So, according to tonight’s rerun episode of CSI, furries love the Goldfrapp. Fitting, considering the artwork of Black Cherry. So what’s the deal? Did someone on the show just put two and two together? Or is Alison Goldfrapp the Judy Garland of the furry set? Because come to think of it, the parallels are a little eerie.
Archive for August, 2004
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Photek
The Third Sequence
Wipeout XL (1996, soundtrack)
My parents never let me have a Nintendo, even when most of my friends taunted me with visions of Super Mario and Tetris and Mario Kart. So it was a big deal when finally, after years of suffering, I got my hands on the next big thing: a Playstation. Yes, Playstation sounded like an impossibly childish name for a super-cool console system, but the controllers looked so cool! And it used CDs! And it had the coolest game ever—Ridge Racer, back then one of the slickest-looking arcade racing games around. It looked like it belonged in an honest-to-goodness coin arcade, that’s how amazing it was.
The in-store deal on the Playstation was the console and two games for $499.99 (ouch). Scanning the racks for another game, I picked up the anti-gravity racing game Wipeout because of the super-futuristic cover. And then I spent a month hating the game for two reasons: because I couldn’t drive the hovercraft without hitting every wall of the course, and because it had techno music. Lots of techno music. Ewwww. Like, why couldn’t they get Garbage and Soundgarden to contribute a bunch of tracks instead?
But a funny thing happened. I finally figured out how to race hovercrafts, and in the process started to like techno music. And then, just as electronica started to crest in North America, the second Wipeout game came out, complete with its own soundtrack. Arguably, the Wipeout XL soundtrack gave bands like the Chemical Brothers, Fluke and Underworld the crucial early exposure they needed to leapfrog into mainstream success. It was perfectly timed, and the people who chose the tracks for the game had impeccable instincts; it wasn’t long before people started gobbling up tracks similar to “Loops Of Fury,” “We Have Explosive” and the minimalist drum’n'bass of “The Third Sequence.” And while it was the big beat sounds that won out in the end, jungle and drum’n'bass had its heyday in the late 90s thanks to artists like Photek.
Breeders
You Always Hang Around (Demo)
Recorded in 1988, ostensibly around the time the Pixies released their first album, “You Always Hang Around” was one of several tracks that ended up on a demo tape and, later, a bootleg release (hence the poor recording quality, and probably the low bitrate—sorry).
This track changed quite a bit between 1988 and its eventual release on 1993’s Last Splash, although it’s still recognizable. Change the key, slow it down a bit and throw away the old lyrics, and you’ve got “Divine Hammer.”
On a side note, with all the recent Pixies action, it looks like the Breeders will once again go gently into that good night, with word that the band will likely be dropped by Warner Music as a cost-saving measure following the less-than-stellar sales of Title TK. It’s probably all for the best.
Hooverphonic
Battersea
Blue Wonder Power Milk (1998)
It wasn’t too long ago that the practice of selling your music to an advertising agency was looked down upon; only recently have people stopped crying sellout. Whether this is because everyone’s doing it now, or because advertising business arrangements often offer the artist a better deal than their own record companies is anyone’s guess.
In the latest wave of advertisements-as-samplers, Hooverphonic got into the game fairly early. Volkswagen had found marketing gold with the agency they’d hired to promote the New Beetle, an advertising success approaching that of the original Beetle campaign. Utilizing tracks from the Orb, Stereolab and Fluke, the campaign’s music was just as important as the visuals in communicating the message: flower power, the next generation. One of VW’s follow-up projects was to boost sales of the new car by introducing “limited edition” colours to the lineup.
Hooverphonic’s biggest success to date had been “2 Wicky,” from A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular, but since that debut album’s release the band had switched vocalists and moved into more ethereal territory with Blue Wonder Power Milk. Today, you’re far more likely to recognize the dreamy sounds of “Renaissance Affair,” thanks to the song’s use in VW’s ad for the new vapor blue New Beetle. It was a perfect fit for the ad’s final shot: sunset on the edge of a canyon, clear skies ahead.
The entire album is great for the late summer, the best time to appreciate those long sunkissed late evenings just as they disappear into autumn. This probably works better if you’re on the west coast, of course.
Bjork
The Pleasure Is All Mine
Medulla (2004, unreleased)
After the 2001 release of the superminimal Vespertine, Bjork apparently decided the best course of action would be to shamelessly prostitute her back catalog in the form of a double-digit wave of box sets, greatest-hits packages and live discs. Thus Bjork ceased to be a recording artist for a good two years, morphing into a travelling salesman of sorts with a trailor-tractor full of wares to sell.
Only relatively recently had Bjork finally started recording material specifically written for a particular album; before Homogenic her recorded material was actually an amalgam of ideas and songs she’d written over the years, alone and with other people.
The Dancer In The Dark soundtrack notwithstanding (seeing as how it was half-written by director Lars Von Trier), Bjork’s output since she ran out of backlog has been hit and miss. Homogenic definitely benefitted from the focused approach, which producing her finest work to date. Vespertine is a divisive piece of work that, depending on your viewpoint, either suffers or benefits enormously from its rigid adherence to the minimalist, largely beatless glitch aesthetic. But as always, Vespertine was an unexpected twist in Bjork’s sound, just like Homogenic before it. It’s as if Bjork has a particular aural theme for every album.
