Its not every month that sees the return of not one, but two of the most off kilter, unique, and in my case favourite artists, namely Grace Jones and Roots Manuva.
Manuva’s possibly the only rapper alive who when asked to sum up the spirit of his new album would explain it thus “You got to sing like no one’s listening. You gotta fart like there’s no one there to smell it!”
As for Miss Jones… well just watch the video for her new track “Corporate Cannibel” below to see that even at 60 she’s as wonderfully bonkers as ever.
Grace Jones stole the show as Jarvis Cocker’s guest at Meltdown last year (review) and although I stupidly decided not to go, she was by all accounts mesmerising when given a full set by this years Meltdown curators, Massive Attack.
“Corporate Cannibel” is her first new material for 19 years, and Grace is in full diva dominatrix flow intoning deeply… “I’m a man eating machine. I can’t get enough prey, pray for me“. The video suits the song perfectly, but I can’t help but think director Nick Hooker pulled the pvc over Jones eyes slightly when making it.
“Yes Grace, all state of the art post production, top of the range computer effects, no expense has been spared… just stand in front of that camera and look mean“.
Cue Nick firing up his Macbook and hitting record on the Photobooth software that comes free with it! (see my snaps opposite)
The album “Hurricane“ follows in October featuring Brian Eno, Sly & Robbie, Wally Baduru, Tony Allen and Tricky.
After the limited edition first single “Buff Nuff“, Roots Manuva really wets the appetite for his new “Slime & Reason” LP with his next single “Again & Again“. Caution! Every spin of this tune raises the temperature by a degree, which given that it isnt out untill the last week of August should ensure an Indian summer. An Arctic Monkey provides a remix too.
This is probably old to everyone, but I’d not seen “I Met The Walrus“, the beautiful Oscar nominated animation of teenagers conversation with John Lennon. Back in 1969, a tenacious 14 year old from Toronto heard whispers that John Lennon had just flown in, and managed to not only find his hotel, but also knock on the door and ask if he could interview the star.
Almost 30 years later and the 40 minute interview was edited down to 5 minutes, and enhanced with some absolutly beautiful animation. Wonderful.
To really appreciate the animation watch or download the .mov trailer, the detail is incredible, and doesnt quite come across in the slightly blurry youtube.
JAY BHARADIA
“Hi music like dirt people
I saw that I made the top 100 of your tracks of ‘07
I have attached a link below to the new single”.
Speaking as the music like dirt people can I say its a pleasure to hear some new material from Jay Bharadia. As Jay said his Snowy Day track was one of my favourite’s from last year, and if “Crocodile17” is anything to go by his new material more than meets expectations. Plus everyone loves a bit of big foot footage!
Using information from the website of choice for sampling trainspotters The-Breaks.com, Jesse Kriss has created a interactive history of sampling. On the top are albums that sample, click one and all the samples usedflash up. Down the bottom are tracks that have been plundered, click them and all the music to have used that song chows up. Simple, yet brilliant.
The last mix Kelpe sent me back in March put a lovely big dent in my bandwidth as people greedily gorged themselves on its lushness. So for all that loved that one, here’s another originally created for compost.fm, but well worth a wider airing.
Talking of radio sessions, DJ Wrong Tom recently guested on Jonny Reggae’s show and brought along his finest Brit-punk-disco classics. I’m half way through “Dumb Down The Disco” as I type, and when it finishes it’s going right back to the top. In fact I can safely say, this will be the soundtrack to the window sanding I’ll be doing this afternoon when I stop trying to avoid doing it by blogging! Nothing like a bit of angular aggressive guitar to get that paint off.
1. Glaxo Babies/Dj Wrongtom “Wrongtom Meets The Disco Dinosaurs”
2. The Clash “Radio Edit (Wrongtom’s Disco Dub)”
3. Rip Rig And Panic “Take A Don Key To Mystery”
4. Coco Beware “Tropical Depression”
5. Fad Gadget “Make Room”
6. Public Image Limited “Death Disco (Live In Tokyo)”
7. Orange Juice “Lord John White And The Bottleneck Train”
8. Pig Bag “Getting Up”
9. Boots For Dancing “Hypnotize”
10. Return Of The Panthers “Crown Of Thorns (Wrongtom’s Disco Dub)”
11. Au Pairs “Shakedown”
12. Blank Students “I Want To Be Happy”
13. Phil Daniels + The Cross “Kill Another Night”
14. The Beat “Too Nice To Talk To”
15. Penetration “Movement (Wrongtom’s Disco Dub)”
AND FINALLY…
Leaving probably the best till last Buddy Peace has a new mix CD out called “Wolf Diesel Mountain“. It’s one of those mixes where the term mix doesn’t suffice, its an opus, a labour of love.
