Nonwrestler Blog

Weekly mp3 #19: Matias Aguayo - Minimal (DJ Koze Radio Edit)

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Good time party tune! Another one from RCRDLBL ... I admit the site kinda makes me throw up a little each time I look at the coolness on display. Found some good tunes there, regardless.

First up, it's yacht disco. Don't be mislead by the title, the tune is a diss of "minimal", i.e. minimal techno. Matias Aguayo sounds more assured than I'm used to - somehow less annoying than I usually find him - and Koze's remix does big nods to 80s Ballearic stuff (um, Chris Rea, dare I say it?). Mudd or Phoenix would be fair reference points for contemporary stuff. The vox mix up Spanish "mas sensual, indeed) and English to add to the Mediterranean party feel.

Matias Aguayo is a producer and singer signed to über-chic German techno label Kompakt. He was in Closer Musik and did another solo album for Kompakt too. Koze's also released some insane stuff for Kompakt. I like him a lot more than Aguayo usually, but the combination works awesomely, I reckon.

weekly mp3 #18: Ten and Tracer - Kunstenaar

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:10:00 +0000

The largely excellent label Archipel gives us this week's tune as part of the ridiculously named, free EP L-Msaria B-Lglass. Gah. If it's a nod to Autechre-style titling nonsense it's not to be encouraged. Mind you, at least Autechre's titles suggest some kind of playfulness. Just seems funny to have song titles you can't say.

Kunstenaar is soft and fuzzy textural electronic stuff. Archipel is almost all techno and the choice of sounds and rhythms points that way. Tiny percussion sounds are scattered around rounded, bass drums knocking out a largely regular doof doof doof doof on every beat. An off-beat skank and a bassline that's not only longer than one bar but changes at various times (my gosh!) suggest more of a reggae feel, though.

When I first heard American producer Ten and Tracer his music was more trad "IDM", fitting in with the sound of the heavyweights on Warp Records and wherever else. This EP puts him more in the territory of Jan Jelinek, Murcof, et al - bods making stuff which shows an interest in techy house stuff, but which is really still focused primarily on texture and home listening. That still fits the uncomfortable remit of "intelligent dance music", if you take that tag at face value, i.e. bourgeois music that uses the sounds of dance music but doesn't want you to get sweaty, boozed or your freak on.

Haha, watch my neuroses about the way my own music could be criticised played out in blog-space! ;) In fairness to Mr Canupp, his "about" page suggests he doesn't take himself too seriously. :)

Weekly mp3 #17: The Dolls - Martini Never Dries

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:10:00 +0000

The band offer up this tune on their website.

Loungey slow jam, all wandering piano and murmury female vox, with a nice touch of menace in the wobbling synth bass and beats.

Here's the blurb about the band from their site:

*The doll number 1: Vladislav Delay (Finland). Natural-born drummer. Acclaimed artist and producer with wide range of output. The studio doll.
*The doll number 2: Ars Electronica-winner Antye Greie aka AGF (Germany). Singer and producer who in addition to her acclaimed solo works has already worked with Craig Armstong on numerous occasions. We call Antye the art doll.
*The doll number 3: Golden Globe-winner Craig Armstrong (Scotland). Composer who has worked with everyone and everything from MOULIN ROUGE and RAY soundtracks to writing chart-topping hits for artists and acts such as Massive Attack, U2 and Madonna. You could say he's the film doll.

Weekly mp3 #16: Daniel Maze - How's The Serenity?

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:10:00 +0000

This is the title track from the How’s The Serenity? EP, which can be downloaded from the Test Tube net label.

Starts off with nose(-out-of-joint) flutes, acoustic guitar, and rain sticks, with synthesized swells. Should be ridiculously cloying, but things get interrupted. The EP is experiments with tape, apparently, and when some synth + mellotron flute type lushness swamps the intro noises it springs up with that pause-button-being-released tape zhwoing. It’s a thing of awesomeness. And as abruptly as the sound arrives it squelches to a halt, everything falling back to the quiet residue of the sounds from the intro. This approach repeats unpredictably. I love it. Beautiful contrast between the pretty, fluid harmonic content and the way Mr Maze messes with it. Yum.

Daniel Maze is a Canadian who so far has released only net releases. Quite a few of them. Some have beats, but not usually. Some are really glitchy and distorted, but not usually. This EP is my favourite.

