1. The Cramps 2. The The 3. The Beatles 4. Deerhoof 5. Low 6. FFS 7. The Smiths 8. Sleater-Kinney 9. Morrissey 10. The KLF 11. The Fall 12. Sparks 13. Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield 14. Carl Perkins 15. PJ Harvey 16. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 17. The Future Sound of London 18. Charlie Feathers 19. Chevel 20. Elvis Presley 20. Lillie Mae Rische
00:00 Orphx - Cut Through 03:17 Slag Boom Van Loon - Butch (Tipper Remix) 04:36 Foetus - How To Vibrate (Mike Patton Remix) 07:42 The Soft Pink Truth - What's a Computer? 08:52 Elizabethan Collar - 08 10:11 Nervous Cop - Nuflesh, Old Thirst 11:43 Olaibi - New Rain 13:17 Matthew Dear - Juice 16:08 OOIOO - Gamel Kamasu 18:48 The Future Sound Of London - Her Face Forms In Summertime 20:38 Lucy - Catch Twenty Two (Shapednoise Remix) 25:07 Rrose - Waterfall 29:54 Slag Boom Van Loon - Butch (Tipper Remix) 31:50 Orphx - Cut Through 35:22 completion
00:00 Freeform - Saigon 03:18 Actress - Birdcage 04:59 John Cale - Living With You - Laurel Halo Remix 10:30 Mouse On Mars - Subnubus 14:30 Tim Hecker - Live Room 18:09 DJ QBert - Redworm 22:19 Liars - Pro Anti Anti 25:03 Nearly God - Keep Your Mouth Shut 30:27 Taco - Cheek To Cheek 35:16 completion
00:00 Ciccone Youth - Macbeth 04:50 Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica (with Limpe Fuchs) [Matmos Edit] 07:50 Nosaj Thing ft. Kazu Makino - Eclipse/Blue 11:17 Senking - Painbug In My Eye 14:23 R.H.Y. Yau - Lick Him When You Are Dead 18:30 Loops Haunt - Eagles Fated Pilars 21:21 completion
00:00 The The - Electric Moonlight 02:20 Walter Schnaffs - I Am Germany 05:13 Sonic Youth - (She's In A) Bad Mood 10:28 Black Dice - Pigs 13:50 Amon Tobin - Lost & Found 16:30 DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Summertime (Reprise) 18:28 completion
I surprised myself with how highly I rated Southpaw Grammar. I've always liked the album, but listening to it with a critical ear with the idea of attaching a number to it gave me a new appreciation for it. It excels as a complete piece, the only Morrissey album for which I'm tempted to break out the cliche "greater than the sum of its parts." All Moz albums have great moments, but a lot of them are terribly uneven. Southpaw Grammar also stands out in striking me as his least personal work. He barely uses the first person lyrically, and the subjects of the songs sound to me like fictional creations, fitting for a literary dude like Moz. I wish he'd do more "story" songs and fewer about his own pathos. Another unique element of Southpaw Grammar is the musicians being allowed to breath and flex their chops. Mozzaball has usually had enjoyable backing bands and composers, but the music is also generally secondary to Morrissey's personality, lyrics and vocals. Not so on Southpaw Grammar, on which music and voice work together as equal partners (sort of like they did in The Smiths). Taken in the context of his solo career, it's a very weird album. It's also a surprisingly great one.
(While listening to all this Morrissey, I put my favorite songs in this Spotify playlist.)
I've been marinating in Moonbug, the new soundtrack from The The, for several days now. Having not seen the film, I can only review the music on its own terms, which is not ideal since the music was composed primarily to go with images. The movie is a documentary by Nichola Bruce which follows photographer Steve Pyke as he takes portraits of the astronauts who have walked on the moon. NASA footage from the moon missions is also included. Bruce writes in the 76 page book that houses the CD that the movie is "a study of a photographer working" but also "about memory, in different layers...both experienced and imagined."
Not surprisingly, the music is spacey, but not in any cliche style that term may evoke. No noodling theremins here. Things begin with an enjoyable drums and guitar instrumental. Only when the second track starts with a JFK sample do we start floating in space. A guitar line makes a welcome reappearance on the fourth track, which leads into the strongest piece on Moonbug, "Electric Moonlight." Here some eerie, reverbed percussion is at the forefront, giving some much needed weight to the otherwise airy album. Unfortunately, the rest of the album doesn't live up to the strong first third. There is little in the way of structure or percussion from here on out, with lots of minimal, electronic whooshing and floating around filling out the album. Matt Johnson makes excellent soundscapes dating way back to his first forays into music such as on the arresting album Burning Blue Soul and on up to his current soundtrack work on Tony and Moonbug. And the soundscapes of Moonbug are indeed enjoyable while you are listening to them. But they are so weightless that they leave little impression after the fact. Johnson of course had to fit the sounds to serve the images, but from a purely musical standpoint, I wish there was more in the vein of "Electric Moonlight" and less of the unsubstantial sound vapors that make up much of Moonbug.
Still, it is a The The release, so you can expect a rewarding listen, plus Johnson has spared no expense in packaging the disc in a hardback book that features Pyke's astronaut portraits, some stills from the film, and an interesting conversation between Pyke and Johnson.
I started a podcast called Music For Morons way back in 2005 or 2006 and updated it fairly frequently for awhile. New episodes have been few and far between for the last four years or so, but I have a new one up now for your listening pleasure. It is super short but features several great tracks if you like electronic music.
tracklist: 00:00 Mount Kimbie - Ruby 02:13 Mouse On Mars - Wienuss 04:15 Deerhoof - The Merry Barracks 07:40 Justice Yeldham - 300104 Hamburg 08:50 Nosaj Thing - 1685/Bach 10:44 Mount Kimbie - Blind Night Errand 13:33 Reggie Watts - Gnome Sayin'? 13:58 Loops Haunt - Rubber Sun Grenade 18:59 end
With no advance warning, a new The The album is available for purchase. Following the 2010 release of the Tony soundtrack comes the soundtrack to Moonbug accompanied by an 80 page hardback book/CD case. It is spendy for us Yanks: with international shipping, it comes to $37. But as a The The completist, my order is already in.
Any new activity from Matt Johnson/The The is cause for celebration in these parts, and a rare morsel has dropped from the heavens in the form of a new version of "GIANT," the classic tune from The The's essential 1983 album Soul Mining. (I've been trying and failing to come up with any better album-ending song.) DJ Food released an instrumental cover of "GIANT" in 2009, and now Matt Johnson has added a new vocal take for a version appearing on DJ Food's just released album The Search Engine:
These are the first new vocals from Johnson in a decade. I enjoy the new version muchly. Johnson's vocals at fifty-ish years are surer than they were back in 1983, and DJ Food's backing track adds a cool twist. The haunting chant that closes out the original version is less effectual on Food's version though.
Coinciding with this is a new episode of Radio Cineola, Johnson's online radio broadcasts. The 15 minute show features a different version of "GIANT" by DJ Food, the spaced-out "Lunar Mix." After an interview with DJ Food, and an advertisement to "occupy your mind," listeners are treated to the radically different "Lunar Version" of the 2000 The The song "Shrunken Man." Appropriately, this is also a spacey ambient version.
