Extra-curricular Song of the day: #39a El-P – "Drones Over BKLYN"

You better stay aloof when the troops move/ the suicide booths soothe/ the who's who of looters shoot, the bullets go 'zoom, zoom'...

Holy shit there is new El-P music, from his forthcoming LP Cancer for Cure on Fat Possum.

This has the same tangible of event as when he previewed the unmixed "Tasmanian Pain Coaster" from ISWYD on Gilles Peterson's Radio 1 show, and "Drones Over BKLYN" lives up to expectations. Beat and rhymes alike are so damn tough, instantly recognisable but still stylistically progressing from his past work. On this evidence, the album should be another massive one.

Fuck, i'm not gonna describe it, just click "play" below and see for yourself. i think i'm on my tenth or eleventh play of the day so far.

DRONES OVER BKLYN (uncensored, unmastered) by PRODUCTOMART

PS: Downloadable version at Mediafire, awww yeah.

Song of the day: #39 Pharoah Sanders – "Ore-Se-Rere"

My plan to blog more was slightly thwarted by travel: i'm in New England at the moment, and internet access has been a bit sporadic, so i've been doing analogue stuff like reading books and playing piano. Crazy, i know.

Anyway, i've been working out this Pharoah Sanders piece, which is tremendous fun. It's kind of a palate cleanser in the middle of the parent LP Elevation, a joyful 5-minute respite from the crazed overblown reed and piano soloing surrounding it (which, don't get me wrong, is also great). i've been listening to an ever-increasing amount of brilliant avant-garde 60s/70s jazz recently, and while some of it can sound like a challenge at first, i reckon this track could easily find its way to many people's hearts without too much difficulty. Nigerian jùjú highlife is for lovers.

(Originally from Daniel, whose radio show i've probably recommended you before, and for good reason.)

mp3: Pharoah Sanders – "Ore-Se-Rere (Nigerian Juju Highlife)"

Song of the day: #38 Bruza – "What U Waitin For"

What's Bruza up to these days? i hope he's still performing, but i'm not that in touch with the grime scene so i dunno really. But let's hope that, if he's decided to stop, he's become a motivational speaker or something, because this tune is seriously like the abstract concept of positive thinking did a load of uppers and then went round a club vigorously pumping everyone by the hand making them feel better.

With such a likeable MC, loads of lyrical gems, and of course his trademark interjections of "YEEEAAHHHHH!" and "YA GET MEEEE!" i actually don't see how it's possible not to be cheered up by this.

If i had to pick my three favourite lines, i'd probably go for:

• "put your balls in it!"
• "The feeling of success can be spine-chillin'/ people talk about they want the ice (YEEEAAHHHHH!)/ but they spend too much time chillin'/ watching someone else do what they wanna do while they're chillin'"
• and of course the amazing bit towards the end where he talks about how he hasn't eaten anything all day "...oh, apart from me cereal!"

So here's a toast to Bruza for getting me through many a crap day. Cheers mate!

mp3: Bruza – "What U Waitin For"

Aurist on Tom Ravenscroft show!

Massive props to BBC 6 Music's Tom Ravenscroft for being, as far as we know, the first person to play anything from Aurist's Not Here on the radio. "Dekindling" was aired as the fifth track in his show from Friday, May 20, alongside the likes of Jehst, Danger Mouse, James Pants and Eno & Byrne. Tom says it's "charming", and a listener agrees, adding that the experience is "like filtering gin gently over amplified rocks". We like to think so!

i don't know how Tom feels about comparisons to his dad, which surely get thrown around all the time, but i hope he wouldn't me saying he definitely has the same spirit in him.

Bonus round: later on in the show there's also a new track from Crewdson, who you may remember produced a couple of tracks on the first 30KB record ("Care Less" and "Crewd Sons (Ghost in the Machine)"), as well as being an ace solo electronic producer in his own right. i am looking forward to a day soon when all radio playlists comprise cool people i've worked with.

Check out the show in question on iPlayer (3 days remaining) or, if you're tardy or a podcast fan, stream/download here or download here.

OUT TODAY! Aurist — "Not Here" (AMP008)

Amoebic Industries is pleased to announce the release of Not Here, the latest album by Aurist.

Aurist, aka 19-year-old Londoner Liam Adams, is a noise/abstract digital musician and poet, among other things. He's previously released several albums on labels such as Cantankerous Records and the Australian/Dutch netlabel Glitch City, including Technic'ly This Is Art (2008), Profonan (2009), and the compilation Mislaid (2010).

