01) The Charade - Monday Morning
02) California Snow Story - Suddenly Everything Happens
03) Cinnamon - Maybe
04) Comateens - A Place for Me
05) Captain Sensible - There Are More Snakes than Ladders
06) Close Lobsters - Hey Hey, My My
07) Care - An Evening in the Ray
08) Comet Gain - Steps to the Sea
09) Cleaners From Venus - Red Guitars and Silver Tambourines
10) The Candyskins - Never Will Forget You
11) Celestial - Bluebell Meadow
12) The Clientele - The Queen of Seville
13) The Clean - Simple Fix
14) Clay Hips - I Won't Say
15) The Chills - Falling Off Your Throne
16) Cath Carroll - Breathe For Me
17) The Chameleons - Looking Inwardly
18) Christian Death - The Blue Hour
19) Claire Hamill - Stars
20) Cocteau Twins - Sugar Hiccup
21) Chapterhouse - Pearl
This is the first in a series of pure pop mixes made to herald the coming of warm weather and as you can see from the tracklist below, all of the bands and artists begin with the letter 'F'. It's loosely inspired by an idea that I got from Bill Drummond and in theory, I'd like to do the whole alphabet before summer, though certain letters may need to be skipped ('Q,' for instance, as much as I have a soft spot for Quando Quango). I'll just try to do as many as I can.
Tracklist:
01) The Friendly Fires - Arkansas
02) Future Bible Heroes - Losing Your Affection
03) Fine China - For All Centuries
04) Frankie Rose - Know Me
05) The Field Mise - Missing the Moon
06) Fascinator - Sexuality Mystery
07) Fanuelle - These Fourteen Days
08) The Field - Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime
09) Flaming Lips - Ego Tripping (Self Admiration with Blow Up mix)
10) Flipmode Squad - This is What Happens
11) Fleetwood Mac - Dreams (Flight Facilities remix)
12) Frankie Knuckles - Rain Falls
13) F.R. David - Can't Get Enough
14) Friendzone - I Miss Y'all
15) The Frogs - I've Got Drugs (Out of the Mist)
16) The Freshies - Fasten Your Seatbelts
17) Family - Dark Eyes
18) The Free Design - Felt so Good
If nothing else, this was a very unique book. It is equidistantly divided between comical hard sci-fi and fantasy, almost like Philip K. Dick meets Cormac McCarthy. The narrative is quite fragmented, convoluted at times even, which was it's biggest problem for me. Time is distorted, characters take parallel roles within other characters, the chapters jump back and forth between events and eras with little or no exposition. Although this style seems appropriate given the technicalities of the plot, the characters and epochs get sucked into a vortex and everything converges towards the end and I think there could have been some more literal explanations of just what the fuck is going on. Like, an additional 200 pages, more, but then again it might have been heavy-handed and too much. I can't help but think of the line in Adaptation when Nicolas Cage asks his fictional twin brother just how he plans to write/shoot his screenplay which has 3 characters who are all actually one, so I guess I have to give the author here some props for tackling such a difficult and complex task.
Outside of the narrative, it's really quite skillfully written, possessing some of the best prose I've yet to encounter in a work of science fiction. The dialogue remains witty throughout, at times quite funny as well, being how there is hardly any amicable regard between any two of the characters, mortal, machine, spirit, or beast, and the author has imbued every character with equally sarcastic and sharp-as-Muramasa-blade tongues, so you can see the possibilities for humor. There is also an encyclopedic amount of depth and detail in the worlds, both future and past. The languages and cultures all seem very realized and this is what makes the book enjoyable to read despite its back and forth leaps from one scenario to the next.
So with all the pressure that's been being put on file upload sites, its kind of hard to keep all my old files online. Its like playing a reverse version of the arcade game where you smash gophers. I know from the comments I've been getting that a lot of you are desperately seeking some albums I've posted whose links are no longer working.
It would be much easier to download soulseek, as I have every album I own shared nearly 24/7. Send me an email and I'll give you my user name, or just search for the album and it should be there. Sorry if anyone's dreams got smashed by the man.
How long have we been waiting? How long has Kevin's titillation tortured us? Is he a sadist? Is this album just a bottle to milk the old cash cow? or is it really as good as everyone on the internet seems to claim? Do you like a record just because you really want to like a record?
The first thing I want to mention, before people start calling me a blasphemous contrarian, is how I approached this album. Simply, I wanted it to be something other than it is, though I recognize that it could have been something far more disappointing. In the two decades since Loveless was released, the handful of Kevin Shields releases/remixes and mbv demos that have popped up here and there have been all over the place, stylistically speaking, but the one thing they all had in common was that they were moving towards a 'poppier' and fuller trajectory. mbv, however is mostly a sparse experimental record, comparatively. The tempo has slowed down, and the melodies are more sedated. Yet it's not necessarily quieter, but it's certainly not the bombardment of noise we've come to expect. Everything seems stripped down and many aspects seem lazy. The title of record, the album art, the song titles. The music itself, too, and a prime example of this is in "Nothing Is," which is makes Ravel's "Bolero" seem ichorous. It makes you wonder where the line between genius and desultory lies in the context of experimental music. I think the biggest problem of all that mbv suffers from is that the delicate balance between harmony and discordance has been disrupted. There is now discordance within this relationship and that seems to be what is lacking.
