December 09, 2007
Matmos
I'm a huge, huge fan of Matmos's. One day I'll get round to checking out that Civil War record.
The Soft Pink Truth, sighs. I would say that that second LP of Drew's was a bit of a disappointment, if only because the debut was SO GREAT.
Casino Versus Japan
Inching into the noughties now. I was really captivated by these two records. Erik Kowalski had a incredibly unique sound envelope. I see from Discogs that he put out one more disc three years ago and then nothing. Pity.
Post-Post Rock
These three very beautiful late nineties German records have always glommed together in my mind. By this stage Simon's term Post-Rock had kind of sunk into the background but strangely seemed more apt than ever. In these times I reckon it was all about the USA and Germany. In the UK the Underground was firing but the Bohemian stuff (with the possible exception of Boards of Canada) wasn't really happening. In fact, at least as far as how I relate to them goes, all this sequence of records/CDs could be understood as: "Not played on London Pirate Radio, but still good".
Ui
Ui were great. I always remember playing the remix of "Horn Crown Label" to anyone who would listen and coming within a whisker of selling it to a big shot Soho Director for a car advert.
Tortoise
Sorry, but by "Millions Now Living will Never Die" Tortoise were pretty much over. These early records were definitive. Actually the remixes disc is a waste of space BUT it has a lovely cover and is clear vinyl.
Schematic
This was a very hot label for a moment back then.
Post-Post Odds'N'Sods 10
On the dot label from, I think, Scandinavia. Nice melodic post-techno.
Along with the V/VM NWA bootleg was his classic statement. I stuck with Kid 606 for a while.
This was the best bit of Isolationism I thought.
Markus Schickler's influential Avant-Gard-ish record.
MoM's Jan St.Werner and Oval's Markus Popp together in electric dreams. Charmed Haikus.
Great Tortoise remixes by Oval.
Kevin Martin's Zeuhl Dubstep.
Electro-commies fixated on Border-Politics.
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Grippingly dense re-workings of "corporate" Hip-Hop broadcasts by the least celebrated of the West-Coast Avant Crew.
Mice on Mars
Mouse on Mars arrived just in time for me to embrace them as my Black Dog substitute. Up until "Glam" I was utterly bewitched by them. However they must have ditched the hazy bong-loads in 1999 (around the "Niun Niggung" LP from which I only ventured as far as the twelve inches "Distroia" and "Disk Dusk") and switched to Cocaine.
I understand they had a really bad experience with Hollywood, was it Robert Wagner's son or something, and a movie deal falling through, Glam was to be the Soundtrack, and maybe that had something to do with them changing direction. It's a shame because they really fell off the radar, you can't keep on doing the same thing forever though can you? Not so sure about the Von Sudenfed thing.....
Mille Plateaux
In the grand tradition of all that is egg-headed in Popular music, the acts on Mille Plateaux started out defining themselves as 'cleverer' than what preceded them and which shaped their sound. Detroit Techno didn't actually pride itself on being 'clever', just 'superior'. As Derrick May once said: he imagined it appealing to the most fantastically exotic audience; only to be throughly dismayed by its embrace by oiky British Nutters rushing on amphetamines. The Techno Jocks were always happier in the bohemian milieus of Berlin and Edinburgh.
And again in the grand tradition of egg-headed music (see also Scott Walker and Ryuichi Sakamoto) Achim Szepanski steered the label further and further from its relativly conventional roots, into an extremely fascinating terrain and then further to a region where it seemed the artists on the roster were the only people who cared any more and most everyone else had found a way to seem yet more convolutedly 'intelligent'. "Volume 4" and "In Memoriam" are the discs you want here.
October 31, 2007
Illbient
Illbient must be about ten years old? I've been planning putting all these discs together for ages (this is the first part part of an "dilettante's guide" to 90s Electronica), but what always troubled me is that I have practically nothing to say about them. DJ Spooky was good, and actually his music always stood up a lot better than his rhetoric, which was narcissistic and a bit theoretically spotty (much like this blog in fact). That'd be a backhanded compliment were it not for the fact that in my book the music matters so much more. The Ben Neill record is a Spooky single in all but name and crops up on the "Songs For A Dead Dreamer" LP.
"Incursions in Dub", the sampler, always struck me as a bold self-elected candidate for No New York 2. Quite like Rephlex's "Gang of Four" Grime compilation too in that sense. It's not just the ineffably bleak quality of the material that recalls No Wave either, the way all these acts engage with Black music, and yes this applies to the Spookster too, is in determinedly bleached-out way, but ironically one which seems true to that music's notional intent. Just like the way James Chance, on the surface of things seemed to miss the point of funk. The Contortions were almost too skronky and ragged to be literally funky, and yet on the philosophical level, they let it all hang out, shook it on down and ran out the voodoo. I always liked the cover art of "Incursions" as well with the bold gaffer taped edges.
