Chicks On Speed Ditch Electroclash



Wax My Anus

"Wax My Anus, inspired by Courtney Love, sounds like Macbeth's three witches trying to make a record by the Fall."
(The Guardian UK)

You've Got To Hold Your Head Up High



New Order have a new LP called Waiting For The Sirens' Call. Reviews have been mixed, though they've tended towards mostly positive. There have been a lot of comparisons to Technique, which is accurate in it's balance between clubby tracks and rock, though Technique remains the better record. I've spent a couple of weeks with Waiting For The Sirens' Call now and I like it. It's a pretty typical New Order record, split between dance-y techno-pop and rockers. It really doesn't go anywhere they haven't been before, but after 25 years I'm amazed thay can still even get this far - who knew it would last this long? As always there are a couple of not so stellar moments, and some of the lyrics are going to make you cringe, but then they almost always have, eh? Hey Now What You Doing stood out to me right away, and after a few listens has revealed itself as one of the better moments. It fits into the "classic N.O. rocker" mold - big Hooky bass riff, lots of guitars, and a catchier than ever melody and chorus. I love it. I give the record a thumbs up, but then I've found something redeeming on most of their albums to date. If you're a fan it's worth a shot.

Funky Friday - Uncle Louie and Snoop




I've got a couple of groovy disco tunes for you today. First up is a T.K.Records gem from 1979, Uncle Louie's Full Tilt Boogie. This arrived in my email inbox this week courtesy of Jockohomo (he has a classic John Foxx era Ultravox tune up for you to grab - go now!). He had just gotten it off a disco news group and thought I might enjoy it. He was right. Despite the somewhat dodgy band name, it's a fun tune. Uncle Louie's is an alias of Walter Murphy, best known for the monster '76 hit A Fifth Of Beethoven - you know, Beethoven's biggest riff over a disco beat. He also released records with his Big Apple Band, which included Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards who of course went on to form Chic. Full Tilt Boogie has got a great springy bass line, some killer wacka wacka guitars, big horns and the "do it, do it, do it's" in the chorus are fab - all in all a very tasty little number.

I was watching VH1Jams or VH1Soul last week when they aired the latest Snoop Dogg video for the tune Signs. It has an uptempo disco backing track that instantly had me grooving - it's pure Neptunes gold. It's embellished with Justin Timberlake's blue-eyed soul falsetto (oops, there goes my "street cred"), and also features the great, gruff vocals of one Charlie Wilson, of The Gap Band fame. When he appeared in the video I jumped - he's singing lyrics from Early In The Morning over the bumping Snoop track! That was the last straw. After having dug the previous singles from the record, I knew it was time to buy the album. Of course it's a lot of fun, though due to it's somewhat edgy lyrical content I definitely can't play it around my kids.

Spooky's Schmoo And Little Bullet (Two)



Fancy a bit of prog house, circa '93? Then you're in luck with today's post from Brit duo Spooky's classic album Gargantuan. When you read about this record it's often in comaparison to another prog house classic, Leftfield's Leftism. One thing for sure is that Gargantuan isn't as consistently good as Leftism, which is one of my most favorite electronic records ever. The other thing about that comparison that gets me is that, to my mind, they sound a lot more like Orbital than Leftfield. There's the same repetition of melody and sampled, girly vocals, and none of the reggae and dub flavor that Leftism has in spades. That having been said, I still love the Spooky record a lot - it's fun and warm and makes me smile. It's finally sunny and 72º in Minneapolis today, and this stuff is going down a treat...
Schmoo
Little Bullet (Part Two)

Teapot Tempest



Polara are a Minneapolis rock band that is now in it's 11th year of existence. Formed in 1994 by local scenester Ed Ackerson they are a group unafraid to experiment with electronics, straddling the fine line between raging wall-of-sound noise and poptastic melody. Drawing inspiration from Britpop and the shoegazers (and having a singer who reminds me a lot of Roger McGuinn from The Byrds), they've crafted a handful (or two) of records - catchy, scuzzy, shiny rock and pop. The earliest records were released on various indie labels, then they did a brief stint on a major before returning to the indie fold and releasing their records on Susstones, a label started by bandleader Ed Ackerson. They are gearing up to release a new album later this year and have just put out a great little EP called Green Shoes + 4. Teapot Tempest is a catchy rocker with some nice big riffs and cool little electronic noises embellishing it all, and is a pretty good indicator of what this band is all about. There are more mp3s over on the label's website, and if you go do check out some of the other bands - they're all pretty good!

