Lot's of work and hot and humid weather kept me away from my laptop the last days. I also had problems to find a new cloud to share some music. I used box during the last days but since two weeks they deleted a lot of files and wanted me to upgrade to sign up for a new account with costs. For that reason I looked for the cheaper way. First I tried what German telecom offered to me and I signed for a free account, loaded up some files and tried to publish the link. I failed to create a link because this company doesn't allow to share music files. Seems like they check the ending of the file. So now I try google drive. I am not a fan of this company but I think it is the right solution for today. If you know any other opinion - let me know.
These days Edinburgh's Kid Canaveral released their new record Faulty Inner Dialogue. It is an amazing summer record with great guitar-pop songs on it. And also the synths works good on their new songs.
These songs from this sampler made me want to buy the albums of these artists. And I went straight to my local record dealer to get these records not knowing that they would be classic records of this decade. The Undertones impressed me with their classic short songs telling us about teenage feelings and how to stand it (or not).
The B52's were retro as retro could be. Bringing back the Rickenbacker guitar to our memory. I was huge impressed of their first record. Everything was stylish: the music, the outfit, the cover and especially their 60's hairstyle
This compilation introduced me to The Slits as well. Never heard sounds like this before. This mixture of punk, new-wave and reggae was very unique at this time and only less people listened to them at my place at this time.
During the last days I listened often to the new album by The Duke Spirit. They released their latest record after a period of absence over 5 years. Now they are back with a superb record based on blues and blues-rock. Sometimes the power of PJ Harvey or Patti Smith shimmers through, the whole sometimes also reminds of the Breeders. However, behind all garage rock manner one notices that the former art students have also belonged Spiritualized or The Jesus And Mary Chain, because this psychedelic beginning forms the carpet of her special rock variation.
I tried to offer a few songs via box but they regulated my limits to a very low level. So I have to find out another opportunity for a free download.
I am sure that I don't have to spent much words on a band that is still on of my favourite bands of all time. Joy Division crossed my attention in the late 70's releasing their first singles and then their epoch-making first record that is on my record player for ages. This is this kind of music I won't miss for the rest of my life.
As far as I know this video of one of their classic songs was originally recorded during a Peel-session. Very rough and intense. You could see Ian suffer when he was singing the lyrics.
Another classic was filmed by Anton Corbijn as a dark and mystic video. He later paid tribute to them with his movie Control.
The video of Love will tear us apart is more tamed than the first ones I offered. Working with colours and turning them into negative was also a style used in the early 80's.
These days more and more German rap/rap-rock artists appear promoting their upcoming albums with new songs. A lot of them are not worth to write about or even promote them. So that I am not a huge fan in German HipHop I think that I should promote this. It is the new song from Casper a son of an American soldier and a German wife. He was in this genre for over ten years and he has a very striking voice for an HipHop-artist trained in several punk bands in during his early days. What is new with this song is the weird collaboration with Dagobert (an Austrian singer who calls himself a renovator of Schlager), Blixa Bargeld who is well known by his collaboration with Nick Cave and Einstürzende Neubauten und the German avant psych-pop band Sizzar. Not sure if I should call it HipHop or rock but I like this aggressive touch in their music. The video is more than disturbing and violent but congenial to this song.
Listening to the new single by The Avalanches Subways I remembered the days when Mutant Disco and Nu-Wave was the hottest thing around. This song is based on the vocals of Chandra Oppenheim, a 12 years old singer in this time. The Avalanches added some Bee Gee's and Doobie Brothers ingredients in this song and ready is a superb pop song for the summer.
Back in 1978 a collaboration between Link Wray and Robert Gordon was shown on TV. Robert Gordon got his first merits as a member of the punk rock bank Tuff Darts showed up in the 70's at CBGB's. Years later he turned into rockabilly and old school Rock 'n' Roll and made a collaboration with the legendary guitar player Link Wray who is famous for it is effective work on guitar sound. This is a footage I remember darkly seeing it the first time. Right now I think it is a classic collaboration that still works decades later.
If I read the news of the last weeks I have more and more worries about the future. A coup in Turkey with we don't know who has initiated him. Erdogan dismisses thousands of officials and arrests hundreds of military (and I am not sure if he planed it to amplify his power in Turkey). He wants to clean the country of members of the opposition and bury the democracy. In France still rules the state of emergency and in Nice hundreds die with an attack of a lunatic. Tory lady Theresa May is taking over the government by a may day. Over the Atlantic ocean Donald Trump is trying to take over the administration of the western world. In the USA black people were killed by white policemen and white policemen were killed by black fools. People were killed in a discotheque in Orlando. What is coming next? I am a bit of afraid about the times that are ahead of us. I almost proscribe this dark thoughts during my ordinary life but sometimes I feel that the world is losing it's honesty. I try to make this world a little better day by day talking to people and having fun but sometimes I think it is not enough. Don't worry, I am not depressed but it was a concern to write down these words right now. But I have not lost yet hope in the people who could make this world better day by day.
