I started compiling this one in my head when the sun was shining and it was hot enough to sit in the garden at night until it went dark without the need for a coat or sweatshirt. Since I started actually putting it together the sun has vanished and the temperature has halved but I've ploughed on anyway. It's a ten song mix with sunshine and balmy nights in mind from the political/ absurdist post- punk/ dub of Meatraffle, the finger picked acoustic guitar and Mellotron magic of Steve Cobby, some chuggy Scandi- disco/house, 80s heroes The Woodentops, a blissed out re- edit of Brian Eno, Andrew Weatherall spinning Toy into a chilled krautrock groove, some Belgian New Beat from 1989 and Grace Jones backed by Sly and Robbie.
Meatraffle: Meatraffle On The Moon
Steve Cobby: As Good As Gold
The Woodentops: Give It Time (Adrian Sherwood Mix)
Brian Eno: Another Green World (The Blue Realm) Mojo Filter
Edit
We've had fair old amount of snow this week. We woke on Wednesday to what for south Manchester is a good covering, a few centimetres, ungritted roads and an iffy journey to work. Work, up in east Lancashire, had its fair share too. Everything that was still on the ground then froze as the temperature barely got above zero all day. Yesterday we got more snow and driving home I stopped on the moors to photograph the Pennine hills that six months ago were on fire.
I've posted this before but it seems appropriate to post it again, a throbbing and wintry ride through the Scandinavian snow, by Stockholm's Paresse.
I'm going to see Steve Mason tonight, touring to promote his excellent new album About The Light. Back in the 90s his group The Beta Band made one of that decade's best songs, setting a standard that even they found it difficult to live up to. This song- slide acoustic guitars, Steve's doleful vocals, the shuffling rhythms and bass, the crescendo to the trumpets- is a beaut.
Despite what I wrote a fortnight ago about this being a good year for music I'm not sure that 2017 will go down as a good year. Brexit continues to be a monumental mistake which will fuck this country over for the foreseeable future. It is divisive, regressive and blinkered, a country committing a slow suicide. My only hope is that it eventually screws the Conservative Party over completely- who created this mess and have to take the blame. In the US Trump continues to normalise views and opinions which should have been long dead and buried, not to mention deliberately provoking an unstable dictator in North Korea, in some kind of nuclear dick-measuring contest. As the year went on a succession of stories of men abusing their position and power flowed out. If 2017 has been grim, 2018 looks like being just as bad, if not worse.
Still, there's always music to cheer us up. When I wrote my list two weeks ago I missed a couple of things out which I should have included. Paresse's slow motion Scandinavian house has been a favourite of mine for a few years now and this year's Sloth Machine ep was no exception. This is the closing track.
Matt Johnson and The The returned to the fray with a vinyl only Record Shop Day release, a tribute to his brother Andy who died earlier this year. We Can't Stop What's Coming is a beautiful song, moving and genuine.
It seems right to mention the response in May to the bombing at Manchester Arena. The response was solidarity and strength, standing together not apart. It was also musical- from honorary Mancunian Ariana Grande putting together a massive concert at short notice at the cricket ground (just up the road from here) to the adoption of Don't Look Back In Anger as a sung two fingers to terror. My old school, Parrs Wood High School, provided the choir at the One Love concert and a host of pop stars sang their hearts out. We watched on TV through tears.
When the Supersonic documentary was on the other night my Twitter timeline was mainly full of people expressing the view that 'I never particularly liked Oasis but this documentary is really good'.
Lastly, in early May an event took place which confirmed my belief that people are essentially good and that bloggers are generally wonderful people. And that sometimes taking what seems like a risk is the right thing to do. A bunch of us- me, Brian (Linear Tracking Lives), Dirk (Sexy Loser), Walter (A Few Good Times) travelled from respectively Manchester, Seattle and Germany to Glasgow to meet the locals-Drew (Across the Kitchen Table), JC (The Vinyl Villain) and Stevie (Charity Chic Music), plus a few of JC's mates (Aldo, Comrade Colin, Strangeways). It was a risk- none of us knew if we'd get on or what would happen- but it paid off. We all have a new set of friends (real life friends now as well as internet friends) and I feel sure it will happen again. And everyone else is welcome too.