Post-rock fans will probably find a lot of interest on Test Tube. I like some of their releases a fair bit.

Don't mean to do this, but...

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 09:55:00 +0000

Thought I'd share something of mine (kinda) here, because I really want people to see it!

A very nice man has made a video for Malty Media's tune, 'The Mescaline Man', appearing on the upcoming Angry Rabbit compilation Apropos of Nothing. More stuff in my music news... release gigs, etc.

Here's the vid on Youtube:

Weekly mp3 #15: Sonmi451 - Vladivostok

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Download this tune, or all of The Quiet EP, from Monotonik.

Soft, chiming chords, muffled clicking beats, and echoing voices yabbering away intermittently in Japanese and English. Something along the lines of Shuttle 358, Biosphere or maybe the quietest moments of Electric Birds.

Sonmi451 is a Belgian guy, named after a robot from the David Mitchell novel Cloud Atlas. He’s done a bunch of albums and the above netlabel release reissues material from an older, out of print CD.

Some Good Ol' Bureaucratic Nonsense

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:04:00 +0000

So I got a letter from IRD the other day. I paid off my student loan last year, and this letter said:

1. IRD had made interest write-offs on my student loan last year, which I wasn't entitled to because I wasn't living in NZ at the time.

2. They had now reversed each of 4 write-offs.

3. They had also reversed the reversals of the write-offs. i.e. made a one-off payment into my loan account to bring the balance back to zero.

4. They would be sending me a statement soon itemising what they were already telling me, but they just wanted to explain what I was about to see on my statement.

Then I got another 2 letters.

The first one was the statement, which:

1. Confirmed all of the above.

2. Had an opening balance of $2.78 in credit and a final transaction that was a debit of $2.78.

"Hang on, I thought, I've been gypped out of $2.78!"

The second letter was a cheque for $2.78.

Wonder what the difference is between that $2.78 and the costs associated with the write-offs made in error, the decision to reverse them, the discussions about how to record the reversal of the reversals, the typing out of the initial personalised letter and the subsequent processing and sending of the 3 letters...

Weekly mp3 #14: Some Water And Sun - Gloomy Town

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Download the song from Better Propaganda.

A very simple soul vocal meets blippy electronica instrumentation. Percussion and slow-mo beats carry a repeating vocal hook sung by a Japanese guy in English. The instrumentation and treatments are very indicative of John Hughes's later output, really. The bassline reminds me of Herbie Hancock's 'Chameleon' (I think it's the dotted-quaver, ascending semitone thing) with added squelch.

I don't know much about the singer, but, yeah, John Hughes. John Hughes III. Hefty Records label boss. Indie rocker turned post-rock solo act turned glitch+Black American music traditions producer. I imagine being the son of the guy who directed The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and all that leaves you in a weird position PR-wise. It's not like John & Julian Lennon or whoever. There's not really a definable audience overlap to milk, you're obviously doing something completely different, working in a different medium, etc. etc. but, man, dad's really famous, so you'll at least pique people's interest if you mention the connection... I guess the best angle is to hook up members of Tortoise to write the soundtrack for your dad's next movie. Then release soundtrack on your label and, yay, you have some relevant connection for journos to go on about.

Weekly mp3 #13: Songs: Ohia - The Lioness

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Download 'The Lioness' from the label's website . Completely different from the last couple of weeks, this one. Liking immaculately chiselled electronic production doesn't preclude appreciating the exact opposite...

My wife has called this crash-your-car music, but I have a soft spot for a certain kind of gloomy slow rock stuff. The vagely country bits, I guess - Mark Kozelek / Red House Painters, stuff like that. Lyrics like "I want to feel my heart break, if it must break, in your jaws / want you to lick my blood off your paws". This one's not Steve Albini-produced, but has a similar aesthetic to the Songs:Ohia tracks that are. That is, it avoids contemporary standards for sheen and polish in studio recording, and leaves heaps of space for some decent dynamics. Works really well.

Songs:Ohia was essentially Jason Molina's project. He's more recently been recording as Magnolia Electric Co. This tune is another one of those cases where I heard this song and thought "Shit, got to hear more of this!", then heard more of this and went "Ah. Shit." Molina does have other really good songs, but just not much that suits my tastes. Again I find myself pondering what the X factor is, but I won't go on about that again... Just go read Equus to understand my dilemma. ;) Heh, that's probably about as cheerful as this song!

