On!Air!Library!

On!Air!Library! (photo Sean McCabe)

This is how easy it can be:

On!Air!Library! only put out one self-titled record before breaking up, but it has two songs that have stuck with me, and one in particular that I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing. Who cares about the bio (well, ok, yes the girls are twins if you must know) when you can listen to "Bread"? This is everything that could have been right about early-2000s indie rock.

Done!

On!Air!Library! - Bread [On!Air!Library!, 2004]

On!Air!Library! - Faultered Ego [On!Air!Library!, 2004]

Whispers from Japan

Eddie

Eddie Marcon is good music to post today, the first lightless gloomy day we've had for a while here in the Bay Area. This isn't sad music, though, it just seems to come from a lonely place.

Maybe that's because it sounds like these songs were recorded in a gigantic cave! The guitar and percussion bounces all around, but the centerpiece of these songs is Eddie's voice, which comes through loud and clear. Can you keep a straight face if I say that her voice is "haunting"? Well, I think it is, and whoever produced this record did awesome work because everything sounds great. It may have actually been the band themselves, since the CD says it was recorded at Eddie's house.

Apparently they have some pedigree in the Japanese psych scene. I don't know anything about that, but their label, Preservation, has a page with more of this info if you're interested. I heard about them from an article on Dusted profiling a bunch of interesting Japanese bands. Thanks Dusted!

Eddie Marcon - Blues [Shining on Graveposts, 2005]

Eddie Marcon - Mukau [Shining on Graveposts, 2005]

I couldn't find this album when I was in Japan (!), but you can pick it up online at Boomkat (£) or Miramoglu ($).

More Vibert

WOW, this is an absurdly good track featuring Kerrier District, Luke Vibert's disco alias. I don't know who Black Mustang is, but this one has extra hypnotic keyboard lines which sound very Vibertish. They didn't forget the cowbell here, either. It's off a compilation called Milky Disco that looks well worth picking up. I think I need to start checking out more of the Lo Recordings catalog, they put out Black Devil Disco Club which I should also post about...

Black Mustang vs Kerrier District - Mad as Hell

Two remixes

Girl Talk

Here are two very excellent remixes. Thanks to you, Girl Talk, for showing how Grizzly Bear could find its way into a club.

Grizzly Bear - Knife (Girl Talk remix)

Hot Chip - Over and Over (Maurice Fulton remix)

Archived: Boot Camp Clik

Here are two Boot Camp Clik tracks, plus a video. I know some people aren't huge fans of the rappers (I like them myself) but the beats are more or less undeniable. Just more mid 90's Golden Age NYC rap...

Black Moon - Buck Em Down (Vinyl Remix)

Heltah Skeltah - Leflah Leflah

Aphex Twin primer

Would it be possible to ever post too much Aphex Twin? Probably not. A certain homie expressed some doubts about him so hopefully this will go some way towards winning over the non believers. What the hell am I talking about, Aphex Twin is already one of the most successful cult musicians ever, no one else in modern music has been able to laugh so loud at the paying public than Richard D. James. The following things are true: a swank NYC club paid Aphex big bucks to play a gig and for his entire act he stood on stage and put a microphone in a blender; Aphex was commissioned to do a remix of Nine Inch Nails but never got around to it, so when the record company folks came round he grabbed a cassette he had lying around of kazoos and such, wrote 'Remix' on it and collected his check; he will sell his music to be used for any commercial purpose, except for advertising the British public health care service since they once screwed his parents over.

Well, enough mythologizing. This isn't even a primer, just the most recent AFX tracks I've had in my head. They're on the listenable side all things considered. That image is the cover of I Care Because You Do.

Aphex Twin - Alberto Balsam [I Care Because You Do LP, 1995]

Aphex Twin - Tha [Selected Ambient Works 95-92 LP, 1993]

Viva Viva Super Eagles

This is one of my favorite finds of the year. Luaka Bop's "Love's a Real Thing" compilation of West African fuzz-rock was one of my favorite albums for walking around when it came out, so I was excited to spot a disc by Super Eagles (who have a track on that comp) when I was at NYC's Other Music this winter. That store's hardly bigger than a closet but stocks some of the wildest records ever. Supply and demand, I guess.

