Adds
for March 6, 2001
7" / PATRICK DAWES / Circus Train / Tummy Touch
He has played percussion for The Herbalizer & Doc Martin,but is best known as the percussionist for Groove Armada, whose debut record 'Northern Star' had come out on Tummy Touch in 1998. He always seems to be behind the scenes though. The only time I've seen him receiving credit is on the remix of Madonna's "Music": <<EUROPEAN CD SINGLE TRACKLISTING 1. Album Version (3:44) 2. Groove Armada's 7"" Edit (3:38) • Produced by Madonna and Mirwais Ahmadzaï • Track 2 Remix and Additional Production by Groove Armada. Guitar by Keeling Lee. Bass Guitar by Jonathan White. Percussion by Patrick Dawes. Additional String Arrangement by Dan Hewson.>> This single has Patrick Dawes all by himself with a B-side remix by The Mammal and Time Love Lee. As with the Crackpot 7"" on Tummy Touch I reviewed a few weeks ago, I like the original version best. The only neat thing the remix adds is a hardcore style drum break at the end of the track, like Losfeld did on one of the tracks on his CD. The song itself is an instrumental with an oboe and a wordless vocal on top of a circus sounding background, animal sounds, whistles (slide and otherwise), clarinet, drums, and percussion. The song is really fun and does not sound cluttered or stupid - just good. Fave: A-side
---Carl(TOP)
CD / various / DUB NUMMER DRIE / Djak-Up-Bitch (Netherlands)
This compilation is very similar to the 'Cashier Escape Route' comp or the 'Putting the Morr back in Morrissey' comp. It is an electronica compilation with people who are experimenting with beats that you could not dance to. The bands are working on finding the unique sound that will elevate them to the top of a heavily populated group of peers. the most successful on this comp are L'usine, whose "Fog" track (#7) is a remix of a Funckarma piece, and Funckarma themselves, with the "Wiert" track (#9). I also like the last piece on the comp, the Autophonic track "Vicious Circles" (#12) which has a machine treated vocal, an exception to this basically instrumental compilation. "Vicious Circles" held my interest for all of its 7:30 length. Faves: 7,9,12
---Carl (TOP)
CD / TIM LOVE LEE / Just Call Me Lone Lee: The Continuing Confessions of Tim 'Love' Lee, The Man Who's Been Everywhere But In Love / Tummy Touch
At this point we already have the 2 latest singles (one 7", one 12") of Tim Love Lee at WZBC. This is his newest (second) CD. Even though he runs the disco-ish Peace Fest and Tummy Touch label, the stuff on this disc seems to have more in common with the exotic sounds of Martin Denny. In fact, the first song "Exit 747" is an instrumental that is completely classic exotica sounding. I could picture Combustible Edison playing it. "Exit 747" leads right into "Twilight Reservation". These 2 songs played together combine to make my fave cut on the CD, though each song is pretty long (#1= 5:53, #2= 5:16). "Twilight Reservation" reminds me of a Las Vegas crooner like Engleberg Humperdink doing sparse minimal vocals in a Martin Denny tune. It works oh so fine! Next is "First Base Bossa" (#3). This song is on the 7", but it is completely different here, with Spanish phrase lessons echoing a meeting between a man and a woman to a bossa nova background. The 7" version is an instrumental, and is longer than this 1:58 version. "The Goodbye Highway" (#8) is another long piece at 6:50. It carries the same feel as the first two tracks and is every bit as successful. The last of my fave tracks is "Go Down Dixie" (#10). It's impact is lessened on me as I have had it for some time as a 12". I have gotten calls when I've played this song on my show, and it is a really unique piece, with the speed manipulation of the vocals during the song, and the general stucture and execution of it all. As I write that, something becomes clear to me. Tim Love Lee is using a lot of the techniques of 'dub' mixed into his exotica brew. It is a sweet drink... a Scorpion Bowl, as it might be. Faves: 1,2,3,8,10
---Carl(TOP)
CD / various / NEEDLE / Beta Bodega Coalition
The Beta Bodega website says that Needle (identity unknown) is an intelligence
agent working out of El Salvador and the freedom fighters known as F.M.L.N.
