Picture the scene: you're stepping out in black plimsolls, white terry towelling socks and super faded skinny jeans. You're wearing a tight white tee with a small faded denim jacket, hoodie and a navvy's woollen hat. Your hair is buzz cut to a number one, short back 'n' sides and with a wavy quiff tucked onto the hat save for a sexy kiss curl poking out. It's the early 80s and your world smells of Kouros aftershave and Pickled Onion Monster Munch.
With the marvelous Ashes to Ashes on TV (see pic above and vid below) and analogue synths being de rigeur, everything's gone retro (again) for a few weeks and I luvs it.
I Lust U - Neon Neon (zShare) - Gruff Rhys (CandyLion album) and dance meister Boom Bip.
Divine - Sebastian Tellier (zShare) - The French Eurovision entry (!!) from the house music leg end (produced by a Daft Punk).
Pump - Palermo Disko Machine (zShare) - From the I Ragazzi dell 1982 EP from last year. Some bumping nonsense from drug-fucked Sicilians "And I can't hold myself when the DJ's pumping up the volume like THIS!"
The Hercules and Love Affair UK invasion is at full pelt this week. To herald the album's arrival, British iTunes has made the first track, Time Will, available for download this week. But, shhhh. You can get it below! It's another Antony Hegarty spesh.
The eponymous album is available everywhere, but take time out to go to iTunes and listen to my favourites You Belong, Iris and Raise Me Up. The reviews aren't wrong. It's clear Yazoo and early disco figure heavily, but there's also a gorgeous deep house influence, especially on You Belong - doesn't singer Nomi sound like Boy George? The throbbing bass and echoing chord stabs wouldn't be amiss at Voodoo upstairs in the Mardis, Liverpool, early '90s: low ceilings, sweat dripping, strobe on overload, air thick with dry ice and people off their fucking nuts.
Other than Ben Watt, this is the man Tracey Thorn spends a lot of time with. In the studio that is. Ewan Pearson, aka amongst other pseudonyms, Dirtbox, produced Tracey's Out of the Woods album and has just been recording new stuff with her. He's one of those musicians with lots of slashes in his job title: musician/remixer/DJ/producer. I've dipped in and out of his music over the years, sometimes without knowing it was the same person behind it. But La Thorn has helped tie up all those loose ends.
For a start, I didn't realise he was behind a dance act called Maas from about ten years ago - I always thought they were some faceless Dutch act or something. Another Saturday Night (listen/buy here at iTunes) is a gorgeous tune which seems very of its time listening back now. It was always popping up in a mate's set. He got everyone into it at many a sweaty house party. The Chicane-like album Latitude is worth a listen too.
As a remix whore, sometimes there are mixes that are quite obviously for the moolah, but looking at Ewan's vare long list here, the biggest names sit easy in his canon, like he's chosen HIS kind of music: Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence, Pet Shop Boys' Psychological, a couple of Goldfrapp and even Franz Ferdinand. With American folksy musician, Cortney Tidwell (great name) he's brought out the Icelandic in her. The remix (download below) for the beautiful Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up is how Bjork needs to sound now.
As Ewan says: “The only thing that matters is doing stuff that you care about and you can be proud of. Ultimately, if it got to the point where I was either playing records or making records that I hated, I’d stop. I’d rather be a postman.”
Over on HisSpace here is the new single Telescope by Partial Arts, his current nom de plume as an ongoing project with Al Usher. It's such a lush sound, like velvet on the ears and quietly funky. Another example below, the previous single, Trauermusik, is equally as gorgeous.
It's interesting to find out how long it's taken for him to get where he is now: “I initially just wanted to produce and I didn’t ever imagine that I’d be an artist particularly, the whole reason I started was just to learn how to do it. Some people are trained musically or they are in bands, with me I’d just had this idea from childhood that I had to work out how to produce music. And it’s only recently that I have actually realised I’m now doing exactly what I hoped I would be doing, seventeen years ago. I’ve produced eight tracks of Rapture and half of the new Tracey Thorn album and more stuff to come this year [2007]. It’s taken a while, but it’s been great.”
A random MySpace friend request and up popped this Danish band. I usually get Candy, 20, Alabahama, who "loves lollipops and fucking" or I get nosebleed techno geeks with a 'z' in their name. But this new-ish group, Kind of Girl, (new to the UK with their first release here this month) are a refreshing change.
