October 2011

Crushed Beaks – Think Lucky

For the first time in this position I didn’t have anything in mind for this article, usually something is on the tip of my audio tongue. Not this month. It left me in quite an exciting position as it meant doing what’s most important and that’s searching for the good stuff. I’ve searched through French Electronica to Australian fuzz-core moving sideways across Baltimorean Hip-hop and spoken word from South Essex. In the end I found myself talking about a subject I’m not 100% sure how I feel about yet: Lo-Fi. It being the opposite of Hi-FI meaning High Fidelity, the enjoyment of wondrous sound and the purest of mixing, Dolby 5.1, Bang & Borethefuckoutofson, music layered in a way that few could orchestrate but everyone agrees is just the best way to listen. Or is it?

Recently it’s struck me that maybe a bit of fuzz isn’t so bad? Maybe the instant quip that the acoustic isn’t perfect isn’t all that should be considered. Cast your mind back to the best gig you ever saw, was the sound crisp? Were you seated in a comfy chair? Was your belly full of rich warm foods? Did it get you really excited? It’s been said that watching a gig from the rear of the room or The Gods might not be the best way and the performance ultimately ends up a little long in the tooth and the punter starts thinking about that last tube home.

The subject brings me to the London band Crushed Beaks and the song Think Lucky.

From its initial burst of gristled guitar from the vacant space of silence it sounds honest and full of energy. The melody is one influenced by years of well honed indie listening. It’s drums and guitar. The intro fades and welcomes a verse anchored by crackly drums and rough yet slight guitar, Matthew Poile’s deep voice spits the verse in a punchy lackadaisical manner. The energy subsides allowing in the bridge, ‘’this Title is not a love song……’’ with twitchy out of key guitar leading into the punch and crunch of the chorus.  Poile saves the pinnacle of the track to display another character to his voice with a warm and whiney passionate chant. The lovable thing about this chorus that you wouldn’t be able to enjoy from a well polished gem is that you can make up your own chorus, the melodies great so just let out some words ‘’ It’s not just the way you say it, we’ve had ideals, WE’VE HAD IDEALS!’’ You can feel the power radiate through the sound. The gush of noise from the intro then bookend’s the vocal chorus, moving at a frenetic pace the feeling it’s all going to run out too quickly, like good hardcore does, becomes ever present. No Age seem an obvious comparison along with a tinge of The Pixies. The verse rumbles back into presence and the mumbled words of the vocal carry the song, but you know what’s coming and the chorus re-engages with your ears and wets your sweaty palms. The short, sharp shout of the chorus encourages you to enjoy every millisecond as you know it’s going to be over all too quickly, as the second chorus finishes you know your not complete but the track is done with you, sapping it’s distorted energy and slowly fizzling down with some barking guitar. There you have it, in 3:09 seconds more energy than you can find in a week of work, laid down on a low key computer or Dictaphone and bursting with power and energy. Even if Terry Date decided to produce Crushed Beaks I’m not sure I’d want to hear it. Isn’t a bands best stuff always their first album? Then by that token a bands first demo, in this case Think Lucky is a treasure indeed.

So let’s not delve into Hi-Fi vs Lo –Fi but maybe we shouldn’t dismiss bad sound quality in an instance but appreciate the energy, the honesty and the warmth of it. It’s certainly more fun to be involved in some roughened madness than lost in crystal clarity.

Liam DCR

Demos by Crushed Beaks“> Demos by Crushed Beaks

Radiohead

Good Evening Mrs Magpie –

Modeselektor remix.

There’s one thing about dance music and that is it tends to divide people. Dance music is seen by some as a lesser ‘Techno Techno’ form of music, devoid of intellect and not up to the creative mark. The lack of lyrical narrative coupled with a repetitive beat conjures up a snooty tone in some. Possibly the same people that may go on a gap year in Africa and while spending time embracing the sprit of the country they come across a local village and engross themselves in their culture, finding themselves one night dancing, arms flaying to a group of drummers and humming a three chord sequence, they look over to their chum and think ‘’ yeah this is real salt of the earth stuff’’. But they’re not so different, music from The Cradle of Life and music in a disused Power Station in Eastern Europe; they employ exactly the same principles. As James Brown said: ‘The drum is the communicator’. So it’s there, in our skin and bones, from the dawn of time, dancing to a rhythm.

