good dub LPs should be it's a totally immersive experience, whether or not you plan to skin up a bifter or chill out in the dark with your headphones on whilst listening to it. Not a duff track, although Under Pressure feels a bit out of place and could quite easily get you up and bopping around in a festival tent near you soon. In places it also treads a fine line between dub techno/ambient (New Horizons), but the bass is so deep it pulsates and takes over - just like a good dub should.
Ironically enough Prince (now King) Jammy released a new dub LP last week. It's actually rather good. 2nd wave of dub? I and I can only hope...
One love.
hmmmm....sounds dope. on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most Mellow Zone appropriate, what's it MZ score?
Been a bit quiet at Dread Towers of late for new sounds and 'ting. Mainly as I've been on the road and away from a lappy so haven't had a chance to do a proper dig-around for something exciting (including a stay for work in Cornwall where the highlight was a friendly dog in a pub trying to steal my fish 'n' chips). So here's a few things that I've listened to whilst watching a crack in my ceiling drip with water into an empty chocolate tin:
Portland, OR. DIY power pop obsessive makes an album which fits in somewhere between GBV and Pavement. There's hints of the Pastels, maybe some Todd Rundgren, a smidge of Parquet Courts, a bit of Ariel Pink, or even an electric Motifs with a rocket up their arse. Anyway, it's all rather splendid, and if you want a copy on the black stuff it's only like $7. I'd buy one, but the shipping to Britain is just plain silly. If anyone from the States is visiting Blighty soon, pick me one up will ya. I'll give you some CDs.
Canadian disco which sounds like Chic and Rick James had a punch up. Fuckin' marvellous. Disco dons (Norm, Gabe and Joy) will love it, as will those with roller skates.
I know zilch about this Japanese electronica whizz but this album, his first on DFA, is pretty much an assimilation of everything from acid house (Mutually) to AFX glitchy techno (Finding) to something that could have come straight outta Chicago (Outset). Not sure what to make of it but androids and other like minded souls will probably find something in there to grab them.
A recent discovery, but one that's been tunnelling into my ears of late, thanks in no small part to BEA user Sleepdealer who I noticed purchased a copy. The cover was enough to pique my interest - and what I got was a cross between ambient Eno, that Virginia Astley album Tilly likes and some mellow drone music which provided the soundtrack to an evening earlier in the week standing on the Cornish seafront. Sleepdealer is now BEAutiful. A gorgeous record.
You can have a listen to all of these by clicking the links, innit. Suggest you do pronto.
As regular readers will probably know, I'm something of a record geek these days. It never happened before I came to BEA - I'd stopped buying vinyl when I moved into a flat some time in around 2004/5 - but since 2014 I've been acquiring bits and pieces here and there which I naturally delight in boring you all senseless with (and showing off about, natch) on the "Albums Added To Your Collection Today" thread.
I've always made a pact with myself, though. Only buy what you like, and if you haven't heard it before only get it if it's cheap. I've discovered a fair few LPs this way, and picked up canon LPs (such as After The Goldrush and Harvest) which I might have otherwise not bothered to invest time and effort in getting had the price been higher. All this culminates in the following:
1. Regular updates of this chart
2. Space fast running out in my record room and more stuff getting added to my Discogs account to sell on, and
3. The occasional nugget which both turns out to be a pleasure to listen to as well as a wise investment.
This afternoon I popped into a record shop about 4 miles down the road from work on a lunch break. I've been here a couple of times of late, and the place is awash with bargains - dude sold me a couple of bhangra LPs for £2 each (which in all fairness I didn't think much of but have already sold one on for £20), a Ride 12" and an original Straight Outta Compton for £3 in the past, but today I picked up one of the best random finds I've ever come across:
The cover was the first thing that grabbed me - the red, gold and green border instantly made me think of Horace Andy's In The Light so I asked friendly record shop man (a soul nut, as it goes) to stick it on. We get chatting, I cup an ear towards the speaker, and hear what I can only describe as a cross between Sly-And-Robbie-cum-Grace-Jones funk and Fela Kuti. Turn over the sleeve, dude's from T&T, famed more for its calypso vibes than its Afro-funk-reggae social commentaries. Turns out the style - Rapso (never heard of it until 8 hours ago) is a fusion of rap and calypso, almost like a politicized update of soca where the 'rapper/toaster' critiques the State of the Nation, amongst other things. Interestingly, listening to the lyrics on what is now my 4th or 5th listen today reminds me not only of Fela but also of Linton Kwesi Johnson, especially on "Dancin Shoes Rapso", which as well as echoes of these icons has steel pan, a T&T version of the Lijadu Sisters providing back-up and a tight disco groove that recalls Fela's Zombie in a Caribbean roller-disco with hash haze in the air. It's absolutely ace.
