I haz been snowed under with uni-work and being in Japan for a week and stuff, so I apologise profusely for not bringing you any musical joy for a while. The only thing I really have to report is an unhealthy penchant for repeated plays of the first Franz Ferdinand album and the entire Radiohead back catalogue.
Still, I have an hour-long radio show to post in the next day or two and I’m off to enjoy ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas from tomorrow so treats should be upcoming Real Soon Now.
Oh, and I’ve done a very quick Favourite 15 albums of the year which I might post about soon…
Stephin Merritt and gang will be returning to London in March next year as part of a US and European tour and to promote their upcoming album ‘Realism‘ (due out on 26th Jan on nonesuch). Hopefully it will make up for the very disappointing round of gigs at Cadogan Hall last year.
They’re in London on the 22nd March and you can buy advance tickets from here.
The wonderful John Rixon is curating an AV night at the Tate, including musicians Roger Eno and Jon Hopkins and the visual talents of Simon Wild, Bruce Bickerton and others.
As if by magic I noticed that this FACT magazine mix was up from Jimmy Edgar. I had been revisiting his Color Strip album just yesterday.
This mix is more housey that straight, stripped-down electro though there’s still a tuff-ness of beats that will be familiar to the Edgar fans amongst you.
It’s only up for another week or so, so grab it while you can.
Tracklist:
Jimmy Edgar – Funktion of Your Love (vocal mix-unreleased)
Plastikman – Kriket
Captain Rapp – Bad Times
Andre Crom – Morphin
Jimmy Edgar & Machinedrum – Sin Love With You
Aaliyah – One In A Million
Dopplereffekt – Speaknspell
Posatronix – Shake It
Aaron Carl – Down (Original Mix)
Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle – Baby Wants To Ride (Unreleased Ron Hardy mix)
Lee Jones – The Ice Train Cometh
Jimmy Edgar – Be There (out soon on HYPERCOLOUR)
4th Measure Men – 4 You
Ralph Falcon – I Need Someone (stoned someone mix)
Squarepusher – Kill Robok
Laid Back – White Horse
Ed DMX – Mks Demo (unreleased)
I first heard about the resulting album (Permanent Stranger) when I saw Jim White at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne back in March**. Before performing ‘Palm Of My Hand’ Jim White told us about the album, apparently full of songs that were too weird even for his usual people, the David Byrne label Luaka Bop. Intrigued I was.
Anyway, here’s a taster with a video by Howard Better, apparently a old cab-driving buddy of Mr White.
Enjoy.
—-
* one of my top ten favourite albums of all time
** Oh how happy I was that he was touring whilst I was out there. I’ve probably seen him six times in the last two years and still look forward to every outing :D
ATTENTION: this review of the Chilly Gonzales gig with Jarvis Cocker contains spoilers. As there are another three shows in the series, I recommend you do not read if you’re intending to go. If you’re undecided, read this and go from there. That link also gets all the usual review-intro guff out of the way so I can get straight into the show…
Chilly Gonzales \ The Entertainist \ the AKA \ Jason Beck tis a man of a thousand faces and on Wednesday night, late at the Pigalle Club, he was on a one-man mission to communicate the diversity and beauty of music armed only with a piano, sharp wit and some skills. Oh, and the slight matter of a very special guest.
When he stepped out onto stage late on Wednesday night Chilly looked like he’d just stepped out of the shower – resplendent in heavy dressing gown, pyjamas, slippers and wet hair. His white gloves the only indication that he wasn’t simply making his way across the stage for a tasty late-night cigar and nightcap with Jarvis Cocker (for twas he as the special guest), who was quietly sat in a corner.
He began the show not with the chat but with the piano, opening with some solo piano pieces before moving into a properly gutsy blues number. For any newcomers in the audience, perhaps some there more for his special guest, this was a quick entree into the soul of Chilly.
Before too long he addressed the audience, introducing himself with a few of the epithets that have been applied to him, including, Superproducer and, now he lives in Paris, ‘génie de la musique’. I think it’s a tribute to Gonzo that the London audience warmly laughed rather than raise a cool collective eyebrow at this.
After his self-introduction, Gonzales moved into meatier territory, speaking of ‘Tonality as Philosophy’, railing against the dominance of the major key and extolling the virtues of the less flashy, more poignant and melancholy minor – a supposition to which, I naturally incline – with examples (Happy (dour) Birthday, Eine Kleiner (deep-of-the) Nachtmusik and the completely unrecognisable Champagne Supernova).
Next was a little philosophy on rapping (or How To Make Music in a Butch Way) and a call for audience participation. As we helped with some stomping and clapping he gave us a ‘So Called Party Over There‘. I think I was a little giddy after a glass of quality white wine and found keeping in time surprisingly difficult…
From here he announced “and now for my feelings” before launching into ‘Slow Down‘ from Soft Power, a quiet early 80s style-ballad, effortlessly changing the mood.
After a little more piano work, he moved from sweet to bitter with a new song which opened with ‘I hold grudges \ like a rapper holds his crotch… I’ll try and control my temper \ but I’ll definitely remember…” and continues in this creepy vein to nervous laughter.
When done Chilly admitted quietly, ‘Beyond the bad puns, that’s really me’, daring the audience to take him seriously, to cut through the irony.
