Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

Le Voyage Dans La Lune – Air [#665]

Cover art of Le Voyage dans La Lune by Air

It seems like an age since we last heard from nineties French trip-hopping electronauts Air on the Music Project. Indeed it feels like an age since we heard any new music output from the band.

A major player in my personal soundtrack to the nineties along with Portishead, Bent and Massive Attack, Air were pretty much in most 1990’s twentysomethings record collections somewhere. They broke ground with the extra special Moon Safari then, after a flurry of mostly ignored albums, flashed up in 2012 with this nod to Georges Méliès silent epic – A Trip To the Moon before disappearing in a puff of pretention and a best-of-compilation.

A great shame really as I was quite fond of the guys and I did go and actually buy their stuff rather than download and steal evaluate.

Moreover, I am also a fan of the whole “Mash an album over a classic film” thing, you know like syncing Floyd’s Dark Side with Wizard of Oz, Oldfield‘s Tubular Bells with the Exorcist and Belle & Sebastian‘s Boy With the Arab Strap and David Leland’s 1987 film Wish You Were Here 1

You can listen to the album on:

Amazon

Youtube Music

Apple Music

Spottyarse

1 – May be untrue

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Later: Later Lounge & Serve Chilled 1 & 2[#660, 661, 662 & 663]

In the year 2000, the internet was fledgling and untrustworthy and magazines were still a thing. While wanting to attract the vast untapped market of the non-sex obsessed laid back single male twenty something professional demographic, some magazine publishers chucked buckets of cash at producing magazines aimed at them.

Yes, FHM was a thing but that was more laddish than most men felt comfortable with reading in public, with covers often boardering on the pornographic. Esquire was often too sophisticated – aimed at those confident in their presense and appearance. Empire was just about films and GQ had that metrosexual vibe that just didnt appeal to a lot of heteronormative types. Later bridged the gap – stylish, hip, with a cheeky undertone of implied sauce. It was the reading matter for gents who just wanted to stay in touch with what was cool in the world and how to portray that coolness without looking like a catalogue model or an overtly sculpted waxwork with clearly coded sexuality markers.

I loved Later. It appealed to me. I still have copies of every edition of the magazine mouldering in my loft along. It spoke to men like me and offered a guiding hand in the puzzling world of business, style and culture. It’s sad that the publication ended and more sad that nothing really replaced it. Sadly, it seems, people don’t read magazines the way they did preferring social media, websites, podcasts and Substacks instead

Perhaps the most prized possession from this time of my life along with the magazines themselves, are the free CDs that came with the publications. Two Serve Chilled volumes were released over the lifetime of the magazine, with two Later Lounge volumes.

The CDs were compilations of cool, hip music from across the ages, that would delight and provide the owner with that sense of “Hey I listen to cool hip quality music”. It was the kind of music you could pop on at a dinner party or perhaps after the night out at the club to impress that young lady you had brought back to the pad – stylishly decorated of course thanks to the guidance from the magazine .

Later: The Later Lounge Volume 1 [#660]

Track#Track NameArtist
1Blow Up A Go-GoJames Clarke
2This is SoulPaul Nero
3Bring Down the BirdsHerbie Hancock
4Secret Agent ManHugo Montenegro
5Theme from Mission ImpossibleBilly May & His Orchestra
6What a ManLinda Lyndell
7Whole Lotta LoveIke & Tina Turner
8Theme from BullitWilton Felder
9Down Here on the GroundGrant Green & Dianne Reeves
10TrampLowell Fulson
11Light My FireShirley Bassey
12Love Potion No. 9The Coasters
13I Can See For MilesLord Sitar
14James Bond ThemeLeroy Holmes
15The Look of LoveThree Sounds
16Moon RiverNancy Wilson
17Do You Know the Way to San JoseRichard “Groove” Holmes
18Party 7Big Boss Man
19Save MeNina Simone
20Spinning WheelPeggy Lee
Track listing for Later Lounge Volume 1

Later Lounge Volume 1 latched onto that late nineties/early noughties 60’s revival vibe heralded by the likes of Oceans Eleven, Austin Powers and the remastering of old Michael Caine films. Not a great hit with me, I was far too dirty old goth by this time, but there was some Herbie Hancock, who’s music had already passed my ears on yet another Compilation cassete/CD conversion, the erroneously named Seventies Shit.

If ever I wanted to out hipster Hipster Nick, I’d whack this on, put on a cravat and moan about “bloody beatniks” and now you too can pretend to be a lounge lizard by playing the entire playlist via the magic of Youtube below 🙂

Later: The Later Lounge Volume 2 [#661]

Later Lounge Volume 2 came some months later. I think possibly after Serve Chilled but definately after Later Lounge 1 and Serve Chilled 2. I think by this point Later, as a magazine, had become a little flaky. Not as stylish as it once was, perhaps the chaps in the office had been told there and then that the magazine’s days were numbered. Either way, I felt then that there wasn’t as much thought put into this particular compilation. However, with more mature ears, I can now appreciate fully what sort of vibe they were trying to create.

