Colin M
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Posts posted by Colin M
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4
Air
Moon Safari
(1998)
By its very nature, Electronic Music has always had an association with "the future". It's there in the titles, names, genres - Future Shock. From The Far Future. Memories Of The Future. Future Sound Of London. Future Garage. Throughout the various styles associated with Electronic Music are frequent links and themes presenting the music as the sound of future civilizations, somehow more advanced than other musics, suggesting that the listener is hearing something that they are doing well to keep up with, ahead of those stuck in present or, God forbid, even the past.
But even by 1998, there were electronic sounds and instruments already intrinsically linked with certain facets of that past. Air's Moon Safari is soaked in the sound of Moog and Korg analogue synthesizers that soar amidst the lush arrangements. Those instruments and sounds had been in use in popular music for 30 years and Air's music looked back to records from throughout that time for influence to create and craft their take on pop music. There's an air of retro-futurism to this album - of looking to previous generation's sci-fi visions of the future that didn't quite come true and ended up seeming quaint yet still "cool". It's there not just in the synths, but in the space-age bachelor pad styling of the artwork.
Every fucker owned Moon Safari. It became ubiquitous, the ultimate student coffee table album, the soundtrack to a thousand dinner parties, a go-to album for "chilling out" and "lounging" to. I know a bloke who, having done none of his Christmas shopping come tea time on Christmas Eve, popped into Tower Records (RIP) and picked up copies for everyone he knew. Even his gran. It just seemed impossible to resist.
And why would you resist an album this good? Air (a French Band, as the cover made clear, as if you wouldn't be able to tell when listening) had honed and mastered their craft over a run of singles and EPs (gathered on Premiers Symptomes) combining live instrumentation with those synths and vocoders to put together a collection of utterly gorgeous songs and instrumentals that coaxed and caressed the ears. From its opening rhythm and bassline, La Femme D'Argent unfolds into a swell of seductive synths and piano. Sexy Boy is Moog-pop supreme, and the march of Kelly Watch The Stars welds itself onto your brain. New Star In The Sky is a lullaby as delivered by a robot from the Forbidden Planet.
In Air's world, we could learn to relax and just admit that otherwise snubbed and maligned music from our parents' era might actually be, you know, pretty cool. Ce Matin-la could be Herb Alpert. You Make It Easy sounds like a French Carpenters. Moon Safari recalled so much great music, from Pet Sounds to Serge Gainsbourg, The Great Gig In The Sky to Jean-Jaques Perrey, yet pulled it all together to make something new, a luscious treasure of classic perfectly crafted pop whose reach will last as long as all of those other touchstones of the lineage.
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I was thinking of the individuals or acts who made a significant contribution to electronic msic but never made a truly landmark album and thought the thread may continue with their recognition following the completion of the Top 30. Same with stand-out singles.
That's a good idea - there are loads of people who could be included and don't have definitive albums. Might be a nice change from focussing on the album too.
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5
Daft Punk
Discovery
(2001)
Kraftwerk may have been the original pop robots, but Daft Punk took the concept and ran with it in presenting their second album. Having made a point of performing wearing masks to hide their own faces early on after breaking through to the mainstream, their image around the time of Discovery became the slicker robotic image we have come to associate with them ("funkadelic Power Rangers" as the NME described). Their music went through a similar transition, upgrading from the more rough and ready approach of their debut to a more polished and poppier sound. Daft Punk 2.0 was more dazzling and colourful than before, with more high end production values and a more focussed presentation - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. As with any product upgrade there was initial dissent among fans and critics alike - on the face of it their world was suddenly more deliberately commercial and happy to indulge in the cheese factor that has "proper" dance music snobs scrabbling for their ordered collection of Basic Channel 12"s. Discovery though was a glorious pop explosion, where Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo capture and fashion a myriad of components into tightly reined mini-masterpieces.