The first Byzar, Sub Dub and We LPs correspond to the four corners of Illbient as mapped out by the aforementioned compilation. The sad truth about Illbient as represented by these LPs is that (whisper it), a lot of it ain't much good. (Don't email me and tell me the second Byzar LP is the one I want, because I won't believe you...) Even though I've lovingly rescued these records from the bargain bins and reunited them with their chums, I'd have to concede there's a shortage of musical ideas in them that it's a bit shocking. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have them, in all their double-LP-in-thick-card wondrousness, but I there's a little too much delight being had here in just letting the machines run.
October 15, 2007
Dragomir Žerjavic:A Man with a Past
Stepinac today
It was with a slightly wry smile that I read Simon Reynolds breathless synopsis of Dragomir Žerjavic's (aka Stepinac's) career. Although he's only recently exploded into public consciousness, Dragomir is well known to cognoscenti. However other parts of Mr Reynolds's account distinctly irked me. Much was made of Dragomir's violent mother's past but, perhaps typically, his father was not mentioned.
Dragomir's Grand-Father
Illych was the son of legendary Mandolin player Stjepan Žerjavic, here pictured with the Croation Tamburitza Orchestra on tour in America.
Dragomir's Father
He himself played the Gusle in Zlatni dukati. I feel Dragomir's family's rich history within folk music contradicts the naysayers who have accused him of riding the East-European Folk Mash-up bandwagon.
Eastern Promise
In the late seventies Illych found himself swept up in the burgeoning Progressive Rock movement and his band Istrian was one of the four groups (along with Azra, Haustor, and the early Film) who contributed to the classic "Underground Dubrovnik" compilation.
The "Brothers"
Having grown up surrounded by music in his family it was only natural that Dragomir would become involved in the business. With his two cousins Mišo and Tomislav and friend Toni, Dragomir (beneath the column) was part of one of the very earliest Turbo Folk groups "Brothers in Rhythm" who released their well-regarded eponymous LP on Rotterdam's Benelux Records.
War Inna Slovakia EP
After a hiatus working as a tour-guide the Stepinac we know comes into focus four years ago with this ground-breaking Gabba-Volk single on the awesome Požega label.
Balkanized EP
Another classic, this time from 2004, on Požega.
IDM!
Almost forgetting this from 1997! This time working as Stepinack, "Rigid Interbody Penetration" was released on the Worm Interface label at the height of Intelligent Dance, but sank without a trace.
October 09, 2007
Factory Graphics
This book Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album has just come out and I had a bit of fun thumbing through it at, that Venus Flytrap for Graphic Designers, the Magma bookstore in London.
Actually I don't have many Factory records. I'm a fan of course, but not in the way that for some people it is practically a cult. When I did once get the chance to work with Peter Saville (who lives across the park from me and is an exceptionally stylish dude) I used the opportunity to get him to sign a copy of "Closer" for Mark K-punk. Mark ended up interviewing him for FACT anyway, so he probably could have got him to sign his own copy!
These are, barring my Joy Division records, the only Factory records I have. Section 25's "From The Hip", Quando Quango's "Love Tempo" and Cabaret Voltaire's "Yashar". I reckon they're probably the hippest of the whole lot.
The other day Simon linked to both these trainers. Which reminded me that Ben Kelly, the guy who designed the Hacienda with Saville more recently did the stores for British Auto-Accessories shop Halfords.
I think its similarity to the club is dead amusing.
September 28, 2007
Timbaland
For a while back there I was obsessed with Timbaland's output. Sasha Frere-Jones wrote a really useful article on him in The Wire which was the twin to his excellent piece on Premier. In itself it was a handy bit of cultural transgression. From that I learned about the more obscure stuff here, the Total, Playa and more recherche Ginuwine tracks. All of these pictured are masterpieces.
In recent years however, Timbaland has outstayed his welcome. A little bit of me died when I saw him with that Nelly Furtado bird, also on hearing the latest awful Bjork record. I'm only glad that nothing resulted in his mooted collaboration with the utterly dreadful MIA. My obsessive interest tailed off after the epoch-defining "Get UR Freak On" in 2001, and was only briefly revived with Missy's deliriously wonderful "Work It" the following year. After that, nada.
Still he's an important part of Hip-Hop and there's a similarity to what was achieved with Cold Chillin'. Timbaland's stuff was glitzy, yet retained a thoroughly unconventional edge. There's a generosity to his thing that extended as