The name derives from a now seldom-used term for "one skilled in treating and curing disorders of the ear". Not Here, the first Aurist release from Amoebic Industries, prescribes as a cure for any ear troubles four slabs of brooding, intense noise/drone over 35 minutes, somehow managing to be punishingly harsh and strangely delicate at the same time.

The album is available for listening or download at http://aurist.bandcamp.com. Custom handmade CDrs are also available from Amoebic Industries for £2 (UK) or £3 (worldwide). Each CD package will include a small item that is in some way "not here".

Track listing
1. Dekindling
2. Blind & Elated
3. Mes Rois
4. Powerless



"Should we take up a collection for a new record-player needle for Aurist, or lobby the Limey noise sculptor for an extended paper-shredder remix?" — Minneapolis City Pages on Technic'ly This Is Art

"Some of those advertised do harm by setting up a mechanical irritation in the ear after a time, and a better result is often obtained with... a disc introduced into the ear by an aurist." — The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI)

Listen or download now: http://aurist.bandcamp.com

More links to Aurist:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aurist/143778732317071
http://www.twitter.com/Aurist
http://www.last.fm/music/Aurist
http://aurish.tumblr.com
http://snailshellbackpack.wordpress.com

For CD orders or any further information, email amoebic DOT industries AT gmail DOT com.

Song of the day: #25 Kazuki Tomokawa – "彼方"

Been catching up on some 2010 stuff i didn't have time to check out in the year, and this extraordinary track was one of them, as part of Oh Yes, By All Means' ever-excellent mixes.

This one's from Around the World in 80 Minutes pt. 1, and represents Japan. "Singer, author, actor, painter, drinker, raconteur [and] bike-race tipster" Kazuki Tomokawa is apparently known for performances so wild he has snapped all his guitar strings in a single song. Indeed, the intensity of both the guitar playing and, especially, the vocal on "彼方" borders on the frightening. The closest useful comparison i could think of is when you first hear Black Francis lividly howling over the acoustic guitars on "Vamos" and suspect he might be genuinely disturbed. Although even in that case, i had more of an idea what Francis was talking about. The fact that i don't speak Japanese and therefore have no idea what Tomokawa's saying may well enhance the tension/urgency in his delivery. It sounds at times like he's trying to vomit out one of his lungs.

The title seems to transliterate as "hira" and mean "there, yonder, in that location, in a specific place", but that's from an internet translation engine and could therefore be balls.

Also, it seems both Tomokawa's music and he himself have recently made appearances in the films of Takashi Miike, so i suppose some people might recognise it from those. Not me, tho, as i'm terrible at having seen films and have only seen Audition, Visitor Q and maybe The Happiness of the Katakuris (i literally can't remember about that one).

mp3: Kazuki Tomokawa – "彼方" 

Song of the day: #24 Ben Butler & Mousepad – "Super Motion"

Originally wrote this preview of my pal Joe's new act for Never Enough Notes, where there's a Soundcloud player with more material and so on. This tune's deffo my favourite BB&MP tune tho, at least at the moment. Some of the greatest awkwardfunk i've heard in years.

Ben Butler and Mouse Pad is the new project of Joe Howe (previously known as Germlin, or one half of gay against you), in which cardboard castles and adult hyperactivity disorders take a backseat to freeform synthesizer solos and extremely geometric pullovers.

Joe's long-standing synth fascination shines through, but this time there's much more of an emphasis on playing. It's still dancefloor-friendly but more reined-in and richly melodic than before, recalling the warm ooze of the Weather Report or Zappa's Waka/Jawaka and Grand Wazoo albums, as well as a sense of pushing synth sounds as far as they'll go that's akin to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (another stated influence). Or, as one last.fm user neatly describes them, "like Prince and Stevie Wonder on your favourite arcade machine".

As well as the laudably unfashionable likes of prog and jazz fusion, BB&MP identify with the Scandinavian skweee scene, and have released one side of a 7" named "Future Tent" on the genre's spiritual home, Norway's Dødpop label. As well as that record, there's a mini-album of "Future Tent" remixes by the likes of oMMM, The Niallist and Tangles, and a 5-track compilation of early stuff named, fittingly, Early.

So far, gigs have been largely conducted in Europe, but North American audiences will soon be able to get their first taste of BB&MP in the flesh, as they play 22 dates across the US in January and February in  support of indie stalwarts Deerhoof. Any of our transatlantic readers would be well advised to take a look.