The opening four tracks alone comprise a terrific flurry of ideas demonstrating just how joyful Daft Punk's music can be. Lead single and infectious party anthem One More Time opens proceedings, before the magnificent Aerodynamic harnesses funk riffs and OTT Van Halen-esque guitar flourishes before unfolding into lush baroque electro that sounds like the ghost of J.S. Bach inhabiting the body of Giorgio Moroder. The filtered disco loops and adoringly corny lyrics of Digital Love can't help but raise a smile before the jerky android inflections of the aforementioned Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger take control. It's a stunning run of tracks that manage to fit in far more musical ideas than many pop groups muster up in multi-album careers.
The skill of Daft Punk here is in combining those contrasting ideas that on paper just shouldn't work into an ultimately unique and trademark brand of music of their own - this is cyber disco for the 21st Century. Barry Manilow is looped to surprisingly great effect on the raw stomp of Superheroes, those baroque melodies appear again on Veridis Quo (try reading it slowly) and the slow 80s funk of Something About Us and smooth bed of synth on Voyager give some respite from the otherwise unstoppable energy that emerges from the album. The squelching P-Funk of Short Circuit breaks down into distortion towards the end, as if the overworked circuitry cannot handle the amount of information required to reproduce these tracks. Recovery occurs with the reinforcements of underground dance heroes Todd Edwards on the sample chopping Face To Face and house legend Romanthony on the closing epic Too Long.
Discovery was a huge leap out of the 90s for Daft Punk, presenting a fantastic list of possible futures for dance music, synthesizing previous musics into a brave new world of pop music that the world could enjoy the struggle to keep up with. Most importantly though it's just a joy to listen to, demonstrating how innovative and wonderfully baffling pop music can be in the right hands.
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Bump!
Don't leave us hanging
NB: Pretty sure I had R+S in my top 5.
We'll be ending the suspense with the top 5 this week, I had a hectic weekend but we'll be back on track shortly. I'm just refreshing my brain on what they sound like before I get to spout forth about them
On the "I wish I'd included that" front, I wish I had remembered The Black Dog's "Bytes", was listening to a couple of bits from it and it's up there with the other greats from that era. Maybe we could do a great albums that never made it list!
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One of the huge plus points from this labour of love for me has been rediscovering Leftism, an album that I really hadn't listened to for a loooong time. I always knew it was great and listened plenty at the time, but it had been badly neglected for a while. It's good to go back to these things with fresh ears again.
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6
Leftfield
Leftism
(1995)
Of all the great crossover electronic acts of the 90s, Leftfield were perhaps the most faceless, managing to maintain a level of anonymity while others courted the limelight. Neil Barnes and Paul Daley seemed content to stay in the background, letting their accomplished music do the talking. If Aphex Twin was an eccentric weirdo knocking up homebrew concoctions in his shed, and Norman Cook a cheeky chappy market trader selling his wares, Leftfield were high end lab engineers, creating state of the art product to flood the marketplace and influence a generation of following producers.
Perhaps taking their cue from Massive Attack, Leftism saw Barnes and Daley combining their own production skills with a number of vocal collaborators, an approach that lent itself to crossover potential. Earl Sixteen's contribution to earlier single and opener Release The Pressure is not a million miles from the Horace Andy voiced Massive Attack tracks, while the rock and indie set were openly courted with offerings from Sex Pistol John Lydon on Open Up and erm, Toni Halliday from Curve on the shuffling hypnotic groove of Original.
Release The Pressure's reggae inflected swell also points towards another theme that runs through Leftism - the music here is part rooted in UK and Jamaican soundsystem culture and a key work in that lineage. It's present throughout, from Release the Pressure's infectious skank to the Lee 'Scratch' Perry samples on Inspection (Check One) to the warmth of the padded bass on breakbeat epic Storm 3000.
Make no mistake though - Leftism is neither indie-dance nor dub adventure - we're never far away from a hedonistic thumping progressive monster. There's nothing abstract here - this is brilliantly produced and presented dance music that fits as easily into Pete Tong's world as it did the after hours party. Precision-tooled hi-hats open up the magnificent Space Shanty, while the swell of strings on Song Of Life is as life-affirming as music gets, forming part of one of the greatest dance tracks ever created.