Hailing from Copenhagen, this five-piece have a lovely ear for melody and some gorgeous radio-friendly songs - some 198 stations worldwide to be precise, including, I see on their biog, a UK station called Radio Nowhere!! The female vocalist, Sissel, writes all the songs and has a really sweet, ethereal voice. I like the big harmony-laden choruses too. There's apparently an album, Lonely in a Modern Way, on the way...
This COULD be the title of Tracey Thorn's new album for '08, according to her latest blog. When reading out chapter headings in Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native as if they were Morrissey song titles (very true, especially He Is Set Upon by Adversities, But He Sings a Song), it was the last one, An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness which Ewan Pearson, her producer, said summed up her entire songwriting career. And that tickled Tracey so much she may just use it.
Musically, the album "won't be heading for the dancefloor". Whatevs. La Thorn could sing on a death metal record and I'd still buy it. It's also her intention to be a lot more prolific with her musical output. She got all fired up by the creative success of last year's Out of the Woods, "I love being in the studio, and writing songs, and tinkering about with arrangement ideas, and singing the backing vocals late at night". Going through a "'Berlin period', whatever that means" whilst recording with Ewan (pictured left), she says the record is "taking some kind of shape". It's great that she also seems to be keeping her promise of being more prolific and keeping fans up to date with the comings and going: "I will try not to disappear again for seven years or so without so much as a by your leave". Cheers, Trace!
Until the new material, here's a couple of fab remixes to keep you going. King's Cross (Hot Chip Remix)- Tracey Thorn (zShare) - this is more like a brand new cover of the original cover of the PSB track; an amazing effort by Hot Chip.
It's All True (Escort Remix)- Tracey Thorn (zShare) - for all of Escort's retro sound, they actually give this track an Everything But the Girl makeover. It's Watt Ben would have wanted: meaty, beaty, big and bouncy.
Go to HerSpace for a too-cute drawing by Jean Watt (aged 9) of her mum.
I remember this track, Male Stripper by Man2Man with legendary NYC DJ Man Parrish, being huge here in the heady spring of 1987. In the minds of most of the UK who made the record a number 4 hit, the vocalist could have been a Chippendale singing "I was a male stripper in a go-go bar". It was a club track turned party record, and weirdly, one of those wedding party records to boot; a million miles away from its gay Hi-NRG roots. Go over to Retroland NOW for the long and the short of it (radio and club mp3 downloads!).
Years later in 2002 I found myself in The Cock in New York. As you do. And it quickly became my favourite place lemme tells ya, but picture the scene: it was a Sunday night and Man Parrish was DJaying. The crowd seemed a bit nonplussed but I was doing imaginary cartwheels around the room. I couldn't believe it. There was the creator of one of my seminal tracks. I did what I hardly ever do and went up to him. But because I was a bit pissed I ACTUALLY started singing. Yes. The. Shame. Of. It. "Strip for me babe, strip for you. Strip for me 'cos I want you to". And bless him, he asked politely, "Are you English? 'Cos all you guys do that to me."
And here's the vid of brothers Miki and Paul Zone aka Man2Man, looking like they ram-raided CloneZone!
Tips in G-string make my living!
And I've always said these two were too clone-like to be straight!
Neil Tennant is performing solo! Well not really. He's gassing about all things Pet Shop Boys with writer and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell as part of this year's Brighton Festival. Saturday 17th May will see the erudite singer at The Corn Exchange. To book tickets, go here. You'll need to go to the home page though to register as a 'complimentary friend'. They want your life!
But what's going on in the Pet Shop Boy's world at the moment? Over to the website: "Chris and Neil have been writing new songs for much of this year and will continue until they feel they have enough songs for a new album. The writing sessions have proved very fertile with, so far, seven new songs being completed. Some of the songs they wrote early last year are also likely to feature on the album. Meetings with potential producers are already being lined up for March. The release date for the new album will probably be early 2009.
Pet Shop Boys have also been sketching musical ideas for their ballet which is still under discussion with Sadlers Wells theatre in London."