28 Jan 2011 US San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
29 Jan 2011 US Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex
01 Feb 2011 US Austin, TX – Mohawk
02 Feb 2011 US Dallas, TX – Palladium Showroom
03 Feb 2011 US Memphis, TN – The Hi Tone
04 Feb 2011 US Nashville, TN – Mercy Lounge
05 Feb 2011 US Athens, GA – 40 Watt
06 Feb 2011 US Raleigh, NC – King’s
07 Feb 2011 US Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
08 Feb 2011 US Brooklyn, NY – Ridgewood Masonic Temple
10 Feb 2011 US Cambridge, MA – Middle East
11 Feb 2011 US Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of Living Arts
12 Feb 2011 US Pittsburgh, PA – Altar
14 Feb 2011 US Pontiac, MI – The Crofoot Ballroom
15 Feb 2011 US Chicago, IL – Bottom Lounge
16 Feb 2011 US Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon
17 Feb 2011 US Minneapolis, MN – Triple Rock Social Club
18 Feb 2011 US Iowa City, IA – Blue Moose
19 Feb 2011 US Omaha, NE – Waiting Room
21 Feb 2011 US Denver, CO – The Marquis
25 Feb 2011 US Seattle, WA – Neumo’s
26 Feb 2011 US Portland, OR – Holocene

mp3: Ben Butler & Mousepad – "Super Motion"

Song of the day: #23 Prolapse – "Deanshanger"

Do you remember the 1980s?
I was there too...

Tory government, strikes, riots in the street, papal visit and now a Royal wedding to boot. Yep, at the moment, comparisons of the 2010s to the 1980s are just serving to confirm the cliché that clichés are clichés because they're true, in that they're both clichéd and true.

With that in mind, a revival of Prolapse's 1997 not-quite-anthem "Deanshanger" might well be in order. Formed "under a table" at the University of Leicester student union, Prolapse stated their intention of becoming "the most depressing band ever" and set about the task by mashing up krautrock rhythms, punk rock and massive swathes of brutalised grey shoegaze feedback, topped off by twin vocalists "Scottish" Mick Derrick (psychotic, Glaswegian) and Linda Steelyard (sarcastic, deadpan, English Rose) enacting fearsome psychodramas over the top.

The music... was crap
The claise¹... were crap
The hair... was crap
Everything... was crap

Opening with a blast of haze before a rhythm section like a wired descendent of "Yoo Doo Right" kicks in, layered with snaking guitar lines and – yes! – bagpipes, "Deanshanger"² then lays out a laundry list of grievances against the '80s, from a time approximately equidistant from their end and their 21st-century revival. The Royal Wedding "wasnae worth the paper it was written on". The papal visit "promised much but didn't deliver" (i'm always amused/baffled by this bit: just what were you expecting, Mick?)

Meanwhile, Steelyard (now a reporter for the Leicester Mercury) enacts the part of someone "trapped in a room" and fruitlessly trying to work out how to escape ("even if I could build a door, I couldn't reach the wood because my feet are strapped to the floor"), the wall of noise around her voice isolating her even further, her tone resigned. By the end she has given over to Stockholm syndrome ("well I feel quite at home here now...")

"I'm glad it's all over, wrapped up in a box and put under the bed," proclaims Derrick at the song's conclusion, but the circling spiral of drums and feedback loops after he's finished seem almost to acknowledge that it's not over, it's never over, and no matter how hard you shout it's only a matter of time before it's all back again.

mp3: Prolapse – "Deanshanger" [YSI]

¹ Whoever reviewed this in the NME at the time had never heard the word "claise", and proceeded to make a right tit of themselves when their quip about Prolapse condemning the "theatrical productions" of the 1980s rather undermined their knowing-condescension schtick.
² Lord knows, what, if any, connection all this has with the Northamptonshire village of Deanshanger.

#6: Chinese Church — "Hallowe'en 2010" (Stone Lion)

Hallowe'en is dead, long live Chinese Church!

Would you guys kill me if i coined the term "witch noise"? You would? Oh well, never mind then.

Former Glitch City man Tim J aka Wingus aka Chinese Church, now operating another label, Stone Lion, has released a 5-track web-EP "recorded, compiled and released on Hallowe'en 2010" with all samples, oscillators, effects, artwork and photos by himself.

Aptly named Hallowe'en 2010, the result is a bit like if the Scarefest rides at Alton Towers weren't set in old science research facilities or scary circuses but in a network of abandoned, haunted abattoirs. Its whispers, shrieks, howls and all-round mechanical clanking also occasionally recall the claustrophobic lost-soul squalls of the denser early Third Eye Foundation records.