I was trying to think of a song that might find approval from the whole Glasgow bloggers collective, the international chancers (as Drew dubbed us), a song that we would say 'aye, that's a belter'. 80s indie looks likely. Early Primal Scream seems to fit the bill.
I've written before about Swedish producer Paresse and his slow motion, glacial tracks, landing somewhere between Balearic house and Italian disco via Stockholm. He has a new ep, Sloth Machine, out soon on Belgium's Eskimo records- truly criss-crossing Europe here aren't we? The four track ep has been led off by this one, Temples, a throbbing bass, some cosmic synths, plenty of atmosphere and a general sense of forward momentum.
The artwork, from 1896, is titled La Paresse. In French, a propensity to do nothing, a reluctance to work or make an effort. Lounging around on the bed with no clothes on tickling a cat would qualify. I guess it also explains the title Sloth Machine.
Here's something brand new from Swedish producer Paresse, whose stuff I've really enjoyed before (Hunters In The Snow, The Night Before You Came, Rosarita, Phantoms Are Waltzing- he's got a way with song titles). His new ep La Paresse is out now on Magic Feet, four new tracks the lead one being this one- Let Me Out Of This Studio (another winning song title). Hypno Hips, La Flaneur and Zen Fishing make up the rest of the ep, absorbing and sultry techno, electronic music with depth and heart. The Balearic influence is there, to keep it on board with this week's posts and as Echorich said on Tuesday's post Balearic is a feeling rather than a sound, but this also has a definite Scandi air to it. You can buy it at Bandcamp.
Scandinavia has been producing some very good house and electronic music for some time now- classy stuff with a smidgeon of disco, warm electronics, chuggy basslines, pitter-pattering drums, a gentle slow motion throb. I've written several times about Paresse (from Stockholm) whose sound I love and who makes very evocative balm for the ears and brain. Norwegian DJ and producer Prins Thomas has been doing his thing for well over a decade, honing his sound, always inventive, precise and absorbing. This long but never dull track came out in 2014 and is here today to welcome in February. I think everyone's glad to see the back of January 2016.
Towards the end of last year I posted a song called Hunters In The Snow by Paresse which went down very well with some of you- a slow moving, atmospheric house track with a throbbing bass, that conjured up images of hunters and snow. Many, many months before I also posted Paresse's The Night before You Came, which was futuristic, quite Bladerunner. I found Paresse's Soundcloud page the other week which doesn't give away much information (Paresse is Ivan Berggren from Stockholm, Sweden) but does have a good number of songs, a couple of remixes and some lengthy radio show mixes. The most recent upload is this one, Phantoms Are Waltzing. It's John Carpenter-esque, but as if Escape From New York had happened in Scandinavia. There are some lovely distorted synth sounds on this.
I'm also taken with this one, Trans Am, still pretty slow with a hint of disco...
This is a gorgeous, brooding piece of electronic music from Paresse. Throbbing bass, icy atmospherics, slow tempo. Driving to and from work in the dark this kind of thing makes the miles disappear (frighteningly sometimes I cannot remember parts of the journey at all, even major stuff like joining the motorway).
Last July I posted the video for a dance track by Paresse and remixed by Craig Bratley, a proper belter with sci-fi techy-synths and hissy drums. Then I went on holiday and forgot all about it.
Last night this one turned up, a different version with a huge disco bassline, three fingered synth riff to the fore, massive electronic tom toms and chopped up vocals.
This is very nice, The Night Before You Came by Paresse, it's got a touch of the Bladerunner groove to it, sci-fi electronica (good luck with finding it on vinyl, seems to be sold out left, right and centre).
This Craig Bratley remix is a bit of a looker too..
And from yesterday there's a free download of a remix by Dave McSherry (Fila Brazillia),a whopping 65mb WAV file...