The music on this CD is very abstract. It uses Spanish voice transmisions
and the sounds of electical devices to make busy and minimal collages
that sound confusing and slightly sinister. The disc starts off with a
very abrasive cut. The second cut I like a lot, but it is very short -
just over a minute. The third track is made up entirely of female voices
in Spanish. The sixth track is my favorite on the disc because it seems
to combine all the ideas on the CD into one cut with very interesting
end results. The eleventh track is another very abrasive song like the
first track on the disc. I cannot find any titles or track listings, but
Needle is possibly a collective made up on various tracks of Frank Metzger
(formally of Oval), Patcha Kutek, V8, Kim Cascone (Ritornell, Rastermusic),
Phonem (Morr Music), Full Swing (Orthlorng Musork, Ritornell), Sony Mao
(Rice and Beans, Fal.ch), Andreas Berthling (Staalplaat, Microwave, Fällt),
Øivind Idsø (Ritornell), and Random Industries (ex-Autopoieses
from Mille Plateaux). If you look in Forced
Exposures website and search by label for "Beta Bodega"
you will find good info about all three of the Beta Bodega records I have
added today in the gullbuy.
Faves: 1,2,3,6,11
---Carl(TOP)
2xCD / THE VENTURES /The Ultimate Collection / See For Miles
This double CD set in a great hardcover book sleeve has plenty to see,
read, and hear from The Ventures. The book inside says that this set is
special because "it mostly caters to Ventures completists and there
will be many items here that the average Ventures fan will not own. Secondly,
we have compiled it here at The
Ventures Official Club working with Colin Miles at SFM so there is
a definite level of expertise in choosing tracks. The 46 tracks herein
reflect the versitality, skill and talent of the greatest, most durable
rock instrumental guitar band in history. The earliest cut worth mentioning
is a cover of The Shadows "The Savage", which came out on a
USA single ion 1963 (Dolton 85). Before now the only way really of hearing
this was if you had a 1973 UK double album compilation Legendary Masters
that carried this one collectable track!". OK - Now for my take.
I urge you to explore the link set to the band's name above. It is an
amazing site that seems to have every Ventures song as an MP3. I'm not
particularly crazy about this set, but then I was not a real fan of The
Ventures coming into this. But I'll admit that I thought that this set
would sway me. For me The Ventures are still best remembered by the "Learn
to play the Electric Bass with The Ventures" LP I had as a child.
I used to use that LP to tune my bass to my turntable's version of an
"A" so I could play along with my favorite LPs at home. I can
still quote the whole spoken intro and tuning procedure from that record
as accurately as I can the "Future Legend" spoken intro to Bowie's
'Diamond Dogs' LP. This double CD set seems to concentrate on later period
Ventures stuff. I think many of the tracks came from Japanese only records
which came out in the 70's and 80's, many with disco-ish guitars, strings,
or brass. The songs I REALLY love are 1982's "Hollywood Punk"
(disc 1, #12), 1980's "Dick Tracy" (disc 1, #22), 1966's "Green
Hornet theme" (disc 2, #17), 1966's "Secret Agent Man"
(disc 2, #18), 1963's "The Savage" (disc 2, #22), and 1972's
"Peter & The Wolf (alt take released in Holland)" (disc
2, #23). There are a handful of vocal songs which surprised me. Some are
wordless vocal songs. My fave of these is 1999's "Kimi To Itsumademo
(Stereo with Chorus)". Some are pure pop. My fave of these would
be 1976's "Things Have Got to Get Better" (disc 2, #12). Some
are Free Design styled harmony vocal fests like 1967's "Hey There
Sunshine" (disc 1, #21).
Instrumental Faves: disc one: 12,22 disc two: 17,18,22,23
Vocal Faves: disc one: 20,21 disc two: 12.
