Colin M
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Posts posted by Colin M
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I intend to pitch a sitcom where Billy Dee Williams and Denis Lawson share an apartment with Nien Nunb, a bit like ALF but more Star Wars-y. Admiral Ackbar and Salacious Crumb would be enlisted for cameos.
That's about as far as I've got so far.
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My morning listening was this mix by Peverelist of his recent stuff plus that on his Livity Sound label and related artists. It's a great round up of their recent vinyl releases and a great listen in general.
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you can hear dub on X Factor
Link? Sounds interesting....
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Still one of my favourite albums of all time. This Is The Shack is my favourite song on it.
I think the bit where Warren mis-spells the word "Next" on "What's Next" is my favourite thing to ever happen.
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I like Come On Die Young the best.
They are great live, to the extent that I never really listen to them on record any more.
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So I was the only person that voted for Slam - Alien Radio and Basement Jaxx - Remedy? Quite surprised by that.
I was pondering Headstates by Slam, didn't take to Alien Radio in the same way.
Was delighted to get to write about Herbert but as the votes came in, I was hoping that Drexciya, Burial, Theo Parrish and Autechre would slip in as well. Just too many good albums to choose from really.
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I was sure I'd voted for one of The Fireman albums. Must have bumped it for something else.
And I realise now I didn't mean to vote for Bjork's Debut, I meant Post. Fanny.
You had Fireman at no 18 (you submitted 20 just in case), so it didn't technically qualify.
On Substance, we decided that although it gathers singles, it is generally considered as an album by many people (I think maybe because some of the tracks aren't on any of the proper albums).
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Underworld Dubnobasswithmyheadman 36
The Prodigy Music For The Jilted Generation 33
Daft Punk Homework 30
Air Moon Safari 28
Daft Punk Discovery 26
Leftfield Leftism 25
Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works 85-92 22
Dj Shadow Endtroducing 21
Massive Attack Mezzanine 19
Depeche Mode Violator 17
The Prodigy Fat Of The Land 17
Boards Of Canada Music Has The Right To Children 16
Boards Of Canada Geogaddi 16
Lo Fidelity Allstars How To Operate With A Blown Mind 16
New Order Substance 16
Goldie Timeless 14
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip Angels 13
Kraftwerk Trans Europe Express 13
The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole 13
Can Tago Mago 12
Carl Craig More Songs About Food And Revolutionary Art 11
Orbital Brown Album 11
The Orb Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld 11
Utah Saints Utah Saints 11
Big Bud Infinity + Infinity 10
Bjork Homogenic 10
Chicane Far From The Maddening Crowds 10
Eric Prydz Pryda 10
Herbert 100lbs 10
Polygon Window Surfing On Sine Waves 10
Aphex Twin Drukqs 9
Burial Burial 9
Dash Berlin The New Daylight 9
DJ Sprinkles Midtown 120 Blues 9
Flying Lotus Los Angeles 9
Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells 9
Paul Van Dyk Out There And Back 9
Primal Scream Screamadelica 9
Soulwax Nite Versions 9
The KLF Chill Out 9
6th Borough Project One Night In The Borough 8
Basement Jaxx Remedy 8
Chicane Behind The Sun 8
Death In Vegas Dead Elvis 8
Groove Armada Goodbye Country 8
Justice Cross 8
Keith Le Blanc Major Malfunction 8
KLF The White Room 8
Kraftwerk Autobahn 8
Laurent Garnier Unreasonable Behaviour 8
Luke Slater Freek Funk 8
Orbital Yellow Album 8
The Chemical Brothers Surrender 8
The Field From Here We Go Sublime 8
The Orb U.F.Orb 8
Trentemoller The Last Resord 8
Unkle Psyence Fiction 8
Altern8 Full On Mask Hysteria 7
Dangermouse The Grey Album 7
Front 242 05:22:09:12 Off 7
Justice Cross 7
Kraftwerk The Man Machine 7
Massive Attack Blue Lines 7
Metro Area Metro Area 7
Slam Alien Radio 7
Swayzak Snowboarding In Argentina 7
