Ash have written some great songs over the years, and most of them are on here. The deluxe edition is a bit of a cheat really as it's not just 1977, it also includes Ash's debut mini album Trailer plus the live album "Live At The Wireless",their entire Reading Festival set from 1997 and a third disc of B-Sides and session tracks. 1977 itself is a great album, I originally had it on cassette when it was first released in 1996 and almost wore it out with the amount I listened to it. The album opens with the sound of a Tie Fighter befor 50 minutes or so of teenage punk rock. The majority of ash's classic singles are on here, "Girl From Mars", "Kung Fu", "Oh Yeah" and "Angel Inteceptor" plus album tracks like "Innocent Smile", "Gone The Dream" and "Darkside Lightside", but then in this edition you've got all the extras too, The Trailer mini album is astoundingly good (particularly when you consider the band were pretty much still foetus's when it was recorded) with the early singles "Petrol", "Jack Names The Planets" and "Uncle Pat" all just as good as the later more well known ones.
Then you've got the non-album single "A Life Less Ordinary", and covers of tracks by Mudhoney,
Helen Love, The Temptations and Abba. there's a couple of tracks you don't really need, but it's a bloody great version of an excellent album. My favourite track has always been "Petrol", a bunch of irish teenagers channeling Dinosaur Jr. Can't argue with that!
Craig Armstrong is a scottish composer and string arranger. He's worked with Massive Attack, U2 and Madonna and has composed the film soundtracks for Romeo & Juliet, The Incredible Hulk and Moulin Rouge. Piano Works is an album of originals and reworked pieces arranged entierely for piano rather than his usual lush string arrangements.
It's a very chilled out album, and as such not one I've listened to that often over the years (I have two other albums by Armstrong which get much more regular plays) but now I've rediscovered it I think I'll be playing it more often in future. Here's "Leaving Paris"...
Canadian epic indie rockers Arcade Fire released this single in 2005. Rebellion (Lies) is a track of theirs you'll most likely know. it starts off all epic, then halfway through goes all motown and is awesome. You'll have heard it in the background on loads of telly programmes. I've already got this track on their album "Funeral" though...
The B-Side on his one is fairly interesting though, A cover of the 1939 song "Brazil" originally by Ary Barroso and subsequently covered by everyone from Django Reinhardt to The Vengaboys (Seriously!). It'll be familiar to most people for featuring in Terry Gilliams 1985 movie "Brazil" and also because it's currently on the cadburys advert with the bubblecars and the airships. Arcade Fire's take on the song is somehow both faithful to the classic versions of the song but also sounding like one of their own. here it is...
oops, just realised this should have been before arctic monkeys, sorry bout that, fell through a wormhole in time and space...
This is one of those bands where a semi obscure track is lightyears ahead of any of the much more well known songs. Arctic Monkeys are a pretty good band, they've had some great singles and there aren't really many duff tracks on any of their albums, but none of them stand up to the utter magnificence that is "Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts", a song tucked away as a B-Side on their second release (after their debut EP "Five Minutes With The Arctic Monkeys").
I mean, Obviously you know the title track, and it's brilliant, no real arguing with that at all, and third track "Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick" is an excellently titled little instrumental (and it makes me want to write a song called "Blankas Electric Shock Thing Where You Crouch Down And Mash The Buttons Really Fast") but listen to this, it's ace! could have just as easily been a number one single...
Ah, Chemikal Underground records again, and more specifically, catalogue number CHEM017CD, which was the release directly before my (joint) favourite record of all time, but we'll get to that later. There's going to be a fair bit of Arab Strap on this blog eventually. Arab Strap were the fantastic pairing of musical genius Malcolm Middleton and grumpy poet lyrical wizard Aidan Moffat. Their music was predominantly sparse, Middletons wiry guitar lines over vintage analogue drum machines accompanying Moffat's spoken word poetry, with tales of debauchery, infidelity, more debauchery and jealousy, albeit, often hilarious tales of debauchery, infidelity, more debauchery and jealousy!
The Girls Of Summer EP is a strange one really, Opening track "Hey! Fever" is an upbeat cheerful piano based song with guest vocals from a male voice choir and Stuart Murdoch from Belle & Sebastian, The title track is a bass heavy groover which breaks into a dubby dance track towards the end (although does this much better on the live album "Mad For Sadness", "The Beautiful Barmaids Of Dundee" is a throwaway kind of song with a bossa nova beat, and "One Day After School" is classic Arab Strap, incredibly dark, sparse and confessional and features on their second album "Philophobia". Here's "Hey! Fever"...
Another pianoey singy lady. I've got a few of that kind of record in my collection. Fiona Apple's much delayed third album was released 2 years after its initial completion due to the record companies initial refusal to release the album (they eventually changed their mind after a protest campaign from Apple's fans). It's a good album, although I prefer it's predecessor "When The Pawn...". Much of it's appeal comes from collaborator/producer Jon Brion (who had previously worked with Eels, Jellyfish and Evan Dando.) who gives the arrangements a Tom Waitsy kinda vibe with marimba's and vibraphones.
For me, the highlight of the album is the strangeley named "Tymps (The Sick In The Head Song)", which retains a similar style to her earlier work...
Richard D James, Cornwall's finest insane electronic maniac. Girl/Boy EP was released in 1996 and is on the more melodic side of Aphex Twin's discography. It's basically 2 proper songs, plus 4 very short remixes with a cover image featuring (allegedly) the grave of James's twin brother, who he claims died at birth. (He also claims to live in bank vault and that at the age of 11 he reprogrammed a Sinclair ZX81 to make music, despite it not having a sound chip, so this may not be accurate).
Here's the lead track "Girl/Boy song (NLS Mix)" Which is an identical version to he one featured on the "Richard D. James" album...
