Another new artist to me was Alex Cameron when a friend recommended this latest video to me. Cameron is a Sydney based musician and his music can is based on classic rock, the epic Bruce Springsteen and Nick Cave's haunting melodies. Together with Angel Olsen he made a remarkable song and one of the finest videos this year.
Early this week I featured The Surfing Magazines, a new band where members are origin from Slow Club a band that Drew introduced to me. After listening to SM I grabbed out the records by Slow Club and listened to it several times. I have to say that nothing of the fascination to their music vanished since I listened to them the first time. So I want to introduce you to a small journey into ballads based on traditional British folk added with small ingredients of rock. Music for the end of the day.
Yesterday the news arrived that one more Krautrock-legend passed away. A few months ago we heard that Jaki Liebezeit, probably one of the best drummers of all time passed away and now Holger Czukay passed away as well. As far as we know yet he was found in the rooms of studio after a few days when he died. It is not necessary to talk much about him and his influences to artists like John Lydon, Jah Wobble, David Sylvain, Mark Hollis and even The Edge. He called himself the universal dilettante because he was never trained to master an instrument perfectly although he could played a lot of instruments proper. He was one of those who discovered the possibilities of samplings, adding loops together and always searching for new electronic sounds.
RIP Holger
If you have the nerve and time you can listen to a live concert from 1970 in Soest, Germany with the first appearance of Can's singer Damo Suzuki.
Sometimes collaborations happens when you didn't expect them. So it was when Courtney Barnett who made one of the best records a few years ago joined with Kurt Vile for an album. I only know this song from their announced LP but it has a lot of these ingredients I like them for: a folk based song with good guitars that would sometimes destroy the harmony of the song and two great voices. It makes me curious for the rest of the album.
Like many other British independent labels Beggars Banquet were formed under the influence of the punk-rock movement. During the years they released a lot of records with quality and taste. Their first release was a classic punk single by the Lurkers. With the subsequent singles the hit the nerve of the time and bands like Tubeway Army and Gary Numan reached high positions in the charts. But Beggars Banquet had also open ears for gothic and new wave. Further along the line the released the records by The Go-Betweens and records by MES's The Fall at his best times. This could be an endless list if I would feature songs by Robert Forster or Grant MacLennan. Anyway, good to look back at the disclosures of this record label with a smile.
A band named after a song by Robert Forster can't be bad was my first thought when I first noticed The Surfing Magazines and I started further investigations. The band contains a half of Slow Club and two third of The Wave Pictures and they play guitar music influenced by Americana, Surf Rock and Velvet Underground. Not the hottest new thing but garage- and surf-rock how it should be.
I think this is the first song I feature on this pages that was made in Iran. I heard this song a few days ago as a soundtrack to a documentary about the Iran music scene. The internet doesn't tell much about this musician. As far as I know is Nu from Iran working as a musician and DJ. I really like this mix because it is depressant although it has a driving rhythm. It is sung in Farsi the native Iranian language and it means you and me. Another relaxing song to start into Sunday.