Weekly mp3 #12: Dabrye - Smoking The Edge

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Download 'Smoking The Edge' from Epitonic .

Dabrye is probably my favourite producer of this century. Heh. It’ll get harder to make such crazy-sounding statements as time goes by, I guess. I'm also probably more deeply influenced by music from the last century, but, still, I love the direction he pushed a sound that I was already in love with. It’s easy enough to trace his influences, especially as he (Tadd Mullinix) does things in a bunch of styles under different names, so when it’s Dabrye time he’s clearly rounding up a particular set of genre tropes and working with them.

This is the first track I ever heard from Dabrye and still one of his better ones. A jagged, wordless robot voice acts as the main riff, swung against the super-crisp drums. It's got a hip-hop feel but Tadd's background in techno is blatant. There's some great staggering drum fills and tweaks but to a large extent you know exactly what's coming from the first 20 seconds. The key with this kind of approach is making the elements sufficiently awesome that you want to hear the same thing over and over again. :) He also knows to keep the track short. Good call.

Since this track came along Dabrye's sound has got grubbier and hazier, and there's been a big surge in people doing things in a similar territory. Things start to get interchangeable to those who aren't already into the sound... I swear most would think it was all one producer if you made a mix from tracks by Dabrye, Flying Lotus (who is getting big post his Warp signing), Lukid, Take, Caural, and other artists on compilations like The Sound of LA and Beat Dimensions. Chuck in some appropriate J Dilla instrumentals to show the common starting point...
So I think I've past saturation point for this kind of sound - while there are undoubtedly good things still going on, after however many albums of similar sounding stuff the pay-off feels pretty diminished. Still, Dabrye. You could nitpick aspects of his sound that make him stand out, but what separates the good from the bad is not something you can neatly map against formal elements... Maybe it comes back to the emotivist assertion that "I like it" is the same as "It's good".

Anyway...

Art with issues

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:08:00 +0000

Went to the revamped Dowse gallery yesterday and saw some interesting stuff there, including an exhibition that was essentially a series of portraits of people who identify themselves as trans gender or trans sexual, called "Assume Nothing".

There was a little sign at the start of the exhibition that said something like:

Warning: This exhibition, which deals with an important issue within our society, contains some nudity and images which may offend some people.

That's from memory, but that was the gist and I think I've got the tone about right.

I reckon it's fine to have a sign like that, but that relative clause, "which deals with an important issue within our society", annoyed me. First, seems very righteous to assert the importance and, second, seems like a weird assertion about the circumstances in which it's OK to show cocks in public. "Don't worry, this penis exposure is by no means frivolous!"

Beyond the signage, I found it interesting that the exhibition actually did deal with the issue it claimed to in a very explicit way, inasmuch as it was basically an entirely documentary thing about identity politics, consisting of the portraits, text from the subjects and the photographer, and then, for another layer of info, video documentaries about the same.

As a way of communicating ideas about an issue, that seems to be a much more successful approach than something that requires specialist knowledge of art history, post-modernist theory or both. The flipside is the exhibition had a very different feel from others in the gallery, and the photographer and film-maker both seemed fairly outside the art establishment - not in the sense of being "outsider artists" or savants or whatever, but in that the work shown was much more in line with a TV crew, a coffee table book or maybe a library display (barring the subject matter).

I found it all fairly dissatisfying, which has lead me to wonder if I ever like art to be about politics. I'd got much more excitement out of looking at some abstract felt pen drawings, some pretty photos of Antarctica and an incredibly detailed mock blueprint for a "brothel or prison" elsewhere in the gallery.

To draw a crude analogy to music, I much prefer to listen to lyrics that are either dumb and rude or arty and obtuse than to conscious political music. I like conscious political views, but I don't listen to music to get educated, and I don't know if I want visual art to be trying to educate me either.

Thinking out loud here, probably not as black and white as all this. Interested to hear what others reckon.

