Yesterday, I received the news that the apartment I have been living in for 13 years has been sold. My landlord informed me 16 months ago that it was going to be sold. Since then, I have been hoping that an investor would be found who would allow me to continue living here as a tenant. However, this is no longer possible, and I will have to find new accommodation in the course of this year.
I'm far from complaining about this, but over the next few months I'll be looking around the competitive housing market and hoping to find an affordable apartment. I remain optimistic that I'll succeed. Until then, here are a few songs with moving or relocating in the title.
In a week where it feels like a music legend has died every day, it's good to look at newly released music again. A few days ago Hugo Nicolson, a British music producer and DJ, who worked together with Andrew Weatherall on Primal Scream's Screamadelica and also with Julian Cope, David Holmes and Shack released a new EP Black Stick.
On three songs and one edit he takes us to a journey with layered with acid synths, deep basslines, and emotive melodies. A little tour de force on prog-house and kosmische motorik beats but always with a warm sound.
There are currently only a few bands from Germany that can inspire me with their music. One of them is International Music from Essen, who are now releasing their third album. They themselves describe their music as timeless melancholic music and that hits the nail on the head.
I like that they don't allow themselves to be pinned down to one style. Just when they had agreed with themselves that they must have heard the harsh guitar thunderstorms of the Scots The Jesus and Mary Chain, Fairport Convention flashed through unexpectedly. And when you were finally sure that you could place them somewhere in the Kraut genre, quasi in an ancestral line to Can or Neu, they released a pure summer pop song.
In the twang of Liebesformular (Love Form), there are hints of the first Summer of Love (California, 1967, think of the Byrds) and the second (Manchester, 1988, think of early Primal Scream). Nothing more or less than a great song for the end of summer. And it isn't necessary to understand the lyrics because they are somewhere between between sense and nonsense.
Last Friday Jesse Fahnestock released his latest output Other Skies a collaboration with singer Emilia Harmony. Regular visitors know that I like the music of Jesse Fahnestock and featured him at these pages several times. The whole year saw him busy with several releases but this one is ace and will surely appear in my year ends list. As he said he tried to be like Primal Scream on Higher Than The Sun or The Doves on Fallen. And yes he fulfilled everything you can expect. Other Skies is dominated by a pumping bass and a psychedelic mist. How to make a great song better is showed by Sean Johnson and Duncan Gray on their Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown mix when they added a lot of dub to this song. The original and other version can be listened to here. A little masterpiece
During the last days I listened a lot to post-punk sounds of the early 80's like the first albums by PIL and records by On-U-Sound from this era. Listening to them I came back to The Pop Group and Mark Stewart after a long time. The Politics Of Envy was his seventh album and still a milestone in this kind of genre. Together with Primal Scream, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Raincoat's Gina Birch and Clash/PIL guitarist Keith Levene he created a disturbing album with different styles and influences. You can find the anarchic industrial and angry sound of The Pop Group as well as a forgotten post-punk song with Keith Levene on guitar on Stereotype and agitation funk which was recorded with Bobby Gillespie by Primal Scream and focuses on the death of the Anti-G8-Demonstranten Carlo Guilliani in Genoa. It is still not easy to listen to this album but if you sink to it you can enjoy this unique sound experiences.
In 1992 Scottish band Primal Scream went after their eponymous album Screamadelica to Memphis to make an album with legendary producer Tom Dowd and the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. The sessions lead to an album that never saw the light of day until a few years ago. Many of the tracks were released on their fourth album Give Out But Don't Give Up but the songs from their sessions were much better than on this album. Primal Scream and Bobby Gillespie had never before and after more soul than in Memphis and better musicians in the background. Never expected that a Scottish band could play soulful song like these. I still come back to their Memphis' recordings from time to time with great joy.
Brooklyn's indie-rocker Parquet Court released their new album during the last week. I expected from them nothing more than another good album filled with good indie-music. And they fulfilled the expectations from the first song a post-punk hymn full of verve. So far so good. But there are songs on this album where they step out of their cliches and integrate groove and electronic into their sound. Marathon Of Anger has a minimal groove and the chant imitate Talking Heads to lead us into an Ian Curtis-inspired post-punk hymn.
Plant Life is more a dance-jam that could be a leftover from a forgotten sessions Primal Scream or Happy Mondays did in the early 90s. I think it has nothing to do with copy a great sound it is more transporting great things from the past into today's world. With these songs Parquet Courts show us that they are far better than many of their workmates.
