March 28th, 2007 jmason23
Sometimes, you come across a true musical oddity; tunes where you just have to sit, dumbfounded and slackjawed, and marvel at the world that could contain such marvels of solid-gold WTF.
First off:
BEST_SONG_EVER.mp3
This is the title it was received under, BTW. 5 minutes, 10 seconds of constant, hyperactive, high-pitched jabbering in Korean, punctuated by occasional shrieks and desperate gulps of breath, over a toy synthesiser backing. Apparently it came via Irwin Chusid’s show on WFMU; he was similarly stumped.
It took weeks, but we eventually figured out who it was — “Korea’s Disco Emperor”, E Pak Sa:
Many have contacted us here at FANCY asking about the insane twenty-minute vocal track included on the CD-R mix that accompanied 100 copies of our premier issue (if you didn’t get one, check www.fancymag.com for downloadable MP3’s). Here’s the story. A few months back, a West Coast acquaintance asked if we had heard the rappin’ Korean bus driver. Well, we had not and a few weeks later the tape was in our P.O. Box. It sounded like a spastic auctioneer on methamphetamine chanting furiously over cheesy Casio keyboard riffs. The tape had two tracks. Each was a 25-minute non-stop party comprised of nonsensical scat yodels backed by a hypnotizing aerobicized beat. Our friend could only tell us that he got the tape in 1991 while in Japan visiting friends. His friends discovered it while on holiday in Korea. The tape was playing in a record store and they just had to have it.
In fact, FANCY MAG, the source for that article, is a fine source for such gems; here’s another in a similar vein from FANCY MIX 3:
_22.mp3
(Again, under its given name.) This is clearly Cambodian, with sung vocals in Khmer, and the interesting hook is that the entire song — vocals, guitar, drums, the lot — is slightly out of phase, and echoed. In fact I think the drums are more than just out of phase — they’re totally off-rhythm.
Genius.
No Comments »
March 23rd, 2007 jmason23
Una passes on the news: LCD Soundsystem will be playing Electric Picnic this year, according to the tour dates on MySpace.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Their only Irish gig — taking place just around the due date of a certain sprog. Now that’s timing… :(
LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations (Shallow Version)
Update: thanks to Nialler9 for the link to these live MP3s from the LCD set at Electric Picnic 2005. cool!
2 Comments »
March 21st, 2007 jmason23
Oh yeah — Naphta has put up a fantastic mix at Weareie of original 1993 hardcore and breakbeat. Great for the old D&B history and a bit of nostalgia ;)
No Comments »
March 21st, 2007 jmason23
A trip report from Nick Hennies of The Weird Weeds, guesting at The Rich Girls Are Weeping, notes that Dengue Fever ruled SXSW:
Dengue Fever @ Emo’s Main Stage — Thursday night
Hands down the best performance of the entire festival. Within minutes the huge crowd who seemed unfamiliar with the band (probably early arrivers for Voxtrot later on) were hooting, shouting, and raising their fists in the air at this (I’m sorry but I have to swear) fucking amazing band. The best bass player in rock music got so into playing during their penultimate song ‘Sni Bong’ that he leapt in the air. The crowd erupted.
Sweet! I love Dengue Fever; Cambodian surf/psych-rock played by Long Beach dudes and a genuine Cambodian goddess. Plus they filmed a video at the flipping Integratron! mental. Wishing them every success, and hopefully they’ll play Dublin eventually. Somehow, despite living 30 miles from Long Beach I managed to miss them on several attempts.
In the meantime, check out these tunes:
Dengue Fever - Escape From Dragon House
Dengue Fever - Hold My Hips
4 Comments »
March 20th, 2007 jmason23
The Electric Chairs - So Many Ways
A nifty electro-ish new wave tune from 1979, with a great krautrocky hypnotic bassline, flanged drums, electro noises in the background and kind-of-chanted lead vocals.
The band’s history site says:
‘The musical direction again, being experimental, using electronic treatments on the drums, rhythmic, and vocals, with the technology that was available at the time, and was released in November 1979, by SAFARI RECORDS ( cat no: safe 18. ) receiving a few good reviews, and airplay in the UK and Europe, but no promotion. The bands instruments were then impounded, due to apparent financial discrepancies in the bands affairs, making it impossible to function as a band, coupled, with no record releases from the company, equals = no records, no instruments, equals = no music, no music, equals = no gigs, no gigs, equals = no band, END OF STORY, (SO FAR).’