There no doubt that there's beauty to be found in this record, but so far (three and a half listens in), I'm still not impressed. If Loveless was made on ecstasy, heroin and cheap wine this must have been made on xanax and IPAs. I was
hoping for something truly progressive like Loveless +20 years of
creative steeping, as I'm sure we all were, but sadly this has just been done before and been done way
better (eg. back in 1991). Furthering my disappointment is that not one
song on this record better than some of the post-Loveless unreleased
demos. "Kevin Song" in particular may very well be my very favorite mbv
track and I was hoping a mastered version would wind up on here or at
least they'd take continue with more of that sound, but no. On a certain forum I heard someone refer to this as a "modern tragedy in 3 parts" and was calling it the album of the year/decade/etc. First of all, its a
little too early for the latter claim, and secondly: no. I mean I'm prone to hyperbole as much as the next excitable fellow, but just... no. No.
All that being said, its an above-average album and far better than most of
the dreck that gets hyped these days. It has a few songs I really enjoy, but it is nowhere near its mathematically flawlesss predecessor, which was a spiritual journey through the human condition. Who knows, maybe I'll change my
mind after a few hundred more listens, but really it just seems like mbv-lite, and that's a shame since we've been waiting a long goddamn time.
Here is "Kevin Song" for those who haven't heard it (in my opinion one of the best pop songs ever recorded, even in the rough.)
A very bizarre and slow-paced experience, but I liked it a lot. Almost made me feel like I was
under the influence of psychedelics in certain scenes because the of dynamic appearance of the actors and the sound work and colors. From what I could make out, the film is allegorical and has a lot to do with ethics. The Guy seems sinister at first and you see him murder people, but as the movie goes on all you come to find that all of the acts of violence are made towards 'evil' people, and thus are made with good intentions. Then there is a scene later on that has you questioning his motives again, but it just goes to show that he neither angelic protector, nor devil, but simply human, and bound to destructive urges in need of purging. Here's the trailer, but keep in
mind the movie itself is far more low-key and plotless than it will have
you believe:
01) Michael Gira - You See Through Me
02) Marianne Faithful - The Stars Line Up
03) Anne Clark - Poem for A Nuclear Romance
04) Martha + The Muffins - This is the Ice Age
05) Algebra Suicide - Stopping
06) Kevin Harrison - Chase the 'Dragon
07) Furniture - Transatlantic Cable
08) John Lennon - Nobody Told Me
09) Kendra Smith - Wheel of the Law
10) Concrete Blonde - Tomorrow Wendy
11) The Band of Holy Joy - Who Snatched the Baby?
12) Richard Hawley - No Way Home
13) Billy Bragg - Waiting For the Great Leap Forward
14) Bill Fay - Camille
15) The Garbage and the Flowers - Love Comes Slowly Now
16) Ultra Vivid Scene - Mercy Seat
17) Zero Le Creche - Last Year's Wife (12" Version)
Jens' newest album will likely be somewhere at the front of the BS year-end list and I got to see him and his endearing band play it in its entirety this Monday. ,If you ever get a chance to see Jens Lekman live, please do. One of the most sad and joyous performances I've seen all year.
I get many emails from bands asking me to do write-ups or inclusions with their music, however, most of these are more or less PR plugs spammed to every 'indie' blog on whatever list whoever has compiled, or just do not fit the general aesthetic of my blog. Because of this, 99% are ignored, but the song featured in the video below really caught my ear and I would like to promote it. Check it:
I have yet to hear the EP, however, there is more where this came from at Fascinator's Soundcloud:
On an unrelated note, my mediafire account was suspended for the first time in three years thanks to none other than.....wait....Brian Jonestown Massacre?
Unexpected (especially on a mix with two big label tracks), but irking, as mixes with single songs from artists are intended to PROMOTE the artist. An album would be understanding, but I am generally fairly tactful with what albums I post and which ones I do not. Oh well, guess I won't be buying any BJM records ever again....thanks label!
01) Heroin in Tahiti - Sartana
02) Liars - Scarecrows on a Killer Slant
03) Mu - My Name is Tommi
04) SpaceGhostPurrp - The Black God
05) Gold Chains - Much Currency Flows
06) Xiu Xiu - Don Diasco
07) The Shadow Ring - City Lights
08) Third Sight - Tonto
09) Zazen Boys - Friday Night
10) Lil B - I Own Swag
11) MEDIAFIRED - Inner Jerks
12) A.R.E. Weapons - Headbanger Face
13) Die Antw00rd - Baby's On Fire
14) McLusky - Without MSG I'm Nothing
15) Arca - 2 Blunted
16) The Goslings - Croatan
17) The Angels of Light - Not Here / Not Now
18) Smog - Sleepy Joe
19) Brian Jonestown Massacre - Cabin Fever DOWNLOAD
Music for pits, grottos, wells, chasms, tombs, trenches, etc.
Tracklist:
01) Mount Eerie - "My Heart is Not at Peace" 02) Tuxedomoon - "Dark Temple" 03) Crawling Chaos - "Danger in Paradise" 04) Thighpaulsandra - "Vomitting Child" 05) The Residents - "Almost Perfect" 06) German Shepherds - "Love Me" 07) Mark Lane - "Tsar" 08) The Shadow Ring - "City Lights" 09) Karl Blake - "Babies in Grey" 10) Xiu Xiu - "Poe Poe" 11) Swans - "How They Suffer" 12) Negativland - "View to the Sun" 13) Flaming chunes - "Generous Moon" 14) Legendary Pink Dots - "Ghost" 15) Akira Yamaoka - "Never Forgive Me, Never Forget Me" 16) Martyn Bates - "And I Don't Know How Long it Will Be" 17) Simon Fisher Turner - "A Gourmet's Love Song"
