Tuesday Beats - M83 - "Saturdays = Youth"

Upfront I should admit I have had this album only 4 days, so this might be initial enthusiasm talking, but so far I really really like it. I have been aware of M83 as a band that does atmospheric, ambient tracks (like Lower Your Eyes To Die With The Sun which I encountered on Adam Freeland's contribution to the Back to Mine series (which I also recommend)). Now there's plenty of atmospheric noodling on "Saturdays = Youth" but he combines it with a real 80s vibe on this album, and the kind of 80s music I liked. I hear echoes of OMD, Dave Stewart and the Eurythmics, and so on. Anyway check out Graveyard Girl which I quite like.

More Politics coming.

Tuesday Beats

Actually this isn't a normal beats column because I am pointing you to a website and a Podcast. It's good! The website is Resident Advisor, and it's an Electronica/Dance website. The podcast is their regular podcast, in which a rotating string of DJs comes in and mixes a mix for them. The latest is Todd Terje, and it's great. I mean this is a solid mix of like nu-disco, I guess I'd call it. Starts with MIA doing "Paper Planes" and ends with one of the few Bruce Springsteen Tracks I like --> I'm on Fire. So check it out. You can get the Podcast off of I-Tunes, just go to the Podcast section and search for Resident Advisor. There's a whole slew of them, many quite good, but this one I really liked.

Friday Beats - David Holmes - "Come Get It I Got It"

In 15 Years, the High School and college students who are experimenting with LSD will be running many of our institutions and guiding public policy. Remember, the college students who are using LSD and Marijuana today do not comprise a criminal class. They are not drug addicts trying to escape. They are your best educated, your most creative and your most courageous young people. And, like it or not, they are going to build you a new civilization.

This is a mix album, so David Holmes didn't write or perform all the tracks on this one. He was setting up his new band, the Free Association, and so showcased their work on a lot of tracks; largely instrumental works with sampled lines or dialog. The whole mix feels like a trip back to the dirty sixties and the funky seventies. The spirit of the age of Aquarius sticks through these tracks, even as they portray the national degradation rites of the 1970s. They are dirty and glorious at the same time. Stand out tracks include "Sugarman" by Sixto Rodriguez, "Tom Cat" by Muddy Waters, "Sweet Songs" by the Jujus, and "Ode a L'Affaire" by Andre Perry.

What makes this mix strong in my mind is the variety within consistency. The songs span the range of tempos and moods, but they all seem to come from the same time and place.

Anyway here's a fan created video to "Sugarman" by Sixto Rodriguez.

Friday Beats - Lemon Jelly, "Lost Horizons"

Lemon Jelly is a laid back down tempo electronica group, known for their lush beats and attention to packaging detail. They put out three readily available CDs: Lemonjelly.ky, Lost Horizons and '64-'95. The first is a collection of their first three EPs, and has some great tracks on it. The third is a halfway successful concept album, that doesn't work as well as it should. They have sense broken up to pursue individual interests so it appears that "Lost Horizons" will stand as the pinnacle of their art.

And what a pinnacle it is. It's 8 fairly longish songs and they are all quite good with several being brilliant. It starts with the languid "Elements" but then moves into the one two tracks of "Space Walk" and "Ramblin' Man." It's cliche to suggest that a piece of music can take you on a voyage but both these tracks accomplish that. Return to Patagonia moves along similarly, although it's a more atmospheric, dark journey.

Then comes the funny but fun track "Nice Weather for Ducks" (which has an awesome video, just not quite as awesome as the one for "Space Walk").

"Experiment No. 6" is a little too clausterphobic for me to enjoy, but it's certainly not a bad track. And "Closer" and "The Curse of Ka'Zar" are both peaceful flowing songs that are just nice.

Here's the video for "Space Walk," it's actually a really good one.

Friday Beats - Cut Copy - Fabriclive 29

So let's do the Fabric and Fabriclive series. These are Mix CDs by a variety of DJs attached to the Fabric nightclub in London (I believe). I own ten of them. Of the Fabric series, I own the discs done by John Digweed, Ralph Lawson, Tiefswarz, and Baby Mammoth, Biege, and Solid Doctor, and on the Fabriclive side I own discs by The Freestylers, Diplo, The Herbalizer, Cut Copy, Stanton Warrios, Krafty Kuts, and James Murphy and Pat Mahoney. They are all quality mixes (with one exception), and I enjoy them all (with degrees of enjoyment).