Yet there was more audience participation next, with us providing a simple bassline (an ‘ostinato’ he said, but I thought more a ‘passacaglia’ myself) over which he would improvise. Here’s the equivalent segment from a HBO show:
Twas a beautiful flight of fancy through genres old and new which served to show off his musical range.
Next some was some Melodika joy, followed by a triumphant ‘Take me to Broadway’ and then twas time for the special guest. Cue: Jarvis, rocking his geography teacher look – the only outfit he seems to own at the moment.
After a bit of chat about living in France – where Chilly claims to be more famous – and speaking French (Jarvis’s parler français c’est de la merde) they launched into the world premiere of ‘Francophobia’.
You can see the whole exchange here:
Can’t say it did much for me, perhaps being Australian by birth means I just can’t get the antagonism towards the French, even in jest – but I guess the fantasy was always going to be better than reality. You can see more of the exchange here.
To end the show Jarvis performed ‘I Never Said I Was Deep’. Gonzales claims it to be an instant classic but the track has the unfortunate honour of being the only Jarvis Cocker tune I seriously don’t like. Further to that, with Chilly’s forthright self-love, tonight was not a night for self-deprecation.
Thankfully, to remove the bitter taste from my mouth, Gonzales returned for an encore, taking centre stage with an acoustic guitar which he slowly proceeded to tune as he ranted about a performer who came on stage and… spent two minutes tuning his guitar. It reminded me of his intro to the album Presidential Suite:
“As an entertainer, what you basically are are the sum of the audience’s thoughts about you. And anyone who pretends otherwise is straight bullshittin’, gang!”
After smashing up the guitar he returned to the piano and gave us a soft classics mashup: bits of Hotel California, Coming In the Air Tonight, a little hints at the final upcoming track before ending with aflourish of Beethoven’s ‘Fur Elise’. The audience listened, still rapt despite the fact that it was nearly 1:30am.
The concert ended with Chilly climbing the piano, having retrieved a pretty young gal (over an enthusiastic stage-invading young man) to play a simple piano part for him, and belting out ‘Political Platform Shoes’, his paen to substance over style:
“So much is cheesy
And that’s for sheezy
But with melodies like these
I make it easy peasy”
Twas a friend who recommended unto me this concert, declaring Fennesz to be “really beautiful big sounding electronicy/classical loveliness” – well alright then.
Spent yesterday listening to a bunch of Fennesz and Grouper on Spotify (prompting this tweet) for some reason under the impression that they were the same person recording under two different names. Goodness knows from whence that impression came for I was soon to learn very different.
The venue was St Giles-in-the-Fields, a CoE church which hosts many a lunchtime chamber recital, though not frequently used for more amplified affairs. Strangely, many seats had no view of the stage area, a point underlined by the constantly traipsing nature of later arrivals, thankfully this was music one only need listen to. Eyes were not important.
First on the bill were the delightfully named Natural Snow Buildings – a French duo who filled the church with beautifully languid melodies over textural guitar and effects drones. I was absolutely locked in. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find anything around to buy (though nicked an mp3 from Phoning it in.
Grouper came to the stage next, taking a seat behind a mic with a guitar and a thousand effects pedals, tapes and other bits by her feet. She filled the space with dreamlike underwater music, with intense and very loud harmonics enveloping the congregation. Like her recorded output, her voice is filtered, placed within rather than over the music and it was absolutely beautiful. Occasionally a projector would throw simple white light shapes above her, across the stained glass over the altar.
Fennesz took to the stage last and took little time to start rolling out the soundscapes. Loud rumbling bass, chorused, rising distortion beds and slicing cuts of treble filled the church. I went downstairs and was struck by the completely different quality of the sound – the high harmonics almost disappeared, replaced by slowly pulverising bass. As a piece of sound design I thought it was great, but as music it left me largely unmoved. Suddenly, about 40 minutes into the performance, as the bass was rising to a huge volume, everything cut out, Fennesz himself was astonished. After a minute or two of faffing around, he shrugged and indicated that was it. Someone mentioned a fuse going – I guess from the sound desk.
This was the first gig of the promoters Miles of Smiles I’ve been to, but I’ll be keeping an eye on them in the future. Check their website for upcoming performances.
Saw The Phantom Band at Green Man and bought the album Checkmate Savage (which the Green Man programme described as ‘where Beefheart meets Bonnie Prince Billy, where Neu! meets Nick Cave’) on the strength of their excellently mind-bending performance. Psychedelic-ish, mathrock-ish, pop-ish, dark-ish – they bring a bunch of styles together very nicely indeed.
I haz been snowed under with uni-work and being in Japan for a week and stuff, so I apologise profusely for not bringing you any musical joy for a while. The only thing I really have to report is an unhealthy penchant for repeated plays of the first Franz Ferdinand album and the entire Radiohead back catalogue.
Chilly Gonzales \ The Entertainist \ the AKA \ Jason Beck tis a man of a thousand faces and on Wednesday night, late at 
After his self-introduction, Gonzales moved into meatier territory, speaking of ‘Tonality as Philosophy’, railing against the dominance of the major key and extolling the virtues of the less flashy, more poignant and melancholy minor – a supposition to which, I naturally incline – with examples (Happy (dour) Birthday, Eine Kleiner (deep-of-the) Nachtmusik and the completely unrecognisable Champagne Supernova).
Twas a friend who recommended unto me this concert, declaring Fennesz to be “really beautiful big sounding electronicy/classical loveliness” – well alright then.