Well, not quite. But here's my favourite egghead, Moby. He's articulate and opinionated in a very non-aggressive way. So why does he think everyone hates him? Apparently it's the same part of the brain that adds "is a whore" to Lindsay Lohan's name. He's cute! He's funny! What's not to love? ("The music!" everyone shouts back).
In this interview in The Guardian, he also bemoans the fact that everyone thinks he's a boring sober Christian when really, he's a drug-fucked sex addict. At least it's a different schtick to hang, what is actually, a very entertaining read. He's also has some very sage words about poor Britters.
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My favourite OAP, after my nana, of course, is Mrs Merton - rewind to this older post - Caroline Aherne's polite, but fucking rude 1990s creation. Each sweet question from the lips of the dear old dear was laced with arsenic. And only a dear old dear could be as brutally honest.
To magician, Paul Daniel's wife, Debbie McGee:“What was it that first attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels? / I think of you both as our version of David Copperfield and Claudia Schiffer, but you know, on a lower budget”
To Germaine Greer:“You were a right old slapper in the seventies, weren't you?”
To Babs Windsor:"That's what I love about you Barbara; you're one of us... You're like a big film star, but you're still common as muck!"
The old cow has a new DVD out. At last, all 5 series of The Mrs Merton Show are together and found here.
And here is that Debbie McGee classic opener:
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Marc Almond in stinking review shock! Eamon Sweeney has written this bad review, and it is BAD. Shocking in fact. With a Wikipedia first half he then incorrectly describes the set as mainly covers - the setlist is three-quarters Almond-penned. He finishes his diatribe with a sour flourish. Hey ho.
Is everyone OK? Carmit Bachar has QUIT the Pussycat Dolls. Now I know this will come as a shock to many of you. I'm inconsolable myself and will probably take tomorrow off work. It's feels just like when the printer broke down. I had to take a day off for that too.
*UPDATE* - just noticed Marc and Carmit could be sisters!
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I'm feeling completely "And?" about the new Annie single. Girlfriend sounds like Chewing Gum part 27 to me. I can never hear the chorus in her songs and I can't be the only one who thinks the melodies are stuck in the same three notes. Listen for yourself here.
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Click on the piccy to make it biggy for Paris Fashion Week's most extra-extravagant show. Chanel's haute couture merry-go-round with old hobby horse herself, Karl Lagerfeld centre stage managed to outdo even annual Pantomime Galliano for Dior.
Great image. Kind of hides the fact the designs are a bit shabby and boring. Eek!
And finally, this is what happens to runners up on X Factor. They lose a stylist but gain a legion of fan with this self-styled Nana look. Rhydian may actually be bald under there, but then again, who cares?
At least, that's the title bestowed on Sam Sparro in this month's Attitude magazine - CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE TO MAKE IT BIGGER. In an introductory featurette, Sam explains his love for Dame Shirley Bassey (natch): "I like people that have a strong identity both musically and visually: ecccentric people like Shirley Bassey and Bjork who are just really, severely [what?!!!] themselves. I love Beth Ditto becasue she's just like, "Fuck it, I'm going to take my clothes off!". I don't feel silly being ridiculous on stage because it seems like what you should be doing."
And like most, young, gay artists his sexuality doesn't really figure in the music:" Being gay isn't something that I think about any more." Which is fair enough, but please don't go down the Mika route and cut your dick off despite your leanings!
Can't WAIT to see what happens with the new single Black and Gold, which everyone has been (to coin a phrase from a well-known blogger) fizzing at the gash about.
Also in this month's ish is a candid interview with Dan Gillespie Sells. He was a right old mixed bag of emotions for years... Bless his shy little cottons.
Bona! This is a music blog. If there are any mp3 files uploaded which need to be taken down, get in touch! Also, email me if you have any music you want nice people to hear...
Picture the scene: you're stepping out in black plimsolls, white terry towelling socks and super faded skinny jeans. You're wearing a tight white tee with a small faded denim jacket, hoodie and a navvy's woollen hat. Your hair is buzz cut to a number one, short back 'n' sides and with a wavy quiff tucked onto the hat save for a sexy kiss curl poking out. It's the early 80s and your world smells of Kouros aftershave and Pickled Onion Monster Munch.
Number One - Pacific! (zShare)
Pump - Palermo Disko Machine (zShare) 
Don't Go (12" Mix) - Yazoo (zShare)
