Papa Sprain Promo Cassette
Papa Sprain - Finglas After the Flood
The image above is a scan of Chris Sharp’s personal copy of Finglas After the Flood by Papa Sprain. Chris, coincidentally the very same Wire magazine journalist who wrote a glowing review of connect_icut’s They Me the Secret Beaches, contacted this here blog totally out of the blue, in order to supply this evidence that PS’s legendary lost album really does exist.
In fact, this here blog was already well aware of the album’s reality and is in the unenviable position of being able to let you know that it is not, in fact, a misunderstood classic. And you won’t be seeing it posted here any time soon. Perhaps understandably, everyone concerned seems happy for Finglas to remain under wraps.
Instead, why not enjoy a couple of rare gems from the poppier end of Papa Sprain’s musical spectrum? Namely, a Donovan cover (made in collaboration with Butterfly Child) and a dance remix of the band’s first single.
Papa Sprain & Butterfly Child – “Lalena”
Papa Sprain – “Flying to Vegas (Remix)”
Watch this space for more PS-related news in the near future, hopefully.
Add comment February 8, 2010
Top Ten Albums of All Time
Well honestly, where do you go after compiling your top ten albums of 2009 and your top ten albums of the Noughties? Once again, the usual disclaimers and lame excuses apply. One additional thought: Maybe this list should be refreshed yearly. Might be interesting to see how it mutated year after year.
Sorry if the descriptions below are a little defensive – they all seem to say “everyone reckons this album is crap but it’s actually a classic because…” Bubblegum Cage III hereby acknowledges that you know most of these albums are generally considered to be fairly obvious classics.
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
1. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
Indeed, this is a staggeringly obvious choice for number one but what are you going to do? The fact that My Bloody Valentine’s peerless masterpiece is one of the most imitated albums of all time only goes to show how utterly inimitable it remains. As physical as it is ethereal, Loveless is, in fact, anything but obvious.
My Bloody Valentine – “Loomer”
The Fall - The Wonderful & Frightening World of The Fall
2. The Fall – The Wonderful & Frightening World of The Fall
As a consequence of the now-tiresome post-punk revival, a critical consensus has developed that puts The Fall’s best before date at 1984. But from ‘84 to ‘86 the band developed a truly singular sound that could never be generically pigeon-holed. Wonderful & Frightening represents the pinnacle of this period.
The Fall – “Lay of the Land”
Scott Walker - Tilt
3. Scott Walker – Tilt
The Drift my be a fuller realisation of Scott Walker’s late-period avant garde song style but Tilt is ultimately a richer, more rewarding listen. Maybe this is precisely because it displays more willingness to meet the listener halfway, providing at least a modicum of conventionally musical reference points.
Scott Walker – “Farmer in the City”
Fennesz - Endless Summer
4. Fennesz – Endless Summer
Fennesz’s master-work is the only LP to make into both the Noughties list and this one. Like a lot of albums on this list, Endless Summer represents an artist’s most individual statement. Though it owes debts to everyone from The Beach Boys to Oval, Endless Summer sounds like nothing else on earth.
Fennesz – “Caecilia”
Arthur Russell - World of Echo
5. Arthur Russell – World of Echo
Talking of singular artistic statements… Arthur Russell spent most of his career playing with genres ranging from modern classical to disco via folk and pop. This collection of heavily processed voice-and-cello songs shows us Arthur’s true vision – the sound of a dreamer lost in his own World of Echo.
Arthur Russell – “Place I Know/Kid Like You”
Disco Inferno - DI Go Pop
6. Disco Inferno – DI Go Pop
The legendary Five EPs contain Disco Inferno’s best work but seeing as those singles have never been officially collected, DI Go Pop will have to do. Certainly, this album represents the band’s most original statement – few traces of traditional instruments are audible above the barrage of sampled sound.
Disco Inferno – “New Clothes for the New World”
Oval - 94 Diskont
7. Oval – 94 Diskont
Oval’s Systemich introduced the digital glitch into the lexicon of recorded music and proposed a challenging new form of experimental electronica that was neither ambient, noise nor electro-acoustic composition. It was the follow-up, 94 Diskont, that harnessed this new form in the service of timeless beauty.
