The pipes, they are clogged
FTP access to the site is down for whatever reason, which means I haven’t been able to upload any music recently. I’m trying to get this fixed (and by that I mean I’m going to wave my arms ineffectually at the webhost support for a bit).
update: Fixed. Suffice it to say I am never ever using PeerGuardian 2 AGAIN. What the fuck.
Goldfrapp
Little Bird
Seventh Tree (2008)
Having read as many reviews as I can stand about Goldfrapp’s latest album, I have still not come any closer to figuring out if I actually like it or not. I’ve only heard bits and bobs of Felt Mountain and started listening to Goldfrapp in earnest with 2002’s Black Cherry, so maybe I expect a bit more edge and a bit more weirdness from Alison and Will—fewer sunkissed glamour photo shoots like the ones commissioned for Seventh Tree, and more half-horse electroglam cutouts. When your overriding vision of Goldfrapp involves Alison Goldfrapp on stage at Glastonbury wearing tall leather boots and a horse’s tail, abusing a portable theremin as though she were wearing a strap-on, readjusting to Seventh Tree’s far less carnivalesque atmosphere can take some time.
About that cover: it looks like someone took the same aesthetic from Beth Orton’s Daybreaker and recast it in Sherwood Forest. Somewhat fitting in that Orton took a similar low-key chillout approach to her most recent album, 2006’s Comfort of Strangers, though Orton threw away the electronics completely. Goldfrapp is infinitely more successful in that Seventh Tree remains interesting even in its most serene moments. It even approaches the electro sound perfected on Black Cherry and revisited on Supernature at times, though Alison’s old seductive persona never makes an appearance even on relatively bleep-heavy tracks like “Happiness.”
But for the most part, Seventh Tree remains a bit of a cipher—I’m still on the fence. Goldfrapp’s previous formula had worn thin after just two albums, so at least it’s not an even duller version of Supernature. And so far, the new album has proven difficult to dismiss outright. It just requires a lot of my attention to appreciate some aspects of the album; otherwise critic favourites like “A & E” and “Caravan Girl” go in one ear and out the other to little effect.
Yoko Kanno
Cyberbird
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST 2 (2004, soundtrack)
I guess it’s kind of an internet joke now that if you are at all associated with anime, there’s a devoted group of followers waiting to worship you. And so it is with Yoko Kanno, a Japanese composer that you’ve probably never heard of unless you love Ghost in the Shell, Escaflowne, Macross Plus, or any of a dizzying array of anime and video game works she’s composed music for, in which case you’ll almost certainly recognize a song or two of hers. Though she’s worked on several non-soundtrack music projects and even played in a couple of pop bands, Kanno continues to be known best for her soundtrack work.
“Cyberbird,” from the second Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex soundtrack, is one of her better known tracks, and served as my introduction to Kanno’s work. Gorgeous strings backed by a propulsive backbeat serve as a launching pad for the angelic female vocals of Gabriela Robin, a frequent Kanno collaborator (or doppelganger, depending on who you talk to). As an aural backdrop to a action-packed helicopter chase scene, it’s an inspired choice. As an original composition, it’s perhaps a bit too inspired.
The second season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, for which “Cyberbird” was composed, first aired in 2004. Back in 1998, Hooverphonic put out their breakthrough second album, Blue Wonder Power Milk. The wonderful lead-off track is a little number called “Battersea,” a spirited drum’n'bass ride through the stratosphere. And if you Google the terms “battersea” and “cyberbird”, like I did on a whim, you’ll find a bunch of people who’ve all noticed the exact same thing I have: the two songs sound similar. Very similar. (I’ve reposted “Battersea” for comparison.)
It turns out Kanno begs, borrows and steals from a lot of sources, at least in the eyes of some; this forum thread lists a number of similarities, inspirations, and possibly outright thefts of other people’s material. I haven’t heard most of the songs mentioned, but at least a few of the similarities check out: “Where Does This Ocean Go?” definitely shares a certain resemblance to Bjork’s “Hyperballad”, and “Face On” sounds like a rock-inflected remix of Craig Armstrong’s “Finding Beauty”.