Sadly Leftfield were not as prolific as many of their peers, following this album 4 years later with the (also recommended) Rhythm and Stealth and ultimately disbanding (though Barnes is now active again touring using the Leftfield name). Leftism then is an album to be treasured, an era defining collection that still resonates strongly today.
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Agree about the start of Xtal. I think that was what I was getting at with 'trascendant' although I can't put my finger on whatever it is a I mean. Sometimes I would argue for Drukqs ahead of SAW but really someone who didn't like the latter would have something more fundamentally wrong with them
I'll make Illmatic the next thing I try - followed up your D'Angelo pick previously and was glad I did.
Excellent! Illmatic is great, Nas is exceptional with the rapping and the producers are like a who's who of early to mid 90s hip-hop legends - Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor and Q-Tip.
On some days Voodoo is just the greatest thing ever to me, I might start a Top 2 D'Angelo albums thread just so I get to lavish it in praise
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I've been ranking Polygon Window above SAW85-92 in these polls but I think that might just be me being typically contrary, and I must admit I do sometimes find it annoying that 85-92 is often lauded so much more than the rest of RDJ's catalogue, cos I think it's (almost) all amazing.
Certainly there's little more reassuring for me than hearing that opening pulse of Xtal - there aren't many albums that I've listened to more in my life. (The Low End Theory and Illmatic probably
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7
Aphex Twin
Selected Ambient Works 85-92
(1993)
Throughout his prolific 1990s era, Richard D James developed an aura of mythology surrounding his music and his life, largely by design yet happily perpetuated by a swooning music press and lapped up by his fanatical audience. Lived in a bank vault. Drove a tank. Composed during periods of lucid dreaming. DJ'd using sandpaper and a food mixer rather than vinyl. He was presented as a prodigal teenage electronics whizz and musical genius who built his own instruments to create otherwordly techno innovations that took electronic music in entirely new directions. It conjured up images of the strange loner from Cornwall, surrounded by mountains of cables and bits of old machinery, somehow coaxing ever captivating rhythm and sounds from them.
On listening to SAW85-92 we realize that actually, he might have been using many of the same analogue Roland synths and drum machines as everyone else, yet somehow this becomes even more impressive - we realize that whatever the truth, RDJ was an incredibly gifted artist even at an early age - if the title is literal then James would have been 14 when some of these tracks were created (although we don't know which). Whether his machines were customized or not, this young outsider offered up a (then) unique take on the music he loved. SAW85-92 is electronic techno music marvellously skewed to sound somehow fuzzy, glowing with emotional warmth, packed full of gorgeous riffs and hooks.
The ambience of the title suggests meandering beatless synth adventures but for the uninitiated, you need to look to the mind-melting Volume II for that. SAW85-92 is packed with beats and percussive hooks, from the 80s drum pops of Green Calx to the lively breakbeats of Heliosphan. Here, "ambient" might refer to the way the sounds might live in the "real world" - the bass drum on pulsing opener Xtal sounds like it might be coming through the wall of the club underneath the nearby arches. The bubbling synth and tapping rhythm of Tha is accompanied by muffled speech throughout, audible yet not clear enough to have explicit meaning. There's never a thought that this might be "mere" machine music - sonically these tracks seem alive, more than just composition and arrangement, somehow something much much more than that.
What's perhaps most striking throughout though is James' exceptional gift for melody - he wasn't dubbed the "20th Century Mozart" for nothing. It's not just the high end riffs and figures, and often circular beds of synthesizer that nowadays are best just described as Aphexian - the basslines positively sing on this album. The bleeping melody of Ageispolis is underpinned by a tune that is as much the soul of the track as the rest of the arrangement. The acidic bass riff of Ptolemy will bury itself in your brain, while the dubby low end of We Are The Music Makers is the star of the show, as if the electric keys and Gene Wilder-as-Willy-Wonka samples are just there as part of the accompaniment.
Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is one of the most important, original and influential albums of all time, and despite repeated plays it still sounds as fresh and captivating today nearly 20 years after its release. It should be seen not just as an essential example and key work in Aphex Twin's catalogue, but as a wonderful entry to the world of electronic music in general.
