I’m not really sure who Trouble Andrew is, or why he settled upon such an awkward moniker. There’s some talk of him being a professional Canadian snowboarder, but he also happens to make some pretty decent hipster pop.
“Run Hide” is just that; a loud, poppy snare drum driven, modern love song. “Love song” is perhaps a leap of faith on my part, as the hook “Stay to the mornin’, Darlin” isn’t really in the same vein as some of the classics. I’m not sure Marvin Gay would have gotten away with deceleration of a 12 hour commitment but then again, Marvin was never very hipster.
Mr. Trouble Andrew can’t really sing either to be honest, certainly not confidently, but when has that ever mattered? There’s something nice about hearing a performance less than perfect that’s not been auto tuned or multi-tracked to hell. Everything flows really well, and it’s nice to hear something modern done without the need for massive ego, or annoying as hell vocals.
This is what pop trash music should be; something honest, quick and fun – not the bullshit millions endure from 3OH!3, LMFAO or Ke$ha.
Most people know this record as the track from which that Daft Punk stole that sample. That’s a bit of a shame, because in my opinion it’s a solid little French disco record.
I bought it purely to add to the collection of “uninteresting records with interesting stories” that I seem to be subconsciously accumulating. However it’s such a lovely sounding record that it’s a little more deserving than that.
There’s a solid cover of “My Girl”, and “Fire And Soul” is a four to the floor stomper. The title track “More Spell On You” is by far the best, and is well on par with anything Chic done of a similar vintage. It’s quite a rare record just now, but well worth picking up.
It did, however get me wondering if “Studio De La Grande Armée” where this thing was recorded, was owned by Thomas Bangalter’s father, hence them being able to rip off the sample with no acknowledgement or royalties. Hmm…
Minimalist, abstract, bold and fresh. Made by the design company run by Underworld, Tomato.
John Larkin John Larkin LP
I love this one, probably my favourite cover of all time. Really captures the mood of the music.
Vladislav Delay Anima
Vladislav Delay’s Anima. This blew me away when I first seen it. Beautifully stylized cuts turn a woman’s dress into a the head of a flower. Who wouldn’t buy this?
The Outhere Brothers Don’t Stop
Old school as fuck. No apologies.
Miles Davis Miles
I don’t know why I like this, faux art deco feel, but I do. So much style, and to think this was done in 1958…
Controversy may be too strong of a word for what I’m about to tell you – I think I may have been the only member of the public to take note, but it’s certainly a contrived occurrence, so I’m sticking with it.
Back in 1999-2000 I was knee-deep in the disco/funky house scene. It was all happening in Glasgow then, lots of producers, lots of clubs, lots of shops all full to the brim with cheerful, bouncy house music. Chief among them, in my eyes, was the almost-but-not-quite sub genre of the Bob Marley remix. They were all at it, Phats & Small, Olav Basoski, ATB, MC Lyte… The most famous of which, and probably only one I can reasonably defend, was the original Bob Marley vs. Funkstar De Luxe Sun Is Shining Remix. It was deep, full of flavour, and played everywhere from the radio to the clubs.
The next year Funkstar De Luxe released another one, but it never quite captured the feel of the first.
Anyway, at the height of its success, the Funkstar De Luxe remixes were selling like hotcakes, and were getting a lot of attention from everyone. I was quite friendly with the folks at Edel at the time (the record label that was handling distribution). We exchanged emails and shot the breeze, and I was quite lucky to be given with a box of goodies, all for zilch! But that was back when record labels had physical products.
So by this time I was well invested in this Funkstar De Luxe thing. I was rocking the single daily, talking with Martin Ottesen on MSN… It was a good scene.
One day I’m chillin’ in da crib (sitting in my Mum’s house), listening to internet radio, when what I thought was Bob Marley vs. Funkstar De Luxe comes on. Something immediately sounds wrong. It’s weird, it’s the same track, but it sounds bad. The drums are cheap, the guitar riff is strange, Marley’s vocal is drifting in and out of the wrong key. It was nasty, it sounded like a poor quality demo of what I was expecting, utterly devoid of soul.