During the last days I listened a lot to Primal Scream's epic Screamadelica album released 30 years ago. I don't have to tell you much about this album only that is probably the one that combined new wave, classic rock style with the upcoming electronic era and made my ears open to a lot of new sounds. This is a seldom played remix of Come Together by BBG released again earlier this year on a remix-compilation of Screamadelica-songs.
While listening to a lot of new psychedelic music especially from Scandinavia in these days I remembered the pioneers of this genre. The 13th Floor Elevators were active from 1965 until 1969 and led by Roky Erikson who passed away almost one year ago. The Elevator's sound was dominated by using two guitars and including a lot of reverb and echo into their music. As far as I know they were one of the first bands calling their music psychedelic rock. And if somebody can take up this for itself, then this band. Their first album is still an all time favorite of mine and you can listen to their legacy by Spacemen 3, Primal Scream or Echo and The Bunnymen.
Drew offered a competition of long songs featured on a Monday. So I join this challenge with a song that accompany me since almost 40 years. I often listened to it and I am still fascinated what a young band made in Cologne back in 1969. Their first album called Monster Movie contains only four songs and their masterpiece Yoo Doo Right is the only one on side two. It is a ride through Can's krautrock and psychedelic spheres and the result of a session. Still unbelievable that Jaki Liebezeit plays his drums like a metronome and Holger Czukay's virtuosic bass lines. Primal Scream paid tribute to this song in 1991 when the used to Can's lyrics in Movin On Up
The recent days I was informed that The Lucid Dream, one of the leading figures in UK psychedelic from Carlisle, will release their upcoming fourth album in October. Their sound was always a mixture of Acid House, dub and cosmic Krautrock. Their new single is a techno-punk inspired little monster. Of course you can hear that they learned by Underworld's Born Slippy but you can also find elements of Primal Scream. And the singer sounds like an angry John Lydon in the days of Rise.
Once again I listened to a new song and can't get him out of my mind. It's the new one by Alien Stadium, a collaboration project by Steve Mason and Primal Scream's Martin Duffy. Starting as a acoustic dominated song it turns into a acid-house rhythm influenced journey into space and back. Not the worst to start into Sunday.
After two days of inspiration in new music the festival turned into the last day. We all were lucky that the weather gave us a perfect background for an open air festival. The forecast told us that this will be dry as the days before but the degrees will rise up to 35 degrees celcius. Never the less we went soon after lunch time for the first artists to listen to.
First band today was Mitski, lead by Mitski Miyawaki from New York. Playing their very own kind of indie music. Just between collage rock and pure indie. Lead by a great bass and unique guitar licks they persuaded me. A great and underrated band that works live as well as on the album. Real good hymns combined with their energy of playing live makes them worth listening to still.
After listening to Whitney, another folk inspired band from the US (they weren't bad at all but at will to me, because I don't remember any song of them) the first highlight of today entered the main stage. It was the Thurston Moore Group playing songs from their latest album added with classics by Sonic Youth. I never had the chance to see Sonic Youth before the more I was impressed about playing his guitar. Since know I know actually why TM was named as one of the best guitar players of all time. He made his solos not for himself like many others, they were more a substantial piece of the songs. Happy enough watching him live we took a rest in the shade to sit down and run away from the shadeless stages to watch a so called Fuck up night. We both had no idea what will happen to us but we were surprised about the general aim of this show. It means nothing more or less that a few people talk about their mistakes in (business) life and how they survived and giving the audience the possibility to learn about their mistakes. Weird experience for me.
The next artist to was a new experience to me. I knew Edward Ka-Spel as the leading member of the early 80's Legendary Pink Dots, which played a unique mixture of psychedelic inspired, art-rock and folk. Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls was a huge fan of LPD and a few years ago they started a collaboration. Finally they created a dark and slow sound with psychedelic and folk ingredients of Ka-Spels's background and Palmers music influenced by Bauhaus, The Cure and Robyn Hitchcock. Not the music for everyone but for me they took me to an one hour trip into another kind of music,
Next artist was Primal Scream and Bobbie Gillespie and I don't have to tell anyone of you about them. It was 70 minutes of pure fun. Playing the best from their last year's record Chaosmosis and a lot of songs they released during the last decades. Nothing more than fun.
The last band on the festival was one of those who gave us one of the best records in this year so far. Slowdive played a fantastic set as far as I could see (I had to leave after 50 minutes to catch my train home). Known as a shoe gazing legend they were more to me because they got the balance between Pink Floyd influenced music with the best of post-punk. Timeless music for almost every one which is involved in the named genres.