What’s it all mean? Not sure, exactly—it doesn’t seem like anyone’s bothered to sue her for plagiarism, though some of these cases sound worse than, say, Elastica’s “Connection” versus Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba.” (Elastica narrowly avoided the courts by settling with Wire’s publishers in that case; they also had to settle a case with the Stranglers for another song on their debut.) And some of the songs on the list don’t seem to match up particularly well to their supposed sources, like “Call Me, Call Me” versus the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” I suppose the best likely outcome is curious individuals discover the source material upon which some of Kanno’s work is based, and appreciate the new artists they find as a result. In which case, if you liked “Cyberbird,” may I humbly suggest you pick up a couple of Hooverphonic CDs?
Be Your Own Pet
Heart Throb
Get Awkward (2008)
So I was in the record store yesterday flipping through the new releases when I find the new Be Your Own Pet album. In an age where the internet rules all, release dates are broadcast far and wide, and album leaks are expected, it’s very hard not to get some advance warning of an album’s release—and yet here was an album I wasn’t expecting to see for at least a couple more months, sitting in my hot little hands waiting to be purchased.
If you know Be Your Own Pet at all and understand where they came from, Get Awkward probably won’t surprise you very much. Jemima Pearl is a better singer, the edges are a little duller, the melodies are a little more obvious. We’re still nowhere near Avril Lavigne territory, thank goodness, but it’s not quite the half-hour thrash-fest of their 2006 self-titled debut, either. Part of me already misses that earlier incarnation. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for Be Your Own Pet to mellow out as they enter the final stages of teenagehood, and of course they have to figure out how to expand on their basic punk formula sooner or later, but I really wouldn’t have minded just another half hour of bone-shattering shrieks and riffs.
But just because Get Awkward isn’t quite as intense or wilfully adolescent as the band’s first album doesn’t mean it can’t be just as good, so I’ll keep this on heavy rotation for a while longer. After all, with spring fast approaching, there’s nothing better in my collection of recent purchases to shake off the shell of winter dreariness.
Shimpei
Sunlight
Pop\'N Music 6 (2001, soundtrack)
Another left-field track: as far as anyone seems to know, Shimpei doesn’t exist except as the creator of this single track. There are a couple of Japanese artists who happen to have the word Shimpei in their name, but I don’t think they’re the same. Whoever Shimpei is, they created this one track for a music rhythm game called Pop’n Music that seems to have only been released in Japan, but must be wildly popular because there are sixteen versions of it so far. Really the only other hint available to you in the music file is the presence of farm animals—a strangely reassuring and recurring theme when it comes to Japanese game music (also see We Love Katamari’s “Scorching Savanna“).
Um, so that’s it for today. I have no idea where to point you if you want more of the same, or more information on the artist, or even how you can get more barnyard beats. If anyone DOES know where to get more barnyard beats, though, I’m thinking we could kickstart this genre, put out a compilation, get the kids riled up. The Saturday-morning cartoon meets utopian grassroots agriculture aesthetic is one that could use more hit singles, no?
Moebius-Plank-Neumeier
Pitch Control
Zero Set (1982)
Some things simply fall into your lap unbidden, and make an impression even without the benefit of context. “Pitch Control” is one of those songs for me. Perhaps because of the not-too-recent resurgence of teutonic influences in electronic music, “Pitch Control” sounds pretty current to these ears—which is why it was surprising to discover the track was actually produced in 1982 by some of krautrock’s lesser-known godfathers.
Zero Set saw Dieter Moebius and Conny Plank, both associated with seminal krautrock band Cluster, collaborate with drummer Mani Neumeier of the band Guru Guru. Apparently inspired by African music, “Pitch Control” basically sounds like Kraftwerk if you took it out for a couple of drinks and gave it dance lessons. It skitters and skips all over the place, the gears of the musical machinery drenched in luxurious curtains of satin-finish lubricating oil. In short, it’s one of the sexier krautrock songs out there—which, admittedly, probably won’t replace big gay disco anthems or top 40 hip-hop remixes in the clubs any time soon. But if you like a little funk in your groove, this might be a good place to start.
Schema
Unde
Schema (2000)
I’d meant to post this after the Monade track, but, erm, oops. So here it is now.
