townx

Colleen is (as far as I know) a little known electronic/ambient artist, but her work is very subtle, delicate, plaintive. Just plain lovely. I think more people should know about it.

Quite a lot of her music videos are on Youtube, via her record label's site.

This one is a fan-made video, but for me it perfectly captures the spirit of the song:

In case it's never crossed your consciousness, here's the rather excellent, grotesque and hilarious Aphex Twin video for Window Licker:

Nice to see this Cabaret Voltaire video again (recorded in 1979):

These still sound great to me (more Cabaret Voltaire) - No Escape:

Seconds Too Late:

I also keep meaning to mention The Free French, who have a website where you can buy their music. Do. It is superlative intelligent (slightly reedy and eccentric, but in a good way) pop. I've been listening to it pretty much constantly all year. I think my favourite album is It's Not Me, It's You, which is glorious, and has some of the best lyrics of any pop album, ever (e.g. Ghost Writer - which is available as a free download from their site - download it!).

Set up another Last.fm page for my other music project, Spill Twins. This is other stuff I've written over the last 15 years or so (since I got a PC). I wrote some stuff prior to that, but it's all on tape and I haven't transferred it yet. All free mp3 downloads, if you like 'em.

Delia Derbyshire was one of the earliest electronic pioneers, working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop through the 60s. She was a major contributor to the Dr. Who theme music, and produced some amazing, atmospheric, avant garde music, years ahead of its time. Also, importantly, born in Coventry, in the West Midlands.

Pretty exciting for me, then, to see that David Butler of Manchester University's School of Arts, Histories and Cultures has recently revealed some of her previously-unheard tapes. Some of the snippets can be heard on the BBC website. Particularly remarkable is a piece of what can only be described as dance music, from the late 1960s, which is around 20 years ahead of its time.

If you're interested in more of her work, you can download some of her pieces here. You can also get an excellent compendium of BBC Radiophonic Workshop music which contains about half a dozen of her pieces. An album of her work, Electrosonics is available, but sold out within hours of release (I didn't manage to get a copy, though I tried). Also released this week is an album by John Baker, another Radiophonic Workshop luminary: I've just ordered it.

Here's a video of Delia, set to some music by The White Noise (of which she was a member):

This is truly marvellous:

Sparks at the height of their powers, with one of my favourite tracks from their best album (in my opinion), Indiscreet.

The shorts! The peculiar hat! The sidewards glances! The moustache! The camp dancing! The lyrics!

Get in the swing, pal
Get in the swing
With everybody and everything
(repeat)

My friends are here
Mind if you go out and not come back again
Well, thanks a lot
Hooray, hooray
The night is younger than the girl who's got the touch
But not by much

Well, I ain't no Freud, I'm from L.A.
But I know certain things
That they also serve who sit and wait
They're cheaper than painting
And don't need explaining

(Chorus)

When Salmon spawn
A ton of water blocks their motion,
Spoils their game
But on they go
Thrashing 'til their mission is fulfilled or else
Oh, but they have their friends
And have a warm bed waiting
Just like I do with you
I'm happy, so happy, I'm happy, oh happy

(Chorus)

All for one, one for all

(Chorus)

Hello down there
This is your creator with a questionaire
Hello up there
I don't have the time to fill out questionaires 

I will always love Sparks, for one thing in particular: helping me survive a particularly gruelling, embarassing, disappointing weekend. When I was about 15, I went to trials for the Lincolnshire under-16 rugby squad. I remember distinctly that my mum got me some jeans to wear, which were basically flares; I knew I'd be spending the weekend away from home with other boys my age, and was terrified of them seeing me naked, taking the mickey out of my flares, taunting me for other reasons etc. (I was quite shy).

The morning I set off from home, probably with mum, I heard This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us on the radio. The tune was so infectious, the lyrics so baffling and brilliant, that even though I only heard it once, I was repeating the chorus to myself all weekend. It gave me a moment of space to retreat into, a glamorous fantasy moment I could hang on to amid the painful, eyes-down fear of that weekend:

By the way, I didn't make the team (the disappointment because a stud in one of my boots fell out and I got horrendous blisters which hampered my performance on day 2), I spent the weekend feeling embarassed but wasn't taunted, but did sub. a couple of times for the Lincolnshire rugby team.

Once I got home, I discovered my dad had copies of Indiscreet, Propaganda and Kimono My House, all absolute classic albums. I used to surreptitiously borrow the tapes and listen to them on my Walkman, practically all the time. People are put off by the high singing, I think; but I think that's part of the histrionic joy of their work, and once you listen to the lyrics, you realise they are brilliant song-writers with a unique world view. Sparks have been cruelly underrated for years, but recently they've been namechecked by all sorts of music industry luminaries. Glad to say I was there twenty years ago. But it's still rare to find anyone who'll admit to liking them (apart from my friend Adrian). I'm coming out of the closet right now, in the hope this will encourage others to dig out their 70s albums (I have to admit I am not that interested in the albums they released after 1979).