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I hadn't listened to Endtroducing for ages (2 or 3 years probably) until fairly recently when for some unknown reason the opening to Changeling popped into my head and I went back to it and remembered exactly why I loved it so much back then.
I think Shadow's more recent music had been so disappointing in comparison that I had decided to shun him entirely
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Again, my narrower definition of electronic music has meant another album that wasn't in my list is possibly lower than it should be. I only put in music with electronically produced sounds and not sample based music.
I had Endtroducing in my list but didn't include Massive Attack, it's a tricky one really, in general I also went for more electronic sounds but I guess Endtroducing is pretty much entirely made using electronics (while Massive Attack would have a higher quota of "organic" sounds). I guess they and others that I didn't include (like say, Maxinquaye) fit into multiple categories without comfortably fitting into one in particular.
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8
DJ Shadow
Endtroducing...
(1996)
In the sleevenotes to his debut album, Bay Area hip-hop DJ and producer Josh Davis pays homage to a long list of pioneers and expert beatsmiths, placing himself in a thrilling lineage of sonic technicians from Grandmaster Flash to The Bomb Squad and beyond. DJ Shadow then saw himself as following in their footsteps, and while that may be true in terms of his musical methods, his run of single releases prior to Endtroducing... had already seen him expand on the work of those producers, demonstrating the seemingly unlimited potential of sample based music, its boundaries set only by the imagination. This album them was highly anticipated for 2+ years prior to its release, and it didn't disappoint.
Those early releases like In/Flux and the 4-part epic What Does Your Soul Look Like? had taken their lead from seminal releases from De La Soul and The Beastie Boys, and shown that great hip-hop based music didn't have to only use the traditional bases of soul, funk and jazz as sample material - in Shadow's world, anything was recyclable, from easy listening to dub to prog rock and more. What he did with those sources was to chop, loop, scratch and layer them into intricate sculptures that not only got your head nodding but let your mind run wild. It's both physically and mentally stimulating music that remains the touchstone for legions of emerging producers.
Putting together the cut and paste party hip-hop of The Number Song must have been a painstaking process (the album was produced almost exclusively using turntable and Akai MPC sampler) but it's testament to Shadow's skill and patience that it sounds seamless, a short attention span bundle of great beats and hooks. In contrast, the likes of Tangerine Dream-sampling Changeling and Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain layer samples to create lush organic sounding sonic journeys that soothe your ears while always keeping your head nodding to the beats. The gorgeous swirl of Midnight In A Perfect World is sheer bliss, while the juxtaposition of clattering beats with ambient notes sampled from Bjork on Mutual Slump demonstrates the potential thrill of sample based music, where the skill is to recontextualize sounds to create something new, in a way that just isn't possible with only live instrumentation. Shadow's work inherits some of the additional sound of the samples - the crackle of the records adding to the atmosphere. The music is so engrossing that you rarely stop to think that you're actually listening to someone glueing bits of his (ridiculously large) record collection together.
It's perhaps ironic that Endtroducing... was arguably the zenith of sample based music production, yet due to copyright restrictions and trends towards synth based tracks, was on release already a document of an approach that at times since has seemed to have become niche in hip hop circles - as rap music grew exponentially commercially the content and endeavour to create was diluted in a sea of shallow empty headed often forgettable music (Why Hip Hop Sucks In '96 indeed). Endtroducing... still stands as a remarkable achievement today though, and listening to it now reminds of how impressive it seemed on release. It's still as engulfing and exciting a listen as it was back then.
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Thanks for your kind words everybody! I'm thoroughly enjoying doing this, although I'm sure people in the office are wondering why the hell I'm writing the occasional essay.
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9
Massive Attack
Mezzanine
(1998)
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Massive Attack's third is a brooding masterpiece, brimming with tension throughout, and proved to be the breaking point in the working relationship of the three original and core members. It was to be the last album contributed to by Mushroom, who left the group citing the old classic "musical differences", and Daddy G would not contribute to its followup 100th Window (although he has remained a member of the group both on tour and on subsequent releases). The moodier direction steered towards by 3D aka Robert Del Naja made for a largely heavier affair, yet was tempered by great moments of light and funk - it was never clear exactly who did what within the trio, but it's easy to see this album as a tug of war between Del Naja's overpowering strong will and Mushroom's desire to retain hold on their hip-hop and soundsystem musical roots, with Daddy G caught somewhere in the middle. We can't say truly whether this contributed to the tension of the music, but in any case it makes for an exhilarating listen.
