Paradise

Something even longer than yesterday's eleven minutes plus extravaganza from The Early Years is this from Glasgow's AMOR (and played by Weatherall on his Music's Not For Everyone show last week). Paradise is a hypnotic and joyful musical exploration, this side of disco and that side of experimental. It came out at the end of February this year, has an irresistible groove and is beautiful in every way.

I Heard Voices

This is a b-side from an obscure London band released as the third track on a cd single called All Ones And Zeros back in January 2006, recorded at Death In Vegas' Contino Rooms by DiV's Tim Holmes. The Early Years put out several records around this time, then disappeared for a few years and came back in 2011 with a single called Complicity and then back again last year with an album called II. That's the facts out of the way.

This song, I Heard Voices, is a long and expansive trip. It starts out with some noises and a lone repetitive guitar part. A krauty groove comes in. A voice starts muttering. There's an organ adding some drones and textures. The guitars are spindly and psychey, painting their way through the first part before really coming to the fore in the fifth minute. By the ninth minute things are way up and beyond, the drums thumping and the guitars taking it on and on, in a loop but doing something different too. At ten minutes thirty seconds there's a shift and the whole thing is driving itself home, guitars grinding their way through and to the end at eleven forty. This could easily be overdoing it in terms of length and focus but the band avoid that, keeping the interest and the drive, with the rhythm totally locked in, the playing compulsive, building something new.

I Heard Voices

Perfectly Lethal

I'm not sure The Replacements made a perfect album but they came pretty close with 1984's Let It Be (and in typical fashion the soul bearing and emotion of Answering Machine, Androgynous and Unsatisfied were undercut by thrashy instrumentals like Gary's Got A Boner and Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out and a Kiss cover). The strength of the album is also shown by the songs that didn't make it. Perfectly Lethal is driven by Bob Stinson's ragged guitar playing and the sense that they might be about to fall apart but are enjoying the ride.

Perfectly Lethal

They didn't always get it right on their albums with production and song choice. The version of Can't Hardly Wait they recorded for Tim but didn't include is vastly better than the one that came out with horns on it on Pleased To Meet Me. What rational band would record this song and then decide to leave it off an album. It's all part of what makes them one of my favourite bands.

Can't Hardly Wait (Tim Version)

May's Not For Everyone

It's that man again. Andrew Weatherall has a slew of material coming out, remixes galore. Alongside those David Holmes, Mark Lanegan and Heart People ones this one just came out on vinyl and download, two remixes of Frank Butters Presents; Cult Of Glamour, a vocal and a dub. Synth arpeggios, tom toms, cymbals and a snare drum to rattle your brain.



New remixes of Yello, The Early Years, Piano Magic and Nancy Noise have all been trailed on his Music's Not For Everyone show over the last few months.

And then May's MNFE comes along for your Sunday morning musical adventures.

Techno Saturday Night

Drew was waxing lyrical about the pleasures of Daniel Avery's Drone Logic album yesterday and then I found this, a very recent two hour shift he put in at NTS Radio. Two hours of what I hear you ask? Techno. Mainly wonderful, glorious  techno.

Sleeping

Last month I wrote about the new single from The Hurt, a Manchester four piece with Rikki Turner at the wheel. Sleeping was co-written with Stephen Evans from Cabbage. When I wrote about them in April I said 'Sleeping growls and grinds, Rikki's baritone vocals recalling a northern Nick Cave, hiding his face from the light. Darker Sun is a brooding, bass led thing with overloaded guitars and female vocals, a soundtrack to  a night out under the streetlamps in the rain'. And I'm sticking with that for now. Out now on Blindside Records.

Digital Versicolor

This is a free download of Glass Candy's Digital Versicolor by New York's Black Light Smoke. I'm a big fan of Ida No and Johnny Jewel's uptempo house/Italo disco, especially 2011's massive, giddy, grin inducing Warm In The Winter. This one here is Moroder-esque and has a throbbing sequencer line aimed squarely at your dancefloor.

Conquistador

Through the magic of social media I spent twelve minutes last night listening to this unexpectedly. It popped up in my timeline and now I'm passing it on again.

Conquistador (Sabres Of Paradise Mix 3)

This is a big file and the file host will probably say there was a problem playing it as a result but it should be fine to download.

The bit at seven minutes with the wire stretching noises followed by the increased tempo sounded particularly good. As was often the way in 1993 Weatherall, Burns and Kooner turned in three remixes of Conquistador for the 12". I've posted Mix 1 before back in 2012 so here's the other one.

Conquistador (Sabres Of Paradise Mix 2)

Shorter, chunky progressive house and with squiggly bits but liable to get you going if you like this kind of thing.

Espiritu were Vanessa Quinones and Taplin from Frazier Chorus, signed to Heavenly (a label that continues to put out top quality music to this day). Espiritu combined house with Latin beats and put out two albums and multiple singles. It became a one woman show after a while and more recently Vanessa has formed a band called Vanessa And The Os with James Iha (x-Smashing Pumpkins) and more recently still has been making French pop as Allez Pop.

At roughly the same time this popped up in my timeline too.

This is a picture of Jagz Kooner's Roland TR 808 which he is/was selling. In the accompanying blurb Jagz wrote that this is the actual machine that many Sabres Of Paradise songs and recordings were done using as well as some of Primal Scream's recordings (Swastika Eyes, some of XTRMNTR, some of Evil Heat). That's an actual piece of musical history. I considered having a whip round and getting part shares in it but couldn't raise the funds in time (offers above £3750).