"They're Driving the Hovering Castle" is probably my favourite initially, both because of the way it develops from a hissing digital thunderstorm into something both disjointedly melodic and weirdly rhythmical, but always slightly beyond the listener's grasp in both contexts. Could the title refer to "The Last Hovering Castle" by Warcloud, who Tim got me into in the first place? Or Jonathan Swift's floating tyranny Laputa? Or the Hiyao Miyazaki anime inspired by it? Maybe all or none of the above.

"Ganesh Particle Conjured from the Eternal Lattice" is also really good, sounding like a bit like a 60s radio commercial being imprisoned by an electric fence made of whistling, churning feedback, but it's all worth a look. Get the whole EP here and check for Stone Lion's other holiday release We Wish You Are Happy New Year.¹ They also have other releases which are neither holiday-themed nor downloadable, so you will have to pay Australian dollars or the equivalent thereof for them.

— Download Hallowe'en 2010

mp3: Chinese Church — "They're Driving the Hovering Castle"

¹ Title now fixed, hat tip to Ben

Back. / Ascending mixtape

Hiya! So sorry i've been away un-blogging for so long... i actually have a fairly good reason - done 8 weeks of an NCTJ diploma to become a, like proper journalist and everything. If i also told you that course is a mere 20 weeks till full qualification and therefore somewhat intense, and that to get there i wake up at 6.45am daily and don't get home till 7pm, and the fact that there's also 30KB, label administration, writing for other blogs, sleeping and some other stuff i also have to do, y'can probably why the blogging's dropped off a bit.

i promise to get more done soon, but in the meantime: a) you might wanna catch me instead as @diss1 on Twitter [HA! you hypocrite! caught you! etc.] where i now find communicating in sub-SMS chunks to actually be useful, manageable and actually kinda fun [yeh yeh i was wrong in this article i admit it, but hey in the last week or so Charlie Brooker's come out and basically admitted that the last several years of his work was nihilistic gallery-playing so i think i'm allowed one].

Now, a brief return to mix-making. i used to do a load of mixes before Google started summarily shutting down music blogs for copyright infringement. i still make them, but now i just don't post them up any more. Maybe i should start a separate blog just for mixes! That'd actually be a pretty good idea. OK, just realised my stream of consciousness is now conversing with itself, this is no good. Anyway.

According to Windows Media Player i currently have 1344 hours of audio on my laptop hard drive. So what i've done is yam all that into a playlist, order it all in track length order (shortest to longest) and then made a mix of the first 80 minutes¹ of that. As bewildering sound collages go, i think it's a pretty neat one!

i've edited out some repeat artists at my discretion (basically so it doesn't start off with an entire JAPSHITFUN album) but otherwise the whole mellifluous mess is verbatim.

Track listing

Oh Yes, By All Means - To Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany 

Atma - Minterlude Universal Enlightenment

DAISY CUTTER - SATURDAYNIGHT, WATCHING ANIME, GOOD JOB

The Watts Prophets - The Meek Ain't Gonna

Lil' B - Soulja Boy Checks In

Oh Yes, By All Means - Sentry

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - ...

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Neotropolis Euphoria

Alan Tew - The Detectives (Link 2a)

JAPSHITFUN - Gay

Unknown - power chord [C#]

Unknown - drum loop 7

Alan Tew - The Detectives (Link 4a)

Alan Tew - The Detectives (Link 1)

Daisy Cutter - NTERNAL GUTTERAL RAPE (Rorikiller cover)

Four Tet - Pablo's Heart

The Watts Prophets - Listen

Vague Terrain Recordings - Coming Soon

Atma - Interlude

Santiago Gómez Cou - Pedro Y El Lobo

Phil Dirt - An Introduction By

Reflection Eternal - Black Gold Intro

La Gringa Inga - Inglés En Un 2x3

Unknown - drum loop 01b

Nicki Minaj - I Was First

shorthand dications, 60-70wpm

Formosa Tiene Su Hechizo - Formosa Tiene Su Hechizo

Human Skab - Phone Goof Off

Scissor Shock - Johnny Merzbow Psychic Contact

Apples in Stereo - The Code

The Watts Prophets - We Must Love Black People

Jaga Jazzist - The Thing Introduces...

Formosa Tiene Su Hechizo - Formosa Tiene Su Hechizo [2]

El-P - Wacky Interlude Is Back

Sage Francis - Commercial Radio Advice Intro

Lucky Dragons - Cleanhouse

The Watts Prophets - Instruction

Laura Huxley - Introduction

Spektrum - Shall I Jump?