‘Wolf Diesel Mountain’ is a monster fed on the bones of all that have gone before it. This is a mix that is complex and diverse - slices and selections of nearly 100 tracks in under an hour. Samples are chopped, beats are re-programmed and tracks are fully remixed - without ever falling into the common trap of mixes that veer off on tangents to show off the DJ’s record collection.
Buy the album here - featuring everyone from Mobb Deep to Beck and Tom Waits.
“As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from desiccation.” Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Lyttelton, a true great of British Jazz & comedy “died peacefully with his family and friends around him on April 25th at 7.00pm following surgery“.
In a bid to save my vinyl from physical assault by a stylus as old and wonky as a rusty nail I’ve avoided using my record decks for months now. Thankfully I’m now 50 quid lighter but in possession of two pristine needles, and a one huge backlog of lovely plastic to indulge in. (I realise I have posted at length about waving goodbye to analogue for ever… I lied).
First up direct from Finland the wonderfully named Mighty Mo & The Winchester Seven turn out a phenomenally good deep funk cover of Melle Mel’s “The Message” (YouTube). Mighty Mo is rumoured to be someone well known (anyone?). Big name or not this monster drags the track forward 30 years to the present day only to send it back 40 (or who knows maybe Flash covered this?)!
The B side features a version excursion where the percussion and breaks are let loose to romp around the track.
“Some call it Marijuana, some of dem call it ganja”
Peter Tosh’s “Legalize It” has been the stoners clarion call for 30 years now (youtube brief history), and this double A 12″ well and truly updates it for this generation.
With the 6blocc East Coast mix on one side, Dave Q takes it to the West Coast on the flip, with a bassline and cracking drum that’ll have the noise abatement team round your place before the track finishes (although quite how it translates in crushed MP3 is another matter). Synths glower, dub step rhythms clatter, and Peter Tosh floats in and out of the echo chamber. This is the definitive version as far as I’m concerned.
Black Moth Super Rainbow have a new single “Zodiac Girl” due in May, but some of us are still catching up with the bands offshoots. Featuring one of BMSR, Tobacco have just posted a new track “Dirt” with Aesop Rock on vocal duties (Myspace). Somehow I missed the glorious “Hairy Candy” and its associated filthy but fun video.
Although apparently banned from YouTube it doesnt actually contain any nudity save for a brief nipple, but the faces saved from long forgotten VHS’s say it all.
My inability to resist anything with Rodney Smith aka Roots Manuva’s name on it has landed me with some shockingly bad, half baked bootlegs over the years but thankfully Drums Of Death offer strictly top shelf material. Formerly based in Glasgow under the name Kid Twist, Shoreditch is now home to the Drums Of Death (or so it says on the net so it must be true). On the Aside, the touch it at your peril “Witness” gets a radical makeover featuring harps and comes out sounding marvelously wonky (but for me at least Witness isnt Witness without that acid squelch).
On the B, the sumptuous tones of Challi 2na joins the dots with Mr Manuva eschewing the obvious bootleg sounds, instead heading firmly leftwards. Drums of Death are signed to Hot Chip’s Greco-Roman International Sonic Wrestling label so expect big things… can he do a Manuva remix LP first though?
Last month marked three years since musiclikedirt.com first stumbled into the world of musical blogging. So self congratulations to myself for keeping going that long, or alternatively self flagellation for not “getting a life” in all that time! Either way, thanks to anyone who has ever read and especially commented on the music here, and most importantly to the musicians featured, who have been kind enough not to sue me when “featuring” the wonderful music they’ve created.
On with the March highlights…
THE CHART
Double click on any track above to listen, and click on the names below to visit.
Sitting pretty at the top is “Follow Him” taken from Example’s album of bootlegs and b-sides “What We Almost Made” (8 quid for 16 tracks here). It features Example & Scroobius Pip comparing tales of stalker fans. Pip gets a nazi while Example goes to sign a fans dress only for her to whip out her breast:
“I stared at her tit and then froze…
she had a tattoo of my face with her nipple in the middle as my nose”.