---Carl(TOP)
I picked this up because it fascinated me: it was just released, it was
cheap, and I liked the back cover photo of the band, with 6 guys, three
on each side of the female vocalist. Every member of the band looked interesting
- not too cool to be unreal, not too square to be a drag. When I first
got home and listened to it I was not too happy though. I thought the
disc was not accurately reflected in Forced Exposure's writeup: "The
classic Canadian band that released the great Psychedelic Pop LP "David"
in 1969. Featuring the dreamy and spacey females vocals of Deborah Kelly,
their music speaks of the ideals of the youth of the time and features
some fine electric fuzz guitar, great orchestration, and backed by outstanding
keyboards". The problem was the "dreamy and spacey females vocals
of Deborah Kelly" were only in 3 of the 11 songs, and it seemed like
the person who wrote that review only listened to the centerpiece song
"Because I'm Black" (#7), which IS all of things the FE review
states. Deborah Kelly sings backgrounds in several others, but principally
the disc has male vocals. Add to this covers of The Beatle's "Hey
Jude" and The Animal's "House of the Rising Sun" and I
was not too psyched. After listening to it for what it was instead of
what I expected it to be, I discovered that I liked 7 of the songs. "Cup
Of Tea" (#5) sounded like a Kieth West / Tomorrow song. "Flight
of the Egyptian Army" (#6) is a great instrumental, "Alvin J.
Ashtray" is a Deborah Kelly vocaled mod rocker, and "Take My
Hand" (#11) features duets between her and the male vocalist with
his voice inflecting like Frank Zappa in parts. The first song on the
disc "Little Boys" is Sunshine Pop that is well done, but is
my least favorite of the songs I like. The 2 songs I like best are "Descension"
(#8) and "Because I'm Black" (#7). It is almost hilarious to
hear this white bread band's female vocalist singing "Because I'm
Black", though it is delivered with heart and sincerity, kind of
like Lulu sang "To Sir, With Love". "Descension" has
a really cool processed background vocal that adds to the psychedelic
feel of the song, which has 'Blood, Sweat, and Tears' styled brass in
it too.
Faves: 1,4,6,7,8,10,11
---Carl(TOP)
CD / DOPPLER EFFEKT / Gesamtkunstwerk / International Deejay Gigolo Records
Doppler Effekt are an electro band that also have recorded as Japanese
Telecom on Detroit's Intuit Solar records. There is one song on this disc
that sounds a whole lot like the excellent Boston band Freezepop. That
would be "Scientist" (#3). The female vocalist has deadpan vocals
similiar to Adult or Ladytron. There are 2 songs which push the envelope
of good taste when her deadpan vocals talk about sex in a clinical way
that may be inappropriate for the airwaves. They are "Pornoactress"
(#13) and "Pornoviewer" (#15). The song that's currently my
fave is "Speak & Spell" (#10) which has machine voices in
it. I also like the instrumental "Voice Activated (#9). When reseaching
them to write this review, the only website I could find with useful info
was in French. The following is a tweaked version of a translation of
that page. "Dopplereffekt are one of the strangest and most mysterious
groups of the contemporary electronic scene. They do not give any interviews,
and very seldom do any shows. Few know who they really are. Until now
their discs were only available in limited editions on their Détroit
label Dataphysix. Dopplereffekt hide behind strange German pseudonyms,
but the names of their pieces and their texts are in English. These texts
form a strange mixture of scientific jargon, political slogans and sexual
allusions. The music of Dopplereffekt is very eclectic and unusual. The
obvious influence of the Kraftwerk Masters should not mask the musical
esthetics invented by Dopplereffekt, who are at the origin of the current
electro revival. DJ Hell, éminence of the German label International
Deejay Gigolo Records, established contact with Dopplereffekt in Detroit.
For the first time on CD the complete works of Dopplereffekt ( 2 LPs plus
one 45) was made possible".