Boards of Canada - I Saw Drones

The Deep Freeze Mice - Untitled

Spektrum - SP-Spektrum

Circle Jerks - Deny Everything

Retribution Gospel Choir - The Last of the Blue Dream

Spektrum - Spek-t-t-t-trum

Wire - Field Day

L'Homme Fatal - Murdah On The Dancefloor DAISY CUTTER REMIXXX

Spektrum - New Sound Word Power

Frank Zappa - Theme from "Bonanza"

The Magnetic Fields - Experimental Music Love

Atma - Insterlude Earthlings

Lexie Mountain Boys - Stop and Discuss Part Four

Frank Zappa - "Godfather Part II" Theme

Indian Jewelry - Sirens

R Stevie Moore - Explanation of Artist

Yola Polastri - Los Niños Y Su Mundo

Clint Mansell - Dreams

Sam Cooke - 8 Bars of Soul

Lil Jon - What is Crunk Rock (Interlude)

Lucky Dragons - Haley Chaser

Spektrum - Release the Sugar

Spektrum - Ikerlude

Lexie Mountain Boys - Stop and Discuss Part Two

Nervous Cop - Setting the Bushes on Fire

Audrey Saint-Coeur - Diddlage

Scissor Shock - Codeine Dream of Sunset Eyeball

Boards of Canada - Energy Warning

Richard Pinhas - Short Transition

Circle Jerks - Don't Care

Burial - Untitled

Nervous Cop - Rice Precipitation

Bus - Intro feat. MC Soom T

Sax Ruins - Zurna Taksim

Saccharine Trust - Mad at the Co.

Frank Zappa - I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Sin 34 - Not

J.G. Thirlwell - Brock Graveside

Nervous Cop - Get Wolf Boy and Get in Context

Boards of Canada - Beware the Friendly Stranger

Scissor Shock - Let's Foot Fuck!

Scissor Shock - Codeine Dream of Sunset Eyeball [again]

Spiritualized - All of My Thoughts (Strings)

Burkhard Stangl & Christof Kurzmann - Las Hijas de Nieve

DAISY CUTTER VS OH YES, BY ALL MEANS - EXPLODE ALL DIMENSIONS

Analog Rebellion - North Korea and Kim Jong Il's Fat Fucking Face

Eels - Apple Trees

Nathan Johnson with the Cinematic Underground - Laura's Theme

Notorious B.A.C.H. - Gimme the Lute

Gordon Easton - The Drunken Piper

The Roots - Tunnel Vision

Men's Recovery Project - Get the Fuck Out of My Office

The Deep Freeze Mice - Bottles reprise

Wire - Brazil

The Watts Prophets - They Shot Him

Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen (original oratone ideas)

Dick Limerick Academy - Fazakerly

Circle Jerks - Waster

Retribution Gospel Choir - '68 Comeback

JAPSHITFUN - this is the only song that scrobbles so you can stop listening after this

Smog - Hole in the Heart

Wire - Different to Me

Walls - Gaberdine

Revo - Fuck the School

R Stevie Moore - The Voice

Clint Mansell & the Kronos Quartet - Dreams

Santiago Gómez Cou - Pedro Y El Lobo

Wire - Straight Line

Lärm - Pigeon

TUMBLEWEAVE - Pornstars Built the Pramids

Sick of It All - Braveheart

Burial - [untitled]

Scissor Shock - Piranha (I Wanna)

shorthand dications, 70-80wpm

Mugstar - It was too cold to go looking for Brancusi

Frank Zappa - When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Nik Bärtsch's Mobile - Modul 4 II

Yo La Tengo - Tijuana Taxi

Scissor Shock - No Scissor, No Shock

Scissor Shock - Know Scissor, Know Shock

Nia Ben Aur - Chi Sydd Ar Fai

Da Stupids - Allen

Aspects - Rev. Soul

Foals - Fugue

John MacDonald - Strathspey/The Reel of Tulloch

R Stevie Moore - Explanation of Listener

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - ...

Low - Untitled

XharoldshitmanX - Open You'r Card

Tommy Gunn - Lilting With Fiddle, Guitar and Bones

Guilty Simpson - Preacher's Wife Interude

Micachu & the Shapes - Sweetheart

Credit to the Nation - Honey

Nervous Cop - Pow Strikes Pow Implosion

J Dilla - Digi Dirt feat. Phat Kat

Burial - Untitled

Lucky Dragons - Unkefriend

J.G. Thirlwell - No Vacancy

Tom Waits - Let Me Get Up On It

Jetset - Tot Hier En Niet Verder

J Dilla - Kaklow (Jump On It)

Lexie Mountain Boys - Hairy Rainbow

Chrome Hoof - Core Delusion

Human Skab - Guitar of Africans

DOWNLOAD

¹ It's actually 75 minutes so, if for some bizarre reason you want to, you can put it on a CD.

