I Still Know What You Did Last Sombre

Side 2 of a mix CD-R, originally compiled for my brother and burned on 4th December 2006.

 

The previous post was described as the 'downtempo side'. Side 2 is definitely more upbeat, musically at least, even if the lyrics poke at the festering sore of humanity on occasion.

Adding to Side 1's sole album release from 2006 (Scritti Politti), there are three more on this side. I don't listen Writer's Block by Peter, Björn & John that often and I probably should as, hype at the time around Young Folks aside, I remember it being a pretty good album. Sparks are in constant rotation so and I have a lot but not all of their albums, so Hello Young Lovers (and Lil' Beethoven, also represented here) get regular airings at Casa K.  

 

Charlotte Gainsbourg's 2006 album 5:55 (her belated second) was already in the bargain bin when I bought it on CD later that year but it was a revelation. The album seemed to have a bit of a Marmite reaction from reviewers at the time as I recall but it was an immediate winner for me. When you've got AIR, Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon working with you on your songs and Nigel Godrich, can you go wrong? I didn't think so. The Swede posted about ten go-to albums on his blog Unthought Of, Though, Somehow last week. Deliberately avoiding the big hitters, it threw up some interesting choices. 5:55 by Charlotte Gainsbourg is one of my go-to album, a "musical comfort blanket", as The Swede so brilliantly describes it.

 

I'd been trying and failing to get hold of Kevin Shields' wonderful remix of Autumn Sweater by Yo La Tengo for a while, when it became one of my very first internet downloads (dial-up on a custom-made PC, so you can imagine that it took a fair while just to get a nine-minute track. It was a fairly ropy rip as I recall. Thankfully, both Yo La Tengo and their label Matador agreed as it finally got a re-release in 2005 as part of the superb Prisoners Of Love collection...well, the limited edition 3CD set, at least. This is a perfect marriage of artists that makes me wish they had done more together.

The opening pair of songs came from cover mounted cassettes with Select magazine, so will come with some quality limitations given the source. Positive I.D. originally appeared on Renegade Soundwave's second album and was released in multiple remixes as a single. This is my favourite mix of them all, making the most of the Bryan Ferry sample.

Don't Fight It Feel It by Primal Scream is good in any version that I've heard, but this version amply demonstrates their ability to inject the funk and ratchet up the guitar for a live audience. Denise Johnson takes it all in her stride and delivers a powerful vocal. I wish I'd been able to experience her magnificence in person.

Fosbury by Tahiti 80 was another chance bargain bin discovery - I think I paid 50p for this one in the Virgin Megastore in Bristol. The 'special edition' with two bonus songs, no less. It's a great album, and introduction to the band, not least with Big Day. As good a statement of intent as you could wish for. I'm not kept pace with Tahiti 80, to be honest, though I see that they're still a going concern. One for the next Bandcamp Friday shopping list.

I closed things off with Chris Morris, with a one-off release for Warp Records in 2003 and following up their collaboration on the Blue Jam album (2000) and My Wrongs 8245–8249 & 117 short film (2002). Bushwhacked 2 as you might guess, featured chopped up snippets of speech from then-incumbent White House cretin George 'Dubya' Bush. This compilation featured the original 'Raw Feed' version but I've opted to swap it for Adrian Sutton's orchestral rework, which I think works a little better in context. Sadly, with the Orange Baby previously in post and threatening to do so again, no editing and rearranging needed as he says similar stuff of his own volition. What times we live in!

 

1) Positive I.D. (Security Analysis Remix): Renegade Soundwave (1994)

2) Don't Fight It Feel It (Alive In Tokyo): Primal Scream ft. Denise Johnson (1994) 

3) Big Day: Tahiti 80 (2004)

4) Suburban Homeboy: Sparks (2002)

5) AF607105 (Album Version By Nigel Godrich): Charlotte Gainsbourg (2006)

6) Autumn Sweater (Remixed By Kevin Shields): Yo La Tengo (1997)

7) Metaphor: Sparks (2006)

8) Amsterdam: Peter, Björn & John (2006)

9) Bushwhacked 2 (Adrian Sutton Mounting - Orchestral Mix): Chris Morris (2003)

 

1994: Secret Tracks (Select magazine promo cassette): 1

1994: Secret Tracks 2 (Select magazine promo cassette): 2

1997: Autumn Sweater EP: 6

2002: Lil' Beethoven: 4 

2003: Bushwhacked EP: 9

2004: Fosbury: 3 

2006: 5:55: 5

2006: Hello Young Lovers: 7

2006: Writer's Block: 8

 

Side Two (40:07) (KF) (Mega)

Side One here

555

Three very different variations on the theme of 555 by Delakota, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Augustus Pablo.