This darker theme is felt from the beginning of opening track Angel, as ticking rhythms and throbbing basslines expand towards the crescendo of heavy guitars, with regular collaborator Horace Andy taking on a more androgynous persona amidst the noise. Those guitars reappear at times later in the album and with the heavier mood, Mezzanine often feels like it's taking a more rock direction, thankfully without ever having to dial up Skunk Anansie to achieve it. The growling whisper-rap of Risingson wormholes deeper into the darkness, a far cry from previous dancehall and funk tinged excursions. When Andy sings "I've got to get away from here" on cover version Man Next Door, it rings true, Mezzanine forming the paranoia fuelled comedown from the hazier upbeat mood of Blue Lines and Protection.
The mood shifts fantastically towards the light though on Teardrop, its heartbeat rhythm, harpsichord patterns and piano chords sounding positively life affirming, while everybody's favourite ethereal chanteuse Liz Fraser drops by to contribute largely incoherent yet captivating vocals. (Apparently Mushroom wanted Madonna to do the vocals on Teardrop but was outvoted - maybe it's just as well he fucked off). The lazy swing of Exchange also lightens the mood, reminding us of the band's earlier efforts. The Eastern-sounding figures of Inertia Creeps, spooky ambience of the title track and climatic build of Group Four rebuild the tension, hooking you in both mentally and physically.
Massive Attack albums always sound brilliantly produced, and in collaboration with new cohort Neil Davidge here, every detail is worth savouring, from the vibrating bass string that closes Angel, to the tick-tocking beats on Teardrop, and crisp reverberations of the beats on Exchange. For all it is darker and heavier than their other albums, Mezzanine brought Massive Attack's sound sharply into focus, and stands as a towering achievement from one of the defining acts of the 90s, and one of the UK's greatest bands.
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Depeche Mode
Violator
(1990)
20 years before we all grew to hate them as they were seemingly destined to soundtrack the celebrations to every bloody goal that Celtic ever scored, Depeche Mode released Violator, their seventh album and often considered as their best. Violator was a significant milestone for the Essex band and served as a gateway in their career, seeing them establish themselves on a huge level in America and positioning them as a stadium and arena friendly band able to compete with the other rock superpowers of the era.
The making of the album also represented a shift in working method for the band. Songwriter and driving force Martin Gore was encouraged to bring less developed demos to the band who would then share ideas to flesh out the arrangements. The songs were then produced by Mark "Flood" Ellis, then building an increasingly impressive CV having worked with U2, Nine Inch Nails and Nick Cave amongst others. Adding to the stellar cast, the album was mostly mixed by French dance legend Francois Kevorkian. The album maintains a great sound, never dated in that tinny 80s way - the synthesizer sounds remain fat and full bodied throughout. It was 1990, after all.
In notable contrast to say, Kraftwerk or New Order, Depeche Mode rarely interacted or impacted on the dance world - this is a record of great songs whose arrangements just happen to be largely made with electronic instruments, and was closer to widescreen rock than they had sailed before. This is best exemplified by the album's leading singles - the stomp of Personal Jesus and pulsating Enjoy The Silence, which unfolds into a magnificent fanfaring swell. Both songs include sprinklings of guitar as if to sonically signify the direction the band was moving in, but the synthesizers stay stars of the show, the guitars merely additional sounds contributing to the fuller sound.
Gore's anthemic songs are key to the success of the album, with Dave Gahan's vocals capturing the moment perfectly. For all their anthemic quality, the songs are dark, moody tales of infatuation, sex, isolation, from the gothic waltzes of Sweetest Perfection and Clean, to the more upbeat Policy Of Truth. And for all the sweeping grandeur there are great moments of subtlety - most notably on the pretty Waiting For The Night. Subsequent albums would see Depeche Mode move even further toward the rock spectrum, but on Violator they delivered a terrific collection of songs, demonstrating their flair for framing great songs in ever enthralling arrangements.