The one I don't like is Stanton Warriors contribution to the collection; I'm just not on that wavelength, and I thought the tracks all kind of blended together.

The Ralph Lawson, Tiefswarz and John Digweed contributions are all solid mixes - they sound very trance to me, but they aren't (musical classification is not my strongest suit). They do have that sort of soaring and cold feel to them, though. Enjoyable as background music mostly.

Diplo is the one I bought most recently, and it has some great stuff on it; it's a very populist mix, although some of the liberties taken with the tracks might annoy people. I enjoy it mostly though.

The Freestylers remix is like big beat dub. It gets my head bobbing along pretty quickly; and it's just kind of fun. That said, it has a template and it sticks to it pretty solidly. There are some standout tracks, but a lot of it sounds the same.

Baby Mammoth, Biege, and Solid Doctor provide a nu jazz effort to me, kind of house and kind of jazz. A lot of fun; it tends to flow beautifully in the background, imposing itself out every so often.

James Murphy and Pat Mahoney is a recent addition to my collection, and I'm not completely on it's wavelength yet. It's a disco mix, and a very good disco mix. But if you aren't in the mood for some old school disco, this mix might not come through as great as you would like.

The Herbalizer's contribution is hip-hop, and it's very good at that. Several of these mixes go into a genre and just explore it, and the Herbalizer is a good guide for this style of music. And it contains Apathy's "It Takes a Seven Nation Army to Hold Us Back" which is great.

Kraft Kuts almost got top billing; it starts amazingly. The first 7 or so track really get me moving; it's a big beat mix and just sounds excellent. Unfortunately it flags a little in the middle before wrapping up with an amazing ending. I particularly like the mash up of Freestylers In Love With You with Dynamite MC's There they Go.

Cut Copy gets the number one slot because this mix holds it's own all the way though. It's an electro mix, focusing on dance beats paired with guitars; it works very well, and the inclusion of lyrics holds my attention more so than strictly musical works. Standout tracks include Severed Heads "Dead Eyes Open" and New Young Pony Club's "Get Lucky." This video is weird but the song is awesome so I'm including it.



Anyway Fabric has a website, naturally. Most record stores with o.k. electronica sections will have some of their mixes - I should note they come in really cool metal cases that are dangerous to open while driving.

These Beats were made for Walking

Well this is a fine kettle of fish. I got an I-Pod for Christmas and now it turns out that ripping copies of CDs I have legally purchased for personal use might be illegal. This is based on a story from the Washington Post.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation." The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings. "I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

Part of me wonders if this story is being written to be a bit more alarming than it actually is; was this Howell character sharing his music files? Or was he simply possessing them?

This is an interesting question, because I'm ripping a CD now.

I will note that looking over the RIAA website, there are some unusual caveats.

If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you’re stealing. You’re breaking the law, and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages.

Then under a heading Easy Ways to Break the Law (which is nice, since I would hate to have to go out of my way to break the law), there's this interesting phrase, italics mine.

You make an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you bought expressly permits you to do so. But then you put your MP3 copy on the Internet, using a file-sharing network, so that millions of other people can download it.

I am tempted to go through my CDs and see how many expressly permit me to rip it. I would be surprised if many do. Finally there's this bit.

Beyond that, there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns . . .

Interesting.

Say, would record companies make more money or less money if they required you to both buy the physical product (CD) and the digital product (from I-Tunes) for example? Seems like they would make more money.

Anyway I don't know if this is posturing or something more. I suppose we'll find out.

This story got written in the place of my Friday Beats year wrap up praising The Chemical Brothers "We Are the Night." It's a kick ass album; listen to it.

This isn't the best song on the album; but it is a great video.



Enjoy.

Friday Beats - Various Artists, "I'm Not There"

I think I would recommend the movie over the soundtrack, but seeing the movie might well make you want to get the soundtrack. For the most part (I'd say 65-70%) the movie uses the original Bob Dylan versions of these songs. The exceptions are really quite striking though, including Jim Jones and Calexico's version of "Going to Acapulco" played over a small western town funeral (a town where everybody celebrates Halloween all the time and also one in which the zoo animals have just been set free). Or the laid back cover of Tombstone Blues by Richie Havens (in the movie it incorporates Marcus Carl Franklin, and he acquits himself well, but the album version is better).