Empty. I listened closer, everything was there, the long intro, the filtered chord progression, wa-wa guitar. It was a bit like an episode of the Twilight Zone, where some subtle change shift reality into another dimension.
Being the inquisitive man I am (or due to having a great deal of time on my hands because I lacked a job), I decided to delve a little deeper into this. Bear in mind this was long before Shazam could tell you the name of a track within two bars. I stated my hunt to find what this weird track was. Was it an early demo, or a test piece?
After a few weeks of searching I eventually found something called Sun Is Shining (The Island Mix – Extended Version) on SoulSeek. It took me 36 hours to download it completely. That’s 36 hours for 9 minutes of 128kbps MP3, but I digress. After, what now seems like an unreasonable amount of time, I had the file and it was indeed what I had heard that day. The dead drums, out of key vocal were all present.
I emailed my friends a Edel to see just what the heck was going on with this “Island Mix” stuff. Was it something I’d been sleeping on? I got a very interesting reply.
As it turns out, the people at Edel were not responsible for this record at all. In fact, they were none too pleased about it’s existence at all – they were now in a legal fight with Tuff Gong records over it.
What happened was the Marley family had seen the huge success of the Funkstar De Luxe remix and had issued their own version of it. Problem was, it was the musical equivalent of plagiarism.
Same idea, same execution, different motivation. After a few talks, everything was settled out of court, with Edel distributing their version in Europe and grudgingly, allowing Tuff Gong the American market.
As a consequence of this the Funkstar De Luxe vs. Bob Marley album (which I waited two years for) never really came to fruition, with the Marley family again deciding to do their own venture. I did later manage to source a version of this, I’ll write about it one day. Actually, maybe someone at Edel sent me it… I’m a little foggy there.
It was a weird state of affairs, I’ve never heard of anything like this happen before or since. It really is a bit of an oddity. I’ve included two snippets of each mix, just so you can compare them yourselves.
I find it really interesting to hear the difference a bit of soul makes. Neither of them are exactly works of art, but I think you can instantly hear what one was rushed out just for monetary gains, and what was a work of passion and pleasure.
Bob Marley vs. Funkstar De Luxe – Sun Is Shining (Rainbow Mix) [snippet]
Bob Marley – Sun Is Shining (The Island Mix – Extended Version) [snippet]
I’ve been a big fan of Bowie since I was knee-high to a grasshopper – I was raised on the original 12″ gatefold UK pressing of most of his albums. One thing that’s always bothered me is how the CD transfers of most of his early work sound abysmal. They suffer from overly happy EQing, poor compression work, bad de-noising… Really, I could go on. The Best Bowie Masters are a difficult thing to come by now.
All of this genuinely makes some of my favourite music difficult to listen to. I find myself becoming distracted by sharp, digital cymbals, or being fatigued by totally flat dynamics. It’s a shame, but I’ve found a partial solution.
Here’s a little story to start you off with, to show you how little we’ve progressed in a quarter of a decade. In the early 80’s, RCA issued a lot of Bowie’s albums on CD. These were met with mixed reviews at the time, a lot of people saying that they were ‘just’ transfers of the original masters used for the vinyls. I suppose people were hoping for a more noticeable jump in quality after their investment in a £500 CD player.
Nowadays, people are clamoring for the original RCA CD releases, because they seem to be the only ones released that haven’t been massacred by incompetent studio engineers, desperately trying to justify their new toys. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few decent quality releases by Ryko (the AU20 Gold releases), but for me, the RCAs really hit the spot.
The Best Bowie Masters
I’ve listened to almost all the releases available now, and compiled a list of the best (read: closest in sound to the master tapes). This took me a long time to compile and critically compare. I’ve wasted my life, so you don’t have to.
