whiskey on a sunday

Sunday Best Records have been knocking out the seven inches by the dozen over the last few months. One of their latest releases is 'Animal Sounds' by Grand National. For this one they've raided Human Leagues studio and robbed what sounds like an old eighties Fairlight synthesiser. It's an altogether low-key affair that I didn't like on the first listen but since then its really grown on me. It's such a slow builder and the build of the song is somewhat reminiscent of the low-key build up on Sweet Harmony by The Beloved. Of course it sounds nothing like that tune but there are similarities in the undercurrents of both tunes. The B-side features a remix by Fear of Theydon and it takes the low-keyness, takes a beat, layers it with some dinky keyboard sounds and turns it into quite a groover.

Another seven that I picked up is the second part of a two-part release by The Little Ones. It's two remixes of their latest single 'Ordinary Song' on Heavenly Records. The first remix is by X-Press 2 and it's a full on, four to the floor tune. The flip-side is a remix by Electrelane, a band that I enjoyed at last years Electric Picnic. It couldn't be more different than the X-Press version. This one is a simple guitar riff overlayed with an ethereal sound that is reminiscent of listening to the Cocteau Twins play in the next room. It's all a bit spacey. I like it though.

I've been breaking my nuts trying to get a seven inch copy of 'It must be love' by Labi Siffre. I've ordered it online twice only to be told that they didn't have it. I've a funny feeling that I actually have a copy already but I haven't found that yet. Instead I picked up 'Too Late' by Labi and its the business. Its like an old bluebeat tune. Simple off-beat guitar riff and Mr Siffre's dulcet tones. I love it. J'adore.

In the same secondhand shop I chanced upon the second seven inch release on the Trensmat label. I've mentioned these quite recently and I'm also awaiting delivery of their two latest releases. The seven i picked up is by a band called 'Mugstar' and to be honest this is pretty full on prog. I'm not sure which tune is on which side, but the one that I like is fucking rocking and I'm not pushed on the other one.

The latest from Tiny Masters of Today is released on Mute Records and is called 'Hologram World'. Its an infectious little garage punk-pop ditty. I can't really say much more about it.

Brass in Africa was released on seven inch in 2007 but I only heard it today for the first time. Its by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and released on Handcuts Records, a Tokyo based label and shop. It's a reworking of Shaft in Africa (from the movie soundtrack of the same name) and it's funky to bits. It has all the urgency of the original tune and a lot more.

Last but not least is a 2007 release from Cucumber on Cosmic Groove, the French shop and record label. It's a complete sixties groove on the a-side 'It's Hippopotime' with a little bit of scratching and what sounds like a kazoo in the background. You feel like you're in a sonic advertisement. There's a bell chiming in the background that reminds me of a song used in a recent advert for somethin I don't remember. The b-side is a bit more brassy sounding with a wah-wah guitar running through it. It's all starting to sound like a psychedelic extravaganza.

I was watching Other Voices during the week and Interference were on it. I was only wondering what happened to them and indeed posed the question on this blog very recently. They never went away you know, or if they did, it wasn't too far. I remember seeing them play a lunchtime gig in Merrion Square and the same series of gigs also saw The Frames play the same venue. Coincidentally, Glen Hansard from The Frames was also on the Other Voices show. Glen is starting to look too much like Avid Merrion for my comfort. Someone should tell him.

Christmas post

Some Christmas post arrived through the letterbox yesterday. It was a pleasant surprise as I'd forgotten that I'd ordered it. I was watching the TV late one evening a couple of weeks ago and I'm pretty sure I must have been intoxicated whilst doing so. I saw an ad for something that featured the song 'Popcorn'. For many years I had led myself to believe that the song was a Jean Michel Jarre penned ditty. As it turns out I was completely wrong. On foot of watching the ad I decided that I had to have the song on vinyl. Don't ask me why I thought this but that's how my mind was working at the time. I did a quick Google on 'Popcorn Jean MichelJarre' and imagine my surprise when one of the links told me that the song was not written by Monsieur Jarre but by a gent called Gershon Kingsley. Quelle surprise. As it turns out Jean Michel also released a version under the Popcorn Makers moniker three years after the original release. In all its been recorded by artists too numerous to mention but you can find a list of them here. Anyhow I decided to buy the Gershon Kingsley album that it originally featured on. It's called 'Music to Moog By' and on first listen its a welcome addition to the ever increasing amount of vinyl in my house. It's a bit of a rawer and funkier version than the one that was re-recorded by Kingsley and released under the artist name, Hot Butter. Here's Mr Kingsley playing it on piano earlier this year:


Besides buying stuff online when I'm in bits I also take a look at the papers. Today I was reading an interview with Glen Hansard in The Irish Times. I don't know Glen too well but I have met him a few times over the years. I like the chap and have always been impressed how he's kept plugging away doing his music thing over the years. I'm not a fan of The Frames music but they always seemed to work their nuts off. Their sell out Irish gigs over the last few years are also a testament to a very loyal fanbase. As mentioned I like Glen, but I like him even more after reading the interview. He told a few truths about the current state of the Irish psyche, truths that I'd been thinking about over the last couple of years. I think that Glen earned a bit of a reputation as being too earnest following his stint on the 'Other Voices' TV show on RTE a few years back. Alongside his earnest tag you can now put honest. Fucks sake I wish people levelled the charge of being earnest and honest against me. I can fully understand most of the stuff he has to say about Ireland but in case you missed today's paper here's an extract from it:
Later he suggests this in-between stage, this confused point, is probably not a good time to be doing interviews. But at the same time he has a lot to get off his chest. For starters these days Dublin makes him feel claustrophobic and Ireland is not, certainly in the near future, the place he wants to call home. "I am so proud to be Irish but there are so many problems with the Irish at the moment. Our nation is in a state of not knowing who it is right now. There's a painful change going on. It feels to me there is this caustic atmosphere. If I ever go to Whelan's now, which is rarely, I have to say I feel a dead energy," he says.

He won't refer, in this context, to an economic boom or a success story, and prefers the term "economic upheaval".

"I think it has been damaging," he says. "Everybody has just suddenly realised they can have what they want and they are all acting more like Americans. There is a different atmosphere than there was when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. The Irish are not cool people, Italians are cool people, and people from London and New York are cool. We aren't, we are a heady kind of people, so an Irish person wearing an FCUK top with Deisel jeans and Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses - we just look like idiots. I don't think we wear that stuff well."

You get the sense he can't get over how it happened, how Ireland went from being "not that far away from being a third-world country to being like pigs at the trough". He doesn't understand how having made "a bit of money" from the film he still can't afford a house in Dublin.

"I find it depressing the way we treat ourselves . . . the country is being divided into small lots of expensive apartments, new roads, new cars . . . the Government is almost forcing us to pull up to standards that we can't afford, that are beyond us, so there will be a collapse. We could do with some humility here."

I hear you brother, tell it like it is. If you want to watch the archived 'Other Voices' you can access them here.