Marc Mac from 4Hero has compiled a totally FREE 24 track Daru Spirit / Soul Hop sampler, packed with nu-soul delights.
The Fugees classic “Ready Or Not” is re-invented as a downbeat beauty, while the track below could be mistaken for the finest of Jill Scott’s work.
As ever there were lots of ridiculously good mixes about last month. A bit of self publicity first, although not technically a mix, my first podcast is available to download. This version here comes with added clips from the months news, The Daily Show and lots of Elliot Spitzer jokes, enhancing or getting in the way of the music depending on your view. Stuart James, Spank Rock, Julian Cope, Pip, Gonzales and many more feature.
In February’s round up I had Kelpe’s new LP as one of the definate highlights (buy it here), and since then he’s been kind enough to send over his own monthly mix to share. The likes of Shuggie Otis, Porn Sword Tobacco, Fugazi, and Caribou are blended together in a wonderfully horizontal chilled out selection. Cut down the peppermint tea and Valium and relax with Kelpe instead.
Greg Wilson seems to pop up more and more frequently on this blog of late, but what can I do if he keeps posting mixes of such brilliance. This month The Cosmic Boogie Collective are hosting three mixes from his return to DJing in 2005.
The Stylus 1 mix was recorded direct onto minidisc at the Music Box in Manchester, and it can’t be recommended highly enough. Parliament, James Brown, Eric B & Rakim, its pure 70’s/80’s nostalgia but whats wrong with a bit of that.
After four years of applying I finally got tickets to Later with Jools Holland last week. Unfortunately Gnarls Barkley cancelled their appearance and gig the day before for family reasons and flew back to the states.
Estelle stepped in, setting up a potentially awkward meeting with Adele who was also featuring. Here’s Estelle in the Guardian last weekend :”Adele ain’t soul. She sounds like she heard some Aretha records once, and she’s got a deeper voice - that don’t mean she’s soul“.
To be fair to Estelle she was pointing out a very valid point about how there’s never been so much “soul” on the radio but its only ever white people playing it… Ronson, Winehouse, Duffy, Adele. It wasn’t a personal attack on Adele (well not quite), but the racism of the UK record industry.
Thankfully Adele didnt bless Estelle with her cold shoulder, not did girl fights ensue (although James Taylor almost broke his neck tripping over Estelle’s cables), both were excellent on the night. Estelle with a track that pilfers from George Michael, and Adele with a heart breaking version of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love“, plus personal favourite “Hometown Glory“.
I’ve been unnecessarily sarcastic about Jools and his boogie woogie piano in the past but the guys a total pro, an amazing player, and whats more had the audience eating out of his hand… a charming man. Which is more than can be said for the worst warm up bloke in history. It was as if they’d dragged a passing cabbie in to try and get the crown going. Members of the audience looked at each other in horror as he ran through his repertoire of “cor you nervous theyll be tight sphincters in here tonight (shakes leg).. oh I think I just shat myself“… “youve got 5 minutes what can you do in that time, perhaps just have a piss or knock one off hehehe“.
Everytime Jools arrived in the nick of time and dragged the audience back from scatological hell.
As is often the case the show was stolen by the unheralded act, in this case The Neil Cowley Trio, otherwise known as “the token jazz band, time to put the kettle on“.
They only played one track, but then they probably get through a piano per song on the basis of the pounding given to the thing during “His Nibs”. On the strength of this performance i’ll be buying the album, and Im viewers across the country will be doing the same (if they weren’t in the kitchen at the time).
BBC iplayer: Watch the live 30 minute “Later..Live” here (until 8th April) - worth it for Adele’s brilliant take on Bob Dylan with Jools on piano.
The full 60 minute programme is available here for the next six days (featuring Neil Cowley Trio, Adele, Estelle, James Taylor, Black Kids and me in the background).
Holy F**k featured in this months podcast (mixed with a little Spank Rock), they’re out on tour right now, and to stoke the fires of hype a little more, XL just sent out a crafty Radiohead remix.
Looking forward to finally seeing them next week.
The video suits the song perfectly, but I can’t help but think director Nick Hooker pulled the pvc over Jones eyes slightly when making it.
