Kutiman – "My Favorite Color"

This is pretty stunning. Israeli producer/composer Kutiman (who you may remember from his YouTube-mixing ThruYOU project from 2009), using only YouTube videos of 23 musicians as raw materials and some smart editing, creates a dense psyche-jazz piece that to these ears recalls someone like Pharaoh Sanders or the Coltranes.




More Kutiman at Twitter, Wikipedia.

Song of the day: #26 Deaf School – "What a Way to End It All"

Remembered this tune after a recent conversation with Pip, and it's a bit of a cracker. Much more rinky-dink and ukulele-based than i remember, but this actually fits really well. Turns out the song's about someone unconvincingly threatening to kill himself, and his hesitance to actually go through with it is nicely reflected in the tune's refusal to ape Len Cohen or Tindersticks or bloody Morrissey or whoever; in fact, the bouncy music-hall energy and the knowing backing vocals repeating the title phrase seem to reinforce the would-be suicide's reluctance.



This crappy bluescreen video represents the best quality sound version of the song on YouTube, unfortunately.

Deaf School are often called the second-most important band in Liverpool's history (after possibly the most overrated band in music's history), credited with basically rejuvenating the entire city's music scene in the mid-70s during its post-Merseybeat drought. Another cool thing about them is that guitarist "Cliff Hanger" is actually Clive Langer, who went on to be an much-in-demand producer (for the likes of Dexy's, Madness, Morrissey¹ etc.) and also wrote the music for legitimately one of my favourite ever songs, "Shipbuilding", with Elvis Costello.

¹ Christ, twice in one post. What a state of affairs.

Vote for Ben

Ben Black outta Delusionists is in the running to get on a remix of Baby Blue's DaVinche-produced "Paper Haters", with a bit of luck and enough votes.

There's already a version with J2K, Ghetts and Scru Fizzer and a third will be out at the end of the month, with the MCs determined by number of votes. Delusionists say:

If he wins, it'll give us a huge opportunity to get our music to a wider audience (Baby Blue has worked with big names like Estelle, Sway and man-of-the-moment Wretch 32) so we'd really appreciate your support. All you have to do is go to the competition page and hit the big green vote button.

Oh, and you might want to watch the video too while you're there! You can vote once a day up until the 25th, and there's a share button on the page so you can encourage your mates to vote too. Not that we really, really want to win or anything... Whatever you can do, your support would be massively appreciated.

For ease of reference, here's Ben's verse. Frankly, i feel like it aces the competition just on the basis of the gleefully subversive fourth-wall-breaking pay-off "and the kids they love this sound, you're flippin' right i dumbed this down cuz... [i want the papers]", but there's like 14 more really good lines as well. Go vote.

SCAMS video for "Youngblood"

My pals in the newly-reshuffled SCAMS have teamed up with director Sing J. Lee to make this video for their new tune "Youngblood". A mix of animation and other techniques, it employs some fairly laborious effects practices that used to be industry standard in the past, but have since been superseded by the effortless processes of digital.




There's probably a thesis to be written somewhere about reclaiming creative autonomy from the homogenising effects of technology through the conscious choice of reactivating the 'obsolete', with parallels to be drawn with things like Steve Albini's "The future belongs to the analog loyalists. Fuck digital" slogan from Big Black's Songs About Fucking, WFMU's Antique Phonograph Music Program, and the refusal of cassettes to lie down and die, for example. But i'm not really a philosopher, so maybe someone else can take on that one. Or maybe they already have! Hit me up if you're rolling your eyes at this like "duh! [Writer X] dealt with this in 2008".

Unlike a few other SCAMS (and associated bands) videos, i don't think i actually do anything on this one, except for maybe hanging around chatting nonsense while Sing and Andy painstakingly manipulated bowls of water, plastic cels and paint etc.

Just a quick note...

...to say that if you're here and reading this, you should probably read Pip's (sample piece: "Why I Have No Time for Jeremy Clarkson") and Ben's (sample piece: "Rap's Coming Insurrection: A Review of mansbestfriend volume 5, an Exegesis of Based, and an Exploration of the Negativity of the Underground") blogs instead(/also) as i am by now pretty sure that both of them are way better at this writing malarkey than i.

"i wish Sergeant Pepper never taught the band to play"

As you've probably seen, Radiohead have put out another record, and there's been loads of the usual hype as the world falls over itself to compare them to ever more bewildering things and/or use them as proof that, see, it's still viable to try and make a living off music: you just have to be Radiohead (what, you mean that's all i have to do?!)

As usual, i've been pretty indifferent. i don't really care about Radiohead, beyond finding the enforced reverence for them mildly nauseating. They're pretty much moving into that Beatles category of "if you do not say you love this band, you do not like music" but for a new generation, which i find not only kind of baffling and daft but also a bit unimaginative. That's as high as my taste has to aspire?

Anyway, here is the only thing they've done that i really like and/or listen to on a regular basis: a DJ mix Thom Yorke and the brothers Greenwood did for Mary-Anne Hobbs' Radio 1 Breezeblock show in December 2000. i think the point was for them to showcase some of the influences on their then-new Kid A record, but it works equally well as just a really great 90-minute mixtape.

Particularly great discoveries from this were electronics pioneer & scientist Hugh Le Caine, the Kool Keith track, and particularly the inspired one-two of Terre Thaemlitz's brilliant Christopher Cross-modding "Soon I Will Be Free" and The Santa Claus Orchestra's² beautiful straight reading of "Silent Night", which makes me yearn for Christmas at inappropriate times, like the beginning of March.

Radiohead - DJ mix on the Breezeblock 11/12/2000 (pt. 1) by nailheadparty

Radiohead - DJ mix on the Breezeblock 11/12/2000 (pt. 2) by nailheadparty

Track listing
Louis Armstrong – St. James Infirmary (International)
Jega – Rigid Body Dynamics (Planet Mu)
Antipop Consortium – Rinseflow (75 Ark)
The Fall – The Birmingham School Of Business School (Fontana)
Kraftwerk – Expo 2000 (EMI)
Kid Koala – Like Irregular Chickens (Ninja Tune)
Serge Silberman – Theme De L'Americain (Somethin' Else)
Grain – Untitled (Fat Cat)
Betty Davis – F.U.N.K. (Island)
Sonic Youth – Tunic (Song For Karen) (DGC)
The Santa Claus Orchestra – Silent Night (Polydor)
Terre Thaemlitz – Soon I Will Be Free (Bottrop)
Cannonball Adderley Quintet – Hummin' (Capitol)
Christoph De Babalon – On the Block (Meet Him) (Fat Cat Records)
Jurassic 5 – Concrete Schoolyard (Interscope)
Pixies – Bone Machine (4AD)
Kool Keith – Extravagant Traveler (Threshold Recordings)
Mantronix – Who Is He (Warlock)
Duke Ellington – Come Sunday (Phillips Realities)
Faust – Tapes (White Label)
Hugh Le Caine – Sackbut String Quartet (National Library of Canada)
Lali Puna – Rapariga Da Banheira (Hausmusik)
Autechre – Play (Warp)
Art Ensemble Of Chicago – Theme de Yoyo (Universal)
Gabor Szabo – Walking On Nails (Impulse)

¹ Post title from "Who Will Save Rock and Roll?" by The Dictators, courtesy of Lachlann
² About whom any information would be gratefully received.