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Hi everyone, sincere apologies for the delay, I am now back from the world tour and we will resume this week as soon as I have turned my head round the right way. Looking forward to the final countdown.
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Right, we have 10 great albums to go before the end of this - all of them are total beezers that I'm looking forward to revealing.
For now though we'll need a short break while I jet off on holiday for a week and a bit, so hopefully you won't all have forgotten about this by that time!
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10=
Prodigy
The Fat Of The Land
(1997)
The Prodigy's transition from DIY rave protagonists to full-blown rock festival stalwarts was not entirely unexpected - there was always something about even their earliest releases that seemed to hint at huge crossover potential. Their third full length capped that transition with a collection of massive sounding tracks that make some of those early tracks sound positively twee and toytown in comparison.
Critics of The Fat Of The Land would say that it lives up to its name, being a bloated monster that shook off some of the charm of their earlier work. There's no question that it's a far meatier affair than they had previously produced, and that is a huge part of the appeal - these tracks are designed to be blasted loud to knock their ever growing audience off of their feet. The beats and riffs punch with sledgehammer effect for what is at times an exhilirating listen.
Firestarter was a seemingly unlikely UK number 1, and while it's easy to see it as cartoonish now, it was a genuinely shocking burst of glorious noise on release. Followup Breathe is built on terrific p***kly riffs while the powerhouse beats of Smack My Bitch Up sound likely to blow your speakers. There are collaborations a plenty here too - Crispian Mills chips in with some pseudo-mystical bollocks and legendary Ultramagnetic MC Kool Keith phones in a performance on Diesel Power, presumably before Liam Howlett ran out of things to sample from his back catalogue.
The Beastie Boys-sampling Funky Shit is exactly as described on the tin, but the highlight for me is the more restrained widescreen sci-fi mission soundtrack of Climbatize, demonstrating Howlett's ever more confident production abilities. The Fat Of The Land is the sound of a band embracing their ever growing status and audience and making the crossover step to mainstream adulation, all the time relishing the prospect.
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12
Boards Of Canada
Music Has The Right To Children
(1998)
Bloody typical - you wait half a thread for a Boards Of Canada album and then two come along at once. When initiating this poll and trying to think of what would chart highly, I had MHTRTC as one of the leading contenders. It often represents electronic music in more general polls and is widely held up as one of the finest examples there is of "electronica", one of Warp Records' sacred cows. But, clearly the magic that surrounds BOC had these two albums destined to slither through this chart to sit comfortably next to each other. There are higher forces at work here, people.
Entirely why BOC evoke such strong feelings of childhood nostalgia isn't clear. There is a specific aesthetic to their music and imagery - resemblance to soundtracks to 1970s/80s nature documentaries, public information films and music for schools is often explicit in their tracks. They have talked of a process of purposefully "degrading" their sound, lending it a haze to make it sound as if it was discovered in boxes of old VHS tapes. Yet here in 2012 their appeal remains to be discovered by a generation who can't be nostalgic for those times by virtue of having not been around then. Perhaps the appeal is different for those people, but there is something purely about the music, both in the sound and melodies, that provokes those feelings. We can all be nostalgic for times that we never knew in the first place, moreso now than ever before with easy access to media of all sorts both from those times and depicting them.
The music here is terrific throughout - its notable not just for that memory haze but stands as innovative and influential electronic music. From the stutter and thump of Telephasic Workshop and the pounding gloop of Sixtyten, to the sparkling beauty of Turquoise Hexagon Sun and slow motion funk of Aquarius, it delights at every turn. The twin miniatures of Kaini Industries and Bocuma, gripping loops of Rue The Whirl, endless turns of Pete Standing Alone and soothing calm of Open The Light are only some of the highlights of this outstanding collection.
Music Has The Right To Children is one of the landmark releases in the history of electronic music, the first widespread glimpse of brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin's original, captivating work. Its influence is still heard in countless places in recent years, from the hauntological roster of Ghost Box records and wonky hip-hop of Moon Wiring Club, to the freeform synth workouts of Oneohtrix Point Never and cosmic melodies of Polysick. This was their introduction to the wider world, and remains for many their definitive statement.
