Ugh. Every now and again a show ends up being an unmitigated disaster for no readily apparent reason. The brain fails in basic cogent thought and even when there is a flicker of something approaching intelligent air-filler the lip-enhanced hole in the middle of my face fails to express this appropriately and it just comes out as bibblebibblebibblebibblebibblebibblebibble.
Sadly, this week’s Selection Box was one such show. I can only apologise. Oh, and boil my neck in pot of heated fat as a form of self-flaggelation.
Thankfully there was the usual helping of delicious musical morcels to punctuate the flailing jibbering idiot, including a Thanking Your Kind Indulgence from Kraftwerk – who completed their residency at Tate Modern this week. What better antidote to an incoherent disc jockey could there be than a 7-minute display of minimalist German efficiency.
Here be the full playlist. I’m off to cry big wet tears until next week’s show.
In this week’s show, the new music included Veronica Falls:
…Jamie Lidell:
…and Lycoriscoris:
Feel free to listen back to the show. This is what you would hear:
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – ‘We The Common’ (single) (Ribbon)
Ty Segall – ‘Would you Be My Love’ (single) (Drag City)
Dobie – ‘Stan Lee Is A Hero Of Mine’ (LP – We Will Not Harm You) (Big Dada)
Caitlin Rose – ‘Only A Clown’ (single)
David Fenech – ‘Grand Huit’ (LP – Grand Huit) (Gagarin)
Bleached – ‘Next Stop’ (single)
RdeÄa Raketa – ‘andere Menschen (part 1)’ (LP – Wir weden) (Godrec)
Smashing Pumpkins – ‘Sweet Sweet’ (LP – Siamese Dream) (Virgin) (this week’s Brief Candle, nominated by David Craig)
Veronica Falls – ‘Teenage’ (LP – Waiting For Something To Happen) (Bella Union)
Pulled Apart By Horses – ‘Heartsink’ (split single with Blood Red Shoes)
Jamie Lidell – ‘You Naked’ (single) (Warp)
PVT – ‘Nghtfall’ (LP – Homosapien) (Felte)
Frightened Rabbit – ‘Escape Route’ (LP – Pedestrian Verse) (Atlantic)
Major Lance – ‘Investigate’ (CD – The Northern Soul Story Vol.2: The Golden Torch) (Sony BMG)
Lycoriscoris – ‘Oar’ (LP – From Beyond The Horizon) (Moph)
My Bloody Valentine – ‘Wonder 2’ (LP – MBV) (self-released)
As many a dull, spawn-of-their-loins-obsessed parent will tell you, having a child can present a different perspective on the ways in which the World works from time to time. This has a peculiar way of manifesting itself now and again, such as, just for example, discovering that those irritating adverts on YouTube can serve a genuinely beneficial sociological function.
Of course it serves us ruddy well right for trying to watch something for nothing that we have to sit through up to a whole five seconds of an advertisement before we can view whatever 5-minute load of pelt we’re wanting to stream, but this does not stop us finding the 8%-of-a-minute commercial for arse hair removal something of an irritant. However, when your choice of viewing is an episode of Fireman Sam, selected by your 3 year old son, and the advert is for the new album by Villagers there is clearly something of a benefit to them. This is particularly true when 24 hours later said child expects to see the same advert again and asks for it, and then spends much of the week singing Villagers around the house.
Thus it was that we added Villagers to the list of Good Things that he has now shown a genuine postive interest in, which includes Talking Heads, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, Spirit of Eden period Talk Talk and Diana Rigg-era episodes of The Avengers. Parenting isn’t a competition, but I’ve definitely won.
Enough of this Look At Me I Procreated guff, here’s what I went and gone done played this week:
New tunes in tonight’s show included this from Ametsub:
…this from Widowspeak:
… and this one from Short Stories:
If you opt to Listen Again to the whole show, this is what you would hear:
Indians – “I Am Haunted” (single) (4AD)
Falty DL – “She Sleeps (feat. Ed McFarlane) (Martyn Remix)” (single and LP – “Hardcourage”) (Ninja Tune)
Grizzly Bear – “Speak In Rounds” (single and LP – “Sheilds”) (Warp)
Local Natives – “Heavy Feet” (single) (Infectious)
Palma Violets – “Step Up For The Cool Cats” (single) (Rough Trade)
Ametsub – “Cloudsfall” (LP – “All Is Silence”) (nothings66)
Short Stories – “Let It Go” (single) (Young Turks)
Fela Kuti – “Yellow Fever” (2CD – “The Best Of The Black President 2”) (Knitting Factory)
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – “So Good At Being In Trouble” (single and LP – “II”) (Jagjaguwar)
Half Man Half Biscuit – “Irk The Purists” (LP – “Trouble Over Bridgewater”) (Probe Plus) (this week’s Brief Candle)
Widowspeak – “Ballad Of The Golden Hour” (single)
Taylor Deupree – “Negative Snow” (LP – “Faint”) (12K)
Nothing says Folk more than a set of welding goggles
Last Wednesday was a good evening for Kris Drever. Â At virtually the same moment he was stood on stage, towering over his Lau bandmates Martin Green and Aidan O’Rourke as they picked up the Radio 2 Folk Award for Band of the Year, he was also treated to an even more thrilling achievement in that his solo recording of Harvest Gypsies, from the album Blackwater, was the opening track to Selection Box. Â I dare say that life will never quite be so exciting for him again.