Faves: 3,9,10,13,15
---Carl(TOP)
12" / HAMIJAMA / Beta Bodega Coalition
Partnership of Stewart Walker & Jake Mandell doing experimental techno
electronics. This 12" is my fave of the three Beta Bodega Coalition
releases being added this week. It is very bright and upbeat sounding
and has sounds that make it appear very futuristic instead of merely experimental.
Hamijama might also include Yakeshi Muto (half of Phoenicia), who is mentioned
in the 'current' section of the Green
Galactic website in the 'odd jobs' subdirectory. Beta Bodega coalition
shares the same type of views and identity as Green Galactic, Schematic
Records and The Designers
Republic. Each are electronic subversives, activists, and make engaging
websites. What they DON'T do is make it easy to tell who is on each record
or the records tracklisting. I beleive I deciphered the tracklisting for
5 of the 6 songs here. My faves are "Swallowing Nemrut" (A1)
which opens up the 12" really strongly, "House Restoration"
(B2) which keeps true to it's title by maintaining a beat which is maneuvered
around majestically, and "Memphis Evening" (B3) which starts
off skitterish and sparse, then goes into a Giorgio Moroder-styled synth.
Faves: A1, B2,B3
---Carl(TOP)
CD5 / LE HAMMOND INFERNO / Move Your MP3 / Bungalow Records
This 23 minute EP is Bungalow's first release of 2001. There are 4 versions
of the song "Move Your MP3". With repeating lyric of "Put
your left hand in the air, and your MP3 in your underwear" we are
not talking any intellectual stretcher here. Despite that stupid line,
I did enjoy the (somewhat cliche) web/sex euphemisms of the lines "I
met you in a web cafe, your eyes were monochrome" and "Your
mouth and eyes were photoshop, your body Freehand 5. I had to download
you directly on my floppy drive". My fave version is the first one,
the 3:37 edit. It starts off with "Blue Monday"-styled New Order
beats, and has male vocals. The second mix is the 6:24 Adamski mix, which
changes the feel to that of a Chic song. Fantastic Plastic Machine's 7:20
mix is OK but not astounding. It sounds like 70's TV police show theme
music (brass and strings) with a disco 4/4 beat. It has a neat break at
the -4:00 point, but spends the last three minutes of the song in useless
repetition of the music. Finally, the 5:35 long version of the original
cut closes the EP, the extra 2 minutes not really adding anything.
Faves: 1
---Carl(TOP)
12" / T. RAUMSCHMIERE / Zartbitter EP / Shitkatapult
Marco Haus runs this label and created the music on this 12". Shitkatapult
is a division of Kompact Records http://www.kompact-net.de which has very
quickly established itself by putting out somewhat minimal teckhouse records
with abrasive edges. The 2 recent Rechenzentrum 12"s on this label
were very popular on WZBC. This 22 minute 4 song EP has 2 songs I like
a lot, and 2 that are just OK. The 2 I like are the first songs on each
side. The first song on the A-side "Zarbitter" (delicate bitter)
has the 4/4 beat, but it feels like it's being viewed through a haze of
smoke with the warped background sound that makes it feel like a fatigued
march. The second song "Bittersuess" (bittersweet) seems similiar
to the first song, but not as hazy and therefore not as interesting to
me. On the B-side, the first song is "Der Leirkastenmann". It
is the longest song on the 12" at 7:57 and is my favorite as well.
The mechanized sound of it is like being in a factory, or maybe a washing
machine. Difference is, I LIKE listening to this repetitive rhythm, while
a factory is just plain boring. Another way of looking at it is like it
is a funky factory's dub. The last song is "Es Foehrt Ein Zug Nach
Nirgendwa" (This train is going nowhere). It is the shortest of the
12"s songs at 2:57, and my least fave. It floats like a song on an
Enraptured 7".
