Although you can’t yet preorder the new Bleached album they
have put up their tour schedule. They may be coming to a venue near you. I will
be going to see them! Although, I can’t get tickets quite yet as they have not
gone up for sale yet.
I did finally get the record in for The Late Virginia
Summers LP called Porcelain. It is on a pretty red with black and white swirl.
The record company also sent me a test press of their first 7”. It is nothing
great but it is my first 7” test press and always good to hear new music.
I should receive the new record from Veronica Falls
and the 7” box set from My Chemical Romance – Conventional Weapons next week.
This will mark the end of the 7” series for the album. I will also get the download
for the last two tracks on Tuesday.
You can now preorder the next single, Judge Jury and Executioner, from AMOK, the Atoms For Piece album, from Radioheads' W.A.S.T.E
website. It is a 12” record that will cost you just over 20 bucks.
She & Him will be putting out a new album this spring.
It is going to be called Volume 3 (of course). It is scheduled to be released in
the beginning of May. The strokes will also put out a new album this year
called Comedown Machine at the end of March. Lets hope that it is not as bad as
their last album.
On We Go...
This is the sixth album from Level 42. It was released in
1985. This release marked a transition from their jazz-funk beginnings to the
funky pop they are best known for - a transition which eventually resulted in the
departure of drummer Phil Gould subsequent to the release of their follow up
album Running in the Family. The cover photo is Hafnarfjall, mountain in
West Iceland. The American versions of the
album feature a re-ordered track listing, as well as the substitution of the
tracks "Hot Water" and "The Chant Has Begun" (both of which
had originally appeared on the band's previous album True Colours) for "I Sleep On My Heart" and "Coup
D'Etat." The vinyl U.S.
version of the album featured the single versions of both "Hot Water"
and "The Chant Has Begun," while the full-length album version of
"The Chant Has Begun" did appear on the U.S. CD edition. ("Dream
Crazy," which only appeared on certain European versions of the album did
not appear on any of the North American versions).
All of this information did not apply to me as a kid. If it
didn’t make it into the top 40 I probably didn’t hear the track. There were
three tracks that were released from this album as singles. The first,
Something About You, was the single that I remember as a kid. I was ten when it
was released. It was another one of those songs from the 80s that was so cool
it remained on my radar until I hunted it down just a week or so ago. For me
synth pop done right is time less. This is one of those tracks that I could
listen to over and over. Every one should hear it at least once to make that
decision.
The second single from this album is called Leaving Me Now.
This is a ballad track that talks about someone who is saddened about their
significant other walking out on them. For me it is sappy synth that all the
girls loved and all the boys hated. There is a cool piano solo but that isn’t
enough to save the song. It does have a good chord progression but that is
still not enough to make the song good enough to listen to by itself at least.
The last single from this album is called World Machine. It
is obviously the title track to the album. The song is known for its hard
tribal beat. It makes for a great dance track. It just doesn’t have the catch
that I love from Something About You. It is still a good song though.
Since I have the US version of this album I will
also talk about the two singles that were included on this album that were
released from the previous album. The first of those two is Hot Water. This
song was released as the US
follow-up single to the song Something About You. I don’t think it was released
in the US
prior to this. It has the same great production values as Something About You
but did not seem to chart as well.
The other track included on the US version of World Machine that
was also found on their previous album is called The Chant Has Begun. This
track also has a tribal beat that is very cool. This track has a chant that
happens in the chorus that sings, “The spirit of the people.” It is a good beat
but not really that great of a song.
This is a B-side and remix album put out to support the
album Demon Days. It was released in 2007. This release is similar to the
G-Sides release of remixes that supported their first album, Gorillaz. The Creature
on the cover of the album is called Pazuzu. In Assyrian and Babylonian
mythology, Pazuzu (sometimes Fazuzu or Pazuza) was the king of the demons of the wind, and son of the god
Hanbi. He also represented the southwestern wind, the bearer of storms and
drought.
I have known about this collection since its release but
never got around to getting a copy for my collection. This is dumb to me that I
haven’t done it. I am not sure why I kept ignoring the set. I ended up finally
getting a copy of the deluxe edition a few weeks ago and have enjoyed it since.