Back in the days when Kill Rock Stars had Sleater-Kinney and Elliott Smith, and the Decemberists were just a figment of Colin Meloy’s imagination, label founder Slim Moon spun off a boutique label from KRS called 5 Rue Christine. The idea was Kill Rock Stars would be where all the normal indie rock stuff would live, while 5RC would be the label for the more “out there” stuff. For the most part, “out there” ended up meaning noisy, experimental rock and pop. XBXRX, Deerhoof, Hella and Need New Body have all put out albums on 5RC; Marnie Stern’s first album was supposed to be a 5RC release as well (and maybe still technically is—a lot of 5RC releases ended up being joint ones with Kill Rock Stars). When Moon left Kill Rock Stars a year and a half ago, 5 Rue Christine didn’t stick around much longer; it’s now in semi-retirement, much like Seattle label Up Records back in 2000 when co-founder Chris Takino died from leukaemia.
One of the label’s first releases was this one-off project from the late Mary Hansen of Stereolab, who’d gotten together with the Seattle band Hovercraft to form Schema. As an early indicator of 5RC’s mission, the band’s self-titled album was one of the quieter statements despite Hovercraft’s spacey noise-rock pedigree, but the album was unconventional and probably difficult to sell to the usual indie rock crowd—in other words, a direct hit. Some of Stereolab’s noodly synthesizer tendencies creep into the mix, and Hansen’s voice is quite recognizable (something few second vocalists can boast about). Anyone expecting another Stereolab, however, will be sorely disappointed: what we have here is waves of muted guitar feedback, relentless rhythmic loops, and songs that don’t really progress so much as fill the room for ten minutes like a fog before slowly dissipating.
Apparently, Hovercraft and Hansen were pleased enough with the collaboration that they had planned a second album and a tour. All that was cut short in late 2002 when Hansen was hit and killed while riding her bicycle. Hovercraft, for its part, may have seen Schema not as a side project but as an evolution; with Schema gone, Hovercraft seemed to disappear into the ether.
Ennio Morricone
Deep Down
\"Parade 5052\" (I think that\'s a label and release number...) (1968)
The stylish 1960s Italian/French movie Danger: Diabolik is known for two things. In some circles it’s a cult classic. It’s based on an Italian comic and stars a dashing antihero thief with anarchic pretensions, and features gorgeous, lavish sets, tons of positively continental late-60s pizazz, and a suitably caper-ish soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. In other, perhaps larger circles, it’s also known as the last crappy film Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ever lampooned before Mike and the bots came crashing back to Earth.
If you know anything about MST3K, it’s the premise: a hapless guy and the robots he’s made are locked in a spaceship and forced to watch really bad movies, a fate they deal with by mercilessly poking fun at the movies as they play. Does that make Diabolik a bad movie? Well, sort of—it’s pretty unbelievable that a slick master thief who wears silly masks all the time would have a huge underground lair with gadgets and Rube Goldberg devices lying around, as Diabolik does. But as a fan of the movie pointed out on IMDB, isn’t that basically what Batman is—a man working outside the law who wears silly costumes and has an inexplicably giant and ornate underground lair? Besides which, compared to most of the movies MST3K lampoons, Danger: Diabolik actually has a soundtrack that doesn’t suck, composed by one of cinema’s greatest.
“Deep Down” would probably be a more effective theme if it wasn’t so obviously rehashed five times during the course of the film, but maybe that’s why Morricone was reportedly never happy with Diabolik’s soundtrack. It probably also works better in Italian than English. This version is the semi-officially released Italian version, cleaned up and apparently pressed to seven-inch—Morricone completists would know better than I. Though most of Morricone’s soundtracks have since found release, Danger: Diabolik isn’t one of them—the best anyone’s found so far is apparently a bootleg CD, recorded from the movie itself (which is why you can hear Diabolik’s over-the-top evil laugh at the beginning). I haven’t put that version up for two reasons: the sound quality isn’t as good, and the English lyrics will make you wince in pain. Better to stick with the Italian version and dream of trans-Atlantic excess free of complications like understandable lyrics.
Unless you understand Italian, of course, in which case I guess there’s no saving you from the cheese.
(P.S. You really want the English version? Here’s a video.)
Towa Tei
Butterfly (Cornelius Remix)
CM2 (2003, compilation)
Let’s say you’re an artist and you’ve got a track that’s begging for a different kind of remix. Maybe you don’t want the dancefloor treatment because that’s been done to death. The rock remix works alright sometimes, but you’re afraid the end result will sound like it belongs on drive-time classic rock radio. Maybe you’re looking for something a little less ordinary, something you don’t hear quite so often. In that case, might I suggest you give your song to Cornelius and let him sort it out?