I don't know if it is a music for a better time but it is music I almost forgot. Edinburgh's Nectarine No. 9 released Saint Jack in 1995 and it still a (sadly forgotten) record that is on heavy rotation at my house.
Intaferon was a short-lived English new wave duo who released a few singles in the early 80's. I first noticed Get Out Of London by watching it on a German video show called Formel 1. The next day I went to my local record dealer to buy the 12-inch version. But he told me it was out of stock and asked me what happened because some of my mates ordered it the same day. This song sounds still great after all the years. A fast, rhythmic song with cryptic lyrics.
Jamie T. is back with a song from his next album. I am not a huge fan of his music but watching/listening to this song is not the same as the songs I know from him. The sound is a bit harder now and the lyrics more intimate than before. A song about painful and manipulativ relationship.
It seems like the year goes on like it started and takes artists that I grew up away. The sad news arrived when I was on Echorich's site. He said the right words and I just have to agree. He was a hero to my younger days as well and his first records were on heavy rotation at my home in the early 80's. I loved the way he used to make Rockabilly to his very unique sound.
Another highlight was the fantastic Viet Vet - a 12 minute journey through the hot and dangerous jungle. Gloomy, sharp and dangerous.
These days I found something new by French electronic artists and musician Justice. The made one of the best electronic/dance-floor records in 2007. It is simply called Cross and I listened often to this records back in these days. It is a record full of great ideas and melodrama. Now they are going to release a new record and Safe and Sound was the first track they release as a single. It seems like funk returned into music with a fat and oily bass-line added with choir and strings. Sometimes I can hear Daft Punk in this smooth song.
Listening to this almost 40 years old record memories came back to these days. This record was unique to these days. Seldom had a record that gave me an overview of what music could be. It was a bunch of styles all over genres and made me searching for more of this.
It was the first time I listened to electronic music and it was far away of my musical favourites. Human League introduced me to what electronic music could be. Using simple chords and adding hypnotic hooks they made a classic song and they had to match this with their later songs.
This record brought me also to bands playing classic rock. I loved them from this song on, bought the older vinyls of their first band Kursaal Flyers and their later albums. They got little success with Starry Eyes a few years later. I still remember them as one of the best and forgotten pub rock bands.
There were a few classic and almost perfect pop songs on this record. One of them was by Cowboys International an almost forgotten band which never made a big success. Their first full length record The Original Sin is still a classic in late 70's British pop movement. Later lead singer Ken Lockie appeared as a background singer by the early Simple Minds.
Listening to new sounds in Germany I think a lot of new bands are looking backwards to the sound of the early 80's. Now a very new band appeared on the scene called Black Heino. On the one hand you should know that Heino is a German singer living in the tradition of German folk music. I grown up with him and his songs that was sometimes sung during our black decade 80 years ago. He is a guy with fair hair wearing sunglasses because of his debility of sight. In my younger days he was the one we won't listen to because he stood for something we thought we left behind (that nowadays he covers English songs doesn't make it better).
Black Heino is a band who is deep-rooted in the early 60's sound of The Who and The Kinks with riffs they did, added with a tambourine and a singer shouting out the title like Jello Biafra did years ago. They were based in German 80's Hamburger Schule and agit-prop like Ton, Steine, Scherben one of the first political bands in the late 60's. Dirk will understand the lyrics and I'm looking forward for his comment. If the album holds what this song promises it will become one best this year.
When I was searching youtube for some videos/songs normally youtube suggest another videos that are similar to the one I searched for. Sometimes I take the chance and watch this suggestions and soon be back in the 80s. Listening to this videos makes you smile. Not only because you take a journey back in time. It is also about the artwork. Compared to now they seem antiquated and low priced. But watching them after decades it works very fine for me.
Danish musician and producer released one more collaboration. And as ever - the unexpected ones are the best. Step by step he moved from early ambient-electronic and ghosty house more and more towards electronic-indie. Therefore it is logical that his latest collaboration was together with Jenny Beth, the singer of the excellent post-punk renovators Savages (which made one of the best records in this year so far). It is a dark, brisk electronic rock song. Not a bad song to start into the week.