If you fancied pretending to be some 1970’s caberet club owner with your over priced cigars, chest hair and ladykiller white shoes – you know the kind of way you wouldn’t have dressed to impress in the year 2000 – driving through the rain soaked streets of a cosmopolitan and exotic city like say….Bradford (Detroit being too far away)…in your vinyl roof Ford Cortina Mk1 (1973 Oldsmobiles are too big for UK roads)….then this is the compilation for you.

Track#Track NameArtist
1The Hanged ManBullet
2Stiletto Chico Rey
3Here Comes the JudgeLarry & Tommy
4The OrganiserThe Organisers
5The Night Rider Alan Hawkshaw
6Brasilian BeatLos Brasileros
7ComeEddie Warner
8Love You WholeheartedlyJackie Dee
9Bass in LoveGuy Pedersen
10Son of a Preacher ManBobbie Gentry
11Blarney’s StonedAlan Hawkshaw
12NightingaleDee Felice Trio
13Vision-On Theme (Accroche-toi Caroline!)Claude Vasori
14Les Copains De La BasseGuy Pedersen
15Gimme ShelterCal Tjader
16SuperflySynthesonic Sounds
17The HeistBullet
18Sea GrooveBig Boss Man
19Marriage is a State of VibesDave Hamilton
20Soul FunkChico & Buddy
21Mach 1Ray Davies and His Funky Trumpet
Again, I’ve recreated it on Youtube because I love doing this kind of thing. I should really do a podcast but you know…it’s no good if it’s just me talking….

Later: Serve Chilled Volume 1 [#662]

Serve Chilled Volume 1 became the soundtrack to the early noughties for me. I had multiple copies made to play on my car stereo to accompany long car journeys to and from Yorkshire and I also had it ripped to MP3 when I got my Creative Jukebox 2. I cannot politely express how much I loved this compilation and still do.

A soundtrack to every summer trip to Wales, Brighton, Yorkshire and beyond with Mrs Gnomepants v1.0 who, I hope, reads this and remembers the music as well as I do.

Track #Track NameArtist
1EstelleA Man Called Adam
2DiabolusThe Cinematic Orchestra
3Cylons in LoveBent
4Happy HereDanmass
5Hammock IslandKinobe
6SolitudeNick Faber
7Brown SugarAkasha
8Bahian B-BoyDynamic Syncopation
9Dakota (Kidk Degiorgio Mix)Mainline
10I Want YouDusted
11Dismantling FrankBonobo
12Inside My Mind (Blue Skies) (Elephant Remix)Groove Armada

Later: Serve Chilled Volume 2 [#663]

Finally the December 2000 edition carried Volume 2 of the Serve Chilled compilations. Blissful audio earwashes to carry away the winter chills and return memories of warm summers in Ibiza. However I wasn’t an Ibiza kind of youth prefering more sedate trips to Wales over roudy lads weeks away getting STDs, drunk and regrettable tattoos so this just makes me think of driving through Snowdonia.

Track #Track NameArtist
1Sunshine of Your Love (Bigga Batucada Mix)Rockers Hifi Meet Ella Fitzgerald
2Fusions AlrightRoyksopp
3Recipe fro the Perfect AfroFeature Cast
4Harry the GuitarDr Rubber Funk
5Happiness (Ashley Beedles West Coast Beach Bossa Vocal Mix)Shawn Lee
6Sky Holds the SunThe Bees
7Dive into YouHefner
8Woman in BluePepe Deluxe
9One Night SambaTim Love Lee
10No More TearsBent
11Drunk CountryMidfield General
12AmoursRob
13Get a Move OnMr Scruff
14Nothing to be Afraid OfLazyboy
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The Ladder – Yes [#659]

The 18th Yes album arrived in 1999 and is massively different to the previous album, Open Your Eyes which isnt hard as Open Your Eyes is truly awful.

At this point, Rabin had left, Howe had rejoined, Wakeman was off being a grumpy old man and had been replaced by dodgy Russian keyboard player Igor Khoroshev who would later leave the group in shame following an assault on two female security officers.

I came to The Ladder quite late. I’d spent much of the 1990s checking the racks at HMV for new releases and looking for snippets of news in fashionable magazines of the time. Yes were not fashionable so news rarely made it beyond the pages of NME and I was too much of a protohipster to buy NME preferring to Uncut, but only when they did stuff on 4AD. At this time I’d moved on from the airy fairy floating castles of Prog and had lurched into the dark twisting forests of Goth via the bucket hat wearing pathways of indie. So its probably no surprise I’d missed this album and it wasn’t until 2001 when I discovered the album had been released.

