10 Remixes

 

2020 has it's last day and I am glad that it is over. This year brought experiences that I never expected. The pandemic changed nearly everything I used to have and I can't remember staying in distant to many friends before. Knowing that we start into the new year with the same routine my hope is that we will have a better time round next summer. The last songs for this year are from the French music collective Les Négresses Vertes take from their superb album 10 Remixes from 1993 where different artists remixed their songs from their first album.

All the best to you people and stay safe.

Les Negresses Vertes - Zobi La Mouche (William Orbit Remix)

Les Negresses Vertes - Face á la mer (Massive Attack Remix)

Black And White

 

Almost 40 years ago the first album Stands for Decibels by The DB's was released. In times where new sounds were created Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple dared to take a look back in history and combined 60's pop, collage rock and psychedelia to their own definition of power-pop. I have to admit that I always had an affection to jangly guitar pop and great short songs. Even if times fly away their songs still sound fresh and are worth to be played once again.

The DB's - Black and White

One year later they released a second album before they disbanded. Amplifier is another three minute song about separation of a couple but seldom with that kind of funny wink.

The DB's - Amplifier

Jean The Birdman

 

In 1993 David Sylvian released his first collaboration with former King Crimson's guitar player Robert Fripp The First Day. I knew Sylvian from his former band Japan and his album Tin Drum. It was a kind of music I don't listen regular to but sometimes I get into the mood of getting lost in this kind of dreamy and arty music. Fripp's guitar broadened Sylvian's music into another musical dimension. This video from the 90's shows exactly his ambition in searching for another piece of ambient psychedelia.

Monday's Long Song

 

Damage Control by New York based duo The Vacant Lots was released earlier this month and didn't made it on my year-end list just because it was no regular album. It is a compilation of various EP's they made during the last years and well worth to be checked out because their own definition of droning, psychedelic sound that includes the best of Spaceman 3, JAMC, VU and sometimes Echo and the Bunnymen was one of the freshest ones I listened to this year. They don't definite this genre new of course but holding the flag of drone music high is not the worst thing in days like these.

All I Need

 

Sometimes it makes you smile when you listen to a song in the radio that you have almost forgotten. This happened during Christmas time when we took a trip in the car to visit my former wife's mother. All I Need was released in 1998 by Air on their first and rightly high recommended album Moon Safari. I have to admit that I didn't listen to this record for ages but did it with joy after we arrived back home.

Air - All I Need (feat Beth Hirsch)

Happy Christmas

 

Trout

 

There were times when everyone told us that vinyl is going to die and the only media in the future is will be a compact disk. Like many others (and of course you could find less new records on vinyl) I started buying records on this format. I am thankful that times like this are over and nearly every new record will be released on vinyl as well. Sometimes good things come back. I found this track recently in my collection when I was sorting my CD-collection again. Neneh Cherry's second album Homebrew from 1992 is an underrated album because it is far away from the style the mass expected. A hybrid of jazz, hip-hop and rock music seldom made better. Trout is the best example that old fashioned music could be transformed into today's music. Based on the guitar lines of Steppenwolf's The Pusher and Led Zeppelin's When Levee Breaks Neneh collected it as a piece of her own. A forgotten classic.

Neneh Cherry and Michael Stipe - Trout