Song of the day: #17 Weasel Walter – "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Yesterday i posted probably the second-greatest version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" ever. Today: indisputably the greatest ever. Word to Weasel Walter.

"i'm just a poor boy, nobody likes me"... blastbeats... a recorder solo... that AMAZING drum sound. Perfect. The confused, angry comments under the YouTube video just make it all the more sweet.

Song of the day: #16 The Thurston Lava Tube – "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Via Lachlann, who sent it to me via Spotify: probably the second-best version of this song ever recorded. (No, the best is not the one you're thinking of.) The genius switch-up at 0:41 is worth the admission fee alone. For that matter, so is the whole "i see a little silhouette-a of a man" section.

Named after a volcanic tunnel in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, The Thurston Lava Tube are "a psychedelic, experimental surf instrumental band from Leicester", which i think you'll agree is a quite extraordinary proposition. They've done five or maybe six albums since 2001, the first one being a whole album of Beatles covers in a surf style. Their official website doesn't seem to work, but they have a MySpace. This track appeared on the 2006 album The Thoughtful Sounds of Bat Smuggling, as well on the excellently-titled Cordelia Records compilation Beyond the Sea: The Surf Instrumental Bands of the World Fearlessly Extend Their Repertoire.

The actual Thurston Lava Tube, Hawai'i

According to Wikipedia, one of The Tube's members, Alan Jenkins, was also in Leicester groups The Deep Freeze Mice and The Chrysanthemums. The former have albums called things like Teenage Head in My Refrigerator, The Gates of Lunch and Rain Is When the Earth is Television, while the latter's mix of "psychedelic pop, punk and elements of progressive rock" sounds strikingly Cardiacs-y and therefore immediately interesting. Gonna go and try and find more of all the above-mentioned stuff now. i may well report back on this.

Song of the day: #15 Kishore Kumar – "Bom Chik, Bom Chik"

Lachlann found today's Song of the Day, "Bom Chik, Bom Chik" by Indian playback singer, actor, lyricist, composer, producer, director and screenwriter Kishore Kumar, on Spotify, and it fills me with great joy.

i love everything about this song, from the opening Indian-language¹ spiel and Kumar's bypass of the usual counting in favour of an enthusiastic "A, B, C, D!" to the sudden ending, marked, bizarrely, by a cuckoo clock going off. The gleefully onomatopoeiac vocal rides an insistent shuffling rhythm, occasionally answered by serene brass arrangements, until at 02:43, a completely unexpected speed change-up leaves Kumar just enough time to spit out a few more rapid lines before the song ends. i don't know what any of this means, but it's great.

Some of Kumar's high-spirited whoops and howls also reminded me a little of the vocalisations of American roots music (ok, i admit it, the first thing i thought of was the dancing chicken from Stroszek,² as soundtracked by Sonny Terry). His Wiki bio indeed reveals that in developing his own style instead of emulating his hero K. L. Saigal, Kumar incorporated a yodelling style copped from country blues pioneer Jimmie Rodgers.

The bio also reveals KK to have been quite the practical joker:

Kishore Kumar had put a "Beware of Kishore" sign at the door of his Warden Road flat, where he stayed for some time while his bungalow  was being done up. Once, the producer-director H. S. Rawail, who owed him some money, visited his flat to pay the dues. Kishore Kumar took the money, and when Rawail offered to shake hands with him, he reportedly put Rawail's hand in his mouth, bit it, and asked "Didn’t you see the sign?". Rawail laughed off the incident and left quickly.[15]

According to another reported incident, once Kishore Kumar was to record a song for the producer-director G. P. Sippy. As Sippy approached his bungalow, he saw Kishore going out in his car. Sippy pleaded him to stop his car, but Kishore only increased the speed of his car. Sippy chased him to Madh Island, where Kishore Kumar finally stopped his car near the ruined Madh Fort. When Sippy questioned his strange behavior, Kishore Kumar refused to recognize or talk to him and threatened to call police. Sippy had to return. Next morning, Kishore Kumar reported for the recording. An angry Sippy questioned him about his behavior on the previous day. However, Kishore Kumar insisted that Sippy must have seen a dream, and claimed that he was in Khandwa on the previous day.

In the light of this song, the above makes total sense.

mp3: Kishore Kumar – "Bom Chik, Bom Chik" [YSI]

¹ i'm aware there isn't an "Indian language" as such, but Kishore sang in Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Malayalam and Oriya if not more, and i don't speak any of those so i can't tell which one this is in.
² And i forgot how funny the kick drum-playing duck and fire-truck driving rabbit are in that sequence.

