Album Review: Earth City Recordz - FuTuRe SoUnD Of ThE UnDeRGrOuNd VoL 3 (2013)

Manchester-based recording label Earth City Recordz has just released the third compilation in its Future Sound of the Underground series (of label samplers). I picked up a download a few weeks back and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it ever since.

The main guy behind Earth City Recordz is Muhammad Hamzah. I’ve been following him via social media for a while now and it’s unlikely there’s a harder working artist-producer-DJ-social and/or political commentator out there. His output as an artist working under the Celt Islam and The Analogue Fakir monikers, both live and in the studio, is prolific, and he’s relentless at supporting the work of other artists, getting it out there, in whatever form, wherever, and whenever he can.

 

As label samplers go, FuTuRe SoUnD Of ThE UnDeRGrOuNd VoL 3 is a very generous listen at 23 tracks over the course of more than 130 minutes, it showcases a wide range of artists, and features a genuine hybrid of styles. And just like Celt Islam’s best work, there’s a borderless feel about much of this compilation, as you’d tend to expect from such an ethnically diverse mash of nationalities coming together in the name of dub.

Yet to call it dub and stick such a singular label on it fails to give the compilation, or the label, the credit it deserves. Yes, dub, or transnational dub, does appeal as an ideal catch-all, but there’s also large portions of electro, some EDM-indebted stuff, some drum’nbass, dubstep, plus super-sized chunks of that thing we call “world music”.

The highlights are spread fairly evenly across the 23 tracks, the best of which are: MasterMind XS - ‘Far From Here’, Celt Islam - ‘Beyond’, Samia Farah - ‘Al Shams’, Mosienko Project - ‘Kings Valley Dub’, Vel Curve - ‘Tribal Dub’, Oenky & Tompafly - ‘Solitude In Darkness’, 4bstr4ck3r - ‘Mental Stabber’, Demon Dubz - ‘Don’t Stop’, and The Analogue Fakir closes the album with ‘Retro Box’.

Earth City Recordz on Bandcamp

Earth City Recordz on Soundcloud

Earth City Recordz on Facebook

And here’s Celt Islam:

 

Random 30 2013: Gemini - Robots (Chrome Sparks Remix)

Gemini, aka Thomas Slinger, hails from Leicester, UK, and while he’s probably best known for his remix work on tracks by the chart-busting likes of Lana Del Rey, Emeli Sande, and Ed Sheeran, he’s also released a handful of singles and EPs on his own account. Apparently we can expect a full-length album sometime in 2014, if not before.

The original mix of ‘Robots’ turned up on his Mercury EP back in November of 2012, but the version which made me sit up and take note was the excellent Chrome Sparks Remix featured here. Gemini’s music blends elements of house, electronica, and dubstep, but this synth rich mix of ‘Robots’ almost crosses over into some kind of plush variation on nu disco ... I’ve listened to this a lot during the year and its seemingly effortless groove still grabs me each and every time.

Random 30 2013: Stereophonics - Violins and Tambourines

For me, the music of Stereophonics is so indelibly linked with the late Nineties – in a sort of post-britpop comedown kind of way – I really hadn’t expected the Welsh band’s 2013 album Graffiti on the Train to be much chop at all. And I certainly hadn’t expected an album track like ‘Violins and Tambourines’ from a band I never really had all that much time for in the first place.

But it is what it is, and ‘Violins and Tambourines’ is – despite being overlooked as a potential single – quite probably the best track ever written by the band’s multi-talented lead vocalist Kelly Jones. It’s a song about a man seeking some form of redemption but at the same time never quite believing or accepting he is worthy of it.

It’s a common and simple enough premise, but the compelling arrangement of strings and guitar, along with a heartfelt set of lyrics, form a mesmerising whole, and ‘Violins and Tambourines’ went on to speak to me in ways I could barely have anticipated ... and just quietly, in ways that made me more than a little uncomfortable. As the best music so often does.

Retail Therapy 6: Slow Boat Records, Wellington

Aside from the two Wellington stores I’ve covered in previous blogposts, there has of course been a host of other local record shops which have at various points along the journey served as depositories for my hard earned cash.

Going way back, there was the weird and wonderful Silvio’s Emporium on Cuba Street, a treasure trove of pick n mix delight, a shop that ceased to exist sometime back in the early Nineties, maybe even a bit earlier. There was the self-proclaimed “largest record shop in New Zealand”, Chelsea Records, in Manners Mall, which I think eventually got swallowed up by one of the large faceless chains. And more recently, right up until a couple of years ago, there was Real Groovy Records, also on Cuba, a shop with just about everything any self-respecting music consumer could possibly wish for.

