Category Archives: Eclectic Mainline

Matters relating to Albert Freeman’s Eclectic Mainline show.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds reissues: Let Love In / Murder Ballads / The Boatman’s Call / No More Shall We Part

Following the reissue of the first four Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds albums in 2009, and the next three in 2010 (about which I wrote on 4/4/10) the next phase of re-issues are now upon us.  This week Let Love In, Murder Ballads, The Boatman’s Call and  No More Shall We Part get the re-issue treatment.  As with the previous albums, you get a remastered CD plus a DVD containing the album in 5.1, extra tracks, videos, and and an episode of the Do You Love Me? series of documentaries about each album.  These interviews are fascinating, comprising of opinions from band members, associates, friends, fans, journalists, and even in the instance of The Boatman’s Call, a school teacher who taught Lime Tree Arbour to her class.

One of the highlights of each episode of the interviews is hearing Blixa Bargeld recall his experiences of the writing and recording process.  Hearing him describe the noise gate they used during the making of Let Love In is certainly worth buying that album just for that.  It is also, from my own personal perspective, wonderful to hear Sophia Burn wax lyrical about how great a bassist Martyn P Casey is.  He’s certainly one of the biggest influences on my own bass playing.

One thing I didn’t know was that apparently all the band members did actually undergo hypnosis, with varying degrees of success, during the making of the video to Loverman.

During the interviews on the Murder Ballads DVD, I learnt that there are 64 deaths during the course of the album.  Continue reading →

Eclectic Mainline – 11th May 2011

Every so often (actually, quite often) some music comes along that I think is amazing.  Every so often (literally) I see some album artwork that I think is amazing.  Enter M. Ostermeier, whose new album combines beautiful music with a quite captivating, ‘is that real?’ cover photo.  It is real, and to find out where it is from, simply clickety click on the photo below.

San-Zhr Pod Village

San-Zhr Pod Village

You would be forgiven for missing the first half of tonight’s show and watching Waterloo Road instead because I, as one fifth of Wilful Missing, had music featured in today’s episode.  A very proud day indeed.  If you did miss any of my show you can listen again for up to 28 days.  Here’s a full list of what I played (several long tunes tonight, hence a smaller number of tunes in total): Continue reading →

Eclectic Mainline 27th April 2011

I found out about Fairshare today (thanks, Sally).  It looks really good.  A social enterprise music download site, who give 50% of their profits to a charity of your choice.  I never need use iTunes again (actually, I’ve only ever bought one song on iTunes, but that should now be the only one).

Here’s a trailer for the new Tamikrest album:

And here’s a list of tonight’s tunes:
Continue reading →

Eclectic Mainline 20th April 2011

I somehow managed to get a lot into tonight’s show, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I hope you did too.  Here’s a video for one of the two Retina.It tunes I played.  I’m not entirely sure how official this video is, but it gives you a good idea of the tune if you missed the show. If you want to hear the show again, there’s a link at the bottom of this blog where you can do just that.

Here’s a full list of tunes from tonight’s show:

Arctic Monkeys – “Don’t Sit Down, ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair” (single) (Domino)
Retina.It – “Gravitational Collapse” (LP – “Randomicon”) (FlatMate)
Retina.It – “These Attractors (Toten)” (LP – “Randomicon”) (FlatMate)
Let’s Wrestle – “In Dreams Part II” (single) (Full Time Hobby)
Beat Connection – “Wildheart” (LP – “Surf Noir”) (Tender Age)
Sarabeth Tucek – “Get Well Soon” (LP – “Get Well Soon”) (Sonic Cathedral)
Cloud Control – “This Is What I Said” (single) (Ivy League)
Mouvement Situationniste – “Mouvement Situationniste” (Various Archives LP – “Historische Aufnahmen / Historical Records 1”) (Gagarin)
Gagarin – “KEDR” (single) (Geo Records)
EMA – “Milkman” (single) (Souterrain Transmissions)
Paris Suit Yourself – “Sometimes (M.E.S.H. Remix)” (single) (Big Dada)
The High Llamas – “The Ring Of Gold” (LP – “Talahomi Way”) (Drag City)
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX – “I’ve Been Me [Interlude]” (LP – “We’re New Here”) (Young Turks / XL)
Josh T. Pearson – “Woman When I’ve Raised Hell” (single and LP – “Last Of The Country Gentlemen”) (Mute)
Matthewdavid – “Today, Same Way” (LP – “Outmind”) (Brainfeeder)
The Go! Team – “Apollo Throwndown” (single and LP – “Rolling Blackouts”) (Memphis Industries)
Emika – “Count Backwards (Marcel Dettmann Vocal Edit)” (single) (Ninja Tune)

And if you did miss the show, you can catch up again on the BCB Listen Again service for the next 28 days.

Eclectic Mainline 13th April 2011

record-store-day-2011It only seems like 364 days since I previewed Record Store Day 2010.  Little did I realise at the time, as I planned my trip into Leeds, that I would be approximately the 100th person to be queuing outside Crash Records when I got there at approximately 08:20 on the day itself.  And little did I realise that it would be over 2 hours before I actually got into the shop.  Oh the enthusiasm of youth.

This year I’m delaying my trip into Leeds until  the afternoon of Record Store Day, and will simply accept the fact that I won’t even be close to beating the donkey-raping shit-eaters* who buy things simply to make a profit from them on eBay.

There are a few things I’m hoping won’t have sold out, but I’m not telling you what in case I tempt fate, and I don’t end up getting them.  I’m particularly interested by the line-up of artists performing at Jumbo Records on Record Store Day.  I will probably be there at about the time when The Singing Adams are perfoming.  It will be nice to say hello to Steve Adams again, as his former band, The Broken Family Band, are the only band who I have had the pleasure of recording sessions with twice here at BCB.

Owiny Sigoma Band are a band who I played in my show tonight, because ‘Wires’ is coming out as a 12″ single on Record Store Day.  Here’s an introduction to the band:

In other news, you might have recently heard me playing some songs from the excellent new 3CD set The Bullet Records Story.  Our Phil Cope has written an excellent review of the set which I would like to suggest you read.  And it seems a mutual back-slapping is the order of the day, as he has just told me he is enjoying my show more than he has ever done before.

Speaking of me playing songs, here’s what  I played tonight:

Continue reading →

Eclectic Mainline 16th March 2011

Well, I didn’t get half the tunes I wanted to get in tonight.  Grrr.  Many had to be held over to next week.  While I was on, the 2011 Bradford International Film Festival was getting under way.  If you’re in Bradford you should defintely try and get along to see at least one film during the festival.  It is always really amazing the number of great films they manage to find.

If you missed tonight’s show, you can listen again for up to 4 weeks.  Here’s the video to the Bibio tune I played:

Here’s a full list of what I played:

Continue reading →