Its ok. It’s not Big Generator, Going for the One or Drama . Its just – OK and not one of the albums that seemingly I play a great deal. Standout tracks on the album are probably Homeworld – from the computer game Homeworld – and It Will Be a Good Day (The River) and even then I prefer the live version from House of Blues.

The next “studio” album would be Keystudio in 2001 and then in the same year, Magnification followed by nearly ten years of live recordings and rereleases before Fly From Here in 2011 which marked the end of the traditional lineup and, some fans say, the end of the band. But more of that – later…..

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The King is Dead – The Decemberists [#658]

I recently worked with a guy who bore an uncanny resembelance to Colin Meloy, the lead singer of The Decemberists. He had no idea who Colin Meloy was and, for a young chap, was surprisingly lacking in music knowledge. I’d like to think that me purposefully calling him Colin or Mr Meloy either drove him to hating me outright or that it encouraged him to look into his look-a-like and perhaps on a musical path of self discovery.

That was in 2020, the year of the virus, when the world turned on its head and stability seemed like a memory. Indeed, only a few years previous in 2018, I had gone to Leeds with Mrs Gnomepants to see the band, something I’d really looked forward to, only to come down with a really bad bout of flu on the day. Like “get me to bed now I’m not well at all” bad. I still went to the gig though. It was great fun. But before that I’d really no idea what the Decemberists looked like or sounded like live. But now I know and I’m bloody glad I did go. Their support, Hop-a-long were good too.

The King is Dead is the next album chronologically from Hazards of Love which, if you’ve forgotten or missed it, I talked about here some time back. Look I’m a busy guy you know? I’m fifty next year, I have to work and do actual grown up shit these days so if I fall behind in my various content outputs its not because I don’t care, its because I can never find the time ok? I’d even do this as a podcast if I had someone to do it with me! Anyway, The King is Dead isn’t as catchy as previous Decemberist albums in my opinion. Its odd but the Decemberists sub-reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Decemberists/) did a Redditors vote for the best album and I seem to remember this one fareing quite well. Perhaps I’m just not a typical Decemberists fan?

Audibly, this album is very close in style to what Mike Scott’s The Waterboys were trying to achive in the Fisherman’s Blues days. Indeed, you can also detect influences of This is the Sea in previous Decemberist materials come to think of it. Happily though, the Decemberists dont go down the Room to Roam route and still churn out some good albums, which, hopefully we’ll see here when I get to them….

The album is available from

Apple Music

Amazon Music

Youtube Music

and probably Spotty-fi if you’re lasse faire with your data….

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Keystudio – Yes [#654]

Keystudio album art

In Happy Days fandom it is often agreed that the moment Fonz water skis over a shark the decline in the quality of the show began. Some argue that the appearance of a poundshop Bertie Basset like villan marks the end of “quality” in Doctor Who.

Me? I ascertain that 1997s Open Your Eyes is where the rot began to set in for Yes. Others say Union, or 90125. But Open Your Eyes is where its at. A terrible album, yet to make an appearance on the Music Project.

Fortunately the albums following the release of Open Your Eyes showed how much of a driving force Steve Howe could be in the band. Having lost Rabin to music production and realising that Sherwood was better as a producer than a performer, the albums that followed: The Ladder and House of Blues, showed that the band when it consisted of Wakeman, White, Anderson, Squire and Howe could bash out some amazing tunes. Think Tormato, Going for the One and Tales from Topographic Oceans.

However this 2001 release on the Castle label, described as a compilation of studio tracks from the Keys to Ascension albums, not only showed what the band was capable of when they weren’t trying to recapture the Lonely Heart era without Rabin or Horn as a guiding hand. But it also sowed the seeds for the albums to follow.

There are some really catchy tunes on this album and I am often surprised that I don’t listen to it more often. The track Mind Drive is a banging tune and Be the One has foreshadows of Magnification floating around it. The album also features Children of the Light which credits Vangelis as one of the writers. This truly is an album from Yes’ renaissance – capturing and blending all the bits and sounds that made the bands post-Bruford line up often referred to as the classic line up.

Sadly, in 2001, my ears were elsewhere. The Great Download was starting to begin and I was discovering new genres, new sounds and new aural pleasures. Music was becoming freely available and visits to Virgin and HMV were beginning to wane. It wouldn’t be until a chance visit to the fledgling Yes website that the realisation there were new albums available AND A TOUR on the horizon that I realised that there was new stuff for me out there.

Apple Music – Not available at time of posting

Buy the CD on Amazon

Youtube Music – https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=OI2ETFvwzAY

Join the Substack –

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Ipcress File – John Barry [#642]

If you’re one of those people who only engage with media that is no older than twenty years old, then not only are you deluding yourself, but you are missing out on a whole trove of cinema, music and literature. One such diamond in this trove is the 1965 film Ipcress File the soundtrack for which is today’s entry in the project.