After choosing to muse on 4/4 this month it seemed apt that I feature an outfit absolutely in tune with the scene and important to most, coupled with a band that really do need no introduction. Modeselektor remixing Radiohead. Radiohead’s King of Limbs was seen by many as an album that wasn’t instantaneous like In Rainbows, a grower, some took time to catch on, myself included. For those who didn’t get the album maybe there’s another way in as the band have released a series of remixes to accompany the LP, featuring such luminaries as Four Tet, Blawan, Mark Pritchard, Pearson Sound and in this case the Berliner’s Modeselektor.

Beginning with a reverb heavy intro, emphasizing the big hour club mood, it launches straight into the rhythm, the rhythm that is the narrative for this song. Why is there need for vocal exploits and clever wordplay when you can stamp your feet and boom the deck? The minimal hi-hats flitter and flutter like the repetition of a strobe light in a bass heavy venue, the song is accentuated with semi-regular breaks in drum to allow the track to exhale and draw back in a wet, electronic breath. Modeslektor use effects on the track to ebb and flow the timbre of the drums, bringing in and repeating the Yorke line ‘’you got some nerve’’ then mushing it to excess and ripping back in the drums. On a big system this must be an all else fails tune to get people going.

At one point distortion melts the beat and in comes yet another rhythm to up the tempo, Yorke’s vocal combined with a delayed repetition becomes Yorke and the Yorkettes and the track bounces, bounces on, ‘You stole it all, give it back’. It’s reminiscent of a track Switch might cook up in a flat in Kreuzberg.

The remix carries little from the original work, merely the vocal hook. But what more do you need than a Thom Yorke Chorus on the dance floor backed up by a deep, pulsating bounce of a rhythm? Having not seen it on a dance floor yet I can imagine plenty of sideways twitches and pelvic thrusts. You can’t avoid moving to it, unless of course you’re just not of that persuasion. It is, in basic terms, a drum pattern and vocal, no great layers of instrumentation or overcomplicated finesse, just something to make people move.

Some may call it sacrilege, a waste of a wondrous chapter in Radiohead’s career, others, and I hazard a guess at the band themselves might enjoy the dance floor draw just a little too much to even think about it.

Liam DCR

G.T. Thomas is an American musician, singer and arranger who now lives in Amsterdam. Her debut album, The Luckless Pedestrian Years 2004-2010, is bursting with gorgeous melodies and great orchestrations.

In this interview with Adrian Arratoon, Gwen talks about she came to be mentored by Chris Dedrick, of The Free Design, work with Fleet Foxes on their debut album, and why Holland is now her home.

Tracks include Food for Thought, North Star and the new seasonal track, Winter Birds.

The Luckless Pedestrian Years is released by Smoking Ant Records.

For more infomation, visit www.gtthomas.com

Play Now

Download it

I haven’t written on this blog for a while so thought I would share my current albums of the year so far (in no particular order):

1. Zomby – Dedication (4AD)
2. Lucy – Wordplay for Working Bees (STROBOSCOPIC ARTEFACTS)
3. 2562 – Fever (WHEN IN DOUBT)
4. Autechre – EPs 1991 – 2002 (WARP)
5. Instra:mental – Revolution 653 (NONPLUS)
6. Andy Stott – Passed Me By (MODERN LOVE)
7. Nicolas Jaar – Space is Only Noise (CIRCUS COMPANY)
8. Cyclo – ID (RASTER NOTON)
9. Falty DL – You Stand Uncertain (PLANET MU)
10. Radiohead – The King of Limbs (and remixes!) (XL RECORDINGS)

I’m already bored of the SBTRKT album, too many vocals……

And albums I am really excited about, coming soon:

• MODESELEKTOR (!!!!!)
• Actress (Potentially two on the way!)
• Aphex Twin (fingers crossed)
• Cosmin TRG
• Martyn

Electronic Steve x

Youth Lagoon – July

Usually when I come to write this piece I put the featured song on the stereo and engross my mind in it, trying to glean every nuance and groove from the song, no need this time. I believe I’ve listened to this song over 100 times in the last few weeks, I’m a repeater you see, I’ll listen on repeat ad infinitum especially when it’s of this calibre. It’s a wonder I get any other music in the radio show ‘’Augustus save some room for later!’’. But fortuanetly I get to enjoy this habit on a regular basis as we’re blessed with so many musicians hitting the peak of their powers on a  regular basis, a wonder made ever more surprising when you realize most of them don’t earn a dime.

This month we look over the pond and focus on, as promised, a lesser known artist.

Trevor Powers is Youth Lagoon, new to his 20’s and new to this solo project, he lives in Boise, Idaho, The City of Trees, a place with a decent alternative music scene it appears, sharing space with the likes of Atomic Mama and Mozam Beaks. Powers is an anxious musician that chooses to put his feelings, like the best of them, into his work and we’re very thankful of that. He records lo-fi, shoe-gaze on his own at home. Under the haze and the whir are blissful melodies which are up there with the best I’ve heard for some time and July in particular earns it money.