This music is totally languid... it feels as if it was recorded on some Carribean island. Most of the songs are in the Gambian/Senegalese language Wolof, which sounds a lot like Spanish to me. The liner notes (available from RetroAfric's website) have a good story about how Super Eagles were the first band from Gambia to get electric guitars and amplifiers. They're worth reading if that's your kind of thing. I really enjoyed listening to this one all the way through, so here's a track I like and then the full album.

Super Eagles - Viva Super Eagles [Senegambian Sensation Comp, 2001]

Super Eagles - Senegambian Sensation

Dulcet Wreckage (Rainbo Video)

Blog favorite Rainbo Video produces video and music. There's a unified aesthetic (of editing and pacing) across these different media that's very fresh. I like this song a lot for when I want a jolt of pop to the face, and I look forward to seeing a lot more.

Rainbo Video - TT

Archived: Taking it West Coast

Cali Agents – Just When You Thought It Was Safe: Cali Agents is Rasco + Planet Asia. They hail from California, as you might expect. I post this track even after Planet Asia’s Fresno rap crew, Skool Yard, did one of the flat-out worst shows I’ve ever seen at the Metro back in 2002. They got the lights turned out on them multiple times, people were throwing bottles...

People Under the Stairs – San Francisco Knights: But then People Under The Stairs came out and rocked it. Live hip-hop when you’re working just with DJ + MCs can be a tough thing to pull off, you kinda need to get the crowd unreasonably excited for what they’re actually seeing, but People Under The Stairs did that. (For the record, Common is also really good.) This track is an all-time SF jam.

Del Tha Funky Homosapien – Corner Story: Del was the headliner of this show, the Cali Comm tour. By this point it was already 3am or something like that. I’m telling you, Skool Yard was painful. Anyway, Del sounded bad, and had zero stage presence, so we just thought he was sick. Seeing Hieroglyphics (Luke Vibert's fave) at this year’s Rock the Bells made me realize that Del’s voice just doesn’t sound that good live, and he actually has no stage presence. Del certainly makes up for it in the studio, though. Anyway I think we stuck it out that night, since we were young and sprightly. Now it's the 2k7 and I would have been long gone.

Mate of the bloke (Luke Vibert)

It’s easy to cast the major players of the 90’s Warp scene by type. There’s Aphex Twin, the merry prankster, also the most insane: the dude lives in the vault of a bank and drives tanks in his parent’s front yard in Cornwall. Squarepusher's the egomaniac Wunderkind: rightly or wrongly, he’s proclaimed himself “the supreme musical genius of my generation.” Then there’s Luke Vibert: the most level-headed of the three, at least in his public manifestations, he’s been chugging along putting out a whole slew of records without calling attention to himself. He’s used a number of different names and dabbled in a few different styles (the disco-heavy Kerrier District alias being my favorite) without ever venturing too far into one sound or another.

Does slow and steady win the race? Well, he’s already outlasted Aphex Twin – although I don’t believe that Aphex has really quit making music for good – and one imagines that when Squarepusher runs off into the woods to go bang on trees with long metal poles, Vibert will still be releasing something with a squiggly synth line and an absurd vocal sample. Here’s to you, Luke, you model of consistency!

Luke Vibert - Brain Rave [Chicago, Detroit, Redruth, 2007]

Kerrier District - Illogan [Kerrier District, 2004]

ps. nice hiero sticker

Euro-Cruuuuuunnnk!!! [Modeselektor]

Modeselektor have been churning out some of the more exciting techno and electronic music these days. Their debut album, “Hello Mom!,” was a collage of sound, piecing together differing styles of electronic music to create a well-varied but ultimately disjointed piece of music. Filled with IDM, glitch-hop and emotive techno, “Hello Mom!” was very enjoyable but never felt like a true album. Enter Modeselektor’s second work, “Happy Birthday!"