Flip the record over and the second side is just as groovy - smooth Afrobeat, disco vibes, steel pan, acerbic state-of-affairs diatribes ("Children Of Soweto" is the closest Lutalo Masimba (or Resistance to his brethren) gets to LKJ). It's straight out of the 80s, sure (the production dates it admittedly), but in terms of a musical cauldron it'd take a veritable witches' coven to top it.
By happy coincidence - and possibly why I'm so enthused to write about this record - is that 5 minutes after grabbing it for a fiver I checked to find out its true value. I won't spoil the surprise (check my chart above/Discogs/Popsike for more info), but even it was worth 50p I'd still be raving about it. Check it out here on Bandcamp as some Aussie label repressed it a couple of years back.
All this talk of singer-songwriters spurred on by Merc's diary has got me having a little dig around Dread Towers for some long-since-forgotten late 60s/early 70s examples of the genre which for one reason or another haven't yet been added to the database. And if ever there was such an example of a record, and one which died a death due to one track, it's this:
Signed to Decca, this (her debut album - she released one more after this before she was dropped and all but vanished) is a real tale of missed opportunity, and on listening to the first track you can immediately see why hardly any fucker's ever heard it. Karen's voice is eeriely reminiscent of a whole slew of other female singer-songwriters of the period, especially the folky ones, and she sits nicely in the Linda Perhacs - Karen Dalton - Ann Steuart (from Tudor Lodge - look her up) bracket as well as recalling the likes of Shelagh McDonald and Bridget St. John at their most bucolic. For that's what this album is - a jaunt through a National Park in Dakota, albeit one that only commences once you've taken a huge stumble into some cow dung...
...oh yeah, which brings me to the opening track. For if it wasn't for "It's All Over Now" this LP may well be held in the same kind of esteem as It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best, Parallelograms or Judee Sill S/T. As it is, The Joys Of Life's opener is throwaway trash of the highest order - overblown cheesy horns, unnecessary wobbly country/blues keyboard break - and totally out of step with everything else that follows. Which is just as well, as from "In The Morning" (which could almost be a Simon and Garfunkel number - 'A Most Peculiar Man' springs to mind) onwards a wise Ms. Beth decides to make a campfire out of the brass section and retreats to simple piano or guitar arrangements with the odd glissando from a haunted zylophone or chime bar, or the occasional muffled double bass note (although there is one exception - at the end of "Joys Of Life" where she finds her inner Grace Slick amidst someone playing 'Time Of The Season' on a boogie-woogie organ, which in all fairness isn't as bad as it sounds).
There's a sombre tone to a lot of the stuff here, which in all fairness is part of its overall charm - 'Something To Believe In' sees Karen trying to convince the listener that there must be a glimmer of hope amidst of the despair of grief, with 'la-la-las' which wouldn't be out of place on The Wicker Man (the bass sounds like it came straight off Astral Weeks too). 'Nothing Lasts' deals with the vicissitudes of romance in a kind of 'tough tits, deal with it' matter-of-fact way that anyone who's ended a long-distance relationship can relate to. But place some of the subject matter aside and there's moments of ethereal, almost spiritual beauty - 'April Rain' is almost Vashti-esque - a simple paean to nature which for us country bumpkins tends to strike a chord like nothing else here. It's absolutely beautiful, naturally (pun intended). 'Song To A Shepherd' could have almost been written by The Free Design if they were born-again Christians - although cries out for a double-tracked vocal instead of the echo (which makes it sound like it was sung in an empty church set deep in a forest clearing). Simply put, it's a hymn, although doesn't refer to any specific faith, and as such is all the better for it. It's a universal song of hope, although admittedly one that barely anyone's heard after that shitty opening track.
Lesson here is don't judge an album by one mis-step, no matter how huge. Those who bother to read what I write will undoubtedly find something to love here - it's a beautiful record if you start from track 2. _________________ 'Reggae' & t'ing Folk 'n Stuff SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG
Can't bloody find full versions of these songs anywhere but based on these snippets but I've just heard the best trad-folk LP I've stumbled across in many a year. Sounds like a cross between The Watersons, an acapella Neutral Milk Hotel and the house band in a backstreet Dublin pub. If the rest of the LP's anything like this then it'll be in my Top 5 for the year without question - the harmonies are marvellous. _________________ 'Reggae' & t'ing Folk 'n Stuff SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG
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