9 September 2014

No live session this week, so back to the tried and trusted format of great records.

The Fall - Fibre Book Troll
Always exciting to hear new stuff from The Fall. This is just great. About abuse on social media, if you didn't quite get it. This is available on a compilation from Modeselektor. Volume 3.

Mazes - Salford
From a band from Salford to a track called Salford. They're from London though. From the album Wooden Aquarium which came out yesterday. Bit of a Kings Of Leon feel to it, but with more about it to lift above that level.

Tomorrows Tulips - Glued To You
Dreamy. This is off When which comes out on October 7. It threatens to take off at several points during the record, but always remains reserved. I like that.

Cover Version Corner
Teenage Fanclub/Nai Harvest - Ain't That Enough
You can't go too far wrong covering a Teenage Fanclub track. Did they ever make a bad tune? The original is off 1997's Songs From Northern Britain - which it remains at the moment. Nai Harvest are from Sheffield and that came out in March on Art Is Hard.

Zero 7 - Simple Science
About as poppy as I get, but this is the 12" version which I much prefer. All seven-and-three-quarter minutes of it. Gives it more time to develop than the cut-down radio edit.

Total Control - Flesh War
I sat through this trying to work out what it reminded me of. I think it's Sisters Of Mercy. A bit. That's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. They're from Melbourne and that's off the album Typical System which came out in June.

Peaking Lights - Breakdown
A husband and wife duo from San Francisco, this slice of joy is on Cosmic Logic which is out on October 7.

Riot !n Magenta - Breaking Down
Our first foray to Singapore, which calls to mind an old joke to which the punchline is "well he was no Dean Martin". Anyway, that's the first of three tracks from last year which somehow slipped through the net. This is on an EP called Cloud.

Gap Dream - Shine Your Love
From Cleveland, Ohio this drew me in with those chords at the top that reminded me of Wendy Carlos and her Switched-On Bach. This is on an album called Shine Your Light, again from last year.

Bill Callahan - Ride My Arrow
Joyous. This is off last year's Dream River album of which there is a totally dub version that came out earlier this year. I genuinely don't know which I prefer.

One Degree of Separation
Breakwater - Release The Beast
Daft Punk - Robot Rock
Not too tricky this week - it's sampling, the latter of which does a lot of with the first. That Breakwater track is from 1980 and the album Splashdown. The Daft Punk one is from 2001's smaash hit Discovery.

Ought - Habit
From Montreal and the album More Than Any Other Day. Another one that reminds me of something I can't bring to mind. Maybe it doesn't. Bloody good though.

warrenpeace ft Natasha Fox - Indoor Voice
Another one from the quite brilliant album SDR007 and probably the last one I can play on a family station. Great vocals.

Aphex Twin - minipops 67 [120:2] (source field mix)
Here's exciting. The first album from Richard D James in 13 years. Syro is the title and this is the first track released from it. Immediately recognisable as an Aphex Twin track and no less bad for that.

Here's most of that on YouTube:


and most of it on Soundcloud:


Not back next week - football again - but the week after.

2 September 2014

We were bumped for football again last week. Stupid midweek games... Anyway, we're back and in a first for the show, we have LIVE MUSIC in the studio.

John MOuse - I Was A Goalkeeper
From the album The Death Of John MOuse which came out in July and was criminally overlooked by myself. I'm making good on it now though. There's a quite remarkable version of the national anthem, On Ilkley Moor Baht 'At, on there as well which is worth seeking out.

Modern Faces - Lufthansa
An unsigned  band from Dunfermline, this is part of a double-A side release with Matter Of Time on the flip side to this. I travelled a lot with Lufthansa when I worked in Germany. I always wondered where they found pickles so small to fit in their teeny-tiny pastrami sandwiches. No answers to that conundrum are to be found here, but it's a bloody good tune anyway. It was released last week.

Ravioli Me Away - Cat Call
Quirky, to say the least. From the album The Inevitable Album, which is among the best titles of this and any other year, which came out two weeks ago. It really gets in your head.

Live session, part 1
Ross Taylor - Song To Woody (live)
Delighted to welcome Ross to the studio to play us a few tracks, starting with this cover of a Dylan number. We spoke about influences, other projects and the songwriting process as well. I recorded the show and will attempt to get clips of the live sections up on here at some point. Needless to say, I was hoping rather than trusting that this was all going to work, but it did so beautifully. Apologies to Ross for using him as a guinea pig, but someone had to be first. I will definitely be doing it again.

Here he is tuning up, mic and level-checking.


The Pooh Sticks - On Tape
From 1988 and the album Orgasm. Bit of an earworm this, but no less bad for it.

Pulled Apart By Horses - Lizard Baby
Bit of a Leeds-a-thon for the next three tracks starting with this. The new album Blood came out yesterday.

Hookworms - The Impasse
Their debut album Pearl Mystic was quite remarkable, so the expectations for their second are huge. It's coming out in November, it's called the Hum and this is the first release from that. Fantastic.

Flies On Me - Can You Smell That Burning Noise?
Self-styled musical revolutionaries, this is available as a free download from their bandcamp page. And well worth getting hold of, just as I did.