Song of the day: #14 Daniel Johnston – "Some Things Last a Long Time"

Yeah, yeah, you all know who Daniel Johnston is and need no introduction from me. Three points i will note, however:

– Though Daniel's greatest musical love and influence were The Beatles, i'd be hard-pushed to think of any Beatles song that matches the tenderness, fragility or honesty of this.¹

– The vocal echo is just heartbreaking.

– The parent album, 1990, was recorded at one of the lowest points in Daniel's mental health. On the hymn-like "Careless Love", recorded live, he actually breaks down in tears in the middle. The faltering of his voice in the incredibly sad line "i won't forget all the things we did", starting at 1:55, sounds like it could possibly be another such moment. The emotion is palpable.

Apparently some band called Beach House also covered this, but from descriptions i've heard of them it sounds like exactly the sort of thing i never want to hear.

mp3: Daniel Johnston – "Some Things Last A Long Time" [YSI]

¹ Or, as a YouTube user put it with classic brevity: "DJ > The Beatles".

Song of the day: #13 The Chaplin Band – "Dancing on Townsquare"

i'm not usually a big disco fan (i don't actively dislike it, just don't know or encounter it a lot), but i appreciate the way it applies equal focus to both the dancefloor and the part of the brain that digs melodies and songcraft, unlike a lot of contemporary dancefloor fare which solely prioritises the dancefloor at the expense of putting any interesting bits in, and consequently, ironically, fails at both (oh hi, majority of dubstep!)

"Dancing on Townsquare" probably isn't a great or classic record (even my friend Jack, who introduced me to it, thinks it's "rubbish") but it has a certain charm nonetheless. Perhaps hearing it first on a sunny Brighton morning in the aftermath a night of extreme alcoholic carnage, surrounded by a group of similar recovering burnouts, was the charm. Plus i also like the sense of "everything-is-grim, together-we-will-overcome-it, possibly-through-funky-dancing" grift in the detail about the people "trying to keep their dreams afloat". If we're going to have an 80s government, we might as well also have soulful 80s solidarity anthems.

The Chaplin Band seem to have been a Dutch disco group from the early 80s (this might explain why no-one has ever heard of them). They're most noted for the A-side of this particular 12", "Il Veliero" ("The Sailing Ship"), which is a pretty great little overlooked gem of its own.

mp3: The Chaplin Band - "Dancing on Townsquare" [YSI]

Song of the day: #10 Dutch Uncles – "Fabio Acapella"

If we must have World Cup records, they should be like this one from Manchester indie types Dutch Uncles, the most conceptually awesome effort i've heard this tournament. It sounds a wee bit like John Cage scoring a potential England XI starting line-up, which is clearly amazing.

My favourite thing about it is the way the whole idea for the song seems to have been suggested by the title pun, with the music being worked out to fit that. i'm a total sucker for that kind of conceptual rigour.

Shame about Rio Ferdinand at 0:27, but you can't win 'em all.

Listen and/or download at Dutch Uncles' Soundcloud:
  Fabio Acapella by Dutch Uncles

Song of the day: #8 earthtone9 – "Tat Twam Asi"

i'm still kind of ambivalent about bands reforming as a rule, but it's definitely better when it's amazing bands and/or those who were underappreciated the first time round (i'm still not condoning, say, The Who playing live with only two original members or whatever).

This year's been pretty great for amazing and underappreciated reformations so far: first Godspeed You! reassembled and even get to curate their own ATP, and now the almighty earthtone9, without doubt my favourite metal group ever, have got back together as well!

Staggeringly slept-on first time round, it's now been ten years since the Nottingham group released their best and final full-length arc'tan'gent, which mixed proper dirty riffing with calmer, reflective passages, wonderful soaring melodies with brutal screaming. Vocalist Karl Middleton (also of The Blueprint, Twin Zero, Blackstorm) is to my mind one of the best in the whole rock game.

These days their albums are as rare as dog parachutes, but the band have helpfully put together a freely downloadable career-spanning greatest hits package entitled Inside Embers Glow and available from http://www.earthtone9.co.uk to prime the unfamiliar for their return. i'd recommend it as an ace collection even if, like me, you've already got all the records.

There's only one planned live date at the moment, at Damnation Festival in Leeds, but with any luck they'll play a full tour before much longer.

"Tat Twam Asi", from arc'tan'gent and also featured on the compilation, is maybe the quintessential et9 song, featuring both the broodingly melodic and full-on furious sides of the band inside five minutes, as well as the sort of questing/reflective lyricism they regularly explored.

mp3: earthtone9 – "Tat Twam Asi" (YSI)

Song of the day: #5 Ivor Cutler – "A Barrel of Nails"

Ivor Cutler never fails to cheer me up.