Anyway here we go.
Space Oddity – RCA PCD1-4813
The Man Who Sold The World – RCA PCD1-4816
Hunky Dory – RCA PD 84623
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – RCA PCD1-4702 / SACD
Aladdin Sane – RCA PCD1-4852
Pin Ups – RCA PCD1-0291
Diamond Dogs – RCA PCD1-0576
Young Americans – Ryko RCD 80140 *not heard any RCA releases of this
Station To Station – RCA PD81327
“Heroes” – RCA PCD1-2522
Low – RCA PD83856
Lodger – RCA PD84234
Scary Monsters – RCA PD83647
Let’s Dance – EMI 1983 CD release
Tonight – SACD
Never Let Me Down – EMI CDP 7 46677 2
Black Tie White Noise – Original CD release
1. Outside – Original CD release
Earthling – Original CD release
Hours… – Original CD release
Heathen – SACD
Reality – SACD
Everything on this list sounds pretty good until “Earthling”. It would seem that after “1. Outside”, sound quality takes a massive dip in favour of high volume modern sound. The latest three albums are, in my opinion, ruined by terrible EQ and massive amounts of brick wall compression. We’re talking dynamics of about 5dB here… The SACD releases give you 1-2dB extra head room, but even they are still fucked. Also, if anyone cares, the SACDs are still only 22.05Khz, and probably exactly the same master as the CDs, but with marginally less compression on the final output.
I would take this list with a grain of salt, as I really prefer a warm, thick sound to the bright shimmering digitalness we get today. Before you go hunting down these CDs, remember that I much prefer the Teo Macero version of Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” to the beautifully open and separated remasters. And mono is the only way in which a person should listen to “Kind Of Blue”, even if it is at the wrong speed. I think that’s a pretty good anchor to base my opinion on.
Anyway, this is my ultimate list, and it’s what my Bowie collection is now, and probably always will be. It’s also probably the greatest collection of art ever produced by a single human being – if indeed, he is one.
Tyler is a hipster faggot, we all know that. He’s loud, arrogant, and constantly in need of attention. Hopsin on the other hand, merely panders to the hipster faggots – which in my opinion is far worse of a crime.
It appears to me that Hopsin’s verses are tailored to appeal to us white-kid hipsters of the 90’s, with lines like “Blow it before you put it in like a Nintendo cartridge” or the skin crawling-ly ugly reference to the Konami code. Desperation for success leaks out of every verse, and you’re forced to listen to what sound like old Eminem verses littered with pop culture references.
Hopsin suffers chronically from what I like to call Jurassic 5 Syndrome – he’s yet another rapper left shouting with no real message, no real cause, and nothing to say. Every track is about one of two things: 1) How ‘nice’ he is. 2) How he’s an underrated crazy rapper.
Empty messages falling upon deaf ears.
I’ve never seen an MC try so hard in my life. Every track is a stream of overly calculated, inspiration free lyrics that fall flat. Yes, he can deliver them live, but when they’re this bland, is that really much of a compliment?
To me, Hopsin will forever be a YouTube rapper. He has legions of fans, no of whom want to critically listen to his music, nor make any contribution to it. If YouTube views were contributory to talent, then Hopsin would be one of the best MCs the world has ever seen. Sadly, they are not.
The Odd Future crew have been really irking me of late. The constant overexposure is really wearing thin on my end (I mean they’ve got a a TV show now? Honestly?!). I cannot escape their music, it’s everywhere on the internet. Trendy trash-hop, with a pinch of emo-scene skater-vibe. God, it’s so hip it’s sickening – just about anyone looking to get their ‘cool card’ stamped drops Tyler’s name.
My biggest problem though, is I happen to love it. Almost every track they’ve released is interesting in some aspect. From the whole Earl Sweatshirt saga, to Tyler becoming the most famous man to ever walk the earth – I’ve never seen anyone blow up so much. So why am I writing this? I don’t really know.
I’ve been listening to ‘Oldie’ for the past few days (as well as ‘Earl’ daily since it’s release), and I can’t escape it’s simplistic greatness. Every verse, all nine of them, is exciting, smooth, and delivered with precision. Earl Sweatshirt’s first OFWGKTA verse since his return from the religious nut-house is stunning.
For contrast here's a pair of lips.
Swallowin' syrup, settin' fire to sheriff's whips,
(Whoops, whoops) fuckin' All-American terrorist,
Crushin' rapper larynx to feed 'em a fuckin' carrot stick.
And me? I just spent a year Ferrisin'.
Lost a little sanity to show you what hysterics is.
Spit to the lips meet the bottom of a barrel,
so that sterile piss flow remind these niggas where embarrassed is.
Then I seen the impromptu video they shot for it. What a beautiful thing it is. There’s magic in those ten minutes of tape. Magic that a million dollar budget couldn’t even come close to.
Look, I know hip-hop is no longer relevant, and to be brutally honest I don’t know what will fill it’s place in our culture, but until something does, we have the beautifully self-aware OFWGKTA.
I like the idea of the club, of techno music, all that. But mostly only in theory. In practice most of it falls too cheap on me. I like the creative thinking behind it, and the ideas and visions it gives me, but how it’s executed today in this über-commercial and very homogenous way totally kills me. I don’t find myself there happy or inspired, on the contrary I find myself unhappy and just stunned by the lack of ideas and freedom.
There were moments in the late 90s, beginning of 2000s when there was really nice stuff coming out for a moment, before the Resident Advisor kind of electronic music dominance started, before electronic music became fashionable in the US. Labels like Chain Reaction, Richie Hawtin’s Concept series, Mike Ink/Studio1, Brinkmann, all this stuff I thought were really showing some light there which I though was very interesting. Besides Ableton live and everyone wanting to make music that sounds the same as the next guy’s, I don’t know what happened and why it all died and became this homogenous pool of marketable music but I find it very depressing. It’s depressing because I seem to not understand the process while most of the planet seems to enjoy the current “club” developments. And I don’t particularly enjoy this position. That’s why i feel so much disconnected from that scene and the music in general.
Really interesting interview, a lot of sense being spoken. Read the rest of it here.
Isn’t it about time we got a new Bowie album? Not counting the leak of ‘Toy’ last year, it’s slowly creeping up to a decade since the man has released new material.
Searching anywhere on the internet throws up a huge amount of speculation, ranging from ‘he’s retiring’ to ‘he’s already back recording’. All without sources or solid fact. I don’t think a man of Bowie’s talents and mindset will every truly retire, but by the same token, where’s he been the past ten years? Does it really take that long to raise a family?
Listening to ‘Station To Station’ on continuous loop this evening fills me with regret that I was not old enough to appreciate this release when it was new. It’s an under appreciated gem, dense with thought and claustrophobia. A bizarre mix of rockstar cocaine and German monotony.
In fact, now that I think about it, I’ve never really been mature enough to understand the grandeur of a new Bowie album. With traditional music labels going through major turbulence (I prey they’re fucked), I’m not sure how something like this would be handled. I don’t see Bowie as a ‘download only’ type. I sincerely hope I’ve not missed my chance to savour a new album, one untainted by nostalgia or critical perception.
If I had to place a bet, I’d wager that we’ll hear a new album at the end of this year, or at the very least have concrete confirmation of one. But I keep my fingers crossed.
Twenty nine years ago my grandfather was a session drummer, living in Canada. Predominantly live jazz and big band, he was often brought into record various tracks for other studio projects, this being one of those recordings.
Yvonne Robertson was a Scottish writer, dedicating these works to the memory of her husband. I hope you all enjoy this record as a break from the norm, and a unique record to add to your collection. A nice reminder of what music once was.
WARNING.
NOT TECHNO. CONTAINS BAG PIPES.
END WARNING.