Medulla looks to be no different. This time out, Bjork has decided to throw away instruments entirely, attempting to record an album based primarily on vocals. This being Bjork, however, it’d be folly to assume Medulla will be a standard acapella album, and “The Pleasure Is All Mine” is the proof in the pudding. Amazingly, despite the very odd choice of instrumentation, the track works better than nearly everything on Vespertine, and it’s only upon close listening that one really notices it’s all vocals, including the bassline and the beats. A return to form? Let’s hope so. (This MP3 was ripped from a BBC Radio 1 broadcast.)
Prolapse
One Illness
Ghosts Of Dead Aeroplanes (1999)
Named after an unfortunate medical affliction involving most of your vitals falling out of your body through your rectum, Prolapse have had a live reputation befitting the nature of their name. Linda Steelyard, one of the band’s two singers, was hired on originally as a groupie who would throw oranges at the band as they played; when the other recruit didn’t showw up, they brought Steelyard on stage instead. Without that one gesture, the maelstrom that was Prolapse’s live show might never have existed.
On record, there’s a tension between Steelyard and the angry-sounding Scotsman who provides the other lead vocals, Mick Derrick. They often sound as if they’re competing for airtime, their vocals weaving in and out of the mix. Apparently, the live show exploits this tension to the nth degree; reports indicate that the two singers not only shout at each other on stage, but that eventually the two go at it full throttle, literally beating the shit out of each other while the other members of the band try not to get in the way. All this despite the fact that the two seem to get along fine when not in a live setting; in an interview the two seemed almost bemused at their vicious tendencies on stage.
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the band called it quits after three albums and over half a decade together. Derrick still makes his living as an archeologist (!) while Steelyard is now a reporter for the Leicester Mercury (!). No word on whether they call each other up occasionally to shout verbal abuse at each other lovingly.
Cadallaca
The Trouble With Public Places
Out West (1999)
Sleater-Kinney has always been fairly serious in demeanor; one Toronto Star concert review even described their performance as giving the most bang for your buck, cramming in tons of songs into an hour and a half set. It’s a minor flaw in an awesome package, and they do lighten up at times, like on All Hands On The Bad One’s “Milkshake n’ Honey.” But for the most part, whatever playfulness they used to exhibit is now gone—no more enthusiastic renditions of “Rock Lobster” on New Year’s Eve with Calvin Johnson. That sort of good, clean fun, apparently, they save for the side projects.
Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss have all been in other bands while playing with Sleater-Kinney. Weiss you probably also know as one half of the duo Quasi, whose often-morose lyrics and rocksichord attack is probably most familiar to people. Brownstein hooked up with Helium alum Mary Timony for an EP under the Spells moniker. But the real punch comes from Tucker’s other band, Cadallaca.
Actually, Cadallaca isn’t so much a band as it is an alternate reality; in interviews, the band members (which also include Sarah Dougher and drummer sts) stick stubbornly to their characters, Kissy, Dusty and Junior respectively. Ask them about their other projects while in character, for example, and they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. Instead, the threee focus on hamming it up for whatever camera happens to be nearby (witness the cover of the Out West EP) and having some punkish girl-group fun with a Farfisa organ anchoring the show.
Cadallaca is, in many ways, the antithesis of Sleater-Kinney’s and Sarah Dougher’s work: off the cuff, hyperactive, throwaway pop songs. Oh, and dead. Out West was the last release the band put out, and all signs indicate that everyone involved have moved on.
Chris Brown and Kate Fenner
Failed
O Witness (2001)
Chris Brown and Kate Fenner didn’t play this song at their show last night in Vancouver; indeed, they didn’t play a single song off of O Witness. People more familiar with the duo’s first two albums probably got more out of the show than I did.
Brown and Fenner have a long and storied history together, starting way back with the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t anything like the name would suggest. From there the two struck out on their own, eventually leaving Toronto for New York and helping out a bunch of their old friends, including the Barenaked Ladies.
Probably one of their best-known efforts to date, though, is the song “Resist War,” penned just before the latest war in Iraq. You probably don’t know it from them, though; it’s since been covered by tons of artists, including Sarah Harmer.
Fenner’s voice is the obvious hook; she’s got range to spare, and a wonderful smoky quality. But certainly the two are a duo, and it shows in everything they do; they share vocal duties often, and Fenner plays guitar about as often as not. And to watch them on stage is to glimpse the bond the two have, whether they’re joking around between songs or watching each other during one. So, not a bad show last night for me; an amazing show if you knew the material. Start here.
Helium
Baby Vampire Made Me
Pirate Prude (1994)
Like MacArthur to the Phillipines, I have returned.
Before Mary Timony kicked off her solo career with more songs about medieval creatures of the night, and before Ash Bowie disappeared into the ether never to be heard from again, there was Helium, a Boston band that managed to ride a little alternative-rock wave of its own in the mid-90s. It was the same indie boom that saw bands like Sebadoh and Imperial Teen gain the spotlight for a split second before falling back into the murky waters from which they came.
Helium’s progression is relatively easy to track, from the lazy fuzzed-out rock of Pirate Prude and The Dirt Of Luck towards a cleaner, more refined and intricate sound on The Magic City. And while Helium’s final album had many strengths equalling the highlights of their earlier work, including “Aging Astronauts” and “Lady Of The Fire,” there was nothing quite like “Lucy,” “Honeycomb” or this song, from their first EP and second release (the first being a long since out-of-print single for “The American Jean”).