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13
Boards Of Canada
Geogaddi
(2002)
There's a scene in 1970s cult classic horror film The Wicker Man that makes me think of Boards Of Canada, and specifically of Geogaddi. In a circle of standing stones, a group of nymphs dance in a circle and leap over a fire while reciting pagan chants of fertility, while equally circular flute melodic figures dance in accompaniment. BOC's music is often painted as being born of a cult community, campfire electronica drenched in mystery. The music in the scene sounds like a precedent for some of Geogaddi's fluttering interludes and melodies, and the basis of the whole film forms a similarity to this album - often light and airy on top but with a strong dark undercurrent running throughout.
Rarely has a musical act of any kind managed to form as strong and identifiable musical identity as Boards Of Canada. Often dense and monolithic electronic hip-hop beats, synthesizer pads detuned as far as they can be without actually becoming out of tune, child like voices stretched and processed reciting colours and numbers, snippets of nature documentaries rescued from the corridors of history, "the past inside the present" indeed. They evolved on this, their second album for Warp, sounding the same in analysis, though still somehow different - heavier, darker, yet also more psychedelic.
The balance between dark and light seems present throughout - the opening notes of The Beach At Redpoint could soundtrack Darth Vader's arrival on base before the Eastern sounding polyrythms see the track explode in a frenzy of delight. 1969's robotic refrain may tell of that year "in the sunshine", but the sinister undertone barely suggests you'd ever be wise to go there. Dawn Chorus has twinkling melodies and surging chords yet the whole thing sounds unhinged and off-kilter, My Bloody Valentine drones looped over slabs of thumping hip-hop. The perfect geometrical rhythms of the fantastic Gyroscope are joined by drones that sound backward enough to contain strings of subliminal satanic messages.
There are also great moments of beauty and colour - the kaleidoscopic cover art forms a great visual representation of the glow of Sunshine Recorder, while the gorgeous oscillations of the all-too-brief Over The Horizon Radar sound like BOC have tapped into the sound of a distant supernova, briefly audible from an adjacent galaxy. Geogaddi goes way beyond functional electronic music, always retaining an air of magic and mystique that keeps you coming back for more.
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Lo Fidelity Allstars
How To Operate With A Blown Mind
(1998)
You know those guys you see at every gig you ever go to? Perfect shaggy Richard Ashcroft hair, spliff-weighted eyelids revealing half of bloodshot eyes, supermodel girlfriend who looks like she's been cut out of a vintage copy of THE FACE magazine following him round like Toto in Oz, visions of impossible cool in zipped up army parkas while everyone else is battling heat rash from the sweat, the kind who you never see back out in the real world as if they scuttle off to live backstage at The Barrowlands in eternal hedonistic gatherings while the rest of us go home to our safe and mundane existence. Well, I can't help but think of those guys when listening to this magic brew of an album.
Signed to Skint Records, the Lo Fidelity Allstars were inevitably associated with the short-lived Big Beat scene, a now mostly shunned and sneered upon post-Chemicals-at-the-Heavenly Social/Fatboy Slim indebted collection of quirky sample based chancers, ramshackle hip-hop with all the funk sucked out, an excuse for the NME set to think they were "edgy" despite being too terrified to ever dive headlong into "dance music". This association is a misleading and unfair tag to place upon How To Operate..., a phenomenal explosion of ideas and long-form driving grooves that are positively dripping in swagger juice.
The tracks form a densely layered landscape for which vocalist Dave Randall (or "The Wrekked Train" as he was appropriately credited as) spouts all sorts of cosmic conciousness and brain splatter, snarling all the time like a Mark E Smith for the rave generation. What the f**k he's on about throughout is a mystery until he emerges into a seeming moment of clarity over the funereal organ and dubbed up trip-hop on closer Nightime Story. He provides a shapeshifting dream logic narrative, the inner voice of our collective Blown Mind.