No Comments »
March 16th, 2007 jmason23
Lindstrom’s space disco, and Roxy Music’s early-’80s smoothness. I love both. Two great tastes that taste great together, right?
Lindstrom - The Contemporary Fix
Um, not sure actually… have a listen and see what you think:
Roxy Music - Avalon (Lindstrom and Prins Thomas remix).mp3
(via American Athlete)
A little too downtempo maybe. Personally I would have preferred an early Roxy tune, from one of the first 3 albums maybe, like:
Roxy Music - Ladytron
PS: did I mention how great that Joakim podcast was? it’s really great — I’ve had it on repeat all week… totally recommended.
2 Comments »
March 13th, 2007 jmason23
wow, Crystal Castles are great. If you want to hear a great collision between art-punk and 8-bit chiptunes, look no further… of the two MP3’s over at that link, I think I’d recommend “Air War” over “Alice Practice”, but both are pretty brilliant.
Update: good news. Apparently they’ll be playing Dublin on May 11th, thanks to Maximum Joy (who are also putting on the !!! after-party do this weekend). Nice one!
2 Comments »
March 6th, 2007 jmason23
Hey — so here’s a few recent additions to my favourites playlist:
Ronan Fitzgerald posted this great new Carl Craig remix:
Faze Action - In the Trees (Carl Craig Remix)
Carl Craig’s been making an interesting sound recently — this one really reminds me of his amazing remix of Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom’s Relevee from a couple of years back. It’s already showing up on pretty much every podcast I’ve downloaded in the last week — such as Joakim’s nifty Resident Advisor set last month.
At a much poppier end of things:
Groove Armada - Out of Control (Song 4 Mutya)
Mutya, ex-Sugababes! As Popjustice says –
What you don’t really get a sense of from the 45-second clip is the way the song unfolds over the course of its four-minute duration. (The last sixty seconds are almost completely instrumental, for example, and make perfect sense.) Nor do you get some of the cute verse lyrics, like this one:
“She’s got that girlie style you said you hated and you said was vile - that ‘look at me, I’m so vacant’ smile. I guess you like it now, huh?”
Like we said the other day, you only get about three completely standout, utterly of-their-time pop songs each year, and this is one of them.
Reminder: !!! are playing next Saturday week — Paddy’s Day. Given that timing, I probably won’t be going, but here’s a great tune from their new album anyway ;)
!!! - A New Name
In case you’ve noticed — I’m posting under my own user ID. The whole “undersea” thing was causing confusion I think, esp since this is a group blog, and having one member posting using the name of the group was a bit confusing…
(– Justin)
No Comments »
March 2nd, 2007 underseacommunity
Eoghan mails to note this noteworthy appearance:
Louth Contemporary Music Society presents music by minimalist composer Terry Riley in Drogheda this May. The festival will include the Irish premiere of Chanting the Light of Foresight. This work was inspired by the eighth-century Ulster heroic tale An Táin Bó Cuailnge (the Cattle Raid of Cooley), and the performances will take place in County Louth where story is based.
The weekend, entitled Terry Riley: Spirals of Ragtime and Raga features the first Irish appearance by Terry Riley himself as a performer. He will join the Crash Ensemble in one of his works, In C, as well as improvising on the piano. The festival programme will also include the Irish premiere of Uncle Jard and Tread on the Trail performed by the Swiss saxophone ensemble, the Arte Quartett.
Sunday May 6th at 8 p.m — Entertainment.ie, more here. But Drogheda, of all places! I’m dithering.
1 Comment »
March 2nd, 2007 underseacommunity
That Swedish music festival gig last night was a good laugh, despite being ineptly organised (the ordering of the acts were reversed on half of the tickets, promo material, and sites, and the headline act was entirely dropped from Ticketmaster listings and the tickets, nice work guys).
Samuraj Cities rocked:
Samuraj Cities - All along the shoreline
(and they asked Wooder to be their friend on Myspace!)
the first band, Consequenses (sic) reminded us a bit of Kate Bush:
Kate Bush - The Man With The Child In His Eyes
and Zeigeist put on some great art spectacle. Fun!
No Comments »
