LIST 54 - 22/10/10

Lots of splendid things to round off the current series of That Music List, not least the splendid return of erstwhile Peel faves Bearsuit and a video by Darren Hayman that's pretty much the copybook definition of "less is more" (one piece of card, one set of pencils, one scanner - that's it!). Trembling Blue Stars, meanwhile, get the then and now treatment (to the surprise of none of you out there, I suspect!).

You read the above correctly, by the way - this is indeed the last regular That Music List for a bit, as work commitments start to bite (and after a few weeks' worth of unemployment around late spring, those are words I didn't necessarily think I'd be able to say again this year). There will be at least a couple of Christmas specials either before or during the festive period, though, before the List returns for another extended run of weekly editions some time in the midwinter. That is a promise, and indeed a threat!

In the meantime, thanks again for your patronage over these last 20 months or thereabouts.

Jeremy x



BEARSUIT – Please Don’t Take Him Back (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwlBY5RDOzw

WARPAINT – Undertow (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu4KR9ycBQc

BEASTIE BOYS – Lee Majors Come Again (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfVqHwjvOsI

DARREN HAYMAN & EMMY THE GREAT – Calling Out Your Name Again (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bopPCZ-OjzU

DUTCH UNCLES – The Ink (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V9FUN-8igY

BETTE DAVIS & THE BALCONETTES – Shopping on the Internet (1997)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYnBJ2rZN3k

TREMBLING BLUE STARS – Not For Second Prize (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMBpdoIbzCM

TREMBLING BLUE STARS – For This One (1996)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNbDU-XuwVg

TWO STEP HORROR – King Bee (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5-Gbbdc2Wc

MILKY WIMPSHAKE – One Good Use For My Heart (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb3LVmzr8c4

METRONOMY – Not Made for Love (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iiCJ_6nP0w

PAUL SMITH – Our Lady of Lourdes (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCr3ZSl1h6Q

TRASH KIT – Cadets (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THXql8R9Cko

EPIC45 – Daylight Ghosts (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hffW1vSV6UI

IRON AND WINE – Peng! 33 (2003)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaZJKphuFwE

PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL – Seed, Crop, Harvest (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVS4F1rTJwE

DAWN LANDES – Young Girl (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IeEwDt5eik

THE SLITS – I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1979)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxvo_9DEqY

GAS – Pop #6 (2000)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_XednEw7rY&NR=1

LIST 53 - 15/10/10

It's confirmed - the brand new releases from Trembling Blue Stars, namely an album and two EPs, will be the last.

With that ends 15 years' worth of, for the greater part, Bob Wratten soundtracking his own life with disarming, emotionally laid-bare candour and erudition under the TBS moniker, and at the same time him unwittingly putting to music those lives of mine and doubtless many others worldwide. The likes of Never Loved You More, Farewell to Forever, It's Easier to Smile and Dark Eyes, in particular, are almost painfully redolent of past, present and in all likelihood future chapters of my personal history.

As such, it's safe to assume that "All Our Tomorrows", included below and replete with something close to an official video from Elefant Records, will not be the only song from TBS's final batch to feature in these annals in the short term.

1995, the year TBS formed, was also the year Tindersticks released their favourite song of mine, the eight-minute deadpan narrative "My Sister", included here alongside a track from this year's album for 4AD. Grass Widow and Trash Kit, meanwhile, are included to cheer me up a bit, having managed to miss them play a gig literally a minute's walk from my office a couple of weeks ago owing to sheer volume of work. Unlucky!


RADAR BROTHERS – Horses Warriors (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZfNHpG4U2E

MAPS – It Will Find You (2007)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEpkouuK6n4

FALK UND DIE WIESE – Complicated (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXw1G3_mrRY

KIRSTY HAWKSHAW & ULRICH SCHNAUSS – Dreaming of Now (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifFw-JaF1gY

ST CHRISTOPHER – As Good as Married (1996)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oMcE-7WYak

SPC ECO – Like It Is (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUn_m6EcSDc

TINDERSTICKS – Black Smoke (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9G6idC9Fjg

TINDERSTICKS – My Sister (1995)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sFw3kxpX1w

TRICKY – Murder Weapon (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3fd4nE8OCI

MAGNETIC FIELDS – California Girls (2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2EQxrGU7Yc

LOW SEA – Berlin (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mFyePCdzlQ

THE WEEK THAT WAS – Scratch the Surface (2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gowBExbkFZk

TREMBLING BLUE STARS – All Our Tomorrows (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI1b4IwNiVU

MOSTAR SEVDAH REUNION – Gondže ružo (2007)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt6FDBElmbg

GRASS WIDOW – Fried Egg (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cveys2XSWM

TRASH KIT – Bugsy (2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXBlOG17vs

FSK – Euro-Trash Girl (1996)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCIp56qFB2Q

LIST 52 - 08/10/10 ("Remember this problem? The German language...")

...Thus began both the FSK album "The Sound Of Music" and the splendid German language music compilation "Wo ist Zuhause, Mama - Perlen Deutschsprachiger Popmusik" 18 and 15 years ago respectively. When I first started considering this week's list, it seemed too good a phrase not to recycle!

So, yes, herewith 20 tracks from German language performers (the presence of the likes of the astonishing Austrian punk-folk duo Attwenger prevents it from being considered a list of German performers), singing more or less all auf Deutsch. "More or less" because, ironically give the opening, the FSK track included contains more than a smattering of English!

