That Music List: January 2015

Saturday 31 January 2015

LIST 145 - 30/01/15

Hello again,

Bit of everything once more this week, including another early-2015 highlight, this time from The Decemberists - amusing video also. The Mogwai choice is taken from the EP of material left over from 2013's corking Rave Tapes album, and arguably represents the closest they've yet come to making a straight-up pop record. It's got words and verses and choruses and everything. Flippancy aside, I like it very much.

For the first time in six years of doing these Lists, I find myself adding no fewer than three obituary tracks to the end of this week's selection, following the passing of Edgar Froese (Tangerine Dream), Demis Roussos (included here in one of his very earliest incarnations, alongside fellow future superstar Vangelis) and punk overlord Kim Fowley in very quick succession.

I read that Tangerine Dream's 1973 debut album Atem ("Breathe") was John Peel's favourite album of that year, and there's much evident in that track alone that presages plenty about the subsequent paths both electronic and ambient music were to take on.

J xx

THE DECEMBERISTS - Make You Better (2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb8oUbMrydk

THE ORCHIDS - We Made a Mess (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWDuNJw88_g

ELIZA CARTHY – Willow Tree (2002)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4603mFFdot4

MOGWAI - Teenage Exorcists (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Hek-AIcBw

INSPIRAL CARPETS ft JOHN COOPER CLARKE - Let You Down (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBNKZ5o2BkY

MYLO – Emotion 98.6 (2004)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOpoL4WZZ_E

TWIN PEAKS - Making Breakfast (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl9SRsPbWLM

EAST INDIA YOUTH - Dripping Down (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeMmpfZhNoc

LUSCIOUS JACKSON – Daughters of the Chaos (1993)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLv8EjfmbBg

HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT - Adam Boyle Has Cast Ladrock Aside (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGz_BiFyBU8

THE PRIMITIVES - Spin-o-Rama (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fDTUhlYMdc

LFO – Simon from Sydney (1991)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C27pXFA6zmc

SPC ECO - F*ck You (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH_eWK2Raik

SCOTT WALKER & SUN O))) - Brando (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_NIop72vis

KIM FOWLEY – The Trip (1965)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_hPfmjcr04

TANGERINE DREAM – Circulation of Events (1973)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rAYDNo9QWM

APHRODITE’S CHILD – Such a Funny Night (1971)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-qbJDqX0NI

Friday 23 January 2015

LIST 144 - 23/01/15

Hello again,

Still plenty I'm catching up on from last year for a while longer, but at the same time the first single that's really grabbed me in 2015 is also included here, and included first - a perfect marriage between peerless Derbyshire instrumental trio Haiku Salut (can't knock their recently released book of haikus, Japanese Poems Steal Brains, either) and Bristol "domestic ambience with balls" purveyors Jilk.

Why the pair of dates of release on the Brian Pern track included here? If you've seen the spoof BBC4 (and subsequently BBC2) series from which it has been lifted, you'll know why...

J xx

JILK & HAIKU SALUT - Perspectives (2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C32KRliFj8

TUNE-YARDS - Water Fountain (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbiFcPhccu8

THE DENTISTS – Strawberries Are Growing In My Garden (1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b51TQOJawEg

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN - Ever Had a Little Faith (2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnsW04Cajpk

SLEAFORD MODS - Twet Tweet Tweet (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t9N6I5rZXs

AGE OF CHANCE – From Now On, This Will Be Your God (1986)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGnHqULpu0g

BIPOLAR SUNSHINE - Deckchairs on the Moon (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUaPAf0uOwA

GRUFF RHYS - Iolo (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynxp34QYVzc

THE AISLERS SET – The Way to Market Station (2000)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnA94i5NEek

BRIAN PERN - Spirit Level (2014/1986)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hycjKlt7aeY

MAC DEMARCO - Salad Days (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RheJW2nhkb8

THE ART OF NOISE – Instruments of Darkness (Prodigy Remix) (1991)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA_oMElqXTA

RATKING - So It Goes (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzdb4gEaF6E

WHITE TOWN - I Wanna Be Your Ex (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsR8Y7JFANk