Oval – “Do While (✂)”
Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
8. Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
It’s not easy to pick a favourite Wu-affiliated album – Tical has the best production, Only Built for Cuban Linx has the best rhyming, Iron Man has… well… Ghostface! Still, Enter the Wu-Tang conveys a palpable sense of artists discovering their powers – something that only a debut album can capture.
Wu-Tang Clan – “Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber, Part 2″
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
9. Kate Bush – Hounds of Love
Kate’s career has been – pardon the pun – dogged by the slick manoeuvres of slimy session musicians. To a great extent though, Hounds of Love is the sound of a genius at home with her Linn Drum and her Fairlight. It’s all Kate, in other words and Kate is a true visionary, best left unencumbered by fussy technique.
Kate Bush – “Cloudbusting”
Sonic Youth - Sister
10. Sonic Youth – Sister
Mark K-Punk’s infamous evisceration of Sonic Youth seemed to suggest that Thurston and co’s innovations were purely technical and that their music had no ontological resonance. Has he actually listened to Sister? Here, the guitar is re-invented in the service of sheer nerve-racking, life-affirming panic.
Sonic Youth – “Tuff Gnarl”
Honourable Mentions
Antipop Consortium – Arrhythmia
Basic Channel – BCD2
Bark Psychosis – Hex
Tim Buckley – Starsailor
Can – Tago Mago
Fairport Convention – Liege & Lief
Steve Reich – Music for 18 Musicians
Scritti Politti – Songs to Remember
Tujiko Noriko – Make Me Hard
Neil Young – Zuma (Controversial!)
2 comments February 4, 2010
Crys Cole & Friends Live in Paris
Improv musician/sound artist Crys Cole is a friend of this here blog and any friend of this here blog is a friend of your ears. The sonically and visually startling video posted above is a montage of highlights from a performance Crys did in Paris recently. Allegedly, she has an LP coming out soon, which teams her up with Oren Ambarchi! We await it in tremulous anticipation.
Add comment February 3, 2010
Stephen Fry Namechecks My Bloody Valentine
Awwwesome. It happens eight minutes into this early-90s interview with Clive Anderson. Thanks to MBV forum member “auteau” for digging this up.
Add comment February 2, 2010
Gang Starr – Hard to Earn (Chrysalis) 2LP
Gang Starr - Hard to Earn
Gang Starr’s fourth album, Hard to Earn was released in 1993. While Daily Operation, the album that preceded it, is generally considered to be Guru and DJ Premier’s master-work, Hard to Earn is surely the duo’s most ambitious set.
Guru is not exactly what you might call a “whack emcee” but – as he basically admits on one of Hard to Earn’s lesser cuts – his appeal is “Mostly tha Voice”. That richly textured monotone delivery is certainly appealing enough but his writing has always been fairly pedestrian. The fact is, you don’t really listen to Gang Starr for the lyrics.
What you do really listen to Gang Starr for is Premier’s production. And Hard to Earn sees the man at the peak of his powers – a level of prowess he managed to maintain into ‘94, when he co-produced Jeru the Damaja’s classic The Sun Rises in the East.
It’s easy to see why people like Daily Operation so much. That album represents a quantum leap in the sophistication of Primo’s beat science – ditching straight soul and funk loops in favour of micro-edited snippets of moody modern jazz and soundtrack recordings. (This development was somewhat akin to My Bloody Valentine’s transition from Ecstasy & Wine to You Made Me Realise). But it was on Hard to Earn that he took this sound to its logical extreme. Here, the drum tracks are militarily clipped and and terse and the sample loops are boiled down to hermetic cells of sound.
The type of “true school” ’90s hip-hop that Hard to Earn seemingly epitomizes is often derided by critics for being too self-consciously “musical”. But tracks like “Tons’o'Guns” and “Brainstorm” pretty much jettison harmony and melody in favour of dizzying barrages of abstract sound. Essentially, what Primo does on Hard to Earn is take The Bomb Squad’s rhythm-and-noise approach and shoot it full of holes – creating plenty of dub space in which the whirring, whining noises can breath (DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill was doing something similar around the same time).
It should be noted however, that this album certainly does not skimp on the funk. “Code of the Streets” lays an irresistible up-tempo beat under lush descending strings, while “Blowin’ Up the Spot” reanimates a truly fabulous Clavinet-fuelled groove to righteous effect.