The Ipcress File is pretty much how James Bond would be if he was real. Lots of form filling, shit salary and offices that have seen better days. The film follows the adventure of Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer character who is caught up in a bit of cold war era espionage involving the reprogramming of prominent scientists through sinister mind washing techniques employed by Soviet-era bad guys. There are more twists, turns and double-crosses in this film than a box of headphone cables.

The iconic music, also a diamond musically, has been sampled to death over the years by bands like Portishead and makes heavy and distinctive use of an instrument known as a Cimbalom.

The soundtrack was one of the first albums I bought through the new iTunes store back in the noughties. However, as I didn’t have a portable device capable of playing Apple’s proprietary music files, I could only listen when at my computer. This was, of course, in the time when computers where huge things that sat on your desk and not the candy bar sized multimedia devices of today. But when you see the film and the size of computers in 1965, you’ll be grateful you don’t have to cart one of those around if you want to make a phone call.

Apple Music logoAmazon music logo

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Into the Labyrinth – Dead Can Dance [#640]

Into_labyrinth_-_dead_can_danceThe sixth studio album from Dead Can Dance was the first to make me think that perhaps it was time to move on from this particular taste in weird music. A marked change from Dead Can Dance’s previous album Aion , Into the Labyrinth has a completely different, more world music feel to what came before.

It was my penultimate Dead Can Dance purchase before the long haitus and Anastatis and still I feel a little disappointed with it. Even after having not listened to it for some time before reasearching for today’s entry. I guess by this point Perry and Gerrard were busy doing their own thing and it was a contractual obligation that needed fulfilling. It sounds like it.

 

Available on Amazon and iTunes.  It might be on Spotify but I wouldn’t know.

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Into Temptation: The Best of Gothic Rock — Various Artists [#637]

intotemptationThere are as many compilations claiming to be the best of gothic rock entitled Into Temptation as there are compilations claiming to be the best of gothic rock. Confusing really as this isn’t really what I’d call Gothic Rock, it’s what I’d call Scandinavian symphonic rock fronted by tight-fitting low cleavaged black catsuit wearing busty sirens in a wind tunnel aimed at appealing to frustrated teenage males with big hair and middle-aged balding forty-somethings trying to recapture their lost youth.

When the much talked about Great Internet MP3 Download Free-for-All of the mid to late noughties hit, I was trying to develop my musical tastes in the dark elven forests of gothdom. As long-term readers may remember, one of the many tactics I use to discover music is to download compilations to figure out which bands I like the sound of.

One of the first compilations I downloaded was called Into Temptation. It had some really good songs on it from bands like Nightwish, Within Temptation and Ayreon. Sadly, I lost the first version due to file and disk corruption and, despite repeated attempts, was unable to locate the version I had. But with acts like Nightwish, Within Temptation, Ayreon, Sirenia, The Gathering, Lacuna Coil AND Tristania….it will do.

Complete tracklisting for this compilation:

1 –Within Temptation – Ice Queen
2 – After Forever – My Pledge Of Allegiance #1 (The Sealed Fate
3 –Nightwish – Ever Dream
4 – The Gathering – In Motion #1
5 – Tristania – Wormwood
6 – AyreonMy House On Mars
7 –Within Temptation – Our Farewell
8 – Ambeon – Cold Metal
9 –Lacuna Coil – Senzafine
10 –After Forever – Emphasis
11–Trail Of Tears – Driven Through The Ruins
12 – Sirenia – Meridian
13 – Beseech – Between The Lines
14 – Therion – O Fortuna

And if that list doesn’t get you running for the Kleenex you’re obviously listening to the wrong genre.

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Interstellar Encore – Pink Floyd [#636]

R-1738078-1240176164.jpeg.jpgA bootleg so bootleggy you can smell the sweaty socks. Interstellar Encore is one of many Pink Floyd bootlegs donated to my collection by a former work colleague who had a similarly large music library to mine, although admittedly, most of his music was a bit more….”bootleggy” in nature.

Of course, back then, the tagging of MP3s was in its infancy and some people used to just dump a load of MP3s into a folder of a CD with no organisation and pass it around like a spliff at a hippy party. Carefully written sleeve inserts would get mixed up and any questions about which MP3 belonged to which album quite often resulted in snorts of derision.

So, as a result of how it happened, my version of Interstellar Encore might differ from 99% of the people out there with the actual Interstellar Encore bootleg although on research the track listing does seem to match up. But, such is the nature of illicit downloads and bootlegs; only a true fan would tell you whether it was actually the Filmrore West Interstellar Encore version of Embryo that I have or if it was the Biding My Time in Croydon version.

Like I care.

Incidentally, if you’re still enjoying this music project, I would appreciate a little publicity. One thing that fires me up when doing this project is knowing I have a readership. While it’s not exactly interactive like say The Existential Compost, The Compostual Existentialist or u/stegzy on Reddit, a look at the (very basic) site stats shows me that I do have some visitors, but having more keeps my typing fingers itching!

