Bob Mould is back with his new album Blue Hearts. 14 songs with one exception all und trhee minutes and sometimes it seems to my it is like a lost Hüsker Dü record. As expected, the guitar was dominated and pushes the songs forward. And Mould is still a close observer of what is happening in the world. What he see is making him angry and he find the right words in American Crisis :
I never thought I's see this bullshit again/To come of age in the Eighties was bad enough/We were marginalized and demonized/I watched a lot of my generation die/Wake up every day to see a nation in flames/We click and we tweet and we spread these tales of blame/Here's the newest American crisis
Since a few years Tom McDowell released under his project Dream Division a few albums filled with analogue synthesizer sounds. His latest from 2019 Transcend was one of my favorites last year because he created a unique sound that I listened often to. Now he is back with a new album that will be released at the end of this month. It seems that he is focused now in movie scores. The songs I heard reminds my on old Italian horror movies or the soundtracks by John Carpenter. The sound continues McDowell’s characteristic analogue synth soundscape sound, but with the added bonus of beats driving the rhythms and the occasional heavy guitar sounds.
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Following yesterday's post I remembered another band that impressed me much in the early 80's. Nyah Fearties were a Scottish music band from East Ayrshire who created a unique brand of anarchic folk music in the early 80's. Wikipedia tells:
Combining the rich traditional music and storytelling culture of its native Ayrshire, with a jarring punk ethos, madcap humour and improvised acoustic instrumentation (though usually amplified), the band made a significant contribution to the British folk-punkscene of the 1980s and 1990s.
It often tested live audiences with a feedback-laced aural assault, more akin to experimental rock groups like Velvet Underground or The Jesus and Mary Chain, than an acoustic folk act. In addition, Nyah Fearties were known for utilising all manner of improvised and imaginative musical paraphernalia.
They were not another folk-punk band like The Pogues or The Men They Couldn't Hang. Their music was more raw and grounded than the other ones I named. A perfect mixture of classic folk ingredients added with heavy influences of northern industrial sound. I once saw them live in a very small venue close to my place and it was one of those concerts you went to expecting nothing and you get recompensed with an unforgettable gig.
As far as I know Nyah Fearties means not afraid of anything - if I am wrong please correct me.
A few months ago I started this series featuring albums that impressed me with a great cover art and fantastic music. I stopped it because I thought it is enough but there are a lot more albums to feature. So I decided to continue this series from time to time.
In 1983 Violent Femmes appeared with their self titled album on the scene. The cover shows a three-year-old girl looking curiously into a weathered window. And as I saw the cover the first time I was as curious what kind of music the cover contains. Gordon Gano's folk-punk grabbed my attention from the first chords of Blister In The Sun. 1983 brought a lot of great albums but this one was on heavy rotation in this year. In autumn of this year I was lucky enough to see them live in a small venue in Tübingen together with my youngest brother. We both were fascinated by the semi-acoustic gig where they played all the great songs from the first two albums.
Another find during the last days was Flying Moon In Space a band based in Leipzig, Germany. Known as a live band with sprawling improvisations it seems that they squeezed their music in more strictly forms. Their references spread from Can to Neu! and from Brian Eno to Godspeed You! Black Emperor and they create a new psychedelic and spacey sound. I am enthused about it and looking forward to the release of their album
This week I don't spent time in office because in my last holidays a few weeks ago I got sick and my company told me to reduce my holiday entitlements for this year. I have nothing planned for vacation only to visit a few areas around my hometown once again. So I am sure that I will find some time to check my inbox from commercials accumulated during the last months. Most of them can be deleted but a few are worth to be checked out. One of them was the announcement that Reykjavik's psych-rockers Singapore Sling release their new album Good Sick Fun. Checking the playlist I was astonished to see that they covered Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues. I expected nothing because I listened to many cover versions before. But this one is different to all. They reduced the speed of the original to a minimum, added some psychedelic guitars and the lyrics were almost spoken in a tempered mood. That is the way a cover version should be. The other songs are also not bad in their reduced psych mood but all in all the repeat the same pattern too often.
Underworld made a series about new releases where they experimented with new sounds and forms. I loved them when they came out during the last year. Now I found a song from this series when they played it live in Amsterdam . After 30 years developing new electronic sound Underworld still sounds fresh and innovating. It is a soft flowing electronic gem only interrupted by spoken words.