While the Phorks will disagree, “Happy Birthday!” is a cohesive body of work, sounding more interconnected than Modeselektor’s first album. The multiple electronic influences are still there, but they have ultimately been filtered through the group’s now more nurtured, unique “Euro-crunk” sound. Fusing the best elements of dirty techno with the grittiness of hip-hop, Modeselektor and their signature sound are defining themselves in an oversaturated European techno market. Much of this development has been nurtured on Modeselektor’s label, BPitch Control, which is well known in electronic circles as pumping out some of the grittiest, dirtiest and crunchiest electronic music in all the land, with standout artists such as Ellen Allien, Smash TV and the MFA. You can get further enlightened on Bpitch at my blog here (shameless plug!).

I have posted a couple of tracks from “Happy Birthday!” that define Modeselektor’s signature sound, “2000007” and “Let Your Love Grow Moderate.” “200007” is the successor to the excellent “Dancing Box” (also posted) from “Hello Mom!,” employing cut-up vocal work from rapper TTC. “Let Your Love Grow Moderate,” on the other hand, can be best classified as a “sensitive banger,” coupling a propulsive rhythm with emotive synths and Paul St. Hilaire’s tongue-twisting vocal work.

One final note: Thom Yorke is on the album. Cheers!

Dancing Box feat. TTC [Hello Mom! LP, 2005]

200007 feat. TTC [Happy Birthday! LP, 2007]
Let Your Love Grow Moderate feat. Paul St.Hilaire [Happy Birthday! LP, 2007]

This is a musical connection (King Tubby)

"The threads of life, they are robust!" Thus quoth a friend. Peter's recent comment on Justin's inaugural Hey! Student post made reference to King Tubby. As fate would have it, Justin once gifted me a King Tubby compilation for my birthday. So there you have it: empirical evidence that the threads of life are robust.

As Peter suggests, dub producers were ahead of the game at taking a track and twisting it into something entirely new. King Tubby made his name making b-sides to popular tracks, called "versions," in which he would strip out the vocals and throw everything else into an echo chamber of sound. The material conditions under which this music was made are impressive; here's a well-written history of dub, on a Geocities page no less!

The first two tracks here are "versions" that Tubby did for The Upsetters, Lee Perry's group. The last one is a track off of Tubby's most famous recording, Augustus Pablo's King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown. Pablo is the one rocking the melodica - clearly, Interpol have done their homework.

The Upsetters - Chapter 2 (French Connection) [King Tubby's In Fine Style Comp, 2004]

The Upsetters - Dub Organiser featuring Dillinger [King Tubby's In Fine Style Comp, 2004]

Augustus Pablo - King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown [King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, 1976]

OMG BSP (British Sea Power)

Yes I am a British Sea Power fanboy. That's me in Japan, actually in an OMG Ozu fanboy pose, rocking a BSP t-shirt. They sent me (personally! kind of) a track off of their new album. You'll have to judge for yourself how awesome it is; I wasn't impressed at first but I found myself playing it over in my head yesterday and thought that it was Hey! Student worthy. If you don't read Pitchfork, or my shared items feed, you may not have known that their new album's going to be called Do You Like Rock Music?, so let me possibly be the first to inform you. Again, OMG!

Leaving aside the new track "Atom" I am still way down with this version of Múm's "Green Grass of Tunnel." It's not an easy cover to pull off and they've done it well. Pretty sure this was the b-side to the first single off of Open Season.

British Sea Power - Atom [Krankenhaus? EP, 2007]


British Sea Power - Green Grass of Tunnel [It All Ended On An Oily Stage single, 2005]


Múm - Green Grass of Tunnel [Finally We Are No One, 2002]

The Remix

Much discussion has been made of “the remix.” Commonplace as it is, the remix by some is not considered to be an art form, seemingly just an easy rehash of an original. Remixes can be, in their own right, sometimes better than original, or at the bear minimum accentuate those parts of the song that really get you. While some have certainly bastardized the remix (putting a cheesy euro-dance beat to a top 40 song is NOT a remix), others have done what they should do: make the song better.

Which brings me to the most influential and original remixer: Tom Moulton. Though not a DJ, Tom Moulton created the remix during the height of the 1970s disco scene, accentuating disco singles’ greatest aspects in order to keep the party going and groove locked. Before Moulton, disco music was relegated to songs that followed the standard pop formula, being short and punchy and ending in around 3 minutes. Tom Moulton changed this, remixing songs to a structure that laid the groundwork for dance music today. Moulton’s mixes saw songs as taffy, stretching and elongating them so that their crescendos built and built and climaxed just at the right moment, much like dance music functions today.

“A Tom Moulton Mix” is a compilation of Moulton’s greatest remixes. Packed with soulful disco and funk, the compilation illustrates the importance of Moulton’s mixes, containing remixed cuts from disco/funk stalwarts such as Isaac Hayes and Grace Jones. Rather than being 3 minutes in length, the cuts on “A Tom Moulton Mix” are on average 6 minutes, much like electronic music is today. Tom Moulton’s mixes don’t explode but burn slowly, with the musical components stretched and stretched until the groove is completely locked. One of the compilation’s cuts, Orlando Riva Sound's “Moonboots,” is a perfect example, a reverb-heavy track with an infectious wah-wah guitar loop and steady drumbeat, punctuated by sparse vocals.

Ultimately, what Moulton proved more than anything was that the remix does in fact have artistic and often very influential merit, recreating a song and often making it more palpable for a wider audience. The remix has come a long way today, meaning something different for everyone that does one. For certain dance music producers, a remix can sometimes just mean a simple addition or subtraction of a musical component. For others, such as Aphex Twin, the remix is a complete recreation, often lacking any trace to the original thereby becoming a brand new creation. Yet the ultimate goal of the remix is to make a piece of music public, allowing the music community to share and rethink it with their unique and individual visions in mind. This increases the exchange of ideas and thought between musicians, allowing greater creativity among the music community.

Moonboots - Orlando Riva Sound

More, More, More - Andrea True Connection

Archived

If I can be a good blogger I think I'll post some hip-hop tracks that I've got kicking around every Friday. I'm not going to try to give too much context about the artists themselves (I'll leave that to the "hip-hop academics"), but here's the story around the origin of the files I'll be posting... Junior year of high school I would listen to the consistently great hip-hop shows on KZSU. I got to hear MF DOOM in the year 2001! This was at the same time that mp3 was blowing up, so I'd scribble down the name of whatever tracks I liked and look for them on Napster. The great thing about Napster was that you'd search for someone and end up with all sorts of random tracks that they were on. So now I've got a small library of hip-hop tracks, which I'll start sharing here.

Freddie Foxxx aka Bumpy Knuckles - Part of My Life: This track is hard... I wouldn't mess with Freddie, on the mic or otherwise.

Jigmastas ft. Pharoahe Monch, Talib Kweli, Mr Complex & Shabaam Sahdeeq - Lyrical Fluctuation: Time to shed a tear for Rawkus. The fact that this sort of thing could be kicked out pretty casually says a lot.

LIVE REVIEW: Giant Skyflower Band, Hemlock Tavern, 9/20/07

Today we depart from Teutonic masters of techno and return to our other darlings here at Hey! Student -- California hippies! No, I kid actually, these guys aren't hippies, although you might think otherwise given that the band in question is called Giant Skyflower Band, and the title of one of the tracks I'm posting is "Rainbows and Dreams (With Worms Singing)." Even though for the most part I have nothing against real hippies, I'm happy to report that Giant Skyflower Band are beer-swilling folk just like you and I. ("But Dan, couldn't hippies drink beer too?" Quiet, you!)

Giant Skyflower Band are led by Skygreen Leopards impresario Glenn Donaldson, who plays guitar and sings. One other guitarist, a bassist and a drum machine fill out the lineup. This live setup was really effective, and I'll explain why. Like almost all new rock music that I enjoy, they drench their songs in waves of distortion. Playing along to a drum machine was a good choice, because it allowed enough space for the guitars and bass to play off of each other. The drum machine was never that prominent, so I'm glad they didn't have to coerce some dude into playing the drums with a sad face.

The tracks that I've posted from their album are quiet, but in concert the two guitars easily filled the room. GSB (as I shall call them) draw on the same sound that inspires the Black Lips and Sic Alps, slowed down to a pace that provokes head-nodding rather than pogoing. Here's an excellent video of the band that was shot at Hemlock Tavern a couple of months ago.

Giant Skyflower Band - Rainbows and Dreams (With Worms Singing) [Blood of the Sunworm LP, 2007]


Giant Skyflower Band - The Archangel (Hurray for the Beast) [Blood of the Sunworm LP, 2007]

More Kompakt (Supermayer)

I can't help myself. Supermayer is Michael Mayer and Superpitcher, two of the bigger acts on Kompakt. (Mayer did found the label...) I'm a huge fan of "Please Sunrise," which features some hypnotic keys/horn interplay, along with synths, duh. The remix of "Two of Us," which is actually taken from Kompakt Total 8, is the most danceable track on that album. Still, can anyone explain the cover art for the Supermayer album, pictured above? Lord knows I'm all for positive images of German culture, but it looks like MM is bugging out on roids, while Superpitcher just seems confused. Halp?

Supermayer - Please Sunrise [Save The World, 2007]

Supermayer - Saturndays [Save The World, 2007]

Supermayer - Two Of Us (Geiger Remix) [Kompakt Total 8, 2007]

Kompakt Total 8

Another fall, another Kompakt Total compilation for the masses. Although is it possible that Köln's finest have fallen out of favor with "the masses"? Indeed, according to this Dusted review of Total 8, a Phork-led "Kompakt backlash" is underway, although the meager 3 hits on evidence there suggest otherwise. Like the Dusted guy, I'm still way down.

There are less dancefloor-ready tracks this time around, but that's not to say the compilation isn't strong. The sound is a little slower to develop and a little darker. Here, Superpitcher = slow, Nightcats = dark. (Shouldn't that be Nachtkatzen?) These two songs come together with precision like a proper Kompakt jam should.

Superpitcher - Rainy Nights in Georgia [Kompakt Total 8, 2007]


Nightcats - Inside [Kompakt Total 8, 2007]

Before there was Gun Club, there was Gun Club (Gun Club, duh)

Gun Club is the name of San Francisco's best club night, objectively speaking. But it's also the name of a great band from L.A. led by the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce. The tracks I'm sharing here are from a 1987 album, and for me the sound gets everything right about the 80's: focus on the singer, reverb all over the place, crazy guitar solos. I guess this is kind of like Echo and the Bunnymen if they played at a more frenetic pace. This is Gun Club's third album, so they'd mellowed out a bit from their earlier recordings. (Fire of Love, their first album, is worth checking out.)

The Gun Club - Bill Bailey [Mother Juno LP, 1987]

The Gun Club - Lupita Screams [Mother Juno LP, 1987]

I'm not gonna stop it (Planningtorock)

XLR8R magazine is useful for their capsule reviews, extraordinarily pretty ads and a mix CD that comes with every issue. It's a good value for $20 a year, and you can keep up with the latest hipster trends as reported to you direct from Haight Street Ess Eff. At any rate, the mix CDs are sometimes full of mediocre beats, but as I was snoozing through one of them when I heard some violins that reminded me of Aphex Twin, followed by an incantation: "Changes... all the pain in me... but I don't mind it... I need it." I was jolted awake, listened to the song over and it didn't lose anything. So Planningtorock is a keeper, despite the cringeworthy name. It makes me happy that someone wrote a song called "Think That Thought." If Brecht did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him?

Planningtorock - Changes [Planningtorock LP]

Planningtorock - Think That Thought [Planningtorock LP]