The Landseers - The Royal We
It's things like this that make Twitter work for me. Without chatting to, ostensibly, strangers about the Tour de France, I'd not have found it.

Teen Brains - Fluke
Another one from the compilation put out by Beech Coma records - volume 2, specifically.

Live session, part 2
Ross Taylor - A Story For Louise (live)
Ross Taylor - The Garden (live)
Two Taylor originals for the second part of our live session. Both can be found on the forthcoming EP also called The Garden. For more of Ross, check out his Facebook page and he's on Soundcloud too. Do check him out. We'll definitely be having him back in and huge, huge thanks again to him for coming in.

warrenpeace - Hungry
And now for something completely different... The album release passed me by, which is odd as I've played a track from it ages ago. The whole, SDR007, is a work of twisted genius fusing manic guitar and some heavy beats. Well worth checking out.

Whilst - Umgebung
From the EP Everything There Was Was There, which is easy for me to say.

Shift Work - Scaled To Fit
And to end, this from an EP of the same name. The best thing I've heard this year, maybe in five years, maybe even in ten. Utterly brilliant. I've basically had it on a loop for a fortnight. Absolutely love it.

Here's most of that on YouTube:



and some of it on Soundcloud:



and I'll try to get the live bits up somewhere at some point.
Back next week.

22 July 2013

Bit cooler today and everything is working fine.

Drenge - Face Like A Skull
John: Show favourites, this is their new single. They suddenly gained national notoriety when namechecked in Tom Watson MP's letter of resignation from his post as Labour's election strategist. Not unwelcome publicity, but they seemed quite bemused by it all.
Carolyn: Yes, it was more about how he was urging Ed Miliband to make sure he had time for the wider pursuits in life. Either way, good band, good feel to it all and more power to them.

Warren Peace - FRANKLYSTVN
John: That's a couple of records in one from Warren Borg and Buddy Peace with some philosophising on love and life from one of our favourite artists Scroobius Pip.
Carolyn: And why not?
John: I guess we pronounce it 'frankly Steven'.

Silver Arm - Dead Tongues
John: Another band that came to my attention via Twitter. 'Listen to this if you like', they said, 'or if not, just imagine a horse with a machine gun ripping your face off'. Which is fair enough I suppose. I don't know a lot about them - they're from down south somewhere - but I like their energy and attitude.



Cover Version Corner
Small Faces/Ride - That Man
John: Same song, one stripped back and bare, the other massively produced and engineered within an inch of it's life. The original is off 1967's 'From The Beginning' while Ride's is off a compilation called 'Long Agos And Worlds Apart: A Tribute To The Small Faces' which came out in 1995. While trying to find out more about that record, I searched online for 'ride that man'. My advice - don't.
Carolyn: Ah. Yeah. Good point. Don't try that at home everyone.
John: Or do while you still can. Don't do it at work though. Four pages...

Hot Vestry - Commiserations
John: Also in the Drenge envelope a bit, these are from Macclesfield and it's off an EP called 'Tell Me How It's Done'. I like that a lot.
Carolyn: The ending drags out a bit. Otherwise, yeah.

The Vaccines - Melody Calling
John: New from these and a bit different to normal. Nice and summery though. Now you like these - how does that stack up?
Carolyn: I want a big chorus to sing along to. I can't sing that in the car.
John: Oh. No.

NYPC - Hard Knocks
John: NYPC is the new name for New Young Pony Club. The first half of the show was guitar-dominated, so it's time to electronicify it up a bit. That's new and is released on August 12.
Carolyn: It went a bit weird towards the end, but yeah, not bad.

Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft - Vershwenden Deine Jugend
John: More electronica, this time from 1981 and Dusseldorf. It means 'wasting our youth' and is off the album 'Gold Und Liebe'. I play that because we played a record by Gesaffelstein recently and these are an influence. You can see the lineage and that these things go in cycles. This sort of thing is back.

The Clean - Diamond Shine
John: From Dunedin in New Zealand, this is off their 1990 debut album 'Vehicle'. Always worth a revisit.

One Degree of Separation
The Altered Hours - Sweet Jelly Roll
Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather For Ducks
John: I play that Lemon Jelly track in an ironic sense of our recent weather. That's off the 2002 album 'Lost Horizons' which we've probably done to death on the show now. Last time they featured in this section, it was a lemon link. This time, it's the jelly. 'Sweet Jelly Roll' is the EP from Cork psych-rockers The Altered Hours and that came out in April.

Daughn Gibson - You Don't Fade
John: An interesting character. A former trucker from Pennsyvania, the album is 'Me, Moan' and it came out last month.
Carolyn: So not Dawn? I figured it was a bloke. That's a rich and interesting voice.

Pixies - Debaser
John: From way back in 1989 - where does the time go? - and the album 'Doolittle'. We play that as it contains oblique references to the Bunuel film Un Chien Andalou and we have Andalucian visitors in town on Wednesday when Town play Real Betis. Tenuous? Anyway, we'll be covering that game later in the week.

Here's all that in a YouTube playlist for you apart from the Warren Peace track. Links in the heading for that section. There's also a better, studio, version of the Drenge record up there too.