A quick dip
A quick dip then into the last week or so's singles and a few slightly older tracks that I picked up Monday...
Venetian Snares - Pink + Green EP
Look at the lovely ponies! Aww. Hmmm, should they be smoking tabs and have skull tattoo? Well really! What has happened to the pony paradise place? Maybe it has been invaded by some hardcore techno mindfuckery... Yes, this is not something to play to the kids I fear. This is not so much happy hardcore as delirious, slightly scared hardcore as written out by robots built by techno-boffins, robots who have since risen up and locked their inventers in a coal shed while they tinker with the the idea of sending the entire listening public insane. Repeated playings will eventually hand control of the planets safety to the completely deaf. The last track is lovingly entitled SPORTO FUCKING SELLOUT COCKSUCKERFACE.
After playing this I think my neighbours might start a petition of some sort. But still, look at the lovely ponies on the cover!
Luke Vibert - Mate Tron EP
More techno treasures here, thankfully not buried under several layers of noise and instead nicely reminiscent of the afx twn analogue series out a few years back but more coherent, structured and i guess mainstream. It wouldn't feel out of place on a Boards of Canada LP as it trips along on warm chords and a sedate acid line. Only (small) grumble for the title track is the vocodor snatches that are a bit annoying but other than that this is a really welcome bit of vinyl that will sit on my easy to reach shelf of good stuff.
And While I mentioned them - if you never bought this one then rush out now and buy it its ace;
Boards Of Canada - Trans Canada Highway EP
God it is good. Go buy! Now!
The Bees - Listening Man
Hooray for the bees! They're starting to amass a pretty decent collection of ace singles now; Horsemen, Wash the Rain, that one from the advert that everyone knows, that other one from the other adverts that you and your nan both know and try to sing along to, etc, etc. But really, should a band oft overlooked by the buying public be able to release singles this lovely and scrape the top 40 for but one week? Is there justice in the world?
When my flatmate heard this he asked if it was the Beach Boys, bit more of a soft reggea feel to it than that but a definite 60s groove going on here and not a BB sound at all but it gives you an idea how good this sounds. The Isle Of Wight has not produced a single other band I can think of (sorry IOW'ers) and that the one they have are so strangely soulful and capable of wonders like this would normally result in a stewards enquirey but, like, lets just relax and nod our heads along to the summer sound of couples drinking innocents smoothies in the park and misunderstood indie kids kicking off their shoes and paddling in the cool waters from Shanklin to Alun Bay.
The Coral - Who's gonna find me
A bit like the bees, a band who have a wealth of hits but who fall down when it comes to writing out your top ten bands of 2007. Is this the new LPs answer to In the Morning, Pass it on, or Dreaming of you? Um, no. But it is a good track still and well worth your 99p or whatever it is and best of all one of the B-sides is a cover of Ghostriders In The Sky. Good verison which prompted me to dig out the other versions of the song I have (Johnny Cash's is ok - Random Country version is good - best of all is the instrumental version by Dan Bow Vietnam which I have on a taped copy of an old Peel show - great great version).
Jarvis - Fat Children
He may have lost his band, his surname and his figure (going by the picture here) but Jarvis has not lost his sense of humour. Which is the last thing to go before people get tired of you. He has also found here a rallying call against the ASBO generation who would have beaten him black and blue had they caught him in 1970s Sheffield and might just do the same in 2007 when they find him in our dear capital. At least today's street urchins are obviously well fed, maybe running away is easier against a gang of waist 40" tearaways...
Not the best song he's ever penned, not even the best on this 7" - that goes to the really rather better than it ought to be B-side, The Loss Adjuster, a tale of the end of the world, set in the World's End pub in Camden and trying to give yourself one more chance to do it differently - failing and then giving up. But those days are behind you now Mr Cocker and this too you realise, that we get but one life but within that, times offered when you can start afresh, if not over again.