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Emerger – Carptree [#635]

Emerger by Carptree
Apple Music was one of the causes of the last hiatus. Having taken advantage of the super 3 months free offer and slightly better than usual broadband at my rural home, I was given access to loads of new music. Moreover, I was thrilled to discover the “Suggested for you” feature of the For You tab and how it “Suggests” music you might like based on your listening. Then, one-day last year, Apple Music suggested I’d like Emerger by Carptree and that was it, I was sucked in like a leaf in a water pump reservoir.

Carptree do everything right that a progressive rock band formed of two Swedish blokes with a fondness for fishing and a theremin would do. Bog standard low budget music videos, lyrics about nature, crazy waxed moustaches, lots of keyboard twiddly and a vocalist that sounds like Peter Gabriel before he went all Brian Pern.

Emerger is new prog done well. Like someone has been handed the progressive rock recipe book and followed it to the letter. The whole album has a semi-concept feel (is it about fishing? Or is it about life on a river bed? I’m not entirely convinced) and the production values show how easy it is for middle-aged mates to be creative together in a “We’re getting old now but haven’t made it yet because of the day job” way with an Apple Mac and a bloke from work who plays the drums.

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In the Clear – Ivy [#626]

IntheclearTess Don’t Tell was the first song I ever heard from this, Ivy’s fifth studio album. I forget where it was but suspect that it was on a random “Music you might like” playlist from the earlier days of Last.FM before it was bought by Spotify and ruined.  Of course having a band name like Ivy meant having to use hardcore advanced Googlefu so that Ivy, the American band, came up in searches instead of what other monstrosities came up instead.

Ivy’s sound is a familiar one, haunting female vocals over lackadaisical rhythm and melody that just says LAZY SUMMER’S DAY in huge invisible letters. They’ve been sampled in Europe and were quite popular in parts of North America and Canada for a while. Sadly, as with many non-British bands, the licencing laws and promotion of such bands in the UK mean that few people here have heard of them except perhaps in the occasional American TV show or film.

Which is a great shame.

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If You’re Feeling Sinister – Belle & Sebastian #606

Belle_And_Sebastian_-_If_You're_Feeling_Sinister.jpgOften seen as the quintessential gay album of the nineties, I was gifted If You’re Feeling Sinister by old gay pal Gay Jamie who, himself, had obtained it during the Great Internet Download Free-For-All of the mid to late 1990s.

At the time, I saw Belle & Sebastian as a kind of hipster bollocks band. Loved by trendies and soul patch sporting arts students and with such prejudice, I  wasn’t all that bothered by them. Of course, this was in my late, uninformed, uncultured, blinkered, pre-internet, pre-university, unenlightened, pre-millennial twenties where most of my world still revolved around Liverpool, a shit office job and regularly going to the pub with similarly minded folk and talking shite.

Of course, hipster pals were already hinting that I would like the band long before I’d actually listened to the album. Indeed, when I met him, Hipster Nick was already much of a keen fan and Telly Expert Tim, who would often talk about how he was into Belle & Sebastian before anyone else had even conceived of the idea of a band called Belle & Sebastian and that, besides which, they weren’t as good now, anyway, since Stuart had left the band, would sneer at anyone who clearly had only recently become a fan. The thing was, this time they were right; I did like the band.

Fortunately, Stuart was still in the band at the point of releasing If You’re Feeling Sinister and Tim was quite right, the band’s early albums are, in my opinion, the better ones. Much in the same way that Syd Barratt’s influenced Pink Floyd albums are distinctly different to those that come later and indeed, after, Roger Waters. Well crafted, the songs on the album have a unique sound with a lyrical poetic genius that is lacking from the majority of modern bands some of them define adolescent exploratory gay sentiment while others reflect on angst, paranoia or obsession.

A genius of an album!

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Human Equation – Ayreon #597

Ayreon_-_Human_Equation

Human Equation by Ayreon

Human Equation is a double concept album from legendary Nineties/Noughties Dutch prog experiment Ayreon.

A man in a coma for twenty days struggles with inner demons and outside influences through internal song, each day being a track on the album. A supposed break from Ayreon’s  album spanning “Forever” story arch, although in the last track we do hear albeit briefly, from Forever of the Stars from the album Final Experiment and the Dream Sequencer from Universal Migrator which ties it all in nicely.

Human Equation is not my most favourite of Ayreon discoveries instead I’m all for the drama of Into the Electric Castle but as 01011001 hadn’t been released at the time I obtained my copy of Human Equation, it was a lid on the metaphorical pie of Ayreons work for me.

Like other Ayreon albums, guest singers each take a voice of a character within the overarching story with the likes of Dream Theatre’s James LaBrie and Soul Machine’s Eric Clayton joining the cast. Even prog keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman‘s son Oliver guests as synth player on track 7.  A feast of noughties prog.

