ESSENTIAL LISTENING
Essential Listening for September!
30/09/05King Biscuit Time - C I AM 15 - A protest song with a hip-hop beat that slams both the CIA and M15 and is the welcomed return of Steve Mason (ex-Beta Band) to the British Rock Scene. New album ‘The Crunch’ is a varied testament to the power of rock’n’roll. Look out for the new single, new album and the fucking amazing Beta Band best of soon.
Watch the video here: http://www.poptones.co.uk/kbt
David Holmes and the Free Association - Holmes brings the psychedelic soul ...!
http://www.davidholmes.tv/
Neil Young - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - Poptones.co.uk loves Neil Young. ‘Nuff said. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is Poptones.co.uk theme to living. Crunchy guitar riffs and high-pitched coolness. If you are in a band that sounds like Neil Young we want to hear it!
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The Sound of Feeling - Spleen —A recommendation that I picked up from the B-music.co.uk collective—it is a very bizarre interwining of girl and boy harmonies, slowed down, spaced out over proto-hip-hop beats and it is from the 1960s!
The Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk - Just for the the snarling vocals and the constant use of the word ‘stupuid’. And contains possibly thee eighties teen-angst anthem ‘Pretty In Pink’ that even John Hughes had to write a movie about it and star Molly Ringwald! Genius.
http://www.burneddowndays.com/
Pete Fowler - The Sounds of Monsterism Island - Second month running—from the genius creator of Monsterism (crazed plastic monster toys), Super Furry Animals and Magic Number album covers, he makes a soundtrack for his very own crazed world.
The Cure - Seventeen Second - Bought on recommendation of Alan McGee who kept on telling me ‘A Forest ... A Forest ... genius ... genius ...’ and you know what? He is right. Poptones.co.uk also digs the goth grooves of Play For Today. And it makes us wonder where we put our old copies of Pornography.
http://www.thecure.co.uk
Flipper - Generic - These punks were so punk that even the punks hated them. Possibly the best 80s punk rock, it is a total deconstruction of everything that you thought you knew about punk rock. And contains the anthem ‘SEX BOMB BABY’ which is just that ... repeated ad naseum over noise. And this is for you fact fans: Public Image Limited ripped off the cover for their very own generic album. This is a must have and why hasn’t it been reissued yet?
http://www.markprindle.com/flipper.htm
Eddie Fisher and the Next Hundred Years - Cadet Records contained a teenage genius who decided to sign only psychedelic soul. And he did - from Dorothy Ashby to Muddy Waters all doing psychedelic Fillmore-freak-outs. Eddie Fisher is one of the cadet posse whose records I am finally obtaining and decently grooving too.
East of Edan - Jig-a-Jig - Deram - Deram was the prog-offshoot of the Decca label—I picked this 7 inch in a charity shop along with Junior Campbell ‘Hallujah Freedom’ ... East of Eden’s’Jig-a-Jig’ is a psychedelic jig with some really crazy hip hop beats whilst Junior Campbell isthe frontman from Marmalade turning up with a pretty neat gospel soul number morphed into the Rolling Stones.
East of Eden is featured on Pete Fowler’s Sounds of Monsterism Island ... told you we loved it.
The Electric Banana - Rave Up With—This is a odd one. A Cherrystones recommendation, the Electric Banana came into being from De Wolfe records—which was a company that supplies background music for production companies (like film and television). Electric Bananas were one of their only bands whose tripped-out guitar feedbacks were possibly crazier than Pink Floyd in the middle of the UFO club? They eventually morphed ito the Pretty Things!
Josephine Foster - Hazel Eyes I Will Lead You - Poptones.co.uk recently checked out Josephine live at Inthepines.org with Cherrystones DJing and we were quietly blown away with her genius.
00’s very own Joni Mitchell who leaked charisma through her songs on stage that she actually had the rapt attention of everyone in the audience. Shame about all the Wire reading hipsters who talked all the way through her set during the recent Greenman Festival. But what can you do? Those who ignored her in ‘05 will stand by her in ‘06. A definite recommendation.
Black Sabbath - Paranoid - Forget the Reality-TV-Show-Monster-Ozzy that Sharon Osborne had turned him into, forget the freakshow of Ozzfest and just concentrate on the fact that during the early 70s, Black Sabbath was the doomiest heaviest motherfuckers of all time.
Super Furry Animals - 2004 had been the year of the Gruff. The mainman of the Super Furry Animals has been busy from singing on Boom Bip’s new album, releasing an oddly electronic solo album and releasing compilations of obscure psychedelic welsh music. Whilst the Super Furry Animals went under the influence and came out with their greatest hits album. Though Greatest Hits Albums and Solo Projects are usually the death-knell of bands, their single re-release of ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fuck’ reestablished the band as a potent force on the UK music scene.
Super Furry Animals have changed the dial from national treasures to national weirdos, a status that suits their experimental mad scientest nature the best.
Savoy Brown - Raw Sienna and Muddy Waters - Electric Mud - Both albums hit the trip-fest of the 60s up with some hardcore blues. Both are guaranteed to draw out the pot smokers if played loud enough.
http://www.savoybrown.com/index2.htm
Terry Durham - Crystal Telephone - Durham, from Wakefield, Yorkshire evoked a strange William Shatner, Transformed Man/Serge Gainborough morphing over some quiet cool and smooth orchestrations, jazz and hammond organ backgrounds. Daft? Maybe? Cool. Definitely.
Meic Stevens - Outlander- Probably the secret influence on the Super Furry Animals or maybe the not so secret influence on the Super Furry Animals, these fuzzy-freak outs evoke Pink Floyd, Led
Zeppelin and Bob Dylan seperately yet but very much Meic Stevens.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/meicstevens/
Voices of the Seven Woods - Improbably amazing new folk rock from Twisted Nerve.
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