I'm going to put the mathis album up on Last.fm as I complete the tracks. All will be downloadable for free from here:

http://www.last.fm/music/Mathis/mathis

I've completed the first track from my mathis project; the track is entitled neighbour forgotten like a silent ray. I may still do some more remixing (it sounds a bit muddy in places), but I'm generally pleased with the result.

Download it here

For this track, the sound sources were squashed versions of every track on my Johnny Mathis album. Basically, I compressed each of the 18 tracks down to half a second (without changing its pitch), and reversed it. I then used these samples, along with a variety of effects, to put together the piece.

I'm releasing these pieces under an Attribution-Share Alike CreativeCommons licence (same as the rest of the content on this site).

I've had my first listen through Johnny Mathis - The Collection (that link includes previews of the songs on the album). First thoughts:

1. It's an odd collection dating largely from the 1950s, moving from light exotica, through to jazz standards, some very peculiar time signatures, and some horrendously overblown crooning from JM. He really uses his voice like a blunt instrument. None of the songs you might know as his "classics" (like this or this).
2. It has a downright bizarre, mournful, slow tempo version of Fly Me To The Moon. I'd always considered that quite an upbeat song, but JM proves otherwise.
3. There's a Cuban song called Babalu covered. This is interesting, as I've got an obscure Warp single by a band called DSR, with a track called Babaloo. I'm pretty sure the samples in DSR's track are from a version of Babalu (though not JM's).
4. There's a version of Caravan, which I have two or three other versions of. However, this is the only version where I've actually heard it with lyrics.
5. I'd forgotten that he has a slight speech impediment (can't pronounce R). Unfortunately, and I don't like myself for saying this, I find this defuses the emotion of some of the songs.
6. I have to admit I actually quite liked listening to it. The aforementioned Fly Me To The Moon is a highlight for me; and there are plenty of nice beats, extended falsetto notes, string fragments etc. to make the mathis album interesting.

By the way, JM has a terribly old-fashioned website. Dig those slanting silver fonts (I think FrontPage and clipart are probably to blame).

As you can see from my last blog entry, the song titles, by sheer fluke, form a rough approximation to the life of Johnny Mathis, as a corollary with the life of Jesus, as he sung about in When a Child is Born.

The story starts with JM's parents trying to conceive and throwing away their contraceptives. It continues with JM's quest to find his father, searching a range of locations not unlike those encountered by Michael Moorcock's Corum when facing the Chaos Lords (in the Sword Rulers series of novels): the Rosy High Seas, the Silent Tiny Winds. Then finally reaching solid ground, where tears form from the earth, nourishing yellow trees. And finally JM is reborn from the trees, flickering into existence before himself, perhaps even replacing the original JM who started the quest. Or maybe at that point the quest becomes cyclical, and JM is locked into a Sisyphean loop, seeking his origins, embarking on an epic quest, only to generate himself at the end of the quest, which then starts all over again.

Just thinking out loud. I think definitely an ambient wash for track one, that's for sure.

Using this poem generator, and the words of When a Child is Born, Johnny Mathis' most famous hit (but not in fact included on the CD I'm going to be using as my sample source [see my previous blog entry for an explanation], which turns out to be a "collection" of standards recorded by JM [as I will be styling him from now on] in the 1950s, rather than his famous 70s hits), I've come up with these song titles for the mathis album:

• neighbour forgotten like a silent ray
• never toss a johnny
• peace is a yellow land
• rosy high seas
• silent tiny winds
• the solid ground whispers tears
• yellow trees flicker a solid high child

If you have any objections or suggestions for the style of each song, please raise them in comments. If you are a talented artist, please provide artwork for the LP cover. If you are a rubbish artist, please do not. Thank you for your continued acquiescence.

I recently dug out some music software (unfortunately, the Windows-based Computer Muzys Studio, as I've yet to find a decent midi-sequencer for Linux which supports VST instruments) and started writing music (in the loosest sense) again. Mainly I've been remixing my old tracks and getting them to play (CM is OK, but terrible if you move your projects between machines); but I've also made one new piece, Splashflap. I'll post some of it up here eventually, no doubt.

Anyway, I was lacking focus and inspiration, but found myself fired up by Jono's music project. I decided, like Jono, that I needed a concept to work from. Browsing Woolworths today, I came up with one. I decided I would buy the cheapest CD I could find in the sale and write an entire album based on samples solely from that CD. (I did this a few years back with my brother, writing a sequence of tracks based on Elvis samples.)

The CD turned out to be a £1 Johnny Mathis Greatest Hits album. Hence the name of the project/album/band, mathis. Look forward to some new music soon, sourced entirely from Johnny Mathis samples, more than likely released under a Creative Commons licence. I bet you can hardly wait.