Nonwrestler Blog

Commuting in Tokyo

I guess a lot of people have heard stories of people getting packed into trains at rush hour in Japan. Here's a decent clip of what it actually looks and sounds like at a suburban station. So quiet!



Amanda and I did this for only a week or so when we first moved to Tokyo. I remember on the first day we just stood back in disbelief and watched 3 trains fill up and go past, but eventually had to surrender and just do it. In our case the station we were commuting from was the last on the line where you got in on that particular side, so for the rest of the trip more and more people were crammed in on the other side, forcing us back against the closed doors on our side more and more heavily. On that first day there was a tiny woman between Amanda and the door, and I remember the sound of the air forcibly escaping her lungs at every new station.

Labels: life, youtube

Posted at 11:20  1 Comments Links to this post

Weekly MP3 #6: Peter, Björn and John - Young Folks

This week's song is available to download from Better Propaganda , which is a relatively unannoying free downloads site.

Whistling intro! Druggy-sounding boy/girl duet! ESL lyrics! Spector-ish 60s throwback vibes! Exclamation marks! I've been listening to this song for a couple of years and haven't got bored of it, which is as good a sign as any that it's worth sharing.

I don't know think it makes a large amount of sense, but 'Young Folks' reminds me a lot of a couple of tunes from the 60s - Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot's 'Bonnie & Clyde' and Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood's 'Some Velvet Morning'. It doesn't really sound that much like either of them (especially not the latter), but in generic terms they're all 60s-sounding duets between two kinda lazy, slightly druggy sounding vocalists, one male the other female. In this case the song is actually only 2 years old and was written in Sweden, but never mind.

The guest singer actually reminds me most of Hope Sandoval (of Mazzy Star), which, again, is a bit more about the vibe than anything quantifiable...

I checked out the album this song is from and was fairly uniformly unimpressed. None of it had the big sound, and the absence of the guest singer showed up how annoying the guy's singing is. :)

When I was living in Tokyo this song and its cute retro cartoon video seemed to win hearts, so you could hear this blaring away on the massive video screens above the big Hachiko crossing in Shibuya 7 days a week for a while. I have no idea whether it was much of a "hit" anywhere...

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  0 Comments Links to this post

The biggest issue facing modern society

Punctuation in band names. It's got to stop.

Labels: music

Posted at 13:55  3 Comments Links to this post

Weekly MP3 #5: Barbara Morgenstern / Mapstation / Paul Wirkus

OK, my incredible plan of supplying a legally available MP3 from each of my fave albums of last year is turning out to be extra special... my assumption that these days lots of people made available at least one full track from any given new release seems to be all wrong.

I'd also expected the electronica nerds to be the ones most relaxed about this kind of thing. However, two of my enduring favourites of 2007 were quiet electronic affairs - Sart by Norwegian duo Pjusk and All The Birds Were Anarchists by the Austrian/German "supergroup" (heh) September Collective - and I can find no free downloads from either album. There's streaming stuff and what have you, but that's it.

Last on my album list was Woolfy's If You Know What's Good For Ya!! and aside from the fact that doesn't seem to have got a physical release yet (apparently Rong's distribution fell over) I can't find free MP3s from that one either... As per usual, there're some streaming tracks (including my fave, 'Odyssey') on his myspace...

So this is the end of that briefly lived theme, but I've found a means to wrap that up while marking the more free-form approach I'll probably take in coming weeks. It turns out all 3 members of September Collective do have free songs online...



From left to right:

Mapstation - Tapes
Stefan Schneider is the reason I came across September Collective in the first place. As well as his solo guff as Mapstation he's a founding member of two other bands I really like(d?), Kreidler and To Rococo Rot. His music may be considered boring, repetitive, monotonous... or subtle, trance-like and meditative. I like it a lot. His last Mapstation album was one of my faves of 2006 - at that point I hadn't really expected an ambient album to come along and grab me as much as it did.

Barbara Morgenstern - Aus Heiterem Himmel

Morgenstern's also collaborated with another member of To Rococo Rot, Robert Lippok. Her solo work is songs, for the main part, whereas I'm assuming her part in September Collective is mainly pianist...

