The first “music like dirt radio” podcast is here, featuring my pick of last months new music.
It’s my debut attempt so bare with me as my mixing sounds like someone trying to get their car into 3rd gear.
I’ve also held off adding my finest local radio DJ impression for now, but who knows I may get all DLT at a later date.
Let me know if it works, have any requests, or hopefully if you love what you’ve heard.
(UPDATE: Re-encoded at lower bit rate - it was a hefty download)
Tracklist:
Desmond Dekker - “Intensified ‘68 (music like dirt)”
Erykah Badu - “Amerykhan Promise”
Mighty Mo & The Winchester Seven - “The Next Message” Bashy - “Black Boys (feat. Ty)”
Estelle - “American Boy”
Spank Rock & Benny Blanco - “Bootay Bitch Beat (Megasoid remix)” Cabide DJ - “My Neck, My Back (Remix)” Primary 1 - “Hold Me Down (The Shoes remix)”
Pase Rock vs. Holy Fuck - “Sexy Holyfucker” Comanechi - “My Pussy”
Julian Cope - “Soon To Forget Ya” Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - “Look For The Woman (Live @ Maida Vale)” Gonzales - “Working Together (Akira The Don remix)” (FREE MP3 download here)
Jamie Lidell - “Wait For Me”
Funk Against Junk - “Rusty Fingers”
Kelpe - “Skylla” The Opiates - “I’m Not Simone Choule”
Dave Q - “Legalize It”
s.k.g - “Needles & Suspenders (Stuart James remix)”
The Crimea - “Loop-A-Loop (Stuart James remix)” (FREE download here) Death Set - “Intermission”
Young MC - “Know How (Aaron LaCrate & Debonair Samir Gutter mix)”
Cadence Weapon - “Unsuccesful Club Nights”
Portishead - “Machine Gun”
Voltaire Brothers - “Which One”
Gonzales - “Apology“
God I’ve been banging on about Gonzales and Akira The Don alot lately, but forgive me one more post featuring both of them and then with luck I’ll have got it out of my system for a while.
A few days ago Akira sent me a remix he’d spent the day doing of Gonzales’s new single “Working Together“. As he explains on his blog, its got intricate new drums, an “ace rap”, and as always manages the impressive trick of making me laugh without being some kind of novelty record.
The section about Freecycle is particularly inspired:
“I’m signed up with Hackney Freecycle, I got a free fish tank… its delightful“
The MP3 would have been up sooner, but I wasnt sure if I was allowed to post it. Midway through writing an email to ask permission I noticed Akira had already posted it on his own site!
On the subject of acts featured so often the thin line between blogger and groupie is in danger of being crossed, a quick plug for Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip.
Their new single is out April 28th, and theyve only gone and written this generations “I Need Love” with added noughties angst. What’s more it features Dan singing, and he’s the perfect Santos to Scroob’s Lupe, the Chris Martin to Pip’s Jay-Z, the Fergie to the bearded one’s Will I Am… ok perhaps the last comparison was a step to far.
Putting the dull into dulcet, my tones are back guesting on the Blog Fresh Radio show this week. I took the chance to plug the exclusive Stuart James remix of The Crimea featured here last month.
Visit TheCrimea.net for 16 free remixes and the chance to remix the track yourself
Meanwhile, not content with one piece of remixing genius a month, Stuart prodded and poked his synths until they made a really angry noise, then unleashed them on S.K.G’s “Needles & Suspenders“. The resulting musical fist fight won’t just destroy your speakers, it’ll ask you what the hell you’re looking at while it does it.
It tells the story of how “in the 60’s Detroit became home to a musical revolution that captured the sound of a nation in upheaval“.
THE SHOES
The new limited edition white vinyl 7″ from hotly tipped band The Shoes has just arrived at Puregroove to buy. I’d just finished nabbing a copy when my email pinged with an MP3 treat direct from the PR division of Shoes HQ.
In the kind of wildly over-hyped PR speak you’ll never find on this website they claim its like ”a cross between ‘Eye of the Tiger’ and ‘The Final Countdown’ (but ten times more amazing than that sounds)“. It’s clearly impossible to be 10 times better than Eye Of The Tiger, but it is a fine tune, guaranteed to have you chanting along with its 1-2-3-4-5 The Drums chant.
This has to be a spoof but Irish sperm supplys are 40% down from four years ago. The ingenious answer: Tickets to a European music festival of your choice in exchange for whacking some of your sperm in the post to them!
Dubbed the “Queen Of Electronic Soul” Billie Ray Martin’s sumptuous vocals have graced numerous classic tracks stretching back 20 years. Luckily the voice is as timeless as her energy is seemingly undimmed, with projects bursting forth left, right, and most often off centre. A solo top 20 in the states, a club night and DJ career, and now her new “Carpenters meets Kraftwerk” group “The Opiates”.
The name Opiates is obviously open to interpretation but the disappointingly mundane truth is its the name of one of Billie’s favourite albums (by Swedish post-rockers Anywhen). This instore performance marks the groups debut live outing, and the sizeable crowd huddled outside in the cold pays glowing testament to her fan-base. With her diva like persona, dramatic vocals, and detached style it wont come as a huge shock that she’s built up a loyal gay following over the years.
