Yer Mam!'s Guide To Essential Summer Listening Part IV: The Compilations

I've been meaning to write something about this for an absolute age. As usual, the Cosmic Disco lot beat me to it - and offered forth more insight and information than I ever could - but I thought I could still chip my two penn'orth in now that it's actually available in the shops.

Anyway, Disco Italia: Essential Italo Disco Classics 1977-1985, to give its full title is the latest in Strut's hot streak and it's arguably the best yet. This isn't Italo music in the high energy, synth-powered way that you might think (for the most part, at least), but Italian disco music in the sense that it adds a distinctly Eastern Mediterranean flavour to the hedonistic disco sounds that were emanating from New York around the late-70s. In all, there are more strings, horns and live percussion here than synths (although Kano's superb 'Now Baby Now' more than takes care of the latter), replete, of course, with charmingly cod-English vox.

As I said, the Cosmic Disco boys offer more than enough colour and historical context than I could, so let me just point you in the way of some of the compilation's highlights. Red Dragon Band's 'Let Me Be Your Radio (Part 1)', with its feather-headed shouted vocals and clattering drums is a favourite, as is Kasso's classic 'Brazilian Dancer' (robbed nearly wholesale a couple of years back by Manhead for their 'Birth School Work Death' single). Kasso's Claudio Simonetti pops up again with Easy Going and their sex-funk groover, 'Do It Again'. Best of the bunch is the peerless ersatz Chic-ery of Firefly's 'Love (Is Gonna Be On Your Side)', which with its NY attitude and reverb-soaked chorus vocal would have fit like a glove onto Murphy and Mahoney's recent Fabriclive mix.

I'm at risk of becoming a bit of a Strut Records cheerleader but as they seem to be improving with every release (Grandmaster Flash retrospective to come!), then I'm happy to keep on carrying the Strut banner for now. Viva Strut!

Firefly - Love (Is Gonna Be On Your Side) (mp3)

Kasso - Brazilian Dancer (DJ Version) (mp3)

Red Dragon Band - Let Me Be Your Radio (Part 1) (mp3)

Tribute albums are fraught with the massive stumbling blocks of over-reverence and pointlessness, so it was with some trepidation that I approached Life Beyond Mars: Bowie Classics Reworked. Brought to us from the same people that compiled the Radiohead tribute album a couple of years ago, Exit Music, Life Beyond Mars is a hodge-podge of intrigue, failure and unalloyed triumph that frustrates and dazzles often at the same time.

One thing that Life Beyond Mars has going for it is a marvellously eclectic bunch of cover artists. The list here includes such names as Joakim, Matthew Dear, Carl Craig, Kelley Polar and The Emperor Machine amongst others. Also, their choices run pretty much the whole gamut of Bowie's career (minus the early folky stuff), or as much of his career as you can cover in twelve songs at least. So we get overly faithful run-throughs of 'Sound And Vision' (Matthew Dear) and 'Golden Years' (Susumu Yokota), alongside dull takes on 'Oh! You Pretty Things' (Au Revoir Simone) and 'Be My Wife' (Richard Walters & Faultline).

It's where the coverers add something of their own personality into the mix that Life Beyond Mars excels though. The Emperor Machine turn 'Repetition' from Lodger into, well, an Emperor Machine song (in a good way though). Joakim & The Disco's version of 'A New Career In A New Town' gives the song a veneer of grotty, tech-y disco (natch). Then there's Kelley Polar's 'Magic Dance', from the soundtrack to Labyrinth. It's totally head-wrong, bizarre and brilliant and is the best thing here by a million miles. So much better, in fact, that it just highlights how good this compilation could have been had the rest of the artists had the balls and psychosis to really go for it in the same way Polar has.

Not a total failure then as the inherent curiosity of hearing modern electronic acts take on one of their major influences pulls you through for the most part, but it's only Polar's contribution that will linger on after the curiosity value has waned.

Kelley Polar - Magic Dance (Harold And Baby O In Italy Version) (mp3)

Matthew Dear - Sound And Vision (mp3)

And now to a remix album so we have all bases covered. Delicious Vinyl, the eminent hip-hop label, decided that the best way to celebrate 20 years in the game was to hand over some of the best tracks from their back catalogue to some hot new remixers (although the words hot and new don't really apply to any of these, especially in the cases of Peaches (!) and Eminem (!!!)).

As with all remix albums, it's pretty difficult to see the point in this, especially when you consider the quality of some of the re-takes here. Peaches' interpretation of Tone Loc's 'Wild Thing' sounds exactly like you'd expect a Peaches remix of 'Wild Thing' to sound like and is therefore rubbish, Aaron Lacrate & Debonair Samir's lazy-as-fuck, B-more-by-numbers rerub of Young MC's 'Know How' is also completely uninspired and Mr Flash's, tres Ed Banger mix of Masta Ace's 'Sittin' On Chrome' is both terrible and doesn't fit the source material in the slightest. God knows what he was thinking.

It's not all bad though, as there are some real diamonds in the rough. Hot Chip turn Pharcyde's 'Passin' Me By' into a downbeat electrosoul hymnal, while Cory Nitta turns in two fabulous reworks under both his Pink Energy and Philippians guises for Brand New Heavies' 'Never Stop' (didn't even realise Delicious put this one out) and Pharcyde's 'Runnin'' respectively. Also Breakbox's inventive summery version of Fatlip's 'What's Up Fatlip?' is one for the coming months. Not too shabby then, if you skip past the dross.