But most of the sound track is covers of Bob Dylan Songs that didn't appear in the movie. Cover albums are a mixed bag by their very nature, but this one connects more often than it misses, and there are at a dozen really great tracks here. Including Eddie Vedder and the Million Dollar Bashers version of "All Along the Watchtower," the aforementioned "Going to Acapulco" and "Tombstone Blues," "Fourth Time Around" by Yo La Tengo, "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" by Willie Nelson, "Just like a Woman" by Charlotte Gainsbourg (who also acts in the movie), "Wicked Messenger" by The Black Keyes, and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" by Ramblin' Jack Elliot. It's just a great album.

Yeah there are some clunkers, but even the clunkers aren't hideous misfires, just dull compared to the more lively tracks. So if you like Dylan's music at all, check it out.

Here is a live version of "Going to Acapulco." The sound quality isn't great, but it's still pretty good.

Friday Beats - LCD Soundsystem, "Sounds of Silver"

This is sort of my best of the year feature. Not top ten, because I doubt I'll get that far, but just a few albums I think were really good this year. Add to this list the Stars "In Our Bedroom After the War," which I covered earlier. Great album.

Anyway this was a kick ass dance record. LCD Soundsystem's first album was brilliant, but this is better - the songs are tighter and the flow is better. There's not a clunker among them and there are several high points - the Thrash of "North American Scum" and the flowing joy of "All My Friends." And it's an album; the parts are great and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

And it has one of the bests lyrics of the year. "Sound of silver talk to me / makes you want to feel like a teenager / until you remember the feelings of / a real life emotion of teenager / then you think again" Yep.

Here's the video to All My Friends



Be back later - hopefully with more adjectives.

Friday Beats - The Beautiful South, "Blue is the Colour"

This is kind of a different one, because Beautiful South aren't as well known stateside. I love them, but they aren't big hit-makers. So while I am going to celebrate "Blue is the Colour" I'd also like to say that all of their albums are good - particularly "Quench," "0898" and "Miaow." You wouldn't be amiss grabbing "Gold" their greatest hits collection - looks like it grabs a lot of great tracks.

And he's a world-wide traveller
he's not like me or you
But he comes in mighty regular
for one who's passing through

Anyway, "Blue is the Colour" was the Beautiful South's second opportunity to grab a United States audience. They had released three albums ("Welcome to the Beautiful South," "Choke," "0898") that had been released in both the UK and the US. They hadn't gone well, so their fourth "Miaow" was not released Stateside. Then came "Carry on Up the Charts," a greatest hits collection, which became the most popular CD ever in the UK. So they got a second chance to win over the United States.

Imagine my wish for a future that cannot hold my wish

"Blue is the Colour" starts out "Don't Marry Her (Fuck Me) a sing I find trite, but it immediately picks up. "Mirror," "The Sound of North America," "Have Fun," "Liars Bar," "Rotterdam or Anywhere," "One God," "Alone" all have great tunes and the wry intelligent lyrics I have come to expect from this band.

The sound of North America
isn't Christians quietly praying
It's the sound of shuffling feet
that don't know where they're going

It's not a happy album, all told. The world is made up off plastic happy people (see "One God" and "Rotterdam") and those who think and see the world as it is, but who are just as trapped in it. Anyway you look at it the world is a pretty cold place. This is the Beautiful South's blues album, and while there is always a dark track or two, ("Woman in the Wall" for example), they balance it with a few more upbeat tracks.

Have fun
And if you can't have fun
Have someone else's fun
'Cause someone sure had mine
They came in
now they're having a whale of a time

Here's a video for "Liar's Bar" but it's not one from the band. It's fan creation, but it's not bad. Anyway check out the Beautiful South.

Friday Beats - Dave Stewart and the Spiritual Cowboys

Well their first album. Which they called "Dave Stewart and the Spiritual Cowboys." Just seems too long to type out, you know?

"You might think that He's a Hero / but like Nixon, Mao or Nero / all you know is that they came, then they went."

