Remix Friday #5

Fuzzy bleepy filtered goodiness.  Worked surprisingly well in the middle of a electro-tech warehouse rave.  Thanks Sonido.  I will be back, even though Leicester is no more for me.  Love ya!

Luther Vandross – Never Too Much (ODahls K-Love Remix)

Friday Remix #4

I love that they had to come up with a new genre of music for the original of this song.  “Hollywood Sadcore”.  HOLLYWOOD SADCORE!!!  How fab is that!  Naturally there have been a slew of remixes for Lana Del Ray’s left-of-the-middle hit.  No suprises then that the one that tickles me is the one that shunts its sound along a couple of decades, swapping its 50’s A-line skirt and curlers for some flares and an afro wig.

Lana Del Rey – Video Games (Pedrokaco Remix)

 

Cover Up #2

Kate Miller-Heidke is not someone I know much about, apart from a kooky ‘Cyndi Lauper meets Downton Abbey’ style she portrays that is certainly at odds with this haunting and melancholic take on Empire of the Sun’s Walking on a Dream.  The vocals float gently through the song with nothing more to carry it than some light plinking on an electric guitar and the odd shake of a tambourine.

Empire of the Sun – Walking On A Dream

Kate Miller-Heidke – Walking On A Dream (Empire Of The Sun Cover)

Earworm #4

I think my formative years in Oz must have had a profound effect on my ears.  Yet again another excellent song from down under.  Taken from The Bag Raider’s excellent eponymous debut album from last year, this song certainly made my tube journey home more interesting (although the drunk who spent the distance between two stop on the floor with his flip-flop caught in the tube door was a close contender).

I think one of the reason I’m drawn to Aussie electro outfits is because their weather seems to infuse into their music.  ‘Sunlight’ is obviously no exception.

Bag Raiders – Sunlight

Here’s some hippie types doing a cover of it for good measure.

Remix Friday #3

Crunchy!

The Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive (Teddybears Remix)

Eyelid Movie #1

We all have our quieter moments filled with reflection and reveries.  After a pretty crucial weekend, and a complete life overhaul just around the corner, i have been left with a lot to think about.  Taken from Kate Bush’s last album, Nocturn is an expansively beautiful track, both nostalgic and contemplative.  Richly textured and filled with vivid imagery, the orchestral start gives way to a progressive beat that finally bursts aflame as the sun pours over a couple of night time swimmers floating in a sea of lucidity.  Although the narrative seems straightforward, the music belies this simplicity, as does her questioning of the conscious state.  The paths we take may seem as definite as footprints in the sand, but with a step out into the unknown, change is inevitable.

Kate Bush – Nocturn

Earworm #3

What IS it about them damn Aussies.  Sounds like PNAU and Flight Facilities just had a baby.  Thanks to Rose Quartz for living up to their name and alerting me to this absolute gem.

 

 

Remix Friday #2

Love, love, love this remix.  A big fan of Rayko and his sweet, sweet edits of classic cuts and lost gems.  If you like this, check out his soundcloud page.  The man is a genius.

Ann Peebles – I Can’t Stand the Rain (Rayko Edit)

Music Maths #2: The Erlend Oye Chart of Exponential Amazingness

1. Erlend Oye – Last Christmas

2. Kings of Convenience – Parallel Lines

3. Royksopp – Poor Leno

4. Phonique – For The Time Being

5. The Whitest Boy Alive – Island

6. The Whitest Boy Alive – Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix)

Erlend Oye is a man of many masks, but of only one beautifully pristine voice.  Originally from Bergen in Norway, he first came to light as one half of The Kings of Convenience (although he had been a member of a couple of other Skandi bands previously) and their whimsical whisper-folk.  From here he travelled extensively and took an interest in electronica, releasing his own album and lending his vocals to various other acts, before forming current band The Whitest Boy Alive, who are undoubtedly firm favourites at Salmon Towers.  Now two albums deep, they were originally formed as an electronic band, but evolved to contain no programmed sounds, effectively becoming a live band who play music with dancefloor sensibilities.  They create lovely simple melodies that follow the clean-cut scandipop rules, held together by clever percussion and satisfying squiggly noises; kind of like if Fleetwood Mac were produced by Kraftwerk whilst ram-raiding Ikea.

Underpinning all of these ventures is Erlend’s crystalline sine-wave voice that gives everything he does a certain fragility that is soothing, yet tormenting at the same time.

Candice Likes / Can Dislikes #1

I would like introduce you all to Candice Juniper (no, not the dog); speed rolling enthusiast, facebook pokery nemesis and overall baast fraand. We met whilst “working” for the now defunct Po Na Na in the narcotic vortex that is Leicester. We bonded over an innate sense of mischief, talking the type of codshit that can only come from severe sleep deprivation and far too many gaschambers. For nigh on 11 years she has been firmly lodged at the centre of my awesome, but slightly terrifying friendship group and the myriad of off-shooting branches that make up the gauze bush of my social network.

Now that she has returned from her 2 year exodus to Australia, we can get back to one of our favourite pastimes; disagreeing about music. With Candice’s tastes being far more urbane than my own (mine can sometimes be the musical equivalent of hundreds and thousands) , I can usually measure a song’s relative amazingness is by its direct proportionality to how much she hates it. However, as with everything, there are exceptions to this rule, and although our music preferences do follow distinctly separate arcs, there does seem to be a cross section where they converge. Firstly there is the sub-genre of dirty squelchy filthy house music that we have affectionately termed ‘pig rape’, the other is harder to define as it has no logical explanation. Case and point being the Kurtis Mantronix’s single ‘How Did You Know’ which surreptitiously found its way into our CD player on a frequent basis when Candice and I used to live together in Clapham, by hands other than my own. This is a song that rhymes the words ‘daydream’ and ‘sunbeam’ and by all intents and purposes, by Candice’s usual standards should have ended up in the bin rather than on repeat.

Kurtis Mantronix presents Chamonix – How Did You Know (Original Mix)

So in the spirit of estimable research to a worthy cause, I will endeavor to discover what this goldilocks zone of music is. What makes some of my more flamboyant choices acceptable and others destined for ridicule and shunned in polite company/messy afterparties.
To start us off, I have chosen a song that I very much already know the answer to, but should give you a general idea of what we are dealing with. To me this song shows the strength of the original song-writing in that it can be taken from its rock roots, have the vocals re-gendered and then placed squarely in the middle of bubblegum pop kitschness and still sound amazing.

Flat Pack – Sweet Child Of Mine (Linus Loves Remix)

But don’t just take it from me. Candice, pray, what are your thoughts?

Candice: That’s a lovely post, I especially like all the reminiscing at the beginning. I had COMPLETELY forgotten how much I loved that Kurtis song. Just re-listened to it though and am feeling a bit ashamed. I like to think I probably picked that song as the best of a bad lot, and because i was drunk for 90% of the time we lived together.

You are going to have to work out some way to disguise the songs you send me cause I OUTRIGHT refuse to assault my ears with that fucking horror show of a remix. The original was dire and the remix makes me wish i didn’t have ears. It’s too rank for words sorry. Start me off gently, can’t we have some steps, or s club juniors remixes or something? I’ll puke if i have to listen to it, and I’m sat at work.

So there we have it.

If any of you are at any odds to how Can feels about the song in question, she also picked the picture atop to represent her feelings.