It begins with a slow misty start -so you check the volume, yeah it’s up- your just a bit desperate for those gushing sounds to hit the ears. ‘Explosions pillaging the night’ whispers it’s way into the track with Powers timid vocal amid roughed up ambience, it’s followed by the gentle hummed chorus coupled with delicate keyboard. The track has a childish nature to it, easy to adjust to and immerse yourself in. The drum machine pops and crackles into metronomed time, sounding like a machine running out of bearings and in need of a service but just so happens to hold the track up, broken machines can sound good, they do here. The melodies merge and melt into one another’s arms, the guitar weeps a fuzzy chord. The placid, echoey pads only add to the enchantment. The broken drum machine picks up the pace with a flabby yet perfect 4/4 kick drum, the atmosphere builds and you start to switch off from the world around you, then it reaches the dizzy heights of the middle 8 and you realize it’s really something special: ‘’If I had never let go then only God knows where I’d be now’’. This peak of the track is why new music has such an appeal, anything that can make you feel this good without touching you need’s to be remembered and enjoyed regularly. After the joy the track hollows out and disappears into itself, you yearn for one more round, one more chance to close your eyes and add a dream into your day. Powers lyrics are particularly special, most of which are indecipherable at first, for me anyway, but once you read them it adds so much power to the tracks. But I suggest not doing this for a while, makes things more worthwhile, they’re available on the internet, you’ll find them and if you don’t then it’s all lost on you. I’m not expecting Youth Lagoon to remain unknown for long, he’s just not that sort of talent, people will always have an affinity with the beautiful.

The album The Year of Hibernation.  Will be out in the Autumn on Fat Possum Records.

Jamie XX – Far Nearer

I tried to avoid it again this month, the semi big name, the rising star that everyone’s watching, but sometimes the masses are right.

Since the four late London teens started The XX their inimitable sound has had a huge amount to do with Jamie Smith. I remember the first time I saw them, around 2008 at the sorely missed Bardens Boudoir in East London, Jamie tapped his beats out onto a digital sampler, hit for hit, awkward yet commanding. It’s a modern sight that may well become the norm, the upright digital drummer, Kraftwerk still creep in don’t they? He had an air of knowledge about him, knew what he was doing and was truly comfortable with his own sound. The XX went on to win the Mercury Music Prize and their music was used in hundreds of sombre, thought provoking TV adverts. Their sound was born, grew up, was sold, pillaged and came out the end of it still sounding great.

So since then Jamie hasn’t rested, turning his hand to remixes for the likes Adele and Jack Penate climaxing in the reprise of the Gil Scott-Heron album I’m New Here.  He retained the great mans vocals whilst adding his distinctive production skills to the LP, all this only a few months before the sad passing of Mr Scott-Heron, poignant timing indeed.

I spotted with some anticipation his new single Far Nearer on Bleep.com and as soon as I heard the steel drums I was fixed. That magical, far off sound is instantly timeless. But with any track by the young producer you know there’s a beat, you wonder how it’ll come and how it’ll fit to this Carribean groove, it comes a minute and a half into the six minute plus track, the quick skipping bass drum, three to the one of the crisp snare. Off kilter, slightly sparse, with the deep seeded bass that screams for the Funktion 1 soundsystem. Dubby dancefloor tunes of the moment usually opt for the female vocal, calling and responding to the reverberating bass line, but this song opts for a pitched down male vocal with the line ‘’I feel better’’ repeating in different forms throughout. The drops in the track are accentuated with hypnotic swooshes only to be taken over by the beat that returns and pushes the track on. Friendly to the dancefloor and friendly to you, home alone. It’s beat heavy, which in this day and age is nothing new, but with the timeless melody of the steel drum it gives you something its rival tracks will never have.

There’s been rumblings that he’s ripping off Burial, stealing the vocal styles, minor chords and vacant mood. I just don’t think that’s the case, they’ve both evolved from the same city at the same time. Maybe they sound the same as they grew up in the same environment but both are individualists in their own right. While Burial remains in the Shadows, Jamie XX stays just adjacent to the spotlight, continuing the kinetic energy from The debut XX album and moving into tunes that allow him to show the dubby hip-hop influences he’s so fond of.

Word on the street is steel pans may feature on the next XX album, we wait, only they’ll decide when it’s right and good luck to them. But let’s not forget Jamie XX stands strong on his own.

Out now on Glasgow’s Numbers label.