Anyway Dave Stewart was the musical half of Eurythmics. Or maybe musician half? His voice shows up on a scant few Eurythmics tracks, but mostly Annie Lennox sings (because she's a much stronger presence and, let's face it, an unearthly singer. Dave Stewart provides the blips and bleeps (early on) and plays guitar and writes the tunes (for the most part).

"Jukebox, electric, shining in your face / arms like a gorilla playing a stumbling bass"

This was his first, and, to my knowledge, best solo album. It is, as the name suggests, steeped in spiritual imagery, but it's a pretty worldly spirituality. It's also pretty varied musically. From more mellow tracks like "Heaven and Earth" and "This Little Town" to more aggressive tracks like "On Fire" and "Party Town"

"He said I'm finished with acting / makes you feel like Jesus or John Wayne."

The Singles were "Love Shines" and "Jack Talking," both of which are good enough, but work better on the album than by themselves. Distributors wildly over purchased this album, so for a time it was very very easy to get used. That said, I really like it, and think it's worth paying full price for (but if you get it used, may as well).

"It's funny how money can make you deaf as well as blind."

Anyway if you see it in the shops, pick it up. That's not likely unfortunately, but you never know.



Due to pretty horrible car troubles, I didn't post my Republican Candidate Reviews yesterday - will do it tomorrow. Also will be doing three Friday Beat columns today to catch up a little.

Friday Beats - The Psychedelic Furs, "Talk Talk Talk"

she turns her self round and
she smiles and she says
this is it
that's the end of the joke

I'd like to be able to say that I was impressed with this album the first time I heard it. That I realized how great it was. That I understood songs like Mr. Jones and Pretty in Pink. But the truth was I thought it was a step down from the first album of theirs I'd heard, Mirror Moves.

movie stars and ads
and radio define romance

Mirror Moves was slicker and had started incorporating the more technological effects that would ruin their next album (Midnight to Midnight). Coming from a kid who was a big fan of Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and the clean emo of the Smiths, well, I didn't know what to make of the ragged rough sounds found on Talk Talk Talk. I think I recognized Pretty in Pink as a brilliant song, but beyond that my brain just didn't work properly.

if you believe that anyone
like me within a song
is outside it all
then you are all so wrong

Plus of course I associated rock with metal and metal with getting beaten up. Unfair I know. I could tell that the Furs weren't that kind of rock band, but still couldn't quite get into them. I listened to them from time to time, but mostly Mirror Moves (which is still quite a good album) It wasn't until college when I had matured enough and become pretentious that I started really understanding the Furs. Not that you have to be pretentious to appreciate a song like "Into you like a Train" or "I Wanna Sleep With You."

the sound of people getting drunk
a ceiling and a sky
a bank that's full of promises
a telephone that lies

I guess I'd matured a bit. I guess I'd figured a few things out. But my second dance with the furs I figured them out; got them in a way I hadn't before. When Columbia put out a reissue of this album (along with the eponymously named debut and Forever Now), I snapped it up. It includes She is Mine, a song I had always adored, and alternate versions of Mr. Jones, So Run Down and All of this and Nothing (later the name of one of their best ofs.

met this girl and called her ma
i called her everything
i called her fab and mrs. fish
i didn't get her name

Anyway the Psychedelic Furs came. And they are still worth giving a listen too.

Friday Beats - The Byrds "Younger than Yesterday"

"Good and Bad I define these terms, quite clear, no doubt, somehow"

This weeks pick is an oldie (obviously) but definitely worth a listen. In 1967 the first lineup of the Byrds was on it's last legs (and would fall apart during the making of their next album), but there was little sign of it in the music which is tight.

"Just get an electric guitar and take some time and learn how to play."

The singles, "So You Want to be a Rock'n'Roll Star" and "My Back Pages" are both brilliant. The former is propolsive and irreverent; the latter is more thoughtful. Other great tunes include the dream like "Renaissance Fair," the mournful "Everybody's Been Burned" and the flowing "Thoughts and Words."

"Loveliness to gaze upon / To feel your magic pulling me away"

It does have a clunker or two - particularly Crosbys tunelessly earnest "Mind Gardens." But for the most part even the secondary tracks are enjoyable. I should also note that the Columbia Reissue of this album adds 6 additional tracks, including the incredible "It Happens Each Day" also by Crosby (why couldn't he put that on the album and regulate "Mind Gardens" to a B-Side?). It also has the ironic "Don't Make Waves" and the beautiful "Lady Friend."

