Archive for February, 2010
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.
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!)
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.
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.
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.
Bubblegum Cage III 