 

Delakota were short-lived: a single album, One Love, and a clutch of singles between 1998 and 2000. Formed by Cass Browne and Morgan Nicholls after their previous band The Senseless Things ended in 1995, the sound incorporated dance music, indie rock and use of movie samples to great effect. 

 

Their releases attracted an impressive roster of remixes by Fatboy Slim, Freddy Fresh, Adam & Eve (aka The Beloved), Tim Goldsworthy, Sound 5, Joshua Falken (aka Kieran Hebden) and David Holmes. I featured the latter in a previous Dubhed Selection and wrote about when Delakota repaid the favour to David Holmes in a guest post for The Vinyl Villain.

 

555 was one of four Top 100 UK hits for Delakota, crashing in at #42 for one week only in February 1999.

Charlotte Gainsbourg is famously the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin and has forged an impressive career as an actor and singer/songwriter, the latter including some inspired collaborations with the likes of AIR, Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon, Beck and SebastiAn. I'm a huge fan of her work and Charlotte was the focus of a Dubhed Selection in December 2021.

 

5:55 is the title track of Charlotte's second album (her first as an adult), which managed a single week at #78 in the UK album charts in September 2006. A few promos did the rounds in 2006 with an official vinyl 7" release of a pair of remixes by Metronomy and Black Ghosts that didn't trouble the charts in any way. 5:55 a wonderful, piano-driven song with words and music by the aforementioned AIR and Jarvis Cocker and the legendary Tony Allen on drums.

Last but certainly not least is the mighty multi-instrumentalist and melodica maestro, Augustus Pablo. 555 Crown Street was released on 7" vinyl on the Rockers International label in Jamaica around 1975. I was shocked to find that I've only featured Augustus Pablo here once before, and that with a Version on the flip of I-Roy's Cow Town Skank 7". This criminal oversight will be rectified with an Augustus Pablo Dubhed Selection in due course.

For this post, I've found a YouTube clip which pairs the full 7" with 555 Crown Street and it's Version on the B-side. As good a five minutes as you're likely to hear all day.

Party Like It's 2009

Back to the tail end of the Noughties with a bunch of beats to bring in the weekend. Some of the artists and DJs/remixers seem to have been dormant or relatively quiet in the past decade: US punk/indie/dance act Gossip, Japanese trio Lalory, Norwegian DJ and producer diskJokke. Others such as Burns, CFCF, The Field, Richard Sen and Daniel Avery have been prolific, the latter two transcending their early work. And Little Boots has been busy in the past year as a member of ABBA's live band on the Voyage tour.

 

A sign of the times that many of the featured artists's profiles on Discogs include links to MySpace, a reminder of how quickly the world moved on and away to other platforms. Says the man who resolutely clings to Blogger and mostly avoids other social media...!

 

1) Heavy Cross (Burns Remix): Gossip

2) Little Secrets (Lalory Remix By Tom Iwami, Kazunari Kadowaki & Kazuya Tamura): Passion Pit

3) The More That I Do (Foals XIII Remix): The Field

4) Compulsion (Padded Cell Remix By Neil Higgins & Richard Sen): Doves

5) Earthquake (Stopmakingme Mix By Daniel Avery): Little Boots

6) Tropics (CFCF Remix): Apache Beat

7) IRM (diskJokke Remix): Charlotte Gainsbourg

Party Like It's 2009 (44:52)

Where Time And Space Stand Still

Charlotte Gainsbourg chooses her collaborators well. Her second album, 5:55, was largely written by AIR, Jarvis Cocker and The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon; follow ups IRM and Stage Whisper was composed with Beck; her most recent album, 2017's Rest, was created with French musician and DJ Sebastian Akchoté aka SebastiAn. Charlotte's songs also lend themselves well to remixers, with dozens of official and bootleg versions out there. This is a small selection of each.

 

Side One

1) AF607105 (Album Version) (ft. AIR) (2006)

2) Deadly Valentine (Radio Edit By SebastiAn & Danger Mouse) (2017)

3) Paradisco (Original Version) (ft. Beck) (2011)

4) IRM (Album Version) (ft. Beck) (2009)

5) Les Oxalis (Silaxo Extended Re-Edit) (2017)

Side Two

1) The Operation (Album Version) (ft. AIR) (2006)

2) Heaven Can Wait (Nosaj Thing Remix) (2009)

3) Time Of The Assassins (Matthew Dear Remix) (2010)

4) Sylvia Says (Radio Edit By SebastiAn) (2018)

5) 5:55 (Black Ghosts Remix By Simon Lord & Theo Keating) (2006)

6) The Songs That We Sing (Album Version) (ft. AIR & Neil Hannon) (2006)

Side One (22:24)

Side Two (22:18)