Faves: A1, B1
---Carl(TOP)
CD5 / THE STROKES / The Modern Age / Rough Trade Records
The Strokes are a NYC band that are bringing back the Trash & Vaudeville
black stovepipe trouser look and the sound of 1976 NYC art punk. "The
Modern Age" (#1) starts with a riff that sounds like Plastic Bertrand's
"Ca Pane Pour Moi", guitars that sound like The Feelies, and
vocals that sound like Lou Reed. It is a catchy tune that really propels
itself. "Last Nite" keeps the 'Feelies' comparison, but adds
a quick guitar solo that Robert Quine might have played for Richard Hell
when he was in the Voidoids. "Barely Legal" sounds like what
already to me is "The Strokes" sound. You see, while they recall
earlier bands lots of times, they are doing their own thing. In 1976 no
NYC band would have sounded liked this because Julian Casablancas vocals
are just too melodic, practiced, and nice sounding in the end. First wave
punk bands at the time featured vocalists who had voices that rubbed traditional
ideas of 'good vocalists' in the face. Julian Casablancas voice sounds
just perfect, but it works in 2001. I kind of hope that they can release
a full length as strong as this 3 song EP and put NYC back on the map
where it once stood as a worldclass leader in sound.
Faves: 1
---Carl(TOP)
12" / ULTRA-RED / Plan De Austeridad / Beta Bodega Coalition
Big new reconstruction of this track licensed from Mille Plateaux - features:
Swap ( music aus strom), Spike (push button objects), & Otto Von Schirach
(schematic's secret weapon). Steve Castro's Miami FL label Beta Bodega
puts out political music by technological subversives. On this 4 tracker
there is one track by Ultra-Red, a remix of that track by Otto Von Schirach,
then 2 other Ultra-Red tracks: 1 remixed by Leekon, 1 by Spike. Ultra-Red
are a Los Angeles collective who fit into the Beta Bodega activist scheme
through their work involving fights including one against the destruction
of hundreds of low income housing units deemed by the city to be structurally
unsound, yet declared by independent architects to be OK except for a
small handful of units. Ultra-Red have gone on the frontlines of the bulldozer
teams and stopped them from knocking down homes. Their work almost exactly
parallels one of the plots within James Elroy's "The Big Nowhere".
Faves: A1
---Carl(TOP)
CDR / THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL BOYS / Meet The Sorry Sisters
The second CD by Angela and Dave
Dugan, who record together as The Phenomenological Boys. We are very lucky
to have this disc. It is a CDR that the artists seem to have just tossed
off without any expectations. As with the first CD they put out, it is
worth much more than that to us. Angela works in the Twisted
Village store in Harvard Square and has an amazing knowledge of many
separate genres and styles of music, yet a disarmingly down to earth no
nonsense personality. The Phenomenological Boys is an experimental sounding
project that seems like it would most be at home performing in The
Zeitgiest. My fave tracks are the 2 most regular sounding, and probably
the least likely to be performed live successfully, involving multi-tracked
vocals (#1) or samples (#13) as they do. "The Puppy" (#1) has
Angela's chorus of vocals sounding like a bit of the melody was copped
from 60's girl group sounds. "The Pussy-Cat Polka" (#13) has
a jazzy stucture and nice vocals, with fun lyrics about cats and tasty
samples. I just love that song! "What Made Her Wish to Die?"
(#4) uses vocals, an acoustic guitar, and a broken acoustic guitars stuck
strings to make an interesting and pleasant song that reminded me of Rebby
Sharp. "Do You See Me On My Knees?" (#7) sounds like some of
the women art/hardcore groups that WZBC DJs Ivanna (Tues 12-3 PM) and
Sandra (Tues 3-5 PM) play on their shows. It is an insane song - totally
over the top vocals and a sax part like the Screaming Luttenbachers. "Alan
Bishop's Roller Skates" (#2) reminds me of some of the more experimental
stuff by SF duo Crawling With Tarts. "Wednesday" (#6) is interesting
but not one of my faves. It has a totured whisper vocal like Kim Gordon
used to do, and somewhat sparse backing from a constant plucked guitar,
drums, and some keyboard. It is a good song and well put together, just
not particularly my thing with the vocal.
Faves: 1,4,7,13
---Carl (TOP)