But to conclude the Retail Therapy series of posts, I wanted to write a little bit about Slow Boat Records, an institution in Wellington music retailing. Unlike all of the above – and the two Wellington stores I’ve blogged about previously – Slow Boat is still operating, still a going concern as Cuba Street survivors for more than a quarter of a century. Selling both new and used music, in every format, stuff from all eras.

 

 

When I wrote about the Atomic and 24-Hour Party People nights at San Francisco Bath House recently (SFBH being just along the strip), I identified the sense of community at the venue as being something pivotal to the success of those nights. That same sense of community, indeed, a wide circle within the very same community, has been at the heart of the Slow Boat success story.

Owner Dennis O’Brien is himself a local muso of some renown, and he leads a passionate and knowledgeable team. Nothing ever feels too rushed at Slow Boat, it’s a great place to browse, or just to hang out as a voyeur. A place to feed off the sort of warm organic vibe you can only get amid racks and bins of pre-loved product. It is easy to get a little lost in there sometimes, even if the carefully categorised sections ensure you can never really stray too far.

It’s just a little thing, but I really like the display of Slow Boat’s picks for the greatest albums of all-time, taking pride of place over on the far wall. Something like that works on several levels, most obviously as inspiration to finally pick up that “all-timer” you’ve always wanted but never quite got around to buying. But it also works as a discussion point, and it informs the punter that these guys have a sense of history … a love of what they do. It’s an acknowledgement that for all that popular music is so often about the present, about the now, it also has a rich and vibrant past, and Slow Boat is a place where you can engage with that. It feels a bit like an inadvertent mission statement … of sorts.

In the opening post of this series I bemoaned the fact that nowadays I don’t get across town to Slow Boat often enough. I’m really going to have to do something about that. In my defence, I did many times set out on lunch-break treks across town, with Real Groovy the target destination, only to run out of time because browsing at Slow Boat got in the way. I could never quite make it all the way up Cuba Street within the allotted hour … and now I have no reason to.

So perhaps I’ll have to revive a Friday night routine from a few years back and make the effort to get there more often. Whatever happens, it’s nice to know Slow Boat Records is still an option for me, a throwback to the past, one that just keeps on giving …

I reckon the small but nostalgia-rich New Zealand music sections at Slow Boat are among the best I’ve ever seen, especially in terms of used vinyl, but more generally across all formats. Here’s a tribute to indie record stores from NZ band The Brunettes …

 

 

 

 

Random 30 2013: Jorge Takei - Aretha (Vocal Mix)

Jorge Takei (or JT) is a Cologne based producer whose self-released music has tended to slip by without much fanfare. Until May of this year, that is, when a sample-heavy, pulsating house track simply called ‘Aretha (Vocal Mix)’ dropped as a free download on the excellent XLR8R website.

Combining a pretty special Aretha Franklin vocal edit with Takei’s own unique brew of bpm-driven dancefloor goodness, ‘Aretha’ was a bright ray of sunshine for me during winter’s harshest months. I’m not sure whether this could legitimately be described as deep house, or whether it’s yet another variation on minimal techno, but whatever the hell it is, it’s hugely infectious.

Classic Album Review: Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks (1977)

Where do you start with an album like Never Mind The Bollocks?

Let’s face it, for a talentless bunch of anti-social misfits who supposedly couldn’t play a note between them, the Sex Pistols left an indelible mark on popular music’s vast and rich multi-coloured quilt … even if that mark now bears a remarkable resemblance to that of a stale semen stain.

I’m quite sure the band wouldn’t have had it any other way.

It is hard to believe the Pistols operated as a going concern for little more than a year (in reality), and given the size of their discography nowadays, even more difficult to fathom is the fact that Never Mind The Bollocks was the band’s only official studio album.

The story behind the album has been told so many times it almost seems ludicrous to offer my own little piece of revisionism here, suffice to say that Never Mind The Bollocks is a landmark work … of its time, for its time – an acerbic, snotty-nosed, sneering, take-no-prisoners monolithic monster of a Rock’n’Roll record that still, even after all these years, simply has to be heard to be believed.

If you haven’t heard it yet, then why the hell are you wasting time sitting there reading this? Get to it. Life’s too short …

Oh, and great cover art too. Who knew pink and yellow were so compatible?

Five for download: ‘Anarchy In The UK’, ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Pretty Vacant’, ‘EMI’, and ‘Submission’.

Random 30 2013: Daughter - Lifeforms

There is a creepy intensity to be found in the music of London three-piece Daughter. The band’s full-length debut on the 4AD label from early in 2013 was called If You Leave, and it was a follow-up to three earlier EP’s and a couple of singles.

‘Lifeforms’ is a regular album track, not one of the singles, something which perhaps best emphasises the quality in depth of Daughter’s music. Vocalist Elena Tonra’s hypnotic delivery is all-consuming, and the guitar work never less than intoxicating. ‘Lifeforms’ is an absorbing listen, and it draws me in close each and every time I hear it.