It's all in context, though, and the track, "I Wish I Could Sprechen Sie Deutsch", will be remembered very fondly by those of you who were mid-1980s devotees of the John Peel Festive 50. The clip I've found of the track does indeed include the great man before and after, briefly.

Inevitably there were things I found myself leaving out in trying to straddle over three decades' worth of highlights even without pinching any of the sort of stuff a million Neue Deutsche Welle or Darkwave compilations already cover and cover rather better (that's a thought: wonder if Zillo is still going?); and I don't doubt there'll be another list of this nature in 2011 to accommodate the overspill.

In the meantime, and in the words of Nina Hagen in the closing track, "Ich wünsche Ihnen einen recht guten Empfang"...


TOCOTRONIC – Aber hier leben, nein danke (2004)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu_EXn9Kfkw

SUPERPUNK – Das Feuerwork ist Vorbei (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlxOagUeHiQ

WIR SIND HELDEN – Guten Tag (2003)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt8qY5KY9dQ

ATTWENGER – Rahm (1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUFwmdm5hjM

ELEMENT ART – Die Eistänzerin (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5V5QDgMPAU

SAMBA – Aus den Kolonien (2004)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kB932Vcx8g

BARBARA MORGENSTERN – Der Augenblick (2000)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjlnhotzH4

1000 ROBOTA – Er sagt (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPedlXWbbnA

DER ELEGANTE REST – Hardcore (2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba_7Y0UMNN0

SLUT & JULI ZEH – Wächterhauscollage (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsS2g4yAPGA

DIE ÄRZTE - Junge (2007)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2VnPOIBVt0 (censored)

DIE ÄRZTE – Westerland (1988)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sUh5I6kx1w

DIRK DARMSTÄDTER & BERND BEGEMANN – So geht das jede Nacht (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DZ0LoZmAjY

FSK – I Wish I Could Sprechen Sie Deutsch (1986)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTO5Hwu9PmQ

OSTZONENSUPPENWŰRFELMACHENKREBS - Respekt vor dem eigenen Hau (2000)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izp9L3G1wbg

SPILLSBURY – Sturzflug (2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZhMUzGTpgk

LYDIA DAHER – Flüchtige Bürger (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drUC2NV_PDw

DIE GOLDENEN ZITRONEN – Das bisschen Totschlag (1994)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01Hxq-PFOlc

PETER HEPPNER – Alleinesein (2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOYXxZXJS18

NINA HAGEN – TV-Glotzer (White Punks on Dope) (1978)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfPQB-mtQDY

LIST 51 - 01/10/10

Another standard, as opposed to themed, List this week, but at the same time two contributions could fall under a loose theme of courageous returns. Laetitia Sadier's solo album, out on September 27th, was at least partly recorded in the aftermath of her sister's suicide - the opening track addresses that tragedy with both unflinching honesty and quiet dignity, and is included here.

Edwyn Collins, meanwhile, has of course had his own trials in recent years, but emerging from the other side of these is "Losing Sleep", technically the second album released since his two brain haemorrhages in 2005 but the first entirely conceived and completed this side of them. The title track leaves little to the imagination regarding his comparatively reduced state nowadays, but at the same time of mawkish self-pity there is none.

I'm minded to include the Go-Betweens' "Right Here" this week, incidentally, after hearing The Peterboroughs' brave reading of it on accordion, uke, banjo and glockenspiel at the Nottingham Indiepop Weekender six days ago. It was, alas, the Leeds quartet's farewell gig, so unless on the fly recordings exist anywhere I wouldn't know where to direct you to a recording of it with any degree of confidence. My apologies!



LAETITIA SADIER – One Million Year Trip (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxWnA7rcsoE

OOIOO – SOL (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiHyEA6t30

THE PIPETTES – Call Me (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHRNGxYRiUg

AUTOROTATION – Everything is Everything (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2jZpEu1mJ0

BEST COAST – Boyfriend (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWvCv6uZsU

THE GO-BETWEENS – Right Here (1987)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqtTd_0oFU4

JAMES YUILL – First in Line (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu9Ag_qz1vI

FLOYD THE PHENOMENAL CAT-TROPHY – Name Mention Attention (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC-JtaHb5q8

TEAM GHOST – Colors in Time (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4e2NsQT5Ss

EDWYN COLLINS – Losing Sleep (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwQh1OoYfIE

EDWYN COLLINS – Don’t Shilly Shally (1984)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oS082HqfVE

LAU vs KARINE POLWART – The January Man (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W--Q47cNb8o

BONDE DE ROLE - Solto O Frango (2007)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgb6FxuaPQA

SHRAG – Rabbit Kids (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rXs9O2Tq90

DEINE LAKAIEN – Gone (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IXFjlege_0

BROADCAST AND THE FOCUS GROUP – I See, So I See So (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlVaRcNf9nc

BETTY AND THE WEREWOLVES – David Cassidy (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRFoNwddrxQ

GYPSY AND THE CAT – Time to Wander (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuelwnVTNYc

ROBERT WYATT – Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’ (1980)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pylc5jiGy8

THE SCHOOL – Is He Really Coming Home? (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5zlSyHAHjo

ATLAS SOUND ft LAETITIA SADIER – Quick Canal (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C79Q7MV4Fgo