Weekly mp3 # 11: Lukas Nystrand & Karl Johansson – Untitled R&B Instrumental

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:10:00 +0000

The net label Ageema Music Club mainly seems to be a vanity press for one guy, Lukas Nystrand, with a couple of friends in tow. I could’ve linked to a bunch of different things here, cos there are plenty of good pickings, from Lukiss’s Gameboy-in-dub stylings, through the J Dilla-gone-glitchy / Avalanches territory of Glenny #417, to Julien Love's punky dub-disco tracks.

I’ll be cheeky and link directly to the MP3 , because the page is a bit hard to navigate. It’s on We Shall Not Be Moved from 2005.

The track title should give you a good idea of what you’re in for, but given that R&B extends over the past 40 years and most recently seems to include stadium trance (looking in your direction, Timbaland! ), I’ll make some notes anyway. It’s downbeat and grubby, and sounds to me like they digested what ?uestlove unimaginatively called the “dirty sound” the Soulquarians were reaching for on D’Angelo’s Voodoo and Common’s Like Water For Chocolate. It’s grubbier than that, though, much more of a 4-track home recording vibe. Live bass guitar, by the sounds of it, wonky keys, programmed strings and beats. Always been a fan of those oomf and clap beats and this kind of slightly awkward, staggering rhythmic feel.

Overall, the track has the kind of vibe I always hope to hear from Madlib, but, frankly, he’s about the most over-hyped producer working today. Ridiculously inconsistent anyway.

No idea who Lukas Nystrand & Karl Johansson actually are, other than that Lukas seems to be a designer by trade and they’re presumably both Swedish.

Never knew 'White Lines' was just a massive rip-off

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:57:00 +0000

Liquid Liquid's 'Cavern':

It's so much more interesting too - so live, and weird sounding.

The backstory of the rip-off action on this history of 99 Records is interesting too. Scroll down to the bit about the single "Optimo / Cavern".

Always amazes me to read about these "obscure" songs and then read passing comments that e.g. this song sold more than 30,000 copies at the time. Holy shit. If I could sell a 10th of that I'd be so stoked.

Finding Nemo's sex

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:39:00 +0000

Just read on the oh so reliable Wikipedia page about clownfish that they are all born male and change sex. So apparently Nemo's dad should've taken over as Nemo's mum after his wife died in the movie.

Seems kinda funny that famously conservative Disney made a movie about a naturally sex-changing fish. I'd love it if there were a sequel in which Nemo is a girl, but where that's just completely incidental to the plot...

weekly mp3 #10: Antiguo Autómata Mexicano - Broken In Your Room Again

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:10:00 +0000

This track is part of a Background Records sampler on the now defunct Minlove site. Well, it may come back some time, but it's been out of action since 2006, so maybe not.

I have fairly minimal love for "minimal" where it's a stand-in for "techno" now that that term is relatively uncool. 'Broken In Your Room Again's not really so techno, it's lead by the bassline more than the beat and spiralling arpeggios and echoing layers of percussion don't exactly cry out "dancefloor fodder". It is electronic music of the right kind of tempo, I guess. Anyway, I like it.

Antiguo Autómata Mexicano is one guy, Ángel Sánchez Borges. He released a really good album last year called Kraut Slut, which opened with a track called 'Rother, Dinger, You and Me', so the guy is demonstrating his kraut rock love fairly unequivocably. I reckon that shows through in 'Broken In Your Room Again' too.

Weekly mp3 #9 take 2: Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha - Love Will Tear Us Apart

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:29:00 +0000

OK, since Tuesday’s effort failed, here’s another attempt. You can download a ridiculously lo-fi MP3 from the band's website.

A cover of Joy Division's most famous song. Tuvan throat singing, acoustic guitar. Odd.

This is the only contemporary music I've heard from Tuva, a chunk of Russia that borders Mongolia and which Taiwan claims is part of its China. Throat singing is all about singing two tones at once, by controlled resonance of the nasal cavity. The main tone is brutally low, and the overtone is a whistle that pretty much doesn't sound like it comes from an animal. If anyone knows Massive Attack's 'Karmacoma', the melody in the chorus is actually a throat singer, not a synth.

The information on the band's site makes the situation in Tuva sound pretty bleak. Probably because it is.

I played this at the last Malty Media night.

weekly mp3 #9: anders dahl - kärrsilja - metal bowls, electronics, bouzouki

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:10:00 +0000

This week's offering is a change of pace in two ways - it's not a song (or anything to do with "pop music" in any sense) and it's from a "net audio" release, i.e. it's from a free MP3 release that's not attached to some commercial release available in a physical format.

