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Yesterday’s missed post. Everything In The Wrong place, clearly. In October 2000, Radiohead released their fourth studio album Kid A and thereby reinvented themselves, reinvented rock music and reinvented how music would be released. The opening track ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ says it all. Attack, decay, sustain and release.
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I’ve recently been asked to pull together a list of guilty pleasures. More specifically, five favoured songs that are so awkward for me that I would rather turn off the volume in public. I am not sure that most of Coldplay’s first album Parachutes applies, because pleasure is a criterion. However, ‘Shiver’ definitely makes the long list. The lifting of Jeff Buckley‘s vocal style is so apparent and the instrumentation is such an homage that, in fact, I think it would have been a great Buckley track, and undoubtedly much better in his gilded hands.
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Velvet Underground rhythm, girl / boy interchange, changes of key, glockenspiel, string arrangements… this was The Delgados at the top of their game. ‘Accused Of Stealing’ features on the Scottish band’s magnus opus, 2000’s The Great Eastern.
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In 1999, Fiona Apple released the catchily entitled LP When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He’ll Win The Whole Thing ‘Fore He Enters The Ring There’s No Body To Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right. The singer-songwriter was clearly feeling a little out there. She wrote the album’s third single ‘Paper Bag’ following an experience in which she mistook an airborne carrier bag for a white dove.
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Trish Keenan was a terrible loss when she unexpectedly died of pneumonia after contracting swine flu on a 2011 tour of Australia. A decade earlier, her band Broadcast had released their first proper full-length album, The Noise Made by People. It is a nostalgic collection of folk pop cuts. Keenan’s vocal treatment on ‘Come on Let’s Go’ brings to mind the 1960s psychedelia peddled by Melody Prochet, Pale Saints and Saint Etienne before and after. A decade later, I remember how good they were.
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Some nostalgic turntablism for you now… Ploughing a furrow that DJ Shadow had been working, Melbourne crate diggers The Avalanches brought a new level humour, art and extremism to the work. Band fanatics estimated that there were 1-3 thousand samples at play on their the debut studio album Since I Left You. I’ve certainly featured the title track and the ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ on the blog before and the breezy, crackle heavy ‘Two Hearts In 3/4 Time’ is another beautiful example of what you can do with enough imagination. The sample from ‘Yu-Ma by Marlena Shaw is genius.
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Born in Paris of Martiniquais heritage, Thierry Moutoussamy is better known as the French ragga musician, Lord Kossity. In 2000, he released the album Overlord which features the catchy riddim ‘Morenas’. “Morenas, Morenas, Morenas, Lala, lalala, lala la / Muchachas, Muchachas La, la, la, la, la, la, la”
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I’ve featured some turntablist art this week, but ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ is the cherry on top. The track’s sampled sounds are from the most unusual and diverse set of easy listening artists and others, including Enoch Light, George Barnes, Harvey Mandel, Flip Wilson, Maurice Jarre, Dexter Wansel and Sesame Street’s Count von Count. One just wonders how Darren Seltmann, Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi found the time and inspiration. This hugely entertaining mastermix featured on the classic Since I Left You, the debut studio album by The Avalanches. Have a great weekend.
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In the late 1990s, Norman Cook had a purple patch of nailing memorable samples. None better than his use of Jim Morrison’s spoken-word poetry from the The Doors’s posthumously released ‘Bird Of Prey’. Fatboy Slim’s big beat classic ‘Sunset (Bird of Prey)’ originally surfaced on his 2000 album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. It stands the test of time.
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I end the week with a seminal slice of progressive house music. French DJ and producer, Laurent Garnier released ‘The Man With The Red Face’ on the Parisian label F Communications. It was techno, but a very busy crossover version, full of blissful horns and jazzy hooks. This was the sound of hedonism in 2000. Have a great weekend.
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I’m making mellow this week. In 2000, Toi Sojer-Sacchi (aka Gram’ma Funk) pledged her allegience to the funk a year after making a name for herself as the vocalist on Groove Armada’s ‘I See You Baby’. This time, she was collaborating with Lennart Krarup and Italian DJs Arian Beheshti and Giuseppe Nuzzo. Together they were Oversoul and their track ‘Universal Unfolding’ made it waves on the Ibiza beaches. Have a great week.
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St Germain is the stage name of Ludovic Navarre, one of the leading purveyors of the “French Touch”, the wave of French filter house of the late 1990s. His style has a mixed up deep house, jazz and lounge. With its understated Marlena Shaw sample, ‘Rose Rouge’ is the opening track off his 2000 album Tourist. “I want you to get together/put your hands together one time.” Have a great weekend.
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Released in February 2000, the ‘The 6th Sense’ was the lead single off Like Water for Chocolate, Common’s hugely successful, fourth studio album. It was produced by DJ Premier and laden with his trademark scratched samples. In this case, it’s ‘Memories Are Here to Stay’ by The Intruders, ‘Allustrious’ by Mobb Deep and ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ by Gil-Scott Heron.
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A year or so after their hugely successful album Moon Safari, Air wrote the score for Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides. The opening track ‘Playground Love’ is the only one with vocals, which emanate from neither Jean-Benoît Dunckel nor Nicolas Godin (nor Beth Hirsch). They bring in Phoenix’s singer Thomas Mars to deliver the low key “I’m a highschool lover/And you’re my favorite flavour”.
Samuelsounds 