The music throws all manner of ideas and sonic signifiers into the melting pot, from the scuzzed up riffs, spacey synths and stuttering drums of Kool Roc Bass and distorted disco of Lazer Sheep Dip Funk to the piano led waltz and guitar freak out of I Used To Fall In Love, sounding like Funkadelic if they'd grown up in 90s Leeds. Battle Flag is purportedly a remix of a track by a band called Pigeonhed, more accurately a total reinvention turning it into a funky strut fest while Pigeonhed's singer attempts to challenge ODB's probable world record for most uses of the word "motherfucker" in the same song.
It's a hell of a trip, a collection of speed fuelled extended driving jams that remind of so many great musics yet form their own thick stew of terrific flavours. Let your mind be blown.
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Hugely impressed with this undertaking, Colin. Your reviews completely piss on those I've read from people who're paid to do it for a living.
Opening this thread matches the excitement of grabbing a parcel from the letterbox that you know contains a CD and rushing upstairs to throw it on the stereo.
Thanks - I'm really enjoying it, albeit it's a bigger task than I first anticipated!
I'm due to fly to the States on Monday so depending on where we are by then there might be a hiatus for a week or so. Either that or I'll have to cut the word count dramatically
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14=
New Order
Substance
(1987)
Nominally a compilation of all the tracks from their 12” singles up until its release, Substance has come to be regarded as an album in its own right, gathering most of New Order's greatest moments so far into a 2CD set. There's probably no greater place to start with their music than here, as track after track of brilliant synth-pop hits you in quick succession.
It's also the sound of one of the key pop bands of the 1980s developing their own sound and identity after the crisis of losing their singer. The difference in overall style from the early oscillations of Everything's Gone Green to the more sophisticated likes of Thieves Like Us is remarkable, as the band embraced the emerging electro scene. Throughout the 1980s, New Order's place in the Manchester music scene and beyond was instrumental in the growth of dance music and clubbing in the UK. Parts of great tracks like Sub-culture and Shellshock sound like proto-house and are a world apart from Joy Division, albeit always retaining a post-punk spirit and sound that remind you that this is still a band in the great lineage of UK rock and pop - just one that were totally open to assimilating new sounds and influences naturally into their own sound. On these versions the band are happy to let the arrangements and grooves run out for several minutes before the "song" starts - these are versions easily suited to the dancefloor.
The relationship with dance music was a two way street - NO's position in the development of electronic music throughout the 1980s can never be overstated. Blue Monday is present here in all its glory, one of the great touchstones of electronic music, dance music, and popular music in general. It's influence on the emerging House and Techno scenes in the USA are audibly clear. In comparison to some of the other great moments on this album though, it's notable its restraint, the almost robotic vocal at odds with the unbridled joy ol' Barney Summer displays on some of the other highlights. Never afraid to reach for the stars even when his limited voice might not want to go with him, his vocals arguably add a charm that is missing from more note perfect singers.
The second disc gathers the b-sides from those 12” singles and is often as thrilling as the first – not least on the instrumental versions of some of those big singles, at times serving as a New Order in dub journey that is suitably weird enough to be more than just a curiosity. Listening to the album as a whole in one sitting is a huge undertaking, but it's a marvellous document of one of the key bands in the development of 1980s pop and electronic music, and one of the best bands this country has produced.
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I'm wary that that post is nearly as epic as the album itself
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For me it really got played out. Not just because everybody really did seem to love it, but I think the kitsch/easy listening factor eventually wore a bit thin for me, and eventually I had just heard it far too much (while other stuff I have listened to every bit as much never seems to have worn thin). In listening to it recently I have fallen for some of its charms again - particularly the two tracks with Beth Hirsch on vocals. I do honestly think it's a great album, really well crafted and I do like that it is stlil a bit "out of time" - it sounds like all that great stuff from the 1970s yet somehow doesn't really sound like it could have been made any time other than the 1990s.
I liked the Virgin Suicides ST (although I thought the film was all style and not enough substance, not that that is Air's fault!) but strangely that was the end of the road with them for me. I heard bits of the following one but never got around to following them any further. I dunno if that was because Moon Safari just seemed so played out at the time, because I suspect I'd like at least some of what followed.