"Here it comes again, the night is going to fall"

Anyway if you haven't heard this album and are looking for some top-notch folk rock, check it out.

Friday Beats - Sasha - "Involver"

I love a good mix CD. For those of you who don't know, a Mix CD is when a DJ takes about 10 to 20 songs and mixes them into a continuous mix, as he or she might do on the dance floor (in fact many of the best Mix CDs have connections to a specific club, like the Fabric and Fabriclive series). The attempt is to recreate what one does on the dance floor with a few caveats. You only get between 70-80 minutes on a CD and you get 3 or 4 hours on a dance floor, so naturally you have to compress it (a few CD series use Double CDs, such as the Global Underground. Most of Paul Oakenfold's Mixs are also Double disks, which I feel adds very little).

Sasha's Involver is a somewhat different beast than the normal Mix CD. He only has 10 tracks, and each of them he remixed heavily before bringing into this mix. I only have familiarity with a few tracks here away from this mix, but you can certainly hear the difference on those tracks. In general he seems to have smoothed them out, taken them down to a sound closer to his roots in Trance. This isn't really a trance mix, per se (and honestly I'm not an expert on genre differentation anyway), but there is a bit of the smoothness, the coolness I associate with Trance.

What I love about this mix is how it flows in and out. There are several bits, particularly the opening track (Grand National's "Talk Amongst Yourselves" and UNKLES ("What Are You To Me") where the mix pushes itself in the foreground and I hum along. But for much of the mix it sits comfortably in the background, grooving up my mind but not forcing itself on me. It's a mix I'm very comfortable playing with friends around, because it will just flow along, adding enjoyment with out derailing conversations.

But then another wave flows up and you realize you are bobbing your head to it again.

It's hard to find a video for a Mix CD as you might imagine, but here is a video using one of the Remixes of songs on this album (Petter's "These Days") - called Symphony for the Stoned. It's a collection of pictures set to trance music.



Anyway well worth seeking out.

Friday Beats - The Stars "In Our Bedroom After the War"

As a new feature for this website, I am going to do a record Review once a week. These will largely be positive reviews, there's more than enough good music out there without wasting time telling you about music I don't like.

I came to this album in a weird way. I liked their last album ("Set Yourself on Fire") well enough but thought it was more of an interesting misstep rather than a good album on it's own. It had some great songs of course. "Soft Revolution" and "Your Ex-Lover is Dead." So I was planning on buying the album, but wasn't exactly expecting it to be incredible. Just another album of emo-rock I could put in when I got in the mood. On Monday I had the day off and a coupon for Borders, so I picked it up (along with Prodigy's Greatest Hits collection, something you'd think I'd have bought a long time ago). That night I had a friend over and he noted that he'd heard the "In Our Bedroom After the War" and wasn't impressed. I hadn't listened to it yet at that point (although I had watched the DVD). So when I listened to it, it already had two strikes against it.

Fortunately the lead off track (after the introductory "The Beginning After the End") is The Night Starts Here which is probably the best song The Stars have ever done. It's just a beautiful flowing song the sets the tone for something to happen. It's been used in a promo for the NBC show "Friday Night Lights" (given the way the lyrics sync up with the shots on screen and the general professionalism, I have a hard time believing this isn't an official NBC Promo. I could be wrong, and if I am, kudos to whoever did it).



That is the best song on the album, but it's far from the only great one. "Take Me to the Riot" is a great song and rocks out as much as Stars are allowed to. "The Ghost of Genova Heights" is creepy with a bit of a falsetto chorus (reminded me a bit of Jamouriqoui). "Window Bird" is a lovely showcase for Amy Milan. "Personal" has both Even Cranly and Milan singing and is a somewhat sad song, as it relates a sketchy attempt to connect via Personals and failing to do so.

Finally the ending. "Today Will be Better I Swear" and "In Our Bedroom After the War" are two gorgeous songs and ultimately hopeful. It's interesting to note that the last album which had the title "Set Yourself on Fire" struck me as a much more resigned album. This one, after the fire has burnt out, perhaps, shows the Stars finding there's still a lot to love that hasn't been burnt by the fires of the 21st century.

Anyway if nothing else seek out "The Night Starts Here." Brilliant song.