THE AUTEURS – How Could I Be Wrong? (1993)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy6wp33fDWw

MARTIN CARR - The Santa Fe Skyway (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3F1x-SnmgM

HOWARD ARMSTRONG & TED BOGAN - Du, du, lichts mir im Herzen (1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfldm0ZEQIM

LAURA DOGGETT - Phoenix (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHUBGMBrARI

KÖLSCH - Cassiopeia (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FszEtEfOZX4

Friday 16 January 2015

LIST 143 - 16/01/15

Hello there,

Another mish-mash this week, including a splendid 1950s novelty song I'd heard just the once played between bands at a gig years ago but never caught the performer or title. Many thanks, filmmaker John Waters, for nominating this as his Inheritance Track on Radio 4 a few weeks back and bringing a happy end to this mystery...

Recently re-released, but lost for virtually three decades previously, the example here of the haunted piano/synth ballads of Canadian singer Lewis (born Randall A. Wulff) is no less fascinating an inclusion. Always something out there, waiting to be discovered. Or rediscovered...

J xx

GHOST CULTURE – Giudecca (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6RJKp2knA

THE CHILLS – Molten Gold (2013)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iJUM-R8N6E

NEW MODEL ARMY – Frightened (1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lptWINyPBlk

BLACK LIGHT RAY – Atlas North (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk-fwjn8DrA

HORSEBEACH – Faded Eyes (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpUVcd1vNxA

TELEVISION PERSONALITIES – How I Learned to Love the Bomb (1986)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ42mIkmNZA

THE WENDY DARLINGS – Tell Me Why (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCob0-3nrnc

AVOCADO BABY – Outer Space Lover (1994)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rp-yCvezFo

SCHLAMMPEITZIGER – What’s Fruit? (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4neL1A78Es

SCHLAMMPEITZIGER – Keine Sitar (1994)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzeeGQ-UGI0

GIRL ONE AND THE GREASE GUNS - Bashed, Beaten and Broken (Trip the Switch) (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxzXSgAhczs

LUSCIOUS JACKSON - So Rock On (2013)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEkFC2lkLXI

NERVOUS NORVUS –Transfusion (1956)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jojuPQXMm44

DIVES - Ugly Mothers Club (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHINyxu66uI

TOUMANI & SIDIKI DIABATÉ – Lampedusa (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljzbShRyEzM

THE RAILWAY RAVER – Keith’s Trumpets (1998)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZocGrr1zng

ST VINCENT - Birth in Reverse (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAdARF4rGcQ

LEWIS – Things Just Happen That Way (1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTau_1KI4gQ

Thursday 8 January 2015

LIST 142 - 09/01/15 (an indie-dance selection)

Hello there,

Bit of a curio, this week's List, comprising some of the bands that I remember being described as "indie-dance" at the start of the early 1990s - typically, but not exclusively, marrying baggyish guitars and shuffling dance beats. I could have gone for some of the household names, but that wouldn't sit right with the more musically evangelical aims of this website. :-)

The motivation for compiling this List? Call it a very, very overdue response to a Ministry of Sound compilation released just over a year ago which was pretty heavy on historical revisionism. Alex Party or Royal House ever thought of as "indie-dance"? Or The Cardigans? Really? Lots and lots of worthwhile music collection gap fillers in that release, don't get me wrong, but little I'd have regarded as typical of an old-skool indie-dance tune, as the marketing claimed.

Maybe my interpretation is just too narrow. I'm sure you can find said release in stores or online to check its contents, just to see if you think I'm being unreasonable... :-D

J xx

POPPY FACTORY - Stars (1991)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05f7vzFULYI

NORTHSIDE - Take Five (1991)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qZPPSUXluY

THE HOLLOW MEN - The Moon's a Balloon (1990)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehiL_KXYHE0

WORLD OF TWIST - Sons of the Stage (1991)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgEw_YtfxYM

CANDYLAND - The Body is the Book (1991)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ9_jt2Y3GI

NEW FAST AUTOMATIC DAFFODILS - Fishes Eyes (1990)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTwtIbgoQhM