Suede - Another No One...

Suede's Another No One has been stuck in my head all day. Such a lovely song, everything about it - the chords, the melody, the story. I have a very fond memory of hearing this for the very first time. On the day the Trash singles became available in America, I of course bought them right away but only had time to hear Trash itself before heading out for the evening (this was well before I had a cd player in my car. Ah, that summer of '96, such good mixtapes...). It was only a Monday or a Tuesday, but I was out all night (quite a night too) and getting in around 10 a.m. when post-adventure lack of sleep made all the world seem soft and dreamy, I listened to the b-sides. And immediately fell in love with this song. Those Coming Up b-sides are incredibly good, possibly the best batch of b-sides any band has every produced.




Live at the Forum 5 April 1997. Fanclub show of all b-sides.

Hefner - Gabriel At The Airport...

Yesterday, walking along grey autumn streets, this song brought me enormous cheer, as it always does.  Hefner's Gabriel At The Airport is not only an excellent, incredibly catchy, pop song, but the lyrics are Awesome and hilarious. There is a great recorded version on Catfight, and also The French, Darren Hayman's post-Hefner band, recorded it for Local Information.  It was intended to be on what would've been the sixth Hefner album, Travel, Go, according to Hayman's notes here.  The first part of the 43 song Catfight can give you an idea of what that might've sounded like.

Peel Session from 11 December 2001:

Julian Cope/The Teardrop Explodes - The Great Dominions...

Went to Reading last night to see Julian Cope play. My friend Mark, who runs the excellent Strange Attractor press, put me on the list as he was playing with opener Urthona. For this I was very thankful. It was nice to sit and space out to Urthona after a long, rainy day. I got to Reading a little early to have a look at the city and I really liked their muli-coloured buses.  The only other time I've seen Cope play (and I've been a huge fan of his work since the early 90's) was November 3, 1995, at The Middle East club in Cambridge, MA.  I remember excellent performances of Soul Desert and Upwards At 45 Degrees that night. Though he encored with World Shut Your Mouth which was a little different than the rest of the performance and I couldn't tell if he was playing it out of obligation, because it was "the hit". Last night he closed with Greatness And Perfection and Robert Mitchum. Excellent stuff. But what was really exciting last night was that HE PLAYED THE GREAT DOMINIONS!!!! Such a fantastic song, from an incredible Pop album, The Teardrop Explodes' Wilder. (I own four copies of this album on record, as the US and UK versions have different covers...and insert sleeves ; ) Same with Kilimanjaro.)

No Reading videos have surfaced yet but here's The Great Dominions a few weeks ago (21/9/12) at Brudenell SC Leeds:



From his description last night, the books he's writing sound incredibly entertaining, including a "psychedelic road movie" through an parallel-reality Sardinia.

The Teardrop Explodes original of The Great Dominions:



There's some Brilliant Pop stuff on Wilder but also beautiful, strange numbers like this and Tiny Children, which, although I wasn't there at the time, it always seemed odd to me that a charting pop band appearing in teeny-bopper magazines would also be releasing. But very glad they did.

And once again, my Quietus piece on the comic book origins of The Teardrop Explodes' name. 

Amatorski

I recently did an interview with Dutch comics legend Joost Swarte that will be up on The Quietus soon.  His work is excellent, I highly recommend checking it out. I was particularly impressed that in his book Is That All There Is?, he lists a 'Listening Tips From The Studio'. This is something I think all artists, no matter what the medium, should do. I'm always curious to know what people are listening to (Go-Kart Mozart included such a list on their latest, On The Hot Dog Streets). Joost Swarte mentioned "one of the most interesting young groups in Belgium is Amatorski" so I knew I should check them out. And very pleased I did, buying all their available output upon hearing them. Lovely, dreamy pop. Some of it reminding me of David Lynch's 50's-esque numbers but with synthesizers, at other times I think of Stars and Broadcast, but softer.

Come Home:



The King:



Never Told:



The haunting and lovely instrumental, Faded:



Same Stars We Shared (excellent title):



And I absolutely love this beautiful reworking of 8 November by Lewis In Heaven, from their remix album re:tbc. A heavenly slice of romantic, spacey Pop.

A live session of the song from Eurosonic 2012 in Groningen, The Netherlands:

Arvo Pärt - Spiegel Im Spiegel

I've been meaning to investigate the works of Arvo Pärt since I came across his name in Bill Drummond's 17 book. Rob Loveday posted this on Facebook the other day and I'm just bowled over by its beauty.

Arvo Pärt's Spiegel Im Spiegel performed by Jürgen Kruse (piano) and Benjamin Hudson (viola):

Ash Ra Tempel/Ashra - Sunrain...

I've been listening to the Louis Philippe podcasts, very interesting. In the fifth one, "Return To Pop", he talks about meeting Bertrand Burgalat and Sunrain by Ash Ra Tempel being each of their favourite Krautrock songs (actually by Ashra, Manuel Gottsching's project after Ash Ra Tempel).  I love the first Ash Ra Tempel album but only know their output up through Join Inn. I'd never heard this lovely piece of music before.



That podcast episode also reminded me of seeing Louis Philippe and Bertrand Burgalat on the same bill at Bush Hall, London, April 2005. Was a lovely evening. And I was quite taken with Bertrand's song The Angels Combine (from Portrait-Robot). Another World Gone By from that record is also very nice.




In the 6th Louis Philippe podcast, "Consolidation", he talks about working with Pop Genius Martin Newell on The Off White Album.