EDIT 18/06/08: Sorry, turns out Komplott have redesigned their site, and this release is no longer available.

This track is part of an EP called Kärrsilja, flockblomstriga 2 . The EP was released in 2004 by the Swedish "contemporary music" label Komplott, which does both free MP3 and commercial CD releases.

Anders Dahl makes what could be called electro-acoustic music (if you believe that doesn't have to be made by academics), noise (if you believe that doesn't have to be loud or noisy) or free improv (if you don't care about whether he's really improvising!). The ridiculously prosaic subtitle of "metal bowls, electronics, bouzouki" tells you exactly what you're in for. I'm guessing Dahl improvised three or four tracks from these sources, layered them up and did very little additional treatments. Maybe he played along with what he had previously recorded and responded to those tracks. Maybe not. :) Likewise, it's a bit of a moot point as to whether he can play the one traditional instrument in the mix, the bouzouki, because he largely plucks out occasional harmonics.

As may be clear from my description, I can certainly understand how this kind of music can seem artless, frustrating, or plain fruitless to someone listening to it. As with most music, I'm at a loss to say why this particular collection of sounds rocks my world. Formally, I like the restraint in the use of sources, and I like the timbres of those sources individually and in combination. But it's always difficult for me to pin point anything more than that.

Friends have asked in the past whether I derive some kind of intellectual enjoyment out of this kind of thing, but I don't think that's the case any more than with any other kinds of music... There's really not that much to think about here, is there? :)

It's been 4 years now since I first downloaded this EP and I still come back for repeat listens. Not sure it would work for everyone, but I've found the best listening conditions for this kind of thing are first thing in the morning on a sunny day when I have some time to relax.

weekly mp3 #8: david byrne & brian eno - regiment

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:10:00 +0000

My favourite track from 1981's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts was made available for download when the album was reissued in 2006. Lots has been said and written about it, but if you haven't heard of it around the time Eno was producing Talking Heads he and that band's frontman wrote an album together. It's usually described as instrumental, which is somewhat ironic given it's built around the premise of writing instrumentation around pre-existing vocal recordings. I suspect in this case "instrumental" = "David Byrne does not sing on this record". :p

'Regiment' is the album's most blatant funk moment, which may be in spite of having Bill Laswell guesting on bass. Never liked that guy. I'm much more excited by the soaring guitar laid down by one of Eno's more frequent collaborators, Robert Fripp. It's a slightly edgier sound than the Frippertronic vibes of Bowie's '"Heroes"', but that gives you a general idea of the sound... It's pretty great.

The vocalist, says Wikipedia, is Dunya Yusin, a "Lebanese mountain singer". I thought she sang songs, not mountains, but she sounds amazing anyway. Crikey.

If you have the urge, Byrne and Eno have offered up all the tracks from the original multi-track recordings of a couple of songs, which you can download and remix. As they point out, it's in-keeping with the spirit of the original... although I have to say I think it'd probably be more in-keeping with the spirit of the original if you could release the results under your own name and get royalties off them. ;)

Wu Tang Clan founder starts chess-playing site

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:53:00 +0000

Curious. Having won the, ah, coveted (?) Hip-Hop Chess Federation tournament last year, RZA has launched a weird online business...

WuChess

weekly mp3 #7: the deadly deaths - see the world

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Some New Zealand stuff this week, specifically from the much maligned (fairly, in my experience!) city of Hamilton. You can get four free tracks by The Deadly Deaths from their virb page.

Their songs are fairly samey, but I find 'See The World' the most catchy. Key words, I guess, are "pared back". The appeal for me is definitely in how simple the track is, both in terms of what's being played and its arrangement. Sometimes I love subtlety and detail, but that sense that a band is doing exactly what's needed to make something work is pretty enticing too...

Not much more to say about this one.

Commuting in Tokyo

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:20:00 +0000

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.

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

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 27 May 2008 01:10:00 +0000

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...

The biggest issue facing modern society

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Sun, 25 May 2008 01:55:00 +0000

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:10:00 +0000

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.

Bad Cover Version

noreply@blogger.com (michael) — Mon, 19 May 2008 02:30:00 +0000

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.