I did suffix the track by saying that it was one of my favourite records of the last five years, then suggested that it may well be older than that. In doing so I have made myself right and wrong simultaneously as it is in fact an astonishing 7 years since said offering was released. Â No matter, though, because I’ll just readjust my hypothetical lists and declare that it is one of the best records of the last seven years.
John goes ‘ solo’ for tonight’s in depth listen to the music of one of GNfN’s favourite bands of the past year. Featuring interview exerpts from band members & lots of lovely Moulettes music. One not to miss if you’re a fan - or a great opportunity to find out more about this up & coming band!
All tracks by Moulettes unless stated
Country joy*
Recipe for alchemy
Sing unto me*
Sing unto me (Wax 22 remix)
Bloodshed in the woodshed
Going a gathering
Uca’s dance*
Wilderness
What a way to spend a day
Sam Cooke – you send me
Liz Green – Bad medicine
Songbird*
From the album ‘Moulettes’, except * from the EP ‘The Bear’s Revenge’
The new album by Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba is possibly my favourite album of 2013 so far. Â You should give it your attention.
It is also worth giving some attention to Pinact, who are making a good noise right now too:
If you wish to listen to the show at your leisure, you will find it on today’s page of the BCB Listen Again service. This is what I played:
Io Echo – “Ministry Of Love” (single)
Ergo Phizmiz – “Lafcadio” (LP – “Eleven Songs”) (Care In The Community)
Bo Ningen – “Nichijyou ft. Jehnny Beth” (single)
The Creole Choir Of Cuba – “Fey Oh Di Nou” (LP – “Santiman”) (Real World)
On and On – “The Hunter” (single)
Gilded – “Tyne” (LP – “Terrane”) (Hidden Shoal)
Fimber Bravo – “The Way We Live Today ft. Alexis Taylor” (single) (Moshi Moshi)
Roots Manuva – “Party Time ft. Kope” (“Banana Skank EP”) (Big Dad
The Beach Boys – “This Whole World”
Pinact – “Into The One” (single) (Fat Cat)
Steve Mason – “Fight Them Back” (LP – “Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time”) (Double Six)
Serafina Steer – “The Removal Man” (LP – “The Moths Are Real”) (Moshi Moshi)
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba – “Segu Jajiri” (LP – “Jama ko”) (Out Here)
Gallops – “Jeff Leopard (Cast Of Cheers remix)” (single)
I think we can safely assume that time travel is impossible (which is a shame, because I’ve already written this entire thing once and then accidentally irretrievably deleted it [although admittedly this would be footling use of such a powerful tool – shall I stop the Holocaust? No, I’ll undelete the BCB piece I wrote and lost which was largely about myself. Still Marty McFly didn’t do much more than make his family rich and everyone seems to love him]) so I think I can be forgiven for failing to play David Bowie on last week’s show. As I have previously explained, the cunning fox sent his new single Where Are We Now? out into the World just a few hours after I had recorded my show. Still, it provided a perfect opener for this week’s Selection Box. What is more remiss of me is the fact that the 70th birthday of arguably the greatest ever pop singer, Noel Scott Engel aka Scott Walker (anyone now yelling “Frank Sinatra!” at their computer can go and shove it up their badger. I’ve never understood the fuss over Ol’ Short Arse and never will), passed me by on the very day my first show in the new timeslot was broadcast.
Whilst I would always maintain that some of the greatest vocalists of all time are people who cannot actually sing (Mark E. Smith being a primary and quite astonishingly brilliant atonal example) when hearing Walker open his trap and, indeed, his throat I feel the pressing need to point people at the speakers and say, THAT is how you sing. I can’t imagine anything I’d like to see less than a guest appearance from Scott Walker on The X Factor, but if such a thing took place at least the result might be that the long queue of neat-haircutted chicken-in-a-basket warblers might just nudge each other and say, “Come on, we may as well go home.”
Not that such a thing is likely, of course, because these days Walker’s output couldn’t be further removed from the conveyor belt claptrap offered by ITV’s flagship God-it-goes-on-forever entertainment piece. Indeed is hard to think of another successful artist who has moved as far leftfield as Scott Walker. I cannot help but applaud any bloody-minded artist who is determined to challenge their own boundaries, experiment with new sounds and seek to explore untrodden avenues, and to hell with shifting units and keeping the bank balance high enough to afford another swimming pool in the back of a stretch Hummer. However, that’s not to say this necessarily results in a more rewarding output because, as much as I love music that takes you somewhere you’ve never been before, I must confess that some of Scott Walker’s more experimental material leaves me rather cold – indeed parts of his 2006 album The Drift were frankly unlistenable. When his new album Bish Bosch was released last month I was, therefore, left with a ummm ahh hesitation as to whether I actually wanted to hear it, let alone buy it. However, I have decided that hard-earned brass must be shelled out as the wares from the album I have heard thus far have been really rather splendid.
This includes the extraordinary Epizootics – which featured in this week’s Selection Box as our long track for the Thanking Your Kind Indulgence section of the show – a 10-minute brooding stew of tribal drums, a malevolent squealing three-note trumpet motif and Walker’s haunting vocal with the added bonus of hearing our hero intoning that we should “take that accidentally in the bollocks for a start.” What’s not to like, frankly?