Paul Wirkus - Blask

His approach seems to involve a giant table of boxes, cables and wires, which certainly has appeal quite distinct from that of the soft environment of laptop performance. There's a certain organic quality to September collective that I've romantically decided is due to Paul's involvement.

I like this track until the vocals come in. Hm. Maybe you'll like it more and be ever so grateful that I shared something I didn't even particularly like! Ah well.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  0 Comments Links to this post

Bad Cover Version

This is all 7 years too late, but I've been revisiting Pulp's last album, We Love Life, and felt the urge to rave about 'Bad Cover Version'. The lyrics talk about trying to replace lost love using the metaphor of bad covers to get the message across. At the time the album came out I never bothered to track down the video, but, man, it's worth it. It's one of the most nicely married-to-the-song vids I've seen in ages, both in terms of message and tone.



On top of that, the b-side for the single is a cover of 'Disco 2000' by Nick Cave. Follow that concept through! Follow it!

No video, but you can stream it via Youtube too.



Aaand for in-jokey reference bonus points, the lyrics trawl through a list of "bad imitations that got it so wrong". This includes "the second side of Til The Band Comes In", which happens to be an album by the song's producer, Scott Walker. Haha, I guess it's nice to work with someone you get along with well enough that you can take the piss out of them while they're helping you out.

Labels: music, youtube

Posted at 14:30  0 Comments Links to this post

Public CCTV music vid

This is a bit old, but this (terrible-sounding) band The Get Out Clause played in a whole lot of public places in Manchester and then requested the CCTV footage of themselves under the relevant legislation. They edited the footage together, and, hey presto, a novelty video! Was surprised to see footage from inside a taxi!



Pity the idea is wasted on a crap song and apparently having no intent beyond being cool, bro... So it goes.

Labels: music, youtube

Posted at 09:43  0 Comments Links to this post

Weekly MP3 #4: People Press Play - Hanging On

Man, scoured the internet for a free LCD Soundsystem MP3 and came up with nothing. Dumb. Anyway, figure anyone who wanted to hear last year's Sound of Silver has managed to by now.

No luck with the less popular Lukid either...

So, third try, People Press Play. This song is available to stream or download on their Myspace.

This band's self-title album dredged up a lot of memories of music I really loved about 15 years ago - fairly shoegazey stuff with female vox (Curve, Slowdive, Lush, and, yeah, My Bloody Valentine) - but mixed with elements of dance music and electronica from the intervening period. 'Hanging On' is fairly representative of the album, but, to be honest, isn't a highlight. I like the vocal melody, and the beatbox-ish percussion which always has me wondering if I'm hearing a human or a machine...

Three out of four members of People Press Play have been making music together for 12 years, first as Future 3 and more recently as System, and I've always liked what they've got up to, from earlier trip-hop type gear through the skittery glitchiness of the late 90s to their solo stuff as Dub Tractor, Acustic and Opiate (c.f. some of the backing track's on Björk's Vespertine). I wasn't familiar with the vocalist before, but I've read that she has certainly been releasing music prior to this collaboration.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  0 Comments Links to this post

Weekly MP3 #3: Group Five - Distant Stations

This track's from my mate Andy's second release, Distant Stations, which you can freely download from last.fm .

The EP's title track is pretty indicative of Group Five's "sparse scuffy abstract-hip-hop instrumental stuff." I was thinking about linking to the "my rhythm section is melting!" scratch-collage of 'East India Company', but this is the one that's become an enduring favourite. The sparseness and repetition in some Group Five tracks can generate a degree of intensity, but in this case I find the atmosphere really relaxed. The bending stand-up bass part is nice and languid, and the piano bits are really, uh, widescreen. :) Expansive.

Group Five is the recording moniker of Andrew Loughnan, a friend, some-time collaborator, and co-label owner of Angry Rabbit (haha, sounds so flash when it's really just a few friends!). He notes on his site that someone once compared his style to a faeces-flinging monkey, and I'll have to accept responsibility for that.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

Posted at 13:10  1 Comments Links to this post