Pink Mountaintops - Single Life/My Best Friend [2007]

Boom. Bring the sleaze. Pink Mountaintops - Scuzzier alter-ego of Black Mountain man Stephen McBean.

Just for today we depart from sentence construction as we know it. This is just a small offering. A little 7" from a couple of years back. Punky Gonzoid rock with contrasting flipside. You need to accessorize your life with this.

What are you waiting for?

mp3 here / spotify here

Serena Maneesh - Fixxations [2002]

I like garage rock, used to be obsessed by 60s stuff and was chuffed when the who shoegaze thing started back in ... er... whenever it was? 1990? I even remember My Bloody Valentine pre-shoegaze, I saw them support The Soup Dragons back in 1986, in Liverpool, at The Mountford Hall (well the smaller side bit). When the Soup Dragons were circa "Hang Ten" etc... not their limp Madchester bandwagon jump that came later ...

Anyway, I first heard Serena Maneesh back in 2005 and really liked this ep. By the time of their 1st lp proper, they'd gone a bit darker, but were still ploughing fairly uniquely rocky take on druggy psychedelic shoegaze thing. It's well worth seeking out.

I've not heard their latest work. I'll let you know when I do.

spotify

mp3s

Jim O'Rourke - Bad Timing [1997]

This here e.p. (or mini album I suppose as it's 40-odd minutes long) is a great piece in the Jim O'Rourke discography. It takes in both his John Fahey-esque acoustic stuff and his loptop experimentalism, with smatterings of his jazzy americana thrown in too. I'd even go out on a limb and say, to me at least, this is a more essential piece than his more recent "Visitor" album.

Here's a brief summary of essentials from his discography, with comments ... for newcomers:
"Happy Days" (Revenant Records 1997) - another drone, acoustic, experimental treat
"Eureka" (Drag City 1999) - contains his cover of Ivor Cutlers "Women of the World", and the O'Rourke greats "Ghost Ship in a Storm" & "Through The Night Softly"
"Halfway to a Threeway" ep (Drag City 1999) - long e.p. containing some of his best acoustic songs
"I'm Happy and I'm Singing and a 1, 2, 3, 4" (Mego 2001) - perhaps his best laptop glitch-tronica output, avant-garde but brilliant!
"Insignificance" (Drag City 2001) - his "straightest" album. All restrained arrangements (but still clever!) dark, bittersweet lyrics with some rougher guitars thrown in too.

Happy Trails

Various - A Tribute to Spacemen 3 [1998]

For some reason I missed this album when it first appeared. When I did come to it though, I was pleased to see names I knew (Low, Mogwai, Bowery Electric, Arab Strap) next to names I didn't. And I do love a good cover version, and sometimes I love a bad one too ...

A lot of the other bands on here are influenced by, or coming from the same place as Spacemen 3 were, so it's great to hear them developing the songs on different tangents. But nothing veers too far from spirit of the originals, except maybe Flowchart's version - and I was never very convinced about that! It's not radical, but it is a great listen for fans of Spacemen 3 or any of the bands on it.


1. Things'll Never Be The Same - Bowery Electric
2. Losing Touch With My Mind - The Asteroid #4
3. Honey - Mogwai
4. Ode To Street Hassle - Flowchart
5. I Believe It - Accelera Deck
6. Revolution - Arab Strap
7. Call the Doctor - Bardo Pond
8. Hey Man - Frontier
9. Lord, Can You Hear Me? - Low
10. So Hot (Wash Away All Of My Tears) - AMP
11. How Does It Feel? - Piano Magic
12. Billy Whizz - Transient Waves

Lord, Can you hear me?

Stereolab - Rose, My Rocket-Brain! [2004]

Stereolab are a band who have developed a fair bit over their career, starting off as more straight-ahead drone Neu!-esque indie, moving into flirtations with post-rock and more experimental production, then heading more Bossa-nova Astrud Gilberto influenced in the latter years.
Mind you, having written that, quite a few tracks that contradict that come to mind! Either way, I've liked them for a long time and been lucky to see them several times over different phases of their career.

Of recent years, I think the "Margerine Eclipse" album is a real gem in their catalogue, and what we have here was a limited edition single on their tour for that album in 2004.

1. Rose, My Rocket-Brain! (Rose, le cerveau électronique de ma fusée!)
2. Banana Monster ne répond plus
3. University Microfilms International

mp3

Washed Out - 6 Music mix [2011]

Ernest Green aka. Washed Out has put together 2 6 Music Mixes in support of the great "Within and Without" LP that's just come out.

