na: swayzak, fiery furnaces
Today’s new arrivals heading out of London, rather than New York, today but I promise to be fair and cover all the sites. So what have we got? Read on.
Whole Wide World
For all of us:
Swyzak - ‘You’ll Never Dance Alone Again’: I love Swyzak. I always imagine that if JG Ballard ever turned his hand to making cold, locked-to-the-dancefloor electro it would sound an awful lot like this. A handy place to start if you’re unfamiliar with his past work.
Various - ‘Disco Not Disco 1974 - 1986’: Oh this is awesome. This is the third album in the ‘Disco Not Disco’ series serves up new wave, electro and post-punk for the dancefloor. As Chuck Eddy points out in our review: “every one of these tracks is an essential milestone even dabblers should hear.”
The Uptown Jazz label: some good-looking reissues and historical recordings here, although, owing to their age the fidelity isn’t so good on some of the live stuff. Rob, eMusic’s resident jazz expert, describes trombonist Carl Fontana as “an absolute legend.” He still has a copy of Fontana’s ‘The Great Fontana’ in his parents’ basement.
Dark Side – ‘All That Noise’: Caught my attention because of the presence of Pete Baines of Spacemen 3, but [guilty pause] I can’t say I’ve listened to it yet.
American Music Club
And on the stateside of things we have:
The Fiery Furnaces – ‘Widow City’: The latest from the Furnaces and probably the best thing the duo have produced since ‘Blueberry Boat.’
Decadent Europeans
And for my home crowd:
British Sea Power – ‘Do You Like Rock Music?’: I had a small swoon over this on 17 Dots yesterday, but I didn’t think another mention would hurt.
Various – ‘One Little Indian Flavours’ – A freebie! Celebrated indie label One Little Indian have been kind enough to drop us a sampler – and there are some good things on here. I’ve been liking Asobi Seksu for a few months now (enough to put the promotional poster they sent up over my desk) and Polly Paulusma is another one to watch out for.
Oh my… “Guitar Voodoo” from All that Noise is one of my favorite all time instrumental rock pieces. It is one of about eight early-90s / late-80s tunes that (because I finally could afford a stereo that would play loudly) I determined was appropriate for just about any audience at high volume (others included Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain Song” and Soundgarden’s “Big Dumb Sex”) — songs that inspired nearly everyone in the room to scrunch their faces and jam to invisible air guitars, even if they’ve never heard the song before (”Guitar Voodoo” in particular is shamelessly reminiscent of any number of vaguely psychedelic classic rock bands). The rest of the CD is good enough — but it’s “Guitar Voodoo” that keeps me coming back to the album, a good ten years after I last listened to Louder than Love. Still… one of my all-time faves of that era & one I am damned thrilled to see here.
Pretty sure, though, the band is mislabeled “Dark Side” at eMu, when it should have its own entry as a one-word name with an article (i.e., “The Darkside”).
Are One Little Indian going to put their back catalogue on eMusic? I would love to get hold of some Kitchens of Distinction!
And while I am requesting, when can we expect Adele on eMusic?
That Disco Not Disco disc sounds great. Is it a partial disc? This review — from Dusted Magazine — appears to mention tracks I don’t see on the eMusic version:
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4042
the team robespierre record? rly rly good.
a swayzak “best of”? without tracks from _snowboarding in argentina_ * and _himawari_ **, it’s merely an ” of”. ***
* “speedboat” and “fukamachi” are essential.
** “state of grace”, featuring the incomparable kirsty hawkshaw, and “illegal” with legendary dub poet benjamin zephaniah would do a much better job of showing their vocal work than “in the car crash” and “i dance alone”, which haven’t aged well at all. they even felt like “flavour of the moment” at the time, largely due to adult’s presence.
*** and if they wanted to include an old obscurity (”ease my mind”), “goose” would have been a much better choice.
oh, hell, here’s a real swayzak “best of”:
“speedboat”
“fukamachi”
“goose”
“illegal”
“state of grace”
“make up your mind”
“ping pong”
“another way”
“then there’s her”
“the long night”
“distress and calling”
“smile and receive”
1hr22min, but no problem editing down to fit a cd.
sorry, i’ve been in love with swayzak for years…push button issue of mine, i suppose.
Judging from the tracks I know from elsewhere (Shriekback, James White, Material), the Disco Not Disco looks awesome. Straight to my save-for-later list.
Guhhhhhh, I loathe the Fiery Furnaces.
Oh nos! That One Little Indian sampler isn’t available in the US! I’ll check out the electronic discs you recommended.