Marbles



Robert Schneider is best known as the lead singer & song writer in fuzzy, scuzzy, psychedelic twee-pop rockers the Apples In Stereo. Marbles is his solo side project, and he's just released a new LP called Expo. There has been one previous album released - 1997's Pyramid Landing and Other Favorites, which is a compilation of the material he had recorded up to that point. Although I haven't heard that one, a friend who has it confirms that it's much like the Apples - twee pop. Expo has moments that could be classified like that too, but here the music has been synthetically enhanced with lots of electronic sheen. It's the Apples In Stereo meets Gary Numan, especially on album opener Circuit
with it's Numan circa 1981 keyboard riff. This is a pretty good indication of what the album has to offer - sunny melodies with a nice mix of scuzz and technology.

Funky Friday Fink



One man band Fink released his LP Fresh Produce on NinjaTune's now defunct ambient imprint Ntone back in 2000. It's a record that actually fits better/belongs among NinjaTune's best known releases - you know, the Coldcuts, the DJ Foods, the Herbalisers. It's a heady brew of beat experimentation, with luscious downtempo and abstract hip hop grooves, jazzy licks and hefty helpings of r'n'b, as well as odd vocals and plenty of quirky samples. I played the record to death at the time, and couldn't believe how people appeared to be sleeping on it. I offer my two favorite examples of it's brilliance on this funky Friday - Ever Since I Was A Kid (Part 1) warmly tells the story of a jazz music junkie's never ending quest for fresh new vinyl - "I'm spending all my money on records" - something that really strikes a chord with me and probably a lot of you too! Good Day For Hippos has such a splendid name that you just can't go wrong, and luckily the tune is just as ace as the title - warm Rhodes keys, watery splashes, and a real '70's kid show theme kind of feel to it. To the best of my knowledge he has yet to record a follow up this record, although he has released some records under the name Sideshow - they are more on the house and techno tip than the stuff here. A much slept on LP that needs to be heard.

A Big, Stinky Serving Of (Digitally Remastered) '80s Cheese



I was at the record store this week when I saw it on the list of new releases floating around the counter - The Power Station's one and only self titled album, given the remastered reissue treatment, with 7 bonus tracks and a DVD with a few vids and a live performance from SNL. They were a mid '80s "supergroup" that put together two Taylors from Duran Duran, bassist John & guitarist Andy, the drummer from disco legends Chic, Tony Thompson, and the vocals of blued eyed soul boy Robert Palmer. They made a brief splash with the hits Some Like It Hot and a cover of T.Rex's Get It On (Bang A Gong). When the record proved to be more popular than was expected, they decided they'd need to tour. Robert Palmer was not down with that and he promptly mutated their sound into his own and forged ahead as a solo artist - wiht the greatest successes of his career in Addicted To Love and it's follow-ups. The rest of the guys soldiered on for a while with replacement vocalist Michael Des Barres, but he was no Palmer, and they called it quits.

Anyway, back at the record store... I asked the dude behind the counter to let me check it out. Ah, that crazy '80s cover with it's big breasted dominatrix. The extra tracks are mostly a bunch of remixes of the afore mentioned hits. Do I really want this? I did really enjoy the record at the time, and have only ever owned it on a prerecorded cassette. I gave it back to the guy - "maybe some other day". Then he told me my total, I realised it was less than I thought it would be, and I made him put it back in the stack. So I chumped it. But damn if it doesn't sound pretty good - in spots. It's produced by Chic's Bernard Edwards, and it's pretty clean. It is kinda chunky, and there's plenty of gated snare action, as well as some cheesy sounding keyboards (played by Rupert Hine and Wally Badarou) but somehow it moves me. I think I mostly chalk it up to the class vocals of Robert Palmer, always so smooth and sophisticated. Instead of giving you the hits I've dug deep into the album and am giving you a couple of the funkier moments. Lonely Tonight is loping electro funk with a big hair guitar solo, and Robert growls his lines perfectly. Go To Zero has a popping John Taylor bass riff, tight horns, and more big hair guitar riffing. Listening to the album made me cringe a little bit, but it put a smile on my face several times too - aaah, memories! I deem that value for money.

