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Monday 19 August 2013

19 August 2013

No show last week as we were at a funeral. No show next week as we have time off for the Bank Holiday, so we'd best pack as much in this week as we can.

Best Friends - Happy Anniversary
John: Not just a great tune, but it's also about a year since we started this show. These are from Sheffield and that comes out on September 23 on Art Is Hard records.

Mr Shiraz - No Prophecy
John: One minute, 45 seconds. Local rockers with a new album, God Hates Mr Shiraz.

Pearl Jam - Mind Your Manners
John: New from these - their first stuff in four years. I never was a big fan, but I can change. That's off the album Lightning Bolt, their tenth and first in four years, which is out in October.
Carolyn: It's a very rocky opening to things today.
John: It'll change, don't worry.

Cover Version Corner
Nirvana/Sinead O'Connor - All Apologies
John: I'm in constant wonder at the beauty of Sinead O'Connor's singing. That's on her 1994 album 'Universal Mother'. Before that, Nirvana, off In Utero which is 20 years old now, released in August 1993.
Carolyn: Sometimes, I think O'Connor's personality and everything else she does makes you overlook what she's most noted for. But yeah, that's quite something.

Emiliana Torrini - Speed Of Dark
John: Off the forthcoming album Tookah which comes out on September 19. She's from Iceland - not a very Icelandish name.
Carolyn: No, but an Iceland sort of sound. It reminds me of some other Ice-ish stuff we've had on the show before. Sort of ethereal and other-worldly.
John: It's three minutes 45, but feels like five or six minutes. I don't know how she manages that.

Barbarossa - Pagliaccio
John: Barbarossa is James Mathé and that's out now.
Carolyn: It started quite stripped back, sort of like the xx. Didn't end up like that.

Idea Shower - Time
John: We've played a lot of Hookworms on this show. This is three-fifths of them, doing something a little less... experimental than we've become used to.
Carolyn: They've not split already have they?
John: No, just a side project. And jolly good it is too.

FutureAges - Under Orders
John: One I've been meaning to play for a while, this came out in June on an EP called 'EP 001'. I see what they've done there.
Carolyn: Unlike the Emiliana Torrini one, this is five minutes and some and feels like it. Just a bit too long, I think.

Crocodiles - Cockroach
John: Quite jaunty, that. They're from San Diego and that off 'Crimes of Passion' which came out a couple of months ago.

One Degree of Separation
Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven
Ian Brown - Dolphins Were Monkeys
John: Ian Brown, from his debut solo album following the Stone Roses splitting, 'Unfinished Monkey Business' in 1998. Before that, the Pixies from 1989 and the album 'Doolittle'. Monkeys. That's your link.
Carolyn: Is that it? Lots of animals today - cockroaches, crocodiles, hookworms and now monkeys.


Drums Of Death ft Yasmin - True
John: Drums Of Death is Colin Bailey from Oban in Scotland. That came out in June.
Carolyn: When you said we were having a track from Drums Of Death, I was expecting more quite dark rock. Not that. I like that.
John: It's got that UK garage feel you might have expected in the late 1990s, but updated. I reckon that qualifies as a Monday night banger.

Satin Jackets - Come On
John: Don't know a lot about these other than they're from Germany. I did say we'd get away from rock and onto more electronica though.
Carolyn: You did. I like that one as well.

Liam Lynch - My United States Of Whatever
John: From 2002 and the album 'Fake Songs'.
And that'll do us for this week. Not in next week due to the holiday and not in on Mondays after that. We're shifting to Tuesdays now where we'll need a new name as we shan't be kicking off any weeks there unless we redefine the week like Louis XIV or something. Thinking caps on.



Here's all that in a YouTube playlist, though not the Best Friends, Idea Shower and Mr Shiraz tracks which aren't on there. Follow the links in the relevant section for those.

Monday 5 August 2013

5 August 2013

Quite by accident, there's a bit of a 1970s feel to tonight's show. Even the new stuff.

Iconili - Mulato
John: From Belo Horizonte in Brazil, that came out earlier this year. Taking cumbia themes and updating them a bit. Good work from the session xylophonist. Definitely a '70s vibe to it.
Carolyn: Just a bit.

Sara Lowes - I Find You
John: That's quite lovely. Brand new from the Mancunian singer and off the EP 'All For The Dream (With The Means Of A Well-Planned Getaway).

Outfit - House On Fire
John: This is their second single which is out now. Rated as the most exciting band to come out of Liverpool in donkeys years and recently named by the NME among their 25 top bands to go see.
Carolyn: Even above the Reynolds Girls?
John: Even them.

Cover Version Corner
A House - Endless Art
Dave Couse - Endless Art '06
John: Cheating a bit here... The original came out in 1991 on the album 'I Am The Greatest'. Several years later, Dave Couse, now a solo artist and formerly the lead singer of A House, updated the song with artists who had died in the interim. The original was criticised for only including men and, despite claiming they thought Joan Miro was a woman, recorded More Endless Art which is all women. Well apart from Walt Disney's Minnie Mouse...
Carolyn: Yeah, but even if Miro was a woman, that would possibly be worse - tokenism at it's worst.



Pet Shop Boys - Axis
John: New from these and something of a return to basics.
Carolyn: I've always been a fan, but some of the stuff in the last... almost 30 years, I guess, hasn't really done much for me. This, though. Yes.
John: The album is 'Electric' and came out last month.

Babe Ruth - The Mexican
John: 1975 now and these are from Hatfield in Hertfordshire. That came from an album also called 'Babe Ruth' and has been used in soundtracks and sampled half to death.

Washed Out - Don't Give Up
John: Washed Out is Ernest Greene from Perry in Georgia. That's off an album called 'Paracosm' which is out this month.

One Degree of Separation
Kraftwerk - Das Modell
Karl Bartos - Atomium
John: An easy link here - Bartos was one of the original four in Kraftwerk of whom Ralf Hutter is the last one left.
Carolyn: So they're like the Drifters now then?
John: Well no, because it's not like each of the original line-up are now touring as Kraftwerk.
Carolyn: More like the Sugababes then?
John: No, there's none of them left. I play the German version of The Model - that's from the 1978 album 'Die Mensch Maschine' - simply because I prefer it. Karl Bartos's album 'Atomium' surfaced earlier this year.

Physics House Band - Teratology
John: New from these lads from Brighton. We were trying to work out what genre you'd call that while it was playing. It's very prog.
Carolyn: Well you did say there'd be a '70s feel to proceedings...

Therapy? - Opal Mantra
John: One of those bands I flipping well loved when I was a teenager. In clearing and tidying the house, I found a load of their old stuff. This was a non-album single in 1993 which I have on a cassette which dates it instantly. Bloomin' good though.

Tricky - Parenthesis
John: Off his recent 'False Idols' album. Paren-thesis - I see what he did there.

Rodriguez - Establishment Blues
John: And finish on a 1970 record from Sixto Rodriguez. Off the album 'Cold Fact'.

Here's that wrapped up in a YouTube playlist, bar the Iconili and Outfit tracks which are linked to above.