Dive into sin, let's plug the synth: here comes an infinite subject for astonishment, one of the most outsider items dedicated to modular synths. It is beautiful. The woman is happy. The sounds are brilliant. Ravel would have been proud.
The complete identity of credited composer Fred Miller never got revealed.
For this radio mixtape made on demand for both french magazine Telerama radio and french blog Le Musicassette, Gangpol & Mit took the opportunity to pay tribute to music and people who were influential in the making of their new record, subjectively united here under the temporary banneer of international music exchanges, mutant folkloric reappropriations, western/eastern connexions and carefully traded exoticisms in what I imagine as an old-time open international noisy harbour.
For such a legal podcast, I allowed myself to include or quote more classically celebrated bands than usual, that maybe will sound quite obvious to you. Howere, I hope that the thread will make sense, from mambo electronics to dangdut upgrades, blended traditionnal sources, and an occasional anglo-saxon tiny spoon of lyrics.
Due to yearly circumstances, a slightly delayed yet accurate reblogged tune by this cutely discreet british band, whose hits like Everybody's got to learn something or covers by Zucchero (!) maybe hide other kind of oddities and a general taste that deserves attention (for more, check HERE). Penetrating the charts didn't preserve the band from splitting, though, after their third album. Quite a schizophrenic team who didn't commit only one, but at least a second whammish Xmas song, None of them entered their best of, reissued recently. WHY ???
We don't know much about the strange Amos And Sara , and i only own a copy of their tremendous double single (red vinyle - it's war boys). they relate to jim (from the work / the homosexuals, etc) . this extract comes from a musicassette and is Pure Genius. Enjoy
I know everyone here gets disappointed when there is no track to leech and a lot to read, but let's take a few minutes for a fancy-full scientific comparison between Max Tundra's "Which Song" and Perfume's last single:
I always considered Perfume as a guilty pleasure, it may slightly appear now a bit more guilty than usual... But none of the notes has been stolen, no sample been taken either, and the track is good in a mainstream context, both on composition and production sides... What happened then ?
"Vampirized" might be the word, when such a successfull j-pop war machine manages to gently suck the trademark of a brilliant western indie composer: revisiting jazz-funk harmonies, smashing Herbie Hancock into Zappa, juggling with Prince-like falsetto voice and prog constructions... Ben Jacobs, aka Max Tundra, had the specific idea, with a certain relevance due to a personnal culture and history, to combine elements in a visionnary attempt to create an accurate form at a specific moment that was bringing pop music to wildly personal realms.
However, despite the international success and recognition he deserved and obtained among the initiates, and according the market's situation, he had few chances to turn into the kind of high-sale band to be displayed on Shibuya's screens. A female singer trio with a brilliant former Capsule member as a producer already had everything in their hands to do it: japanese lyrics and female vocals, coupled to the most plastic sound on earth, were then meticulously treated in order to instantly please auditor with outlaw compression rates, mesmerizing frequence repartition, autotune highways, and the strongest harmonic enhancers known on earth.
Nakata-san, brilliant producer of Perfume, amazingly talented, doesn't has anything to prove anymore, and can afford this incursion for the time of a single after having produced dozens of killer bombs in different styles. No more than a variation "in the manner of" ?
The question remains, when you start looking at record sales and counting the cash generated: why not calling the original guy who built the style, and include him at some point ? During the last years, on their way to commercial success, Perfume more and more appeared as an overcontrolled mainstream project, the one you can imagine being coached by a huge team of managers. There was probably simply no need to take a risk with an external agent. Why the hell would they have, eh ?
A brief interview with Max Tundra, evocating various topics, made after his gig at Skiff festival in St Petersburg:
1) SUCCUBS: "It makes me think about, well, there is a chance that maybe I can produce a pop band, and make a million-selling hit, because it is so similar in style to my song, which has not sold very many copies at all, due to very poor distribution. Distribution problems are upsetting, because this latest record took me six years to record, so I'm really proud of it, it's very close to my heart, and I believe that the music is very special. This situation just goes to show that if someone gives me a chance to produce one of these big pop bands, then maybe we can have some great success. People always say that my music is weird and experimental, but I don't think it is: it's quite poppy and happy, and there is a lot more strange music around, which is more successful than me."