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Hidden Treasures – Dead Can Dance [#584]

UnknownThe problem with bootleg albums is that they become addictive. Especially when the band has been around for ages and you’ve come to them late. Following my introduction to Dead Can Dance in the autumn of 1993, I had already collected the majority of their albums on CD by the time the Great Music Download Free For All hit the UK in the mid-noughties. So I would often spend hours late at night scouring the alt.sounds.gothic.mp3 newsgroups looking for new and rare Dead Can Dance material that I was, perhaps, unfamiliar with.

Hidden Treasures is one such catch. Released in 1994, possibly recorded in Italy though some sources differ, the “Unofficial” album has live performances of tracks stretching back through from the band’s Towards the Within stage of life but also features a collection of tracks from much earlier. Thing is, as with all live bootleg recordings, some of the songs are much different than their studio recordings which, I suppose adds to their appeal amongst fans.

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Blue Lines – Massive Attack (#207)

MassiveAttackBlueLinesBlue Lines – Massive Attack

As I’ve stated before during this project, when relationships break down these days there is often an amicable exchange of music via the ripping of jointly owned CDs and mergence of MP3 libraries. Unlike in the past where bitch fights would break out over who owned the Peter Sarstedt album, these days we can share and amalgamate, break up peacefully without the need to decimate music collections.

Unless you’re a bastard and you delete all your music just to spite them.

Anyway, this is an album gained through one such breakup. I’m not a big Massive Attack fan. I have their best of somewhere I think, though it doesn’t seem to have appeared on this project yet, and I have their “coffee table album” Mezzanine. But other than a few songs of there, I’m not a big fan. They’re ok. Just not my scene. A little like a seedy version of Portishead.

So I can’t really tell you what I think about this album other than I like one song on it. The rest is just Meh. I have no stories attached to the album and I have little memory of when it was added to my library.

 

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Album #83 – Aqualung – Jethro Tull

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 16.39.39Aqualung – Jethro Tull

Sitting on a park bench listening to Aqualung reminds me about history lessons at school.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Annwyn, Beneath the Waves – Faith and the Muse [Album #76]

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 13.11.55Annwyn, Beneath the Waves – Faith and the Muse

Until the last decade I had shamefully only heard of Faith and the Muse in rumours and student bedroom wall posters. Faith and the Muse have a similar style to Ordo Equitum Solis. Much like OES, Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, Faith and the Muse are popular amongst the dark clothe wearing goth fraternity. Dark in style with mediaeval tones, Faith and the Muse mix open atmospheric chords with wailing floaty dressed female vocals and, in some tracks, militaristic drumming.

I had only listened to Annwyn once before. I’m not sure I would choose them for a car mix tape or to accompany a dinner party. Unless I was trying to be some sort of hipster goth or impress some Twiglet (sic) obsessed teenagers on their first forays into the dark.

I don’t know why I find this kind of music enjoyable. Perhaps it is the mental images of  dark and wet rainy streets that it conjures. In all, if your folk is too cheery, this is what you want. In a room. With joss sticks and pentagrams.

 

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A Broken Frame – Depeche Mode [#24]

A Broken Frame– Depeche Mode

I was surprised to find this album in my library; I’d never heard of it.

Turns out this is the second studio album by DM; the first following the departure of Vince Clarke. Seems like Martin Gore described it as “our worst album”. It shows.

I’m not familiar with any of the songs on here and if you’d said to me this was DM I’d have said “Is it?!”

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01011001–Ayreon [#22]

000-ayreon-01011001-(advance)-2cd-proof-2008

01011001 by Ayreon

I can’t remember how I first heard about Ayreon. It might be listening to a compilation or something but from the first song that I heard, I just knew that I would like his work.

So I managed to get his back catalogue with this fantastic double album being released at the moment that I began getting Ayreon’s work.

I think that Ayreon, or Arjen Anthony Lucassen, does a bloody good job of uniting various artists such as Floor Jansen, Anneke Van Giersbergen, Bruce Dickinson and Fish under a single project umbrella. Much in the same way as Ivo Russell-Watts did with 4AD and This Mortal Coil. The difference being that Lucassen creates a concept album as the central cusp of the union.

So let us see….changing artists – Check; Concept albums – Check; Bearded and hairy musicians – check; Rock music – Check….so does that make it prog? New prog? In my opinion, yes it does.

01011001 tells the tale of the descent of man into destruction despite alien entities, psychically beaming visions of our destruction into our little heads. It works. It tells a story. With music and catchy tunes.

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9012 Live: The Solos & 90125- Yes [#20] & [#21]

9012 Live: The Solos – Yes

People that have known me for a while will no doubt agree when I say, as a youth, I was weird. When all my contemporaries were enjoying U2, Deacon Blue, Blur and Shakespear’s Sister; I was deeply entrenched in a puddle of prog. Most notably, Yes and Triumvirat.

