Red Hot And Blue

 

Red Hot + Blue is a compilation album from 1990, which was conceived as a tribute to Cole Porter and on which well-known musicians recorded contemporary cover versions of songs by the famous Broadway and film composer.

The album is the first in a series of benefit albums released by the Red Hot Organization in support of AIDS relief projects in various countries.

I also bought the album back then and was amazed at what great songs Cole Porter wrote and how they could be interpreted in a contemporary way. When I listened to the album again recently, I had the idea of creating a series of songs with red, hot and blue in the title. Stay tuned to see what comes in the next few weeks.

Red Hot + Blue

 

One of the most obscure compilations of recent decades appeared in 1990. There have always been albums on which musicians have been honoured. This album, however, is something special. It was released by the Red Hot Organisation, a charity to support HIV/AIDS relief worldwide after a spike in deaths among artists and intellectuals in NYC. I can't say why Cole Porter's music was used as the main theme, but the fact that so many artists from so many different musical genres recorded their versions is remarkable. Every song could have been written by David Byrne, Iggy Pop, Jungle Brothers, The Pogues or Sinnéad O'Connor. And that is probably the greatest praise for Cole Porter's songs, which have lost none of their fascination even after more than 30 years.

Monday's Long Song

 

The past years have seen Duncan Gray champion a sludgy, slow-mo take on dance music that favors chuggy bass guitars and psychedelic sound palettes and drag and drop samples. He was featured at this place several times and often with new releases that were all over the usual average of new releases in electronic music. Now he's back with a new release on London's tici taca label. Short Haul is a bassy song inspired by the sound of Bill Laswell and Eno's/Byrne's Bush of Ghosts with great guitar parts in the second half. Anyway a one of the best songs this year so far.

Purchased (Not Only) By The Cover

Brian Eno and David Byrne worked together on the first albums by Talking Heads in the late 70's/early 80's. During the break between Fear Of Music and Remain In Light both worked on a project that was released in 1980 as My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. I saw that cover first and asked myself what is this? It was totally different to many covers I saw before. Not knowing if this diffuse picture is just arty or a simple mistake by pressing the cover. Later I found the answer:

The cover image was created by pasting small cutout humanoid shapes onto a monitor and pointing a camera at it to create video feedback, infinitely multiplying the shapes: "Somehow, despite it being very techie, these techniques also seemed analogous to what we were doing on the record. It was funky as well as being techie. Extremely lo-tech, actually, and not what you were supposed to do with a TV set.

Anyway, I  read the name of the artists and took the album for a listen in the record shop. What I heard was also very new to me. Not knowing if it was good or not I bought the album and gave them a listen at home. I have to admit that the sound confused me when I listened to it. It wasn't usual in these days to use samples and loops to create a new sound. So I took it as another experiment in music and forgot the album standing between many others. Years later when a lot of bands and artists started to sample music and used loops for their sounds I remembered this album. And I have to say that Eno and Byrne were miles ahead with this album that sadly didn't got the acclaim it should have.

Brian Eno & David Byrne - Regiment
Brian Eno & David Byrne - The Jezebel Spirit
Brian Eno & David Byrne - Help Me Somebody

Life During Wartime

It was often said on this pages that 1979 was a great year of music and I can only agree to it. The list of bands/songs that could be featured is almost endless. But one band came to my appearance that is still one of those that I will always come back to. Talking Heads released Fear and it was one of those albums that was played on heavy rotation at my place.And their combination of funky basslines, fantastic guitar phrase and the voice of David Byrne made this song timeless and it is still a great pleasure to listen to them.

Talking Heads - Life During Wartime

New MusicFor A New Week

After listening a longer time to music from the hard drive of my mobile phone I checked out some new music that was released during the last weeks. There were many outputs of albums and it is impossible to listen to them all. So I only checked out records by artists I know. There were less albums that made me want to listen more than one or two songs. Finally Lucy Dacus' new album Historian is worth to be recommended (David Byrne's new one is the other). Her first album from 2016 No Burden was not the one to be liked but enough to please. Pure indie-sound according to Courtney Barnett and Waxahatchee. She's another high talented indie singer-songwriter from USA and their songs often opens with a lone, clean guitar line and morph into a wall of distortion and cymbals. Most of the lyrics are very intimate and born on love and frustration.

Everybody's Coming To My House

There is too much new music that was released every day. I subscribed to some promoter's sides filling my in-box with tons of music every day. Most of them I delete at once because I haven't the time and muse to listen to every new track (JC knows what I mean). Since a few months I'm using Spotify and every Friday they collect about 25 new tracks according to the music I listen usually. This seems to be okay because to try them in one hour while I am on the way to office seems to be a good deal. Most of them they offered yesterday was not too bad but only one song made me curious to investigate for more. The song is the first appetizer of David Byrne's new album American Utopia and will be released in early March this year. Everybody's Coming To My House is co-written and produced by Brian Eno and it shows David Byrne at a very high level. Carried by a reluctant saxophone, a driving rhythm and some guitar licks are the ground where he can show his abilities in singing. One of the best new songs I heard this year. So please show me the way to this house.

My life in the bush of ghosts

Searching the roots of ambient or so called world music you can't ignore Brian Eno and David Byrne. While Eno worked mostly as a producer and Byrne was still a member of Talking Heads they got some time to make a record which was quite ahead of the times in 1981. In this time ist was very ambitious and had the usual listening habits put to the test. Listening to this music 30 years later I recognize a lot of ingredients I hear in nowadays Trance and Ambition music. So let's raise the glass to yesterday's heroes which was always one step ahead.

Happy Friday and a wonderful weekend

Brian Eno & David Byrne - Regiment