Saturday, February 1, 2014

Vol. 5 Episode 2



There is an EP of unreleased Nine Inch Nails remixes scheduled for release next week. The music is from The Downward Spiral era. One of the tracks is the remix of Closer that was used in the credits for the movie Seven.

here we go...

With the new album coming out from Broken Bells, I decided to look into what else they had put out for the first album. I found this single in that search. I had already had the single as a free download and had the album that the song came from on CD but was interested in getting the B side as it was unique to the 7” record. There is an insert in the sleeve for a free download of the two tracks but there was a time limit to getting that download. I typed in the link on the sheet and found that the page didn’t exist any longer. This was the lead single for the self titled album. The single was released in late 2009. For what ever reason, it was listed in the UK as a limited pressing of 500. I am not aware of that limitation here in the US. On some copies there was a blue promo sticker that listed the band name and the two members of the band, James Mercer and Danger Mouse, and the original release date of the first album.

The A side of the record is for The High Road. The song is a moderate rocker. The song has a very solid drum beat that has become Danger Mouses’ signature style. I would love to emulate his style in my own music. It is just so simple but complex at the same time.

The B side of the record is called An Easy Life(Instrumental). This is a song that I recognize because the original song is on the Meyrin Fields EP. This is interesting to me because the EP was released well after the self titled album was released. This produces sort of a quandary for me because if the instrumental version was released before the EP then should I have heard this version first and what type of a spin would that have put on me as to how I would have received the EP. Either way it is a wash I guess because I have heard the songs in the order that I heard them and cant stop it now.


 This is the first release from Violens. It is also their first EP. It was released in 2009 on CD and limited to 1000 copies. It is only four tracks long. This is a piece that works tward filling out my collection of music from the group. I found out about the group through the release of their second album, True, when it was released on Slumberland Records. I liked what they put out so much that I bought the supporting singles for True and vowed that I would get more music from them in the future. This EP is the first piece that I have gotten from before the release of True.

The first song is called Already Over. It start off with acoustic guitar and drums. The song sounds more like Eggstone than anything off of True. I like this track a lot because I like Eggstone so much and they haven’t put anything out in over ten years. Although they [Eggstone] did produce a song for April March on the album Triggers.

The second track is called Spectator & Pupil. This track continues with the sound of Eggstone. The tracks here are not quite as well produced as the Eggstone music but still gives me the warm feeling that Eggstone did.

The third track is called Doom. This is actually a very playful track and surprises me because of the name of the track. This track still follows in that Eggstone styled sound that I like a lot. It almost digs down into The Monkeys style of playful fun music.

The last track is called Violent Sensation Descends. This track has an eerie note about it and gives a slight inkling about where the band would be going in the future. It still retains elements of the Eggstone sound that I like from this EP though.


This is the third album from The Prodigy. It was released in 1997. They are an electronic rock group and broke through to mainstream with the release of this album and support of its singles. There was some controversy with the third single regarding the title and chorus of the song. The album is in the list of albums that comprise the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. I am not sure where it lies in that list but it is there.

The first single from the album is called Firestarter. This was the groups first number one single. The title and lyrics were subject of controversy in the UK because of their violent nature. The music video further boosted these controversies. The song was all over the radio I remember. I thought it was cool but didn’t quite appeal to me. I tried to stay away from music that was controversial just to be controversial, so I left it be until just reciently.

The second single from the album is called Breathe. This song had my interest more so than either of the other two singles. It had more weight on the music than on the vocals and that was why I was more interested in this track. It was difficult to understand what the lead singer was saying so it became more of an instrument in my head. The vocals are very distorted in an analog way and the distortion on the guitar sounded very cool next to the vocals. The bass sounds like a synth keyboard with its own kind of distortion on it. All this distortion just seems to work well together.

The last single released from the album is called Smack MyBitch Up.  From Wikipedia, “The lyrics "Change my pitch up / Smack my bitch up" are repeated through the whole song. The band defended the song, saying that the lyrics were being misinterpreted as misogynistic and the song actually meant "...doing anything intensely..." The song led to a publicized disagreement at the 1998 Reading festival after the Beastie Boys asked the group not to play the track. The vocals are sampled and altered from the Ultramagnetic MCs song "Give the Drummer Some". The original lyrics, performed by rapper Kool Keith, are: "Switch up change my pitch up" / "Smack my bitch up, like a pimp,...".”

This is a great electronic album that should be heard as it is incredibly interesting although heavily electronic.

That is all I have for this week...

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