As I reached my early teens my desire for music grew. HMV became the Minaret that called me through it’s doors to the music Mecca that was inside. Remember, this was many years before the Internetz and free musicz. You would have to go through the LPs and CDs alphabetically by artist and hope that there would be something new or exciting within your price range. If they didn’t have the album, you could ask them to order it, but they’d probably charge a fortune. Or you could just hope that on the off chance it would somehow miraculously appear in the racks.

In the day, records were out of my price range and I would use Christmas and Birthdays to boost the contents of my music library by asking grandparents to buy me the albums or by using gift vouchers. One of the albums I got during this time was this. Unfortunately the vinyl got warped somewhere between the printing press and my record player. I didn’t have a receipt. I didn’t have the courage to ask for a refund. Instead I listened to the listenable bits and made do.

This album reminds me of so much about my childhood. Probably because this and the accompanying studio album and video were on repeat

90125 – Yes

I wrote to Jimmy Peado Saville and asked him to fix it for me to sing with Yes because of this album. He was obviously too busy fiddling to Fix anything for me.

90125 is a break from the twiddly weirdness of their earlier stuff. A complete style change from Tormato and Drama. Yet it works. It works well. They even had a new guitarist. Trevor Rabin (Steve Howe had gone to play with Asia). He looked so cool I wanted long hair like his. I wanted to be dark haired so I could have long hair like his. This was new stuff and a new style that would continue to evolve and grow like me. I must have listened to this album a million times as teen and as a twenteen. With the VHS live video to accompany it too.

Incidentally, this is the album which contains Owner of a Lonely Heart; Yes’ most famous song.

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Music Project – Album #19 – 2001: A Space Odyssey – Original Soundtrack

2001: A Space Odyssey – Various Artists (Original Soundtrack)

As a child I thought 2001 was boring. Too much talk. Not enough lasers or explosions. And what was that thing about the huge slabs of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk in space about? And why was Rigsby talking with a Russian accent? But hey! Look at all that cool stuff we’ll have in 2001! Holidays in space, floaty pens and Commodore 64s will have huge red lights and be able to kill you. Wow.

As a twenty something, 2001 became the wall paper for mind experiments. Mostly to do with the weird bits at the end. A chap I knew edited the weird trippy hyperspace sequence at the end into a 3 hour stoner flick complete with far out music. Suffice to say, his place was popular with hippies and tourists of the ether on a Friday night after the pubs had closed.

The soundtrack for 2001 is a mix of familiar classical Strauss waltzes interspersed with more unusual Modernist works by Gyorgy Ligeti. Ligeti, you might recall, is a progenitor of the atmospheric style of music. Eerie chanting choirs (they chant “Eeee” and nothing more) are part of the course with Ligeti and sections of his Requiem provide further feelings of unease and suspense. It’s amazing what music can do isn’t it? Some might think of six minutes of people going “eeeeee” discordantly would be torture, while others listen through the surface and deep below feeling the pulses and rhythms on an almost synesthesic level.

On reflection I seem to recall one of my brothers having the 2001 soundtrack when I was a child. I’m certain my mum insisted that he did not play the album when I was around as it might be too scary. It probably was, but I’m sure the continuous playing during my early years, altered my mind on some level, meaning I can appreciate atmospheric, true industrial, noise and rhythmic genres on a significantly different level.

Or perhaps has given me the ability to spout shite.

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1984 – Rick Wakeman [#18]

1984 – Rick Wakeman

Take one Chaka “Chaka” Khan (out of deep storage), a dose of Kenny Lynch, a teaspoon of Jon Anderson, a pinch of cockney rebel Steve Harley and mix well with copious amounts of bearded prog rock keyboard player (remove beard). Garnish with sprinklings of Tim Rice Libretto which has been steeped overnight in a solution of George Orwell’s 1984. Leave to play for 46 minutes.

Serve with bemusment.

Rick the bearded grump mashes out another album of prolonged twiddling this time without the ice skating panto horses. Instead he collaborates with Tim “Jeeeesus Christ Superstar” Rice and tells the story of Orwell’s 1984.

If you can listen through Chaka “Chaka” Khan’s screeching you will hear something quite entertaining. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t “Lounging about on the sofa drinking coffee” music, nor is it “bring some girl home and romance her” music (unless you’ve found the mythical female prog fan). It isn’t even “Aren’t we refined” dinner party music. It’s “Let’s vacuum the house” or “Wash the dishes” music.

Admittedly I used to listen to it when I did my paper round so it isn’t all that bad really.

Except for the screeching.

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Music Project Album #17 – 1200 Curfews – Indigo Girls

1200 Curfews – Indigo Girls

What is this shite doing in my music library and how did it get there?!