Also worth checking out is the trio’s genre-bending cover of ‘Get Lucky’, and of course the rest of the album, but here’s ‘Lifeforms’:

 

Random 30 2013: Fat Freddy's Drop - Silver And Gold

Blackbird, the 2013 album from Wellington’s Fat Freddy’s Drop, has become a firm favourite of everythingsgonegreen in recent times (review to come). Internationally renowned, yet not universally popular at home, the FFD collective couldn’t care less about the lazy labels being applied by local critics in order to categorise the music, it just keeps on getting on with it. Doing what it does best: bass-centric funk and crossover dub.

2013 was another huge year for Fat Freddy’s, the hard-working band once again touring extensively to get Blackbird’s eclectic grooves out there on a global scale. ‘Silver And Gold’ was an early taster for me, downloaded as a sneak preview before I bought the album, and it works as an ideal sampler for everything else you’ll find on Blackbird.

Album Review: Pet Shop Boys - Electric (2013)

There is something distinctly magical about the earliest Pet Shop Boys work. The first couple of singles were perfectly formed slices of pure in-the-moment pop. I loved that early stuff, but I wouldn’t necessarily have called myself a fan for the longer haul. The novelty collaboration with Dusty Springfield (and other indulgences) left me a bit cold, and the PSB and I parted ways some years back.

Hugely self conscious and excessively camp, the duo’s music dropped right off my radar until a few years back when I heard a cover of the Madness hit ‘My Girl’, and a pretty cool PSB original called ‘Love etc’. It felt like some of the magic had returned, and I vowed back then to check out parts of the vast back catalogue … had I been a fan, I might have got around to it. Had I been a real fan, I wouldn’t have needed to.

Fast forward to 2013, and Pet Shop Boys are back with a new album, Electric. More in hope than expectation I downloaded a copy as soon as it came out – it seemed like the logical thing to do at the time, and as good a place to start/return as any.

The first couple of times I listened to Electric it sounded vibrant and essential, and early reviewers were calling it a return to form. Several months on, my familiarity with it has led to a form of contempt, and it definitely feels like a case of diminishing returns each time it gets an airing.

The first half of the album has enough going for it to be more than palatable, with some clever songwriting (main themes: politics, art, culture) and the now obligatory PSB morsels of humour in the lyrics – particularly on ‘Love Is A Bourgeois Construct’ … though whether that humour is intentional or not is probably debatable.

The real gem arrives four tracks in; ‘Fluorescent’ is possibly the best thing Neil Tennent and Chris Lowe have done since ‘Love Comes Quickly’ all those years ago. It’s an intense Fade-To-Grey-esque thing of true beauty, and it captures all that has ever been good about these guys in one short splurge. I’d go so far as to say ‘Fluorescent’ is one of my tracks of year ... it’s certainly the standout on Electric (insert your own flare or beacon joke here).

From there, the second half of the album starts to fall away quite badly:

‘Shouting In The Evening’ cultivates lightweight dubstep textures that merely succeed in leaving the impression Neil Tennant is trying too hard.

At worst, ‘Thursday’ sounds a bit like an actual PSB parody and it features a naff rap cameo from UK producer Example. At best, it’s difficult to listen to with anything resembling a straight face.

The closer, ‘Vocal’, does have its moments, but it winds up being swamped by slightly dated techno cheese.

Tennant’s voice remains as youthful as ever (he turns 60 next year). That boyish charm first heard on ‘West End Girls’ is still there, and it’s one of the keys to the duo’s long-term success, but there’s also times on Electric when I’m acutely aware that this is an album made by two men on the wrong side of 50 … and I’m not so sure that’s such a good thing.

I guess I’ve always found PSB perfectly fine in small doses, but a little more challenging over the longer form. Perhaps that’s why they’re such stalwarts of mainstream radio ... as past masters of the perfect three-to-four minute pop song?

When they’re good, they’re very good. When they’re not, the music feels like one big campy excursion into the void.

So Electric is a bit of a mixed bag, flashes of brilliance amid long periods of same old same old ... I’ve given it a fair old workout over the past few months but I’m pretty much at the point now where I doubt I’ll ever listen to it again.

 

 

 

Random 30 2013: Daphni - Yes I Know

This one is not strictly a track from 2013 – it is lifted off Daphni’s Jiaolong album, which was released in October 2012 – but it’s another one that got a fair amount of my pod-time during the first half of this year. Daphni is Dan Snaith, aka Caribou, and ‘Yes I Know’ is a heady combination of bass, loops, and funky drum machine samples. It positively pulses with dancefloor goodness. It’s quite different from the spacey psychedelic forms usually associated with Caribou but every bit as good.