Day 0982 - Two Dancers

 Wild Beasts “Two Dancers” (2009)

The write-up in the book didn’t really give me much to go on this time around.  The blurb was heavy on praise but light on descriptive musical detail.

I quite liked the sound of it from the off.   A kind of gentle rolling bass and tom-tom drum rhythm with clean guitar and keyboards creating almost ambient soundscapes.  More prominent guitar parts pop up to contrast this, seeming to move between percussive funk, and effects laden grooves a la U2’s the Edge.

The vibe I got from the opening track “The Fun Powder Plot” was of a kind of updated take on the Talking Heads, from the funky guitar to the vocal delivery which was reminiscent of head Head David Byrne.   Elsewhere the wild falsetto vocals almost hint at Jeff Buckley.   Having two lead vocalists also gives the band a bit of variety.

I liked this well enough, but I was starting to lose interest by the end, which is surprising as it’s a fairly compact album, with 11 songs and a runtime of just 40-odd minutes.   While there was a definite ‘sound’ across the album, there was a bit of variety that should have kept it from getting too staid.  I guess their songwriting just doesn't quite do it for me (almost but not quite).

Day 0918 - Punishing Kiss

Ute Lemper "Punishing Kiss" (2000)

I'd not heard of Lemper, but it seems she is an acclaimed actress as well as being a singer.   She had built much of her music career dipping into the past, particularly interpreting the songs of Kurt Weil.  For this album she went with modern composers, though many of them had been inspired by Weil too, so still within Lemper's comfort zone.

Thankfully it's VERY much in my wheelhouse too, with her modern composers being such luminaries as Scott Walker, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Elvis Costello and Neil Hanlon.   Hanlon's band the Divine Comedy provide backing for much of the album and he duets with Lemper on a couple of tracks.

The album is bombastic, theatrical and bursting with good music.    Though the individual composers' voices can certainly be heard (Lemper even seems to mimic Costello's snarling crooning style on some of his songs) there's a cohesiveness across the album, and Lemper owns each song with a voice that ranges from gentle theatrical murmur through to passionate howl, on the almost Bjork-esque opener "Little Water Song".

The Costello-penned title track is a fun highlight for me, but the whole album is really good.  The finale is a brooding 10-minute late-era style Scott Walker dirge, which is quite frankly as good a way as any to close an album.

Day 0891 - Darkdancer

Les Rythmes Digitales “Darkdancer” (1999)

More dance music, *le sigh*

No, this was actually pretty enjoyable.  Much like Mark Ronson’s “Record Collection” album some 10 years later, this album draws on a 1980s synth pop sound and features singers from that era/genre.   Singer Shannon features on track “Take a Little Time”, and the catchy “Sometimes” features singer and multi-instrumentalist Nik Kershaw.

Les Rythmes is Stuart Price, an English lad with a soft spot for French electro-pop.   Price has done production and remixing work for a number of artists including Pet Shop Boys, the Killers, Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Coldplay.

This album features upbeat, vibrant synthesizer pop that feels like it’s dripping with fluro 80s colour.   The track “Soft Machine” has a nice jittery, off-kilter rhythm and raspy rock vocal that I quite enjoyed.   "Music Makes You Lose Control" has the kind of repetitive loop-based approach to making music, has a fairly musical synth/bass line running throughout.  

Day 0888 - The Contino Sessions

Death in Vegas “The Contino Sessions” (1999)

The band were originally called ‘Dead Elvis’, but as it tunred out this was the name of an existing record label.  They changed their name to the thematically similar ‘Death in Vegas’ and used the Dead Elvis moniker for their first album instead.

The Contino Sessions (named for their recording space) is their second album.  The blurb in the book mentioned DJing and electronica and I’d thought that I’d be getting something very much in that musical arena.   I was quite surprised then to hear the opening track “Dirge” that starts with a sparse guitar line and vocals, then eventually builds to a Shoe-gazey wall of guitar noise.  

There are definitely electronic elements here (electronic beats, loops) but the sound veers between the aforementioned shoegazey sound and triphop, with shoe-gaze/wall-of-guitar band Jesus and Mary Chain’s vocalist Jim Reid featuring on one track “Broken Little Sister”.  Actually, that one sounded a bit familiar to me.

The second track “Soul Auctioneer” features a sinister, subdued groove that would not feel out of place on an early Massive Attack album.   Iggy Pop features spoken word vocals on “Aisha”, meanwhile the track “Aladdin’s Story” is a rare burst of upbeat melody amongst the gloom… though even there, it’s deceptive.  The few lyrics are hardly uplifting “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen/Nobody knows my sorrow”.

Day 0610 - Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby

Terence Trent D'Arby "Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby" (1987)

Over the first couple of tracks I was a little put off by the staid, sterile 80s production sound on this one, but TTD's amazing voice and strong songwriting turned my opinion right around.

There's the minimalist funk and catchy synth line of "Wishing well", the souful doowop of "Who's Lovin' You", the beautiful acapella "As yet untitled" and plenty of other gems.

Day 0587 - You're Living All Over Me

Dinosaur Jr "You're Living All Over Me" (1987)

Wasn't overly familiar with Dino Jr outside of one or two tracks.  This seems kind of like droney, sensitive shoegazer stuff.  Washy guitar rock but with an element of noise rock, and maybe a little more emotion to it.  The Dino Jr mix of noise and melody is maybe best displayed on their cover of Peter Frampton's "Show me the way", with squeals and whines backing the pleasant tune.

Another one that I have enjoyed without going gaga for it.  I can certainly see this being a building block towards the 90s/grunge sound.

Day 0497 - 1999

Prince "1999" (1982)

Though Prince's next album "Purple Rain" would contribute to the parental advisory stickers being added to albums, this one is also pretty full-on (in typical Prince fashion).  It includes the ad-libbed line "I sincerely want to fuck the taste out of your mouth".

Barry White, Isaac Hayes and Marvin Gaye may have been masters of the bedroom groove that gave you the aural equivalent of being laid down on satin sheets, but I daresay Prince was king of the 'fuck-groove'.  The pull your panties down in the backseat and get buck-wild vibe.  "Lady Cab Driver" and "International lover" are pretty overt with this with Prince's ecstatic squeals and hard funk grooves, but the whole album has touches of the erotic.

Combining the warm grooves of Funkadelic with the machine-like rhythms of Kraftwerk, Prince was the future.

Day 0160 - Stand!

Sly and the Family Stone "Stand!" (1969) - got it

This has got to be one of the first serious 'funk' albums.  Those beats.  Dat bass.  Those horns. Sly and the family are one of those bands that have always been on my radar but I've never quite got around to checking them out properly.

A mixture of races and genders coming together to make great music, and one of the earliest bands to mix upbeat funky 'party' music with serious political commentary.  Great stuff, and as the "got it" at the top implies, I ended up picking up a copy of the album as a result of listening to it.