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Music Project Album #16 – 666 – Aphrodite’s Child

666 – Aphrodite’s Child

Aphrodite’s Child is to Greece what the Beatles are to Liverpool and Abba to Sweden. If Greece had maintained such quality progrock output I suspect they wouldn’t be in financial difficulty now.

Though what do I know about economics? Stuff all.

I suspect most of you will not have heard of Aphrodite’s Child (AC) but I’m certain you may be aware of two of the lead members: Vangelis and Demis Roussos. The band was a product of a time when Prog was popular in the west – long before punk appeared. With a style similar to the Moody Blues, AC only managed to churn out 3 albums. 666 is the last AC album before they split to pursue solo projects and is a concept double album based on the bible’s Book of Revelation.

I’ve only ever attempted to listen to the album all the way through a couple of times. It’s quite hard going but there are a couple of sections that stir up desires and send prog infused shivers to your toes via your spine. These being most notably The Four Horsemen and Hic and Nunc If you know the works of Vangelis and Roussos you would probably listen to it blissfully unaware of who you are listening to, this album being so detached from their later styles.

But to truly experience the album in its fullness, you need to abide by the following recipe:-

You will need:
A room (plastered, painted white with lines of blue to resemble some form of Greek restuarant)
Some form of heating (can be natural)
A beard
3 chest wigs
A kaftan
Some drugs
Metaxa
Strong smelling aftershave from the 1970’s (Brut 33, Blue Stratos, Denim or HiKarate will do)
A record/tape/MP3/media player
A couple of friends with beards and kaftans
Numerous cushions (varying in size)
A mezze board of kebab meat

Method:

1. Take the room, heat to unbearable sweaty levels. Sit in the room. On a cushion. Wearing your kaftan with your beard and similarly attired friends. Stuff the largest cushions up your kaftan and encourage your friends to do the same. This is to increase your girth and make you at one with Roussos, Sideros and Vangelis.

2. Douse each participant in the strong aftershave and apply the chest wigs (if you are doing this on your own because you have no friends, use all three chestwigs for full appreciation). Repeat until fumes effect visibility or motor functions. Ensure all participants have worked up a really big sweat.

3. Partake in the drugs and metaxa. Cannabis is recommended here as you can usually get a good hit if you use a hooka pipe which will also add to the authenticity of the experience. Other drugs can be used but may effect the overall experience detrementally (especially crack or crystal meth).

4. Play the album and nibble on mezze board.

5. Chill

6. Halucinate and sway about.

7. ???

8. Profit.

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101 – Depeche Mode [#15]

101 – Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode’s music incites a strange mix of emotions and feelings. Kind of kinky dirty but also grimey in the same way. I suppose it’s because I know some members had a really bad smack habit so often images of Grange Hill’s Zammo slumped in a dirty public bog, hypodermic needle in his arm and dirty burnt silver foil in his hand come to mind.

Saying that, some songs especially those off Songs of Faith & Devotion onjour images of Martin Gore and Dave Gahan in bondage gear flagellating each other in some weird S&M orgy involving penguins and matchsticks. Dunno why….it just does.

My first post-childhood exposure to Depeche Mode, as in one where I was starting to become aware of popular music, occurred in 1992 when I was a student at Sheffield Hallam University. It was while supporting my studies working at Halfords I met a strange chap (who smelt of used sleeping bags) whose belief was no Sunday was complete without 7 hours of constant Depeche Mode. I suppose the repetition helped. I even went and bought their albu Songs of Faith and Devotion, the tracks from which became the soundtrack of those days. Mostly because it was the only CD other than Mike Oldfield that I had with me during my stay at Uni. But I’ll go into that more in about a year or so…when I get to S.

101 is a live album. As with all good live albums they provide a snap shot of a band’s catalogue at the time of going to press. Indeed, I find live albums a good way of determining whether or not I’ll like a band. With some exceptions. But we’ll get to that in a few months time.

Recorded in 1989 at the Pasadena Rose Bowl,101 is a good collection of Mode favorites. Most importantly it has an accompanying live concert video which I saw back in the mid nineties. I recall seeing it when at Ginger Chris’ house. Everyone was smashed out of their heads on their intoxicant of choice and discussions regarding Egyptian spirituality, UFOs and conspiracies were rife. I suppose that situation reinforced the imagery I described earlier in this entry.

Mode, like Abba, are one of those bands who feature on everyone born in the 1960’s to 1970’s personal life soundtrack. I’m sure there are some younger readers who will also say “Ah but they feature on my life soundtrack too”, and that may be the case. Such is the power and distinctive style of Depeche Mode. Indeed, this live set contains some of their earlier more poppie tunes (I maintain the best thing that Depeche Mode ever did was persuade Vince Clarke to leave) such as Just Can’t Get it up enough and People are People

It would be pertinent to expect to see a fair bit of DM during this project.

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