Hard to Earn is over-long – it starts to tail off about three-quarters of the way through – but the bulk of the album is truly astonishing and quite removed from anything Gang Starr has done before or since. Daily Operation may be the fan favourite but Hard to Earn is a record everyone needs to pay respect to.
Add comment February 1, 2010
Mount Eerie – Wind’s Poem (P.W. Elverum & Sun) 2LP
Mount Eerie - Wind's Poem
This album could be seen as being part of indie rock’s minor creative renaissance, which has been noted on this here blog and elsewhere. Truth be told though, Phil Elverum – aka The Microphones aka Mount Eerie – has been making startlingly original modifications to the indie rock template for years now. He just hasn’t received anything like the level of recognition he deserves.
So, while the current upsurge of indie creativity may not be responsible for the brilliance of Elverum’s latest album, it must have contributed to the unprecedented level of critical attention the album has received.
Wind’s Poem has certainly garnered a fair amount of critical adulation. What’s been overlooked in the rush to recognize Elverum’s singular vision is that this album is, to an extent, a collaboration with Nick Krgovich of No Kids. This is a shame because Nick is another indie visionary who deserves more respect and attention than he gets.
It’s easy to understand though. Wind’s Poem is a million miles away from No Kids’ breezy, R&B-inflected chamber pop. Influenced by Elverum’s avowed love of black metal, many of the album’s songs are smothered by pitch-black sheets of heavy guitar drone. Topped off with Eleverum and Krgovich’s fey vocals, the results are actually rather more like a self-consciously literate take on Tremolo/Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine than anything genuinely metallic.
But even the album’s quieter moments, like “My Heart is Not at Peace”, have a deeply disquieting undertow of low-end boom. Eleverum and Krgovich are both artists based in the Pacific North-West and Wind’s Poem really does sound like the organic voice of that region’s wooded wilds. This sense is reinforced by the album’s multiple Twin Peaks references – most obviously on “Between Two Mysteries”.
The rich complexity of the album’s words, music and production is carried right through to its packaging – two clear vinyl LPs housed inside a lavish, bronze-embossed gatefold sleeve. This is an album you need to own and you can buy it at Insound.
12 comments January 28, 2010
Fake Sleep Five: January 29th
If you’re in Vancouver this Friday, don’t… erm… sleep on this:
Fake Sleep Five
Add comment January 25, 2010
Richard Youngs – Like a Neuron (Dekorder) LP
Richard Youngs - Like a Neuron
If he keeps releasing ‘em, this here blog will keep reviewing ‘em. 2009 was another busy year for Richard Youngs. He released not one but two excellent albums of new songs and found time to indulge in some rather more abstract projects, like this LP on Black to Comm’s Dekorder label.
Abstract synth noodling is the order of the day here. To an extent, we’re in the realm of post-Tangerine Dream space music but Youngs is intent on exploring only the most asteroid-riven stellar regions. Instead of gliding smoothly through the cosmos, his keyboards bump and crash and grind – a glorious vision futuristic technical imperfection that would warm the cockles of Philip K Dick’s heart.
This sound will be familiar to fans of the UK avant rock under-under-underground that spawned Youngs. The noisy head-rush of Sunroof! and the broken techno of Astral Social Club are both evoked.
Throughout side one, tracks like “Runway” and “Descent” efficiently induce a sense of blissfully plunging into the existential void (think of the “inner space” sequence in 2001) . However, as side two progresses, the clashing rhythms and extreme stereo separation can start to grate a little – if you’re not in the mood, you may just find it irritating.
Overall though, another worthwhile release from Richard Youngs. It seems like the kind of thing that will sell out fairly quickly, so don’t hesitate: buy it from Scratch.
Add comment January 21, 2010
CSAF Records Website
CSAF Records
This here blog has been a bit quiet since the start of this here new year. Apologies. There are many good reasons for this, the best of which is the creation of a CSAF Records website (http://csaf-records.com/). The label is currently looking for contributions to its 10-20 2010 series. Interested parties should apply via the usual channels.
Normal service will be resumed very soon indeed. Prob’ly.
In totally unrelated news: is “This is How We Walk on the Moon” by Arthur Russell the best song evar or what?