Tiesto Elements of Life 7
Two Lone Swordsmen Tiny Reminders 7
Autechre Quaristice 6
Blu Mar Ten Natural History 6
Brian Eno & David Byrne My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts 6
Carl Craig Landcruising 6
Daft Punk Alive 2007 6
Ferry Corsten L.E.F. 6
Kid Carpet Casino Royale 6
Leftfield Rhythm and Stealth 6
Orbital Insides 6
Portishead Third 6
The Prodigy Experience 6
Theo Parrish Parallel Dimensions 6
Timewriter Diary Of A Lonely Sailor 6
Above and Beyond Group Therapy 5
Bachelors Of Science Science Fiction 5
Boards Of Canada The Campfire Headphase 5
Burial Untrue 5
Chemical Brothers Exit Planet Dust 5
Deadmau5 Random Album Title 5
Gene Farris This Is My Religion 5
LCD Soundsystem Sound Of Silver 5
Tangerine Dream Rubycon 5
The Field Yesterday and Today 5
The Shamen Boss Drum 5
William Basinski Melancholia 5
Above and Beyond Sirens Of The Sea 4
David Holmes This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats 4
Drexciya The Quest 4
Future Sound Of London Lifeforms 4
Machinedrum Room(s) 4
Pendulum Hold Your Colour 4
Roni Size New Forms 4
The Avalanches Since I Left You 4
4Hero Two Pages 3
Depeche Mode Some Great Reward 3
Dreadzone Second Light 3
Drexciya Neptune's Lair 3
Felix Da Housecat Kitten The Glee Glitz 3
Kaskade Dynasty 3
Kraftwerk Computer World 3
Markus Schulz Scream 3
Pantha Du Prince This Bliss 3
Plastikman Sheet One 3
Saint Etienne Foxbase Alpha 3
Sheep On Drugs Greatest Hits 3
2 Many DJs As Heard On Radio Soulwax Vol. 2 2
Akufen My Way 2
Dash Berlin #musicislife 2
David Holmes Let's Get Killed 2
Gary Numan The Pleasure Principle 2
Infected Mushroom Legend Of The Black Shawarma 2
Plastikman Musik 2
Vitalic OK Cowboy 2
Zomby Dedication 2
187 Lockdown 187 1
Add N To X Add Insult To Injury 1
Bjork Debut 1
Brian Eno Ambient 1: Music For Airports 1
Four Tet There Is Love In You 1
Hot Chip The Warning 1
Maps Turning The Mind 1
Modeselektor Monkeytown 1
Neu! Neu! '75 1
Sander van Doorn Eleve11 1
Soundclash Republic The Birth Of Shiva Shanti 1
The Hacker X Live 1
The Knife Silent Shout 1
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Happy New Year fellow elecktroids!
Thinking of doing a hip-hop version of this - do we think we'd get enough voters?
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I'll put up the full list of albums nominated at some point, they are on my laptop at home. Sure it will spark a few good debates etc.
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I think one of the best things for me about doing this was revisiting a number of albums from the 90s - it was a pleasure to go back to things I hadn't listened to for ages with fresh ears. Underworld, Leftism, Moon Safari, the Daft Punk albums, Jilted Generation, Herbert, all things I hadn't heard for a long time. Things like BOC and Aphex I know inside out but even thinking about what I'd say about them was great fun. The stuff I wasn't familiar with at all (Pryda, Big Bud, Lo-Fidelity Allstars, most of Chicane) were all quite different and I can honestly say I enjoyed discovering them. I pretty much expected to hate Pryda (sorry Marshmallo!) but it was different from what I expected, proving my own prejudices to me.
I suppose a 30 is still fairly limiting - It feels sort of wrong to cover AI era Warp stuff like Aphex/Polygon Window and not also mention things like Black Dog, B12 and Autechre. I thought there might be at least one Plastikman album in there. The 2000s were perhaps surprisingly poorly represented - I'd have loved to have written up something on Burial or LCD Soundsystem, or guys like Theo Parrish or Ricardo Villalobos. Looking further back, I thought we might have more than one Kraftwerk album, and JustOneCornetto's list had some great entries from the likes of Tangerine Dream and Gary Numan. Just goes to show how spoiled for choice we were!
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Thanks guys, I can honestly say it was a pleasure. Appreciate everyone's patience as I took longer to do the top 10, and the writeups got progressively longer.... I think I was just enjoying myself too much!
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And with that I can confirm that there's no greater incentive to get your arse in gear than to be compared to Divina McCall.