For the last two months I’ve focused on tracks by fairly well known artists, especially for those reading this. It’s just the way it’s gone and they’ve been the tunes with the best vibe at the time.  Next month, I promise, it’s going to be less known.

Hibernate Recordings is a labour of love by Jonathan Lees. Based in Hebden Bridge, over the past couple of years, the label has made a name for itself with a sterling catalogue of micro-releases of cutting-edge ambient and modern classical music from the likes of Ian Hawgood, Bengalfuel and Clem Leek. For the 13 May edition of You and the Night and the Music, Adrian Arratoon spoke to Jonathan about the label before broadcasting Lees’s exclusive mix for DCR, which showcases some of the label’s highlights.

Interview with Jonathan Lees of Hibernate Recordings

Hibernate Recordings mix

1. Ian Hawgood: Wolfskin

2. Andrea Ferraris & Matteo Uggeri: Zapping TV at home, old clock charging and then walking on wooden floor

3. Offthesky: Whittling you little lights

4. Relmic Statute: Rehoiyo

5. Talvihorros: A continual echo of the sound of loss (part 1)

6. Clem Leek: Mystery Moor

7. Wil Bolton: Slate

8. Mark Harris: I am a long way from home

9. Field Rotation: Shoreline (Adrift, Dream)

10. Simon Bainton: Arrival

11. Warmth Terminal: On that day

12. Bengalfuel: Mad Daddy Clawbone

For details on all the artists, please visit: www.hibernate-recs.co.uk

Play Now
Download it

Five-piece band Her Name is Calla take the loud-quiet aesthetic and take it to new heights. With their blistering live shows, and over a series of beautifully designed releases, covering EPs and albums, the UK band have attracted a growing legion of fans. Adrian Arratoon spoke to Thom Corah about the release of the Maw EP. This interview was broadcast on 13 May on You and the Night and the Music.

Including the tracks:

Maw

Pour More Oil

Thom is second left in the photo, which is by Abi Harrison

www.hernameiscalla.com

@adriandcr

Play Now

Download it

‘What’s that? An original piece of music, yeah course mate…..’

 tUnE-yArDs – Bizness

I was not quite sure what way to go this month. I thought that by the time this went to print this tune would be huge, adorning an advert for a small computer or a stripy pair of trainers, either way I was sure it would have been used and I said to myself if it did I’d leave it and concentrate on something less obvious, a song with no exposure that needed all the little help it could get. But Bizness is not everywhere, not soiling my TV with poorly matched visuals and not sickening me with its relentless presence. It remains, in the most, pretty unheard and that’s one good reason to write about it. But primarily I’m focusing on it because it happens to be an incredible piece of music that needs to be heard.

Every so often you latch on to a track that is enjoyed by one and all, the track you reserve in the memory bank for pissed up song wars at summer barbeques. This is it. You’ll be hard pushed to find someone that does not like it. It begins with a strangely enjoyable shrill introduction opening the door to the vocal layers to come. They run through the song like a snake escaping from a sack of corn, they ebb and flow yet don’t repeat, don’t bore and certainly keep you interested – from dubby words and subtle charms to full on harmonic backing vocals, it’s a master class in singing. Merrill Garbuss’s voice is one you will not forget in a hurry. It’s a surprising, androgynous mix that is hard to put a nation on, highlighted in the Chorus, with it’s crush of words crammed in to the catchy tones: “Don’t take my life away, don’t take my life away”. It contributes wonderfully in its part but this song is not solely about the chorus, it is about the whole, exploding package . The song has an Afrobeat influence, the plucky guitar and off-kilter, M.I.A type drums in particular with the production not far – but also very far – from TV on the Radio. Again, it comes back to those layers – it is all about those layers. Layering like this can be attributed to decent Techno as well as Afrobeat – free to drop in bar by bar from the brrr brrr bass to the tappy percussion before ascending into the horn section, which arrives in a recognizable manner first time around before returning with a sound eluding to synthetic steel drums forces forwards to the majestic summit.

Bizness’s accompanying video is an eccentric revelation, a visual pleasure that lends to oddball humanity, Contorting faces and displaced dancing marry well with all the shiny goodness a video for this fascinating song is expected to contain. If it is your first exposure, then the full monty is highly recommended -I suggest both as big and as loud as you can.

I would like to thank a certain Jon Hillock and his New Noise Podcast for putting me on to this song. Hillcock is an unsung hero of radio that I cannot believe isn’t on the radio more regularly. Maybe it’s time for a few of the very good and well respected guys, particularly within The BBC, to step aside; after all you cannot replicate fresh talent.