Bubblegum Cage III hearts Arthur Russell
Add comment January 18, 2010
Top Ten Albums 2000-2009
Like the recent best of 2009 list, this top ten does not claim to be definitive. It’s not just that the whole thing is highly subjective, it’s mainly that this list has been compiled by someone with a really, really terrible memory. Doubtless, something utterly indispensable has been wantonly omitted.
Once again, the desire to spuriously identify broad, overarching trends has been resisted, for the most part. But one trend does assert itself rather forcefully: As many bloggers and crtitics have already noted, it seems clear that the first half of the decade produced much better music than the second.
Let’s get this over and done with then, shall we? Taking it from the top…
Fennesz - Endless Summer
1. Fennesz – Endless Summer (2001)
Most of the very few truly new opportunities presented to musical artists in the noughties stemmed from the astonishing things that could suddenly be done with real-time digital signal processing. No album took advantage of these opportunities with more emotively musical aplomb than Endless Summer.
Antipop Consortium - Arrhythmia
2. Antipop Consortium – Arrhythmia (2002)
It’s not a fashionable opinion but one could easily argue that indie rap produced a great deal of the decade’s most original music. Arrhythmia is the sound of a sub-genre at its delirious creative peak. Every single second of every single track is still breathtakingly exciting. Fashion be damned.
Antipop Consortium – “Human Shield”
Burial - Untrue
3. Burial – Untrue (2007)
Nobody captured the decade’s anhedonic zeitgeist better than Burial. Untrue recycles elements of ’90s underground dance music and contemporary R&B into an immediately recognizable signature sound. Mournful, delicious and still definitively contemporary.
Tujiko Noriko - Make Me Hard
4. Tujiko Noriko – Make Me Hard (2003)
Noriko was simultaneously one of the decade’s best digital electronica artists and one of its most intriguing songwriters. Her song’s aren’t particularly memorable though – they’re all texture and flux, drifting by like clouds. Make Me Hard is the most ambitious and well-realised of her many albums.
Scott Walker - The Drift
5. Scott Walker – The Drift (2006)
With The Drift, Scott Walker finally managed to boil his music down to its core essence. The result was a stark, nightmarish collection of fractured narratives, with Scott intoning cryptic fragments of song over monumental, unforgiving blocks of sound. Totally compelling.
Sonic Youth - Murray Street
6. Sonic Youth – Murray Street (2002)
Those of you who believe Sonic Youth haven’t produced anything worthwhile since Daydream Nation need to hear Murray Street and eat your words. Honestly, this album is something of a perfect storm – an ecstatic culmination of years of research into the power of rock noise.
Sonic Youth – “Karen Revisited”
Joanna Newsom - Ys
7. Joanna Newsom – Ys (2006)
With the long, wordy songs all sung in Newsom’s impossibly kooky squeak and garnished with Van Dyke Parks‘ garish, relentlessly melodic string arrangements, Ys should be awful. But the sheer quality of this material and the conviction of its delivery win out. The results are utterly affecting.
Joanna Newsom – “Monkey & Bear”
Alva Noto - Prototypes
8. Alva Noto – Prototypes (2000)
For some of us, the early noughties were all about the glitch – the disruption of precise digital sound into something gritty and abstract. On Prototypes, Carsten Nicolai – aka Alva Noto – refined the digital glitch, making it ornate and reintegrating it into a minimalist simulacrum of pop’s 4/4 rhythmic grid.
Alva Noto – “Prototypes Track 6″
The Fall - The Unutterable
9. The Fall – The Unutterable (2000)
It was either The Unutterable or Tromatic Relexxions, Mark E Smith’s tragically underrated collaboration with Mouse on Mars, under the guise of Von Sudenfed. Together, these albums represent the perfection of a dance-rock hybrid Smith developed in the 90s and mostly abandoned in the noughties.
The Fall – “Sons of Temperance”
Gas - Pop
10. Gas – Pop (2000)
If Prototypes took glitch into the white-walled spaces of contemporary art, Pop dragged it semi-conscious into the depths of the woods and buried it under a thick layer of moss and peat. Lush and sinister in equal measure, this is a magnificent testament to the meditative properties of hiss and static.
6 comments January 11, 2010