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1
Underworld
Dubnobasswithmyheadman
(1994)
In the world of music, there can surely be no more divisive a word than "progressive". As a term in rock music it is used to label a movement towards more complex, elaborate, artistic works that incorporate different styles, time signatures and instrumentation in regularly longer form compositions, different from the established tradition. Prog Rock divides opinion like no other sub-genre - one man's epic work of genius is another's over-egged bloated self-indulgent turkey. Rock traditionalists value simplicity, they want the sound to be raw and primitive. The progressive fan sees this as limiting and too simple - the answer they are looking for is for more detail and something more "challenging" and "intelligent". Despite more recent critical reevaluation, Progressive remains a term that can send some running for the hills (where they presumably store their Ramones singles), faintly muttering about "chin-strokers".
In dance music, the development of progressive house shares much in terms of intention with its rock equivalent. Tracks could be longer, long enough to "lose yourself in". Instrumentation could be more varied, arrangements could be fuller and more detailed than the primitive and minimal sounds of early acid house and techno. The music could incorporate different styles and sounds from an ever more accessible world, combining contrasting global cultures into one loved up movement. Today the description "progressive house" will divide as much as it does in the rock world - even though the line between genres is often fine.
Dubnobasswithmyheadman is an album that the progressive tag suits to a tee. Partly because there's a pulse of progressive house that runs through it, usually attributed to new third member DJ Darren Emerson's input to the group. But if you look at the identifiers of progressive music, Dubnobasswithmyheadman ticks all the boxes - the tracks are long, evolving and slowly unravelling compositions. The arrangements and sound pallete are full and varied. It's an album that shifts style effortlessly yet always sounds cohesive, a party of variety yet always identifiably Underworld. Progressive house, stadium techno, ambient rock, dub adventure, impressionist poetry.... Dubnobasswithmyheadman is all of these things and yet none of them truly do it justice. It just is what it is.
I'll be honest with you - I've never yet heard the first two Underworld albums. I am sure it's safe to say that in terms of reaching an audience both can be seen as false starts. The addition of Emerson to the core duo of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, creating Underworld Mk II, seems to have brought the group into focus and Dubnobasswithmyheadman is the fantastic product of the new relationship. It followed a run of singles that were more hedonistic and club friendly, and while there's plenty of thump to be found within, it's an album that rewards headphone listening, honing in on the perfect detail of the tracks.
The trippy pattern and bass throb of Dark and Long that opens the album hypnotically sets the scene. It's a slow burning masterpiece, the unfolding arrangement providing the perfect backdrop for Hyde's vocals. It's followed by the epic glory that is Mmm Skyscraper I Love You, where pounding drums, sci-fi synths and riffs form the backdrop to Hyde's half spoken, half sung poetry - part overhead conversations, part hippy love in, all cleverly and engrossingly formed. Hyde serves as a Burroughs inspired narrator to the album, introducing an array of characters via the song titles - Spoonman, Cowgirl, Surfboy, as if we're living in the dance equivalent of side 2 of Abbey Road (the original prog rock album?).
Picking highlights on Dubnobasswithmyheadman is hard - the album flows majestically from start to finish, forming something far greater than the sum of its (independently great anyway) parts. Surfboy's drum machine pulse gives way to metallic clatter before pretty bleeps come to the fore. Spoonman is utterly hypnotic driving trance-like house, while Cowgirl is storming techno that sounds like it's designed to be blasted at tens of thousands of adoring festival ravers. Dirty Epic wouldn't sound out of place on Depeche Mode's Violator, yet is stretched out beyond mere synth pop sounding part stadium rock, part melancholic piano house genius. The rock link is heard further on the Floyd-esque Tongue, and the chilled looping grooves of River Of Bass, with echoes of John Martyn gone ambient electronica.
It's fitting then that our number 1 is an all encompassing masterpiece, a perfect amalgamation of style and genre that represents the diversity of electronic music, not just in the glorious period of the 1990s that it was born from, but throughout the time period of all the albums nominated. Dubnobasswithmyheadman is progressive in the truest sense of the word, a brilliantly produced, arranged and delivered journey of sound, encompassing numerous styles and ideas yet always fusing them together naturally into a sound that Underworld made their own. It seemed to come completely from leftfield on its release, and still forms an entrancing listen to lose yourself in.
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Digging through some old vinyl retrieved from the archives....0 -
Should have the number 1 up sometime tonight..... just trying to find the right words to describe "This Beat Is Technotronic"
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2
Prodigy
Music For The Jilted Generation
(1994)
In mainstream pop media culture in the UK, 1994 is the year that "Britpop" emerged as the defining meme. It was the year that two different bunches of classic UK pop and rock enthusiasts/copyists (delete as per preference) released albums that would completely revive the tradition of guitar led music in Britain, leaving a stamp that would steer the industry for the next decade. It began an era that, regardless of taste, was indisputably retro in essence - an revisiting of style and method from previous decades, a deliberate filtering out of much that could truthfully be deemed modern. It was a story that culminated in the lead protagonists engaging with the establishment, invited round for drinks and canapes to revel in their status as icons of "Cool Britannia", in a seemingly buoyant and prosperous country steered by the new government, who had waited the best part of two decades to regain power from their opponents, a power remarkably achieved by, erm, becoming a lot more like said opponents.
What was it then, that this return to classic values, music and style was an escape from? While Noel and his gang were daydreaming about leaving dreary Northern towns to become rock and roll stars and Damon and mates were having a right old cockney knees up down the dogs, 1994 saw the planning and eventual passing of the The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, a bill that was seen by many to criminalize people simply for, as Music For The Jilted Generation's sleevenotes put it, "having a good time". The Act specifically referred to music that included "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". Britain was still under Tory government and while Thatcher may have been gone by 1994, Home Secretary Michael Howard was seen to be maintaining the order of an establishment in crushing the common man, in disengaging with a youth with an ever decreasing set of opportunities in life. Electronic music responded to the Act in various forms of protest - Autechre released a track where each bar was progammed differently so as to avoid the demonized "repetitive beats" (the magnificent Flutter). Orbital released a track called "Criminal Justice Bill?" which was just 4 minutes of silence. The Prodigy's response on MFTJG's Their Law (a collaboration with Pop Will Eat Itself) was hardly articulate but personifies the album's mood of furious anger and sheer defiance.
Britpop's return to "real" musicianship and old classic styles implies that music had lost its way by 1994, and while it coincided with electronic dance music's maturity as an album based form and engagement with a wider audience in the live arena via gigs and festival appearances (1994 was the year Orbital stole the hearts of Glastonbury), there's no question that the movement was at least partly to get away from "all that rave bollocks". The Prodigy more than any other of the big 90s electronica successes were complete products of the UK rave scene, and on their second album they were ready to bring the style without compromise to the mainstream, more advanced than their debut yet even more emblematic of the sound they represented. Far from having lost its way, in 1994 UK dance music was coming out of the clubs and raves to sit proudly alongside more established and accepted forms in the nation's CD collections.
Musically Liam Howlett had become more sophisticated and MFTJG's tracks are more intricate and detailed in their production and arrangements than his earlier work. The breaking glass and evil sci-fi synths on Break & Enter, the frenetic hardcore of Full Throttle and the thumping acid techno of Speedway are rich and full bodied in sound, a huge advancement from the bedroom production that typified the scene previously. The 3 track "Narcotic Suite" that closes the album presents The Prodigy as having a broader style palette - 3 Kilos adding hip-hop shuffle and flute loops to the mix, Skylined splitting the clouds with widescreen synth strings, before the filthy acid riffs of Claustrophobic Sting closes out the album.
From their earliest releases, Prodigy were always ready to break through to reach that wider audience, and MFTJG should be best remembered as an album that truly represented where music was at in 1994. It's full of moments of pop glory, never afraid to break out a hook or melody to capture your brain before it pummels you with its energy and vigour. The guitar riffs on Their Law and the marvellous Voodoo People are a precursor to their later move to become full blown cyber-rock protagonists. The snarling acid hip-hop stomp of Poison predicts the rise of other crossover electronic acts like The Chemical Brothers and their ilk. The chipmunk vocals of No Good (Start The Dance) (one of the great pop singles of the 1990s) are offer up a sinister take on relationship strife, before the barrage of beats pressure you into submission.
The Jilted Generation then had their soundtrack, an angry explosion of noise and energy that represented the response to a dismissive and opressive establishment, a totem for a legion of the disenfranchised. It's an album that stood in sheer defiance both politically and musically and stayed strong, its lack of compromise proving a strength that endeared it to a wide audience. It's an album that represents a youth movement of its era, yet one that still resonates to this day.
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Our number 2 is on its way, I realize proceedings have slowed down somewhat..... maybe I just don't want it all to end
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I loved the not knowing what to say sketches. I tend to like him best when he's "playing himself" I think, although Dee Dee and Jacqueline can be really cleverly done.
The end of the puppets sketches and the running round the playground bit were great too. I think the most I've laughed this series though was when he was dancing to the cars a couple of episodes ago.
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You've just reminded me I saw them at the Arches too! Checked the ticket and it was 6th birthday & final night party April '98. They were the special guests that night.
I guess it wasn't Slams' final night though!!
Haha, yeah, they were probably on the next week at Pressure
I saw some great folk at Slam, remember seeing Surgeon play there and Andy Weatherall playing the most brutal techno you could imagine. Stuart and Orde weren't too bad themselves.
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I saw them then, couldn't have told you the year but it must have been 97.
I actually saw them at Slam at the Arches the week Homework came out, they played a DJ set with additional sampler and drum machine. The Arches had been closed for repairs for a while so it was a "reopening" of Slam, would have been about January IIRC. It was amazing, great memories of them playing the melody from Prince's Raspberry Beret over a thumping bass drum. The place was rammed full. Them were the days!
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Nah, best write-up yet. Outstanding! I know other folk have said so - you should be doing things like this for money if you aren't already. An easy and natural balance between knowledge of the actual craft and the listener experience & context. Top work.
I hope some of these summaries are getting posted on music forums, making Scottish football fans look like Folk Who Massively Ken.
Thanks
I don't do it for money, but I've written at least a handful of them while supposed to be working, so that works out alright for me!
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Might have overdone the metaphors on that one.
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3
Daft Punk
Homework
(1997)
Completing a French hat-trick in our Top 5, Daft Punk's debut album statement is one of the key works in the history and development of dance music, a landmark release in its field, and one that crossed over to a wide audience. Named after a description of their previous band's music in a Melody Maker review, Daft Punk have since become cultural icons - sampled by Kanye West, referenced in an LCD Soundsystem song title, soundtracking Hollywood movies, video games and even an Yves Saint Lauren fashion show. In hindsight they were perhaps always destined for that status, and Homework remains a fascinating release, an album that intentionally straddles the divide between underground and mainstream.
There was an enormous industry buzz surrounding Daft Punk before Homework was released. They had a run of great remixes of artists ranging from Ian Pooley and i:Cube to The Chemical Brothers and Gabrielle, and along with a few US producers (most notably DJ Sneak) were at the forefront of a specific trend at the time to loop and "filter" disco riffs. Daft Punk had already seemed to separate from the pack though, adding off-kilter elements that gave them an undeniably fresh take on the music - like the initially baffling triplet breakdown on the Gabrielle remix, or the seasick wobble of the infectious riffs on Indo Silver Club (included on Homework). Although the album was released amidst a renaissance of (particularly British) house music, there was still a sense that Daft Punk were breathing new life into underground music, that their take was particularly creative and original, while still indebted to numerous other big players in the scene (many of whom are listed in the shout-outs of Teachers).
Homework is a rough'n'ready lo-fi patchwork, an engrossing page-turner of a sketchbook of ideas and hooks. There's an audible crackle from the low pass filtered vocal loop that opens the album on Daftendirekt, a rudimentary yet totally effective sleight of hand trick that allows the artist to control and create peaks in the music. The classic tech-house of Revolution 909 has a rough surface, as if we're somehow closer to the music, released before the final production varnish could be applied. You can practically hear the joins on the sample based house of the ironically named High Fidelity. This all adds to the thrill of Homework, a sense of hearing and feeling the creativity, where production finish and smoothed out surfaces don't matter.
There's also a great sense of simplicity throughout - while rarely seeming minimal, the tracks on Homework succeed because of how infectious the ideas are. The sweet syrup of Fresh is filtered to sound like it's been rescued from an ancient C90, while the build from the bottom up construction of Phoenix still amounts to little more than drum machine, synth stab and bassline. Everyone's favourite endless loop Around The World has very little to it, yet in Daft Punk's hands is completely addictive. Da Funk is the Roobarb and Custard theme reborn over BDP's South Bronx before that monstrous searing acid riff takes control.
Namechecking Brian Wilson and usually retaining a strong pop sensibility, it was no great surprise that Daft Punk reached the audience they did - the ideas and delivery were just too strong to fail. Yet one of Homework's great strengths is how it refuses to discriminate and differentiate between pop music and their underground precedents (God only knows what those pop fans reeled in by Around The World made of the brutal stomp of Rollin' & Scratchin'). That reach and unpretentious scope led Daft Punk to become revered by both the hardcore dance fans and wider crossover audience alike, a reputation that remains today.
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P&B's Top 30 Electronic Music Albums
in The Music Forum
Posted
Was reminiscing about this thread there....... good times!