On "A Barrel of Nails", the late lamented master puts a very tongue-in-cheek spin on the tropes of the traditional folk song, the humour derived from the odd treatment of the imagery ("when a barrel of nails kept a body warm") as well as the insistent repetition of the melody. i get the impression that if you ever saw him perform him this, you'd have cracked up, and then he'd probably have fixed you with a stern, disapproving glare that would have been just as deadpan as the song itself. Such is the sense of mischief Ivor's songs give off.

At the same time, there's the hint of a real sadness in the song. The pretty dark image of the old man, his partner dead, committing surreal hara-kiri by swallowing up his barrel of nails is reminiscent of a story Utah Phillips tells¹ on the album The Past Didn't Go Anywhere, about his time in the Korean War and how, on the birth of the first child into a family, the male elder would go and sit on the bank of the Imjin river with a jug of water and wait to die, whereupon he would roll down the bank and be carried out to sea. The fact that Ivor's body "will drop like a barrel of nails" completes a similar cycle.

mp3: Ivor Cutler – "A Barrel of Nails" (YSI)

¹ Scroll to the third text block (divisions marked out by a single asterisk) or text search "Imjin".

Song of the day: #4 Average Joe Stalin – "Montel Gets Things Done"

 The first song ever written by Average Joe Stalin was essentially a list of directions to the house in Glasgow i used to live in. This is the second, a tribute to the talkshow host Montel Williams¹ and his eponymous show, often on ITV2 in the background in the traditional student manner. It's surfaced again on a compilation by the Little Rock record label, FUCKNO, to be released on April 30.

AJS has since popped up in a variety of guises. The track, written around 2004, is a brief, enjoyable blast through daytime TV and its irresistible cathode lure. There's more than a hint of Brainiac influence, all dessicated guitar riffs, stomping motorik beat and shimmering falsetto vocals (this is always a good thing, since Brainiac were ace). Probably the real win, though, is in the understated deadpan wit of the lyrics. i seem to remember that the band name is also TV-related, the pun being inspired by a really shitty reality show that was on around the same time.

All the daytime TV hosts namechecked herein have since disappeared from view: Montel was quickly cancelled in 2008 following an appearance on another show, Fox and Friends, during which he lambasted the American media for its pitiful coverage of the Iraq war and overriding focus on celebrity trivia like the death of Heath Ledger. He then did a radio show on the Air America network, which closed this January, and has apparently now gone down the George Foreman-pioneered painfully-flogging-kitchenware route. Richard and Judy left This Morning to do an eponymous chatshow on Channel 4 teatime, before moving to some godforsaken cable channel watched by precisely no-one, only to be dropped in 2009 because, predictably, no-one watched it. Christ knows what they're doing at the moment.

At times like these, it's good to know who your friends are
TV's a friend to me, and it'll be a friend to you (yeah)
You can watch more but your folks say you're a vegetable
Your eyes'll go square and you won't talk sense no more
Love is blind, but TV's much more sensible
Caring and smart and everything you want and more
When I die, TV'll give the eulogy
Keep it simple, maybe some Richard and Judy

Montel gets things done

Average Joe Stalin – "Montel Gets Things Done"

¹ Other incorrect guesses have included R&B singer Montell Jordan, sprinter Montell Douglas and wrestler Montel Vontavious Porter.

Song of the day: #3 Johnny Cash – "The One on the Left Is on the Right"

With the UK election looming it seems only fair to write about some (tangentially) political music. i assumed this 1965 Johnny Cash song was probably written by Shel Silverstein (responsible for the "A Boy Named Sue" lyrics) but it's in fact by a songwriter and producer at Sun Studios named "Cowboy" Jack Clement, who also discovered Jerry Lee Lewis. "The One on the Right Is on the Left" is one of those songs that comes across both jokey and tough at the same time.

It's an account of a "pickin', singin' folk group" and their eventual break up over "political incompatibility". The wry humour suggests that Clement might have based the song on his own experiences playing steel guitar in a local group in the 50s. My favourite bit, apart from the wordplay, is probably the way Johnny, as the inept drummer confronted with his bandmates beating the piss out of each other on stage in front of him, resignedly intones "oh dear!"

Fortunately none of my groups have broken up for political reasons (yet). Though it'd probably beat "going on indefinite hiatus" because of "musical differences".

mp3: Johnny Cash – "The One on the Left Is on the Right"