Monday's Long Song

 

Does anyone still remember IDM? A good 30 years ago, bands emerged that made intelligent dance music. I always thought the term was inappropriate and would rather call them post-techno.

From fragments of acid house, ambient and breakbeat, bands like Future Sound Of London and The Orbital initially created new soundscapes that had nothing to do with the dancefloor and could be listened to at home.

One of the driving forces behind this music was the Warp label, which released music by Aphex Twin and Autechre around 1994.

Autechre's second LP contains many different sounds, with some tracks having an ambient spark, while others have deep veins of techno and acid house. The sound is often dark and played with sparse percussion patterns and droning keyboards, but the sound of the album subtly changes with the second track Montreal. The song has a more accessible melody and a shimmering drum pattern and develops into a multi-layered and intriguing highlight that needs to be played again.

Autechre - Montreal

New Song On Sunday

 

A few months ago I became aware of an album by Warriors of the Dystotheque, a long time running project by Johnny Mac a DJ from Derry, Ireland. It's A Beautiful Thing is an album which was probably created in the spirit of Balearic, had some good moments and is quite calm and meditative. Apart from the last song of the album, Looking Through Balearic ES, no other song has stuck in my mind.

So I was all the more surprised that Nottingham's Coyote released a remix of this song this week. As usual, they manage to turn a good song into a very good one. The rather restrained rhythm and warm synths of the original are replaced by a hand-drummed beat and subtle guitars. The song could well appear on Café Del Mar's next sampler.

Lampes Mosse

 

A few days ago Craven Faults announced the release of their new album Bounds next week. I follow this band since a couple of years because they create a very unique sound. 

Based on analogue synthesizers they are somewhere between ambient, krautrock and electronica the create hypnotic aural landscapes you can drift away with. Not music that you should listen to on the side, whose beauty reveals itself if you can get involved with it.

Leather Friday

 

It's impossible to look back at leather outfits in rock music without mentioning Suzi Quatro. I can still remember how impressed I was when I saw her on television for the first time in 1973. On the one hand, that the entire band was dressed in leather and on the other, that she added hard rock to glam rock. Their first songs were classic stompers with a clear hook line and certainly influenced bands like The Runaways or Joan Jett.

Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft couldn't have been more blatant than Suzi when they turned everything upside down at the end of the 70's. Robert Görl and Gabriel Delgado-Lopez met in the Düsseldorf punk scene and crossed boundaries with their physically emphazised music. Until then, it was unthinkable to make electronic dance music. And it was also inconceivable that dictators and the Messiah could appear in the same song. D.A.F. also became the blueprint for many other groups such as Front 242 and almost the entire techno scene.

Mention must also be made of Dublin's Thin Lizzy, who flew the flag for hard rock during the glam-rock era. Most of the songs were recorded with two guitars and the many songs with classic hooklines are carried by Phil Lynott's. Lynott liked to wear leather in his early days, especially live.

Everything has an end, and so does this little series, which will perhaps be continued when black leather jackets become the order of the day.

He Was New There

 

It takes a lot of humor to name your comeback album I'm New Here after 16 years. Gil Scott-Heron was already a big name in the black community in the 70's when he wrote the soundtrack for the black civil rights movement in America with his spoken-word songs together with Brian Jackson. 

He returned in 2010 after spending several years behind bars due to his cocaine use. As soon as he was released on parole, he had himself photographed on television with a crack pipe. As a result, he violated the conditions of his parole and had to go back to prison.

I'm New Here is an album that is only 30 minutes long but stands out from this year's releases. It is an album that celebrates the blues, but also integrates influences from trip-hop. dubstep and slow beats. 

The songs fluctuate between harrowing acoustic blues on I'm New Here and a handclap of gospel on New York's Killing Me to make Robert Johnson's Me And The Devil sound like a Massive Attack song.

The album is his testament, as he passed away just under a year later. But it's good that he was here again.

Gil Scott-Heron - I'm New Here

Gil Scott-Heron - New York's Killing Me

Gil Scott-Heron - Me And The Devil

Gil Scott-Heron - Your Soul And Mine

Candy Apple Grey

 

When I was doing some research on the Internet recently, I came across the fact that Bob Mould was born 64 years ago today. All the more reason to listen to his albums with Sugar and Hüsker Dü again.

His debut album Copper Blue stood out from the 1992 releases and is rightly a classic, because the energy that can be heard on this album and the collection of great songs was rarely equalled at that time. 

I find it more difficult to name an equivalent album by Hüsker Dü. Zen Arcade is great, the following albums are still above average. My favorite album, however, is Candy Apple Grey, which is now almost 40 years old.

It was Hüsker Dü's first album that they released after switching to a major label. Many accused them of betraying indie, but for me it was a logical development of their music, moving away from their punk roots and putting their songs more in the foreground. Not that they lack much of their enthusiasm, many of their songs are more euphoric and empathetic and for many simply easier to digest. An album that paved the way for alternative rock and is just about perfect.

Hüsker Dü - Don't Wanna Know If You Are Lonely

Hüsker Dü - Hardly Getting Over It

Hüsker Dü - Sorry Somehow

Hüsker Dü - Too Fare Down

Blind Faith

 

A few weeks ago Irish singer-songwriter Gemma Hayes returned after a ten year absence with her new album Blind Faith. Gemma has been making wonderful music for over 20 years and has retired to Cork in recent years to spend more time with her two children. Finally she was able to bring herself to record a new album.

And she hasn't forgotten anything. She still writes songs that many others would give their lives for. That may sound exaggerated, but it makes sense to me. Hardly any other artist combines classic songwriting, great guitar arrangements and her enchanting voice.

On most of the songs she sings about love, lost and her personal view of live in these days. But it is not necessary, because her songs work without lyrics as well. A return that to say was merely welcome would be to seriously understate it. It is good to have her back and I hope she and her music will be no longer a best kept secret.