Southern Gul

I like this deep, funky, steamy and sparse remix of Erykah Badu (from 1999) and her list of what makes a southern girl- 'I like my tofu fried' amongst other things. Sultry.

Drone Logic

This is a twenty minute preview megamix of Daniel Avery's album Drone Logic, out at the start of this week. If you like dark, bass heavy, weird noise-led, synth-string, underground electronic music, this should be right up your alley.



Drone Logic (Factory Floor/Gabe Gurnsey Remix)

I Hate To See Your Broken Face

Just to prove it wasn't all serious Marxist dialectic round Stereolab's way I'll post another favourite of theirs of mine- it was a toss up between this and the sunny day optimism of Captain Easychord but I've gone for this one off the Emperor Tomato Ketchup album.

The Noise Of Carpet

And the video was good too...

It's Alright 'Cos The Historical Pattern Has Shown How The Economical Cycle Tends To Revolve

Marxist political and economic theory set to a counter-revolutionary 60s ye-ye beat by Stereolab, back in 1994- singalong together now...

'A slump then a war then peel back to square one and back for more

Bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery

Don't worry, be happy things will get better naturally
Don't worry, shut up, sit down, go with it and be happy

Dum dum dum, de dum dum, de duh de dum dum dum, ah, ah'

Ping Pong

Caving In

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds have a new album out today- Push the Sky Away- with the sleeve featuring Nick (clothed) and his wife (naked), something I may suggest to Mrs Swiss should the third Swiss Guards album ever get finished. I have conflicted feelings about Nick Cave- some of his stuff is superb, but there are very few albums he's made I want to listen to all the way through and his piano ballads do next to nothing for me. There are people I know who rate him highly and people who cannot stand him. From recent times the last Bad Seeds album (Dig, Lazarus, Dig) and the first Grinderman lp both had a few songs I'd take with me anywhere but some I suspect I'll never listen to again. The same goes for the rest of his back catalogue, all the way back really. So reading the reviews for the new one makes me want to hear some of it, knowing there'll be two or three that I'll love, but I don't want to stream it and then just buy a couple of songs digitally. Seems wrong somehow even if it makes financial sense. I should really get the vinyl or the cd. Twenty-first century problems eh?

This is an out-and-out classic.

The Mercy Seat (Video Mix)

Wild Billy Childish And The KLF

An recent email from Damaged Goods reveals another new Billy Childish band (The Chatham Forts) and a limited edition 7" single in April. The new band sees Billy return to vocals and a 'sound that is more akin to The Mighty Caesers / Headcoats with even a little of The Pop Rivets in there as well, a slightly angular, new wave approach'. 

So far, so good- nothing too unexpected though. The excitement and mind-boggling bit comes with the final line of the message- 'We will have the album to follow in the summer......oh yeah, it also has Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond on it as well…that’s the KLF to you'.

Billy Childish and The KLF?! I know! And yet... what will it sound like? Garage rock crossed with stadium house? Or what? 

This song is from Bill Drummond's solo lp The Man- a song named after Dumfries' football team.

Queen Of The South

Dungarees

I used to have a pair of dungarees. In fact, if memory serves, I wore them to Spike Island. With a Brazil football shirt. No photos exist you'll be pleased to hear. A danger with dungarees was the straps coming undone when sitting down- as happened to me when getting ready to get off a bus. The whole bottom deck nearly saw me with my dungarees round my ankles.

For no particular reason (and I wouldn't imagine they were ever dungaree wearers, certainly not after toddlerhood), here are The Pastels.

Baby Honey

Slowdive

I'm really enjoying the new My Bloody Valentine album- it soundtracked my commute to and from work for most of this week. The indie-dance drums of Only Tomorrow, the minimal organ and voice songs, the futuristic noise of Wonder 2, the riff attack of Nothing Is, superb all. One of the things that's struck me most is the mix, the way that some of the instruments sound so far away and some so close, that it's not got everything turned up loud for the radio sound. Loving it, it works in the car, and it empties my head on the way home from work.

After Loveless we got shoegaze, a whole slew of bands with FX pedals who were supposed to sound like MBV. None of them did really; none of them had Kevin Shields in their line up. There was some chaff among the shoegazers but there was some wheat too. Slowdive recorded some good songs and at least one very good album. Here's their namesake song.

Slowdive

I'm also loving these Mike Disfarmer photographs.

Sleepwalker

There's an Andrew Weatherall interview in today's Guardian where he refers to the photographs of Mike Disfarmer. Disfarmer documented ordinary Americans in the dustbowl in the 1930s. They're an amazing set of pictures and a quick image search will throw up loads of others. By doing this Google search I was ignoring what Weatherall cautions against in the interview but there y'go. Here's a few of them...

Today's tune is from San Francisco's Moon Duo- Sleepwalking has a huge, circling guitar riff, motorik drumming and that lazy, stoned vocal. Play it loud.

Sleepwalking