2) INFLUENCES: "I try not to be influenced by other musicians, so if I really love something, then sometimes it comes through in my music, but not intentionally. You could hear on my radio show every week I play very eclectic strange music that I like (check Resonance FM website). I'm not much of an expert in the 70s electric jazz you mention, but I like some of this stuff, I quite like Bitches Brew by Miles Davis as well, any electric kind of jazz with fender Rhodes is very nice. Franck Zappa and progressive rock as well, not so much electronic music actually. I find it very boring especially today, repetitive and dull."
3) LYRICS: "In the music I make, the lyrics are just one elements, and it's not more important than the drum programming, or the keyboard solo. It all fits together, and everything is as important as everything else. I don't like to give too much emphasis to one part of the music. Often the lyrics are written the last, and sometimes I have trouble coming out with the lyrics, but I'm pleased with them. If I try to write a song about a situation or an ex-girlfriend, or something like this, then usually I run out of ideas with four lines, so the next verse has to be about something else. Usually, a song is not about one thing, maybe two lines will be one thing and then the situation is satisfied, so the next bit I have to write about something else. And it's not all true either, some of it is just fictionnal."
5) ANTI-HIPSTERISM: "What I really hate about music today is that most people don't really listen to music anymore. It's about the fashion or the clothes, or the style of a band, who they're hanging out with, who they're bitchin about, and it's not the songwriting or the sounds. If I hear a song with a really amazing composition, it makes me feel amazing, and it touches some emotion inside me. I think it's important that musicians never loose sight of that, and once the American Apparel sponsorship deal wears off, then if nothing is left, there is no point in doing music."
This is Jean-Sébastien speaking, resurrected by Eric Charden, and explaining us the secret of his everlasting popularity. Carried away by enthousiasm, he evokes his domestic wife, sunday bunny stew, a scope of fluffy children, and the competition with fellow Vivaldi. This unexpected b side shows very few classical components but a great bass line supporting high visions of mass consumerism from 1972 :
{Refrain, x2} Bach Achetez du J.S. Bach Écoutez du J.S. Bach Consommez du J.S. Bach
Now for your souls, some mighty variations on the Fugue in D minor by british prog band Egg, that will make you go back to groovy church, at least.
JS Bach is also much appreciated by speed metalists, who like to accelerate its scores. Here is a bucolic interpretation of a french bourrée by shredder goddess Yngwie Malmsteen.
See also the headbang performance of The Great Kat, overdriving the Brandenburg Concerto on a six strings guitar. She really does a lot to promote classical repertoire on her website. Knowing that Bach has already been translated into 8beats music, next steps are logically subliminal harp. Classics never say die.
Formed in the early 70's by british composer Gavin Bryars and commonly known as "World's Worst Orchestra". It first included students from the Portsmouth School of Art but anyone could join regardless of their musical skills. The band was a combination of non musical talents and comprised of well known music talents too such as Brian Eno (a close Gavin Bryars collaborator with whom he released experimental music's pillar record, "Discreet Music" in 1976)...
Strangely it became extremely popular & a real music phenomenon till the early 80's. The orchestra recorded several singles, three Lp's (amazing live album recorded at Royal Albert Hall in 1974) and played many shows around the world.
The orchestra ceased playing but rumours are the complete discography is about to be released soon and shows to come...
Very first three music extracts taken from Portsmouth Orchestra's debut record "Plays The Popular Classics" (released in 1973 on Transatlantic Rds).
According to Bernard Maitre (from Le Theatracide), the same orchestra experience was conducted in France at Le Casino De Paris. Including french only members such as humourist & comedian Michel Colucci, amongst others...
For all the many tracks sung by little kids in too cute high pitch voices, this will forever remain my gristly little favourite. Culled from the Miniatures compilation (1980 Cherry Red), this is Neil Innes (Monty Python / Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band)and his then six year old son, doing the most vicious interpretation of Slade's 'Cum On Feel The Noize' I've ever heard -- Girls stab the boys!
More quintessential Englishness, the joys of Sir John Betjeman. Some cad of a producer decided to pair the then Poet Laureate up with arranger Jim Parker in the mid-70s, a move that could've gone so wrong, and ended up gemlike. Lust, approaching old age, and postwar England, wrapped in gloriously appropriate accompaniment and paced like a dream.
Finally, a couple of tracks from Doggerel Bank's 1975 album Mister Skillicorn Dances, another record worked on by Jim Parker, and in a happy circle, released on Charisma Records, who also released the Pythons. Delightful spoken-word, London-centric eccentricity.