Do The Whirlwind



A few weeks ago I posted an Out Hud song and drew comparisons to the Tom Tom Club. This prompted a reader to inform me that she agreed. She then took the comparison one step further and said she thought that the new Architecture In Helsinki single sounded a lot like them too. Who?! said I (having never heard of them before). Turns out they are an 8 person band from Melbourne, Australia, and they have just released their second LP In Case We Die in the US on Bar/None Records. It's a fabulously entertaining listen. They're like a funkier, looser Fire Arcade, or a more shambolic Stars. There are some 40 instruments listed on the album, so you know you're in for an orchestrated treat. There are lusciuos strings, peppy horns, great new wave rock riffs, some lashings of boppy synth pop, some goofy kid's toys sounds and even power tools get a credit. And yes, there's also a big ol' helping of the Tom Tom Club, especially on the groovy first single from the album, Do The Whirlwind - loose disco beats and girly girly vocals plus horns plus sitars make for a bunch of sunny, warm fun. I have to admit that I'm totally captivated by this album - it's gotten played every day, and it's creativity and genre mashing and that feeling that you-never-know-what-might-come-next always keeps me entertained. Highly recommended!

Control Your Area



Nice Nice are guitarist Jason Buehler and percussionist Mark Shirazi. Their speciality is beat-based rock music - free form, abstract and often improvised. They have a new EP called Yesss! coming out June 21st on Audraglint Records (Portland, OR based indie-tronica label, home to releases by Tarwater, Fontanelle, Kid 606 and Charles Atlas). The new EP, in the words of it's press release, bears more resemblance to production heavy modern r'n'b than to the noisy, free jazz stuff they've been doing. You can definitely hear the polish on the new record, and the results are pretty cool - "a pile up of lysergic machine funk" indeed. Every time I listen to Control Your Area I keep expecting Missy Elliott or M.I.A. to start rapping - it's got the stuttery hip hop riddims, crazy space noises and great squelchy bits. It also carries a bit of the Talking Heads afro-experimentation vibe with it's poppin' bass and scratchy guitars. There are some nice remixes on the EP by Caural, DJ/Rupture and Stars As Eyes. All in all a very entertaining listen. Visit their website for three older mp3s that are a taste of where they've been, then check out Headphone Sex for another track from this new EP.

All Things Fixable



Indie hip hopper Alias recently released a record called All Things Fixable on his own imprint, Goodwithmoney Recordings. It's a collection of tracks recorded between 2002 and 2004, all of them on CD for the first time. A stop-gap release until his next Anticon release later this year, it's a set of mostly instrumental tunes that combine finely chopped beats, washes of synth action and an occasional guitar. There are a couple of vocal tracks, one featuring rapper Sole and even a nice little folky guitar based jam. I love this guy's sound - that Boards Of Canada/BoomBip/Four Tet vibe - and enjoyed his recent remix of Lali Puna's track Alienation. While musically adventurous like those other acts, he always keeps his beats tight. The title track All Things Fixable is a pretty good indication of what's on offer - spacy keys, a fat beat, a lovely melody and a little bit of glitch. A nice record to keep your head nodding.

Funky Friday - Time For Change



Change were an early '80s r'n'b group based in Italy. The brainchild of Italo-Guadalupean business man Jacques Petrus, they put out four albums of American styled r'n'b. Jacques was not a musician, so he relied heavily on hired studio help to create the music, and relatively unknown American singers provided the vocals. The earliest recordings were helmed by his Italian partners Mauro Malavasi and Davide Romani, and featured the vocals of soon-to-be legends like Jocelyn Brown and Luther Vandross (whose debut solo LP had not yet been released - at this point he was known best for his backup vocals for people like David Bowie and Chic, and for doing radio and TV jingles). I owned several of the albums over the years, but ended up getting rid of them - a few good tunes amid a lot of so-so stuff. I kept this one 12" tho', because it puts together 3 of their greatest songs. Searching highlights the smooth-like-velveeta croon of Luther over a very seductively pulsing electro groove. Lover's Holiday has to be one of the best Chic songs that Chic never wrote - it's such a perfect copy of the trademark sound you'd swear it was Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards playing those guitar and bass riffs. It is a gloriously uplifting track. In 1984 Jacques' relationship with his Italian partners was over and he hired a pair of then up-and-coming song writers and producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The single Change Of Heart is typically Jam & Lewis - the stacatto drum program, the keyboard run at the beginning of the song, the chunky syn-bass, the multiple vocal parts and that ability for crafting a catchy melody and chorus are all present. It's as good as any of the stuff they did with the S.O.S. Band around the same time. The musical project known as Change ended after one more album, but I will always love them for these three stellar tunes.