That’s not to say its an entirely gay crowd as demonstrated by the guy in the queue outside whispering at the top of his voice to his friends, “Oh my god I don’t believe there are so many Hetti’s here!“ Indeed there are, not to mention “Hetti’s” like myself old enough to have had an Electribe 101 poster on their teenage bedroom wall.
As Billie - just visible peering over while checking her make up on the floor above - keeps the crowd waiting, the excitement builds noticeably. Whether this is in anticipation of the musical delights to come or just the inevitable result of all the static electricity generated by so many stubble chinned shaven headed gay men crammed together is open to question! ;). There’s not much time to ponder, as with a final puff of hair spray Billie appears, followed by co conspirator Robert Solheim.
A few syllables, a couple of lines and despite having not heard a note previously I’m sold, enraptured by hearing THAT voice in person. The new sound builds on the classic Electribe 101 template, so there’s a definite place for songwriting, but also a dry wit and intelligence you don’t often find in the pop charts. Their press release jokes that the group started as an ambient project before they decided “f…ck this, and wrote the kind of songs that moved them in cerebral as well as booty shaking ways.”
“I’m not Simone Choule” certainly comes under the cerebral tag inspired - Billie explains - by Polanski’s “The Tenant“. Solheim provides a perfectly judged backdrop for her plaintive voice, referencing Kraftwerk to such an extent that some synth swoops had me searching the memory banks to recall what ‘werk track it borrowed. Someone even turned up in a “I’m not Simone Choule” tshirt!
Elsewhere “Anatomy Of A Plastic Girl” thuds and beeps like a hidden cut on dance classic “Leftism” while simultaneously tackling plastic surgery or rather the pressure to have it.
Only the “get into Hollly wooo-oood” of “Oprahs Book Of The Month Club” jars, just crossing the line of overly forced clever lyrics, but even that gets down on the dancefloor mid way through.
The EP (available in all good stores) is a definite slow burner creeping up on you over repeated listens, so I’ll probably be declaring “Oprah” as genius by the time the weeks out.
By all accounts there’s even better to come with unheard “Rainy Days and Saturday” touted as a future hit. In a recent interview Billie talked about initially resisting the thought of chart success, “But then when we listened back we couldn’t stop singing it, waking up at three in the morning, and hearing that melody. We’ve now decided that we’re not shying away from being a crossover act…we’re not afraid of pop! “.
On the basis of this preview alone, the album “Hollywood Under The Knife” should be filed under the heading “eagerly awaited”.
Two months in and still some people refuse to let 2007 die! Smashing my own record for the tardy posting of “year end best of’s” my brother declared his judgement on the year in late February.
Visit Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This Before’s Top 100 of 2007
Featuring descriptions like “it goes off like a motherfukka” and “as addictive as a McCrack Burger” its packed full of discovered and undiscovered gems (many of which are downloadable). Here’s one such delight:
Rough Trade also waited until February to take a considered look back, and as ever their “Counter Culture 07“ compilation is an absolute must buy. Even a self confessed musical geek as myself found completely unheard of but soon to be favourites of every style scattered across the 41 track double CD. Who’d have guessed for example that Julian Cope had returned and was producing spoken word classics like this warning to future loves.
Various versions of Alela Diane’s “Pirate’s Gospel” seem to date back to 2004. Last year however saw its first full release and Rough Trade made it their Album of 07, calling it “enchanting and endearing in equal parts, this album will endure long after this year is done“.
Chilly Gonzales is back!! A man with the talent of ten rolled into one, comedian, classical pianist, inventor of jew-funk and more. He can leap genres and enchant audiences using only his irresistible charm, and a blessed gift for a cracking tune.
“Solo Piano“, his last album showed off his virtuoso skills as a classical pianist, but “Soft Power” sees a return to the eclecticism of old. Gonzales has always been equally at home having “Hot Pink Hot Sex” electro style with Peaches as he is with an old fashined ballad.
“For all the reasons that I gave so that I would not be an asshole, that I am”
“Apology” finds Gonzales wrapping up his failings as a lover and a friend in a gorgeous song, that had me hitting rewind for another dose of beautiful self loathing!
Myspace / Website / Video’s (inc. being forced to take singing lessons by his label)
KELPE
Having your ipod set to random shuffle on an added “last month” playlist is a very lazy way of being constantly spoon-fed new music, but we all have our foibles.
Its worth it though for the moments when a new tune appears that has you reaching for your pocket to discover just what this unheard beauty is. During February nine times out of ten when I dragged the ipod out, the track in question was from the new album by Kelpe. It happened so often it may need to be added to the urban dictionary: To “Kelpe“, def: the act of taking ipod (or other MP3 player) from ones pocket to discover the title of the amazing tune that just popped up on shuffle.
“Ex-Aquarium” is out now on J.Saul Kane’s DC Records, a label so consistently brilliant my eyes now read the words “DC Records” as “Enter Your Credit Card Details”. If you’re a fan of Boards Of Canada, Fourtet or any other “Electronica” you’ll love this record.
THE SHOES
A few syllables, a couple of lines and despite having not heard a note previously I’m sold, enraptured by hearing THAT voice in person. The new sound builds on the classic Electribe 101 template, so there’s a definite place for songwriting, but also a dry wit and intelligence you don’t often find in the pop charts. Their press release jokes that the group started as an ambient project before they decided “f…ck this, and wrote the kind of songs that moved them in cerebral as well as booty shaking ways.”
KELPE