Mix #1 "Influences"
10cc — I'm Not In Love / Boards of Canada — Olson / Koushik — Be With / DJ Shadow — Six Days / Boz Scaggs — Low Down / Madlib — Pyramids (Changes) / Arthur — Sunshine Soldier / Grouper — Heavy Water / [unknown] — Unknown Title

by abeano


Mix #2 "Current listening"
Blondes — Lover / Samps — Peppergood / Lobt Noch Irrt — Heizgas Meter / Korallreven — Honey Mine (Lissvik Remix) / Thieves Like Us - Forget Me Not / Jensen Sportag — Mapquest / Pional — Where Eagles Dare / Loui$ — Pink Footpath

by abeano

"God bless the BBC" again. I may not believe in God but I do believe in public service broadcasting.

(words) LSD

Interesting piece on Drug war history, focussing on the most aesthetically pleasing ofall drugs LSD

As ever, god bless the BBC. Maybe journalism isn't dead .... ?

Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light [2006]

Here in the UK, we're not as used to the sun as some of you lucky folks in sunnier climes. This album is making an appearance as it's a great "kick back in the sun" record (as well as just being a great record!).

Back in 2007, I went to the excellent Primavera Sound with my friends Jeff, Laura, Jody & co. It was/is really a great festival & you can get a full dose of Barcelona while your there as it's not a camping festival, so you stay in the city, which is a culinary treat! You can't argue with the lineup either: Sonic Youth, The Fall, Patti Smith, Comets on Fire, Low, Durutti Column, The Dirty Three, Robyn Hitchcock, White Stripes, The Melvins etc...

Performance of the weekend was from Comets on Fire (me & Jeff thought...), but one of the best things about festivals is coming away having got into some stuff you'd not known before. One of those for me was the stoned bluesy drones of Brightblack Morning Light. On our way back home to the S.Y., we stopped off at Probe Records in Liverpool and picked this one up, as well as a few others. So here it is. Lay back in the sun. xxx

mp3s .....

... or spotify

Yo La Tengo - They Shoot, We Score [2008]

This is a compilation of music from the soundtracks of 4 low profile films: "Old Joy" (2006), "Junebug" (2005), "Game 6" (2005) and "Shortbus" (2006). It wasn't on their usual label, so it's quite hard to track down.

It's a (hidden) gem of moody atmospheric instrumental stuff. That said, there is some rocking stuff on here. There's 27 tracks, so I won't clog up the blog with that long list. Find that info here.

I was Djing with Rob Bright once and he swore he'd seen YLT playing with Neil Innes and Sonic Boom! A few years later I googled it & it was indeed true. Wish I'd seen that ...

mp3s

Moon Duo - Mazes Remixes [2011]

Boom! As promised, here's the limited bonus disk that came with the excellent Moon Duo album. I think it was available on pre-orders, but mine came from the ever excellent Rough Trade.

The "Mazes" album has hit the spot with me, much more than their earlier ep's did. But what we have here is the results of letting various folks loose on a remix tip. That man Sonic Boom pops up here with 2 great versions, which is reason enough to get involved! What can I say, this is a nice add-on to a really great album you should probably go and purchase.

1. Scars - Sonic Boom Remix
2. Seer - Psychic Ills Remix
3. Run Around - Organ Desert Remix
4. In The Sun - Purling Hiss Remix
5. When You Cut - Gary War Remix
6. Fallout - Sonic Boom Remix
7. Mazes (Walking Through This Space) - Eagle Boston Cover

Grab yourself a piece of the action

Stars of The Lid - Carte-De-Viste [2007]

This is a rare one. A self-released cd from their 2007 tour, comprising rarities and outtakes.

Those unfamiliar with SoTL, probably need to know that we're talking about ambient music, with drones, no beats or vocals with plenty of strings, often treated with effects. Put simply, their music is exquisite cloud watching music (in a good way). I'm definitely not one to dismiss all music classed as ambient as new-age rubbish. Some of it is, undoubtedly, but not this lot. Oh no. This is deep, heavy, beautiful stuff.

You really wont be sorry if you track down "The Tired Sounds of..." (thanks for the heads up on that Jules) or "And Their Refinement of The Decline".
Theirs is some seriously beautiful music. Track 2 is a nice tribute to John Peel too.

1. The Mouthchew (Part 2)
2. JPRIP
3. Requiem String Melody
4. Porch (Version#28)
5. The Kraut
6. Slight On The Childproof
7. Virginia (20.03)
8. Hunting For Pops
9. The Funereal

- Tracks 1, 6 and 8 are out takes from "And Their Refinement Of The Decline"
- Tracks 2 and 3 are out takes from "The Tired Sounds Of"
- Track 4 is an out take from "Maneuvering The Nocturnal Hum"
- Tracks 5 and 9 are previously unreleased (1999 and 1997 respectively)
- Track 7 was previously released as part of "The Kahanek Incident - Volume 3"


mp3s

flac