The Brand New Heavies - Never Stop (Pink Energy Rmx) (mp3)

The Pharcyde - Passin' Me By (Hot Chip Rmx) (mp3)

Back later with some dates for your diary this week,

Laters,

JMx

Jesus has no place on the dancefloor.

Hi there,

I've not dropped in for a week or so, have I? I've had a bit of outside work on and that's taken up a fair chunk of my music criticism efforts, so I haven't really felt much like blogging to be honest. I was thinking the other day though that I haven't highlighted what's on the Yer Mam! stereo for quite some time (although you could probably guess my music listening activities from all those mixtapes I put up the other week), so I guess it's time to right that wrong.

Here then are a few things that I've been checking out and I think you should too.


Matthew Dear is a bit of a bugger to pin a label on. He makes brilliant techno music in his Audion, False and Jabberjaw guises, but it's the records he makes under his own name that intrigue me the most. The fact that he chooses not to hide behind a pseudonym would indicate that the music he records as Matthew Dear is his most personal. That would appear to be true as, while there are still some tech-y flourishes here and there, Matthew Dear records are more warm, immediate and organic affairs than the machine music he cooks up the rest of the time.

His latest run-out under his own name, Asa Breed, is, in my opinion, his best work regardless of moniker. A fully-formed, sumptuous tech-funk-soul album full of finely-crafted songs that are as addictive as they are strange and exotic. At times, Dear comes on like TV On The Radio making electronic music, his baritone recalling Kyp Malone. The vocals, as affecting as they often are, are probably the least interesting aspect of an album where the production is spotless, crisp and multi-textured. Lead-off single, 'Deserter' for example is held down by a reverbed-up drum machine pulse, while reversed string samples and plaintive bleeps cascade over the top, enveloping Dear's weary vocal in spacious sonic decoration. This song alone is a front-runner to be one of the year's best.

Elsewhere, Dear tries his hand at skippy pop-house ('Don And Sherri'), bends-inducing deep house ('Fleece On Brain') and even skewed afro-pop ('Elementary Lover'). Asa Breed is a confident, eclectic work of brilliance by a producer who's really starting to come into his own. Expect this one to figure there or thereabouts in many an end-of-year list.

Matthew Dear - Fleece On Brain (mp3)


Not surprising given my over-expressed for the original, but I'm becoming increasingly enamoured with John Cale's cover of LCD Soundsystem's 'All My Friends' (Franz Ferdinand's I can take or leave). Cale plays it pretty much straight down the line, but I think that's what I love about it. For someone as respected as he is to approach a contemporary song with such reverence and gravitas as he does here is astonishing.

Cale's rich croon lends the lyrics an added dimension of ennui and regret, but ultimately the original's sense of triumph still reigns supreme. Musically, it's a little more sparse than LCD's version, more Joy Division than New Order (actually, it reminds me more of Bowie's 'Heroes' for some reason), but this only accentuates what we knew all along; that 'All My Friends' is arguably James Murphy's finest moment yet. Giving it to an experimental rock godhead to interpret in his own manner has just elevated its growing modern classic stauts that little bit more.

John Cale - All My Friends (mp3)


Il y a quelque chose dans l'eau en France. And I'm not talking about Justice, Ed Banger, Uffie et al, those guys can all go jump in the seine. No, after Joakim's spooked out psych-rock adventure on Monsters And Silly Songs and My Sister Klaus' all-over-the-shop Chateau Rouge, comes the third album in some sort of unofficial 2007 trilogy of French psychedelia, Turzi's A.

Turzi are on Record Makers, Nicolas Godin and J-B Dunckel of Air's label and it appears that they've taken the aesthetic that they dallied with on 10.000 Hz. Legend (most notably on 'Don't Be Light') and ran with it. This is a record informed by horror film soundtracks and 70s prog and it isn't afraid to wear those influences on its sleeve. The hallmarks of Goblin and John Carpenter are all over this album, yet it sounds utterly contemporary. Oh, and it's a concept record on which every track starts with the letter A. This deserves as wide an audience as label mate, Sebastien Tellier gained with Politics.

Turzi - Afghanistan (mp3)


After two years of incessant hype on the beardo-disco scene, we can now ascertain for ourselves just whether Map Of Africa are worth getting worked up about. The work of scene pioneer DJ Harvey and Rub N Tugger, Thomas Bullock, Map Of Africa's three 12"s have been changing hands on the black market for astronomical values since their limited runs, but they've now finally got around to releasing a full album.

Well, it isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea and Harvey's notoriously scatalogical and perverse sense of humour is all too prevalent at times, but I think this is one of the most fun, unpretentious releases of the year thus far. A mixture of swamp rock, funk and Balearic grooves, it more than delivers on the promise of those early vinyls and features some of the darned funkiest tunes of the year so far. Look out for this when it's released on CD later in the year.

Map Of Africa - Wyatt Urp (mp3)

Also, due to popular demand and available for one week only...

Fleetwood Mac - You Make Lovin' Fun (Trail Mix)

In other news: read my reviews of albums from The Maccabees and Von Sudenfed over at High Voltage.

I meant to mention this last week, but if you're interested, I was on the last Blog Fresh Radio show, waxing lyrical about Devin The Dude.

Finally, I've been quoted in Carol McGiffin's Wikipedia entry! What are the chances?! Hopefully, the opinionated Loose Women presenter will link back to here from there and feel the full force of my invective. Bigoted fuck that she is.

More of these random musical musings later in the week.

Laters,

JMx