None of the tracks were released from the set though. This is different from
the way that G-sides went down. There were actual tracks released as singles
with G-sides. Maybe this is why I did not get it when it was released. I never
heard any of the tracks from the collection. The set is split up into two CDs.
The first is a B-sides disc and the second is a remix disc.
There are a few cool inclusions in this collection. From
Wikipedia, “The song Rockit, like many songs on the album, was intended for
inclusion on the Demon Days
album, though was later pulled from the track listing. People is an early demo
version of DARE, which doesn't contain as many instruments and does not include
Shaun Ryder on the track. The album features a reworking of the song Hong Kong, which was originally featured on the War Child
charity album Help!: A Day in the Life;
this newer version adds a string section and studio effects to the previously
sparse arrangement. The Dirty Harry remix appears in the 2010 remake of the
film The Karate Kid featuring Jaden
Smith. Also, Stop the Dams was featured on a 2011 Google+ commercial.”
My Favorite track from the B-sides collection is the song 68 State. There are no lyrics on the track. It is a B-side to the Feel Good Inc.
single. It is a simple bass line with a good drum beat. What I really like
about the song is the call and response routine that the guitar and keyboards
have in the “verse” parts and the guitar solo on the chorus parts. I also like
the dreamy soundscape on the bridge back to the verse.
The track that I like from the remix disc is called DARE (DFA remix). It may as well say LCD Soundsystem remix because that is basically
what it is. I think that this remix is part of why James Murphy (singer and
instrumentalist for LCD Soundsystem) was asked to be a part of the Do Ya Thing
single. This remix is so good. I really did not like this song at all but this
remix is truly awesome.
This is a strange album from Squarepusher. It is his album
but he also put to gether this band, Shobaleater One. I guess that means that
the album title is actually d’Demonstrator? Squarepusher has put out a couple
of oddball albums reciently, this being one of them. The other was Solo
Electric Bass 1. Both are interesting but not his best work. Here on the
Shobaleader One album he brings together a “group” to make a band. None of the
band members are named though so it could be all in his imagination for all we
know. The album comes off as a Daft Punk inspired RnB album. There are lots of
electrified vocals that sound like slowed down Daft Punk vocals. I like it but
it is almost to little to late. It has already been done by many other artists.
I think that this is why it did not get much press.
A friend of mine keeps asking me, “What is the album by
Squarepusher that has all the heavy metal tracks on it?” I think this is the
album he is talking about. The fast tracks and some of the slower tracks have a
super heavy distorted guitar sound on it. This doesn’t make it a heavy metal
album from Squarepusher by any means though. A lot of the tracks have what most
would consider heavy metal sounding guitar parts though. I don’t see it that
way though because Daft Punk, Ratatat and even Justice use distorted guitar sounds
in their music.
I don’t think that there was a single released from this
album. There are a couple of cool tracks on the album though. Plug Me In and
Laser Rock are the better of the tracks on the album and give a good
introduction to what is contained on the album.
This is a remix album from the group. It was released in
1981 six months before the Mesopotamia EP. On the original vinyl, this six-song
collection contained songs from their first two albums remixed and sequenced to
form two long songs, one on each side. This is not the case with the CD though.
This set of six tracks is basicly their hits from the previous two albums, Wild
Planet and the self titled album remixed for the clubs. I really like the
group. I bought the record just so I could have the versions of the tracks and
I like the fact that they run together as one track on each side. I usually
hate this but since I have the original versions of the tracks already this is
a unique way to collect these versions of the songs.
Erasure – A Little Respect 12” single
This is a single off the groups’ third album called The
Innocents. It was released in the fall of 1988. The song has heavily
synthesized instrumentation and is accentuated by acoustic guitar and the use
of falsetto in the chorus. The lyrics are an empowering plea to a lover to show
compassion and respect. There are four different versions of the track included
on this version of the single along with the B-side called Like Zsa Zsa Zsa
Gabor. This track, A Little Respect, is very nostalgic for me as I was in
middle school and these cool synthpop tracks were played at the school dances.
It also reminds me of the school dance scenes in movies like Sixteen Candles
for the same reason.
That is all I have for now...
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