Keigo Oyamada’s performing name is well known to Japanese music fans, especially those particularly attuned to his sample-heavy style of bubbly organic electronica, but far less so in the States despite backing from Matador Records. This is probably partially because Matador hasn’t bought into the Japanese trend of putting out tons of compilations between proper releases—people don’t seem to buy artist comps nearly so much in North America—meaning the latest Matador release was in 2004, a DVD video compilation accompanied by a disc of remixes from Cornelius’s 2001 album Point (which was released on its own in Japan as PM). Cornelius has since moved to a smaller label for his American releases, Everloving Records, for his 2006 album Sensuous.
What’s missing from the North American discography is CM2, a compilation that collects a number of Cornelius remixes of other artists. The effervescent remix of Tahiti 80’s “Heartbeat” is on the disc, as well as remixes of Blur’s “Tender,” the Avalanches’ “Since I Left You,” and this remix of Japanese producer Towa Tei’s “Butterfly.” The original track was exactly what you’d expect from the Deee-Lite member turned DJ/producer, a nimble Shibuya-kei-influenced dance pop track. Cornelius turns it into a sublime slice of glitchy folktronica more at home in the living room than the dancefloor. It does sound a bit like an outtake from Point, but that’s not at all a bad thing—especially if you’re already a Cornelius convert.
Monade
Regarde
Monstre Cosmic (2008)
It’s hard to distill Stereolab’s history into a set of releases—between EPs, singles and compilations, there’s probably more Stereolab material that doesn’t fit into the context of an album than material that does—but if we’re strictly talking album output, I actually came to Stereolab a little less than halfway through their career. This is staggering when you consider that most critics tend to divide the band’s history into a pre-Emperor Tomato Ketchup period and a post-Emperor period. The former is marked by drone-like rock compositions peppered liberally with Farfisas and assorted vintage accouterments; the latter has been described disparagingly as easy-listening AM radio free jazz lite. Some old-school Stereolab fans consider the likes of Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night as latter-day abominations that saw the Groop fall too much in love with the retro jazz-pop sounds they were playing around with earlier in their career, and it’s hard to deny that there isn’t a sense of complacency in the band’s later work. Saying every Stereolab album sounded the same was never a particularly risky position to take.
As someone who only really became a Stereolab fan with Dots and Loops, then, I’ve had the dubious fortune of sticking around for the majority of the band’s album output—but at the same time only hearing them “after the fall,” so to speak. Which isn’t to say I don’t love the band anyways, curmudgeons be damned; but even I have to admit that Stereolab’s uniquely chipper sound loses its charm after years of minor variations. So after Margerine Eclipse, an album I never bought but heard a couple of times, I officially exited the land of Stereolab and struck out for greener pastures.
If all goes well, however, 2008 could be the year Stereolab returns with a bang. You see, since Margerine Eclipse—the band’s first album without the late Mary Hansen, who was killed when a truck collided with her bike in 2002—Stereolab has also been mostly quiet. Fab Four Suture came out in 2006, but is best described as a compilation of prior EPs rather than an album proper; other than those six singles, there’s been little coming out of the Stereolab camp. If you’re willing to stretch your imagination a little (and I mean just a little), though, Stereolab have never really left; the Groop’s spirit has just jumped ship temporarily to Monade.
Stereolab singer’s Laetitia Sadier’s solo project started in the late 90s but didn’t release an album until 2003—probably because at that point Monade was still little more than Sadier’s home recordings. By 2005 and A Few Steps More, Monade looked a lot more like a real band. That band, though it shares no members with Stereolab besides Sadier, sounds a whole lot like the Groop, making A Few Steps More a bit like an alternate universe Stereolab album. Aside from compositional differences that may or may not reveal themselves in casual listening, Monade have been able to get away with sounding like Stereolab partially because Stereolab have been mostly dormant as of late.
Expectations will be different for Monade’s third album, Monstre Cosmic, however. Due out today, Monstre Cosmic will no longer have the playing field all to themselves; latest word from the Stereolab camp is that they plan to release an actual album this year. Not that the two bands are exactly competing against each other, but Monade may have an edge here: “Regarde” seems to follow the general Monade trend of sounding a lot like Stereolab minus the hermetically sealed atmosphere that occasionally suffocated the former’s sound. Perhaps even with Stereolab re-entering the picture, the future may still belong to Sadier solo, instead of Sadier and Gane. Stay tuned.