MUSIC

UK Grim

But what’s gone on, what can I see? You’re all getting mugged by the aristocracy But what’s gone on, what can I see? You’re all getting mugged by the right wing beast. I had a long car journey today which gave me the chance to listen to UK Grim, Sleaford Mods’ new release. Aside from the bleak portrait it paints of Britain, it’s wretchedly – absurdly – funny. The Mods’ appear to have both personal and political hypocrisy in their sights. Andrew Fearn’s synths seem to me to be the soundtrack to the days we are living through here in…

60 Years Ago Today: Love Me Do by The Beatles

Someone to love. Somebody new. Someone to love. Someone like you. Time plays odd tricks. It’s 60 years ago that The Beatles released Love Me Do on 5th October 1962. The opening harmonica hook remains haunting and evokes the grainy black and white early Sixties. Melancholic images of fog on the Mersey. John, Paul, George and Ringo playing the smoky Cavern Club. Screaming teenage girls tearing out their hair. The thaw in post war austerity. Yes, the first few notes of the harmonica hook are instantly recognisable as redolent of a seeming moment of cultural change in Britain. By the…

Wolfgang Voight/GAS, Königsforst

A few days ago I happened to stumble across a list of Eight Great Minimal Electronic Records You Need to Hear. Minimal techno – if it’s what you could call the music on the list – is something I haven’t listened to a great deal so I thought I’d have a listen. First up is Königsforst, a 1998 album by GAS, long-term project of Wolfgang Voight. Long, looping ambient tones evoke an unsettling almost disorienting effect that’s only increased by samples of what seems to be classical music (I would imagine it’s something like Wagner or Berg) with a steady,…

Richard Skelton, These Charms May Be Sung Over A Wound

Aphotic and portentous, Richard Skelton’s new album has been played around these parts for a week. It’s magnificent. I’d even go so far to say that it’s a significant piece of modern music. The gloomy, droning soundscape evoked by Skelton on this album is perfect for both this time of the year as Autumn turns its face towards the winds of approaching Winter and for the ongoing period of uncertainty and apprehension we’re enduring. It seems to suit my current sensibility and on more than one occasion over the last couple of days I’ve found myself becoming entranced by the…

Young Knives, Barbarians

Just when you thought it was literally the end of civilisation, The Young Knives (or, more properly) Young Knives without the “The” any more have released a new album, Barbarians. And. It’s. Rather. Good. Indeed. Their last album was something like 7 years ago. It’s very very welcome. Their earlier quirky and delightfully melodic songs – which still get a lot of play around these parts – have given way to some incredibly dark sounding tunes that are eerily menacing but equally amusing. Their description as “self-aware nihilistic miserabilists” is evident in their very odd, disturbing music videos which are…

Ralf und Florian, 1973

Standout tracks: Kristallo, Heimatklange, Tanzmuzik. Ralf und Florian was the fourth Kraftwerk album. Like Tone Float, Kraftwerk 1 and Kraftwerk 2, it’s not available for listening other than Youtube or a bootleg. Schneider called their first 4 albums “archaeology” and there seems to have been no desire to re-release their early material. It’s a shame. Before today I’d not knowingly heard any of the tracks from Ralf und Florian. I’ve listened to it through twice and have it on now as I’m writing this. I think it’s great and, in some ways, it’s a stronger overall album to its follow-up,…

Autobahn, 1974

standout track: Autobahn It was the news of Florian Schneider’s death that compelled me to spend some time listening again to Kraftwerk. I suspect that Schneider was the source of David Stubbs’ identification of the “deep sardonic comic sensibility that always lurks beneath the surface of Kraftwerk”. If you’ve ever watched videos of Kraftwerk performing live, it’s hard not to miss Schneider’s rascally smile or that comic, knowing glint in his eye while the other mensche-maschine play impassively. I’m sure my first encounter with electronic music was watching something like Tomorrow’s World on BBC One as a child or Popcorn…

Wire, 10:20

I almost missed this. Wire has a second album, 10:20, out this year. And it’s absolutely brilliant. Unlike Mind Hive, their most recent album – which I thought was their strongest in years – this one seems to act as a compilation of re-recorded, reworked songs from old albums or songs that didn’t make the final cuts. The band call these “stray” tracks that have evolved over the years through love performance. Half were recorded in 2010 and the rest more recently. There’s a less aggressive, calmer – maybe supremely assured feel to 10:20 than Hive Mind. Among the tracks…

Florian Schneider, “sonic perfectionist”

This month’s Electronic Sound has a heartwarming tribute to the enigmatic Florian Schneider, who died earlier this year. The piece, by Stephen Dalton, gives an excellent account of Schneider’s role in Kraftwerk. It’s particularly good in establishing the nature of the tensions between Schneider and Ralf Hütter that eventually led to Schneider leaving the group in 2008. I loved the ending of the piece: “Their Kraftwerk Konzept still visionary, their musical legacy unassailable. Humans may die but The Man-Machine goes on forever.”

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Mind Hive (2020)

Tremendous. Wire’s new album is atmospheric. Autumnal. Claustrophobic. Menacing even. It’s like the nights drawing in. For me, it’s very much a brutal soundtrack to the period we’re currently living through. Droning guitars and dark-ambient synths (developing from their 2016 album, Nocturnal Koreans and 2017’s Silver/Lead). Newman and Lewis sing about Russian oligarchs, populism, state-sanctioned mass-killing, the hopelessness of conformity, those left washed up on the margins. Wire have always drawn heavily on a cut-up, surrealistic approach to lyrics, often mixing the personal and societal. According to bassist/singer Graham Lewis about the song Primed & Ready, “The lyric/text for this…

October 2019 Music

Here’s some music I’ve been listening to this month that’s new to me… of at least I think it’s new to me:

September 2019 Music

Here are new pieces of music (for me) I’ve enjoyed this month.

Music: No Pussyfooting by Fripp & ENO

It’s 45 years ago that the musicians Robert Fripp and Brian Eno recorded the material which became the album, No Pussyfooting. It’s an album I picked up in the late 1980s/early 90s and still listen to from time to time whenever I’m having an ambient phase. I’m sure I got into it and other Eno/ambient stuff after listening to – and being pretty perplexed by – Lee Ranaldo’s album, From Here to Infinity. I was hugely into Sonic Youth at the time and remember being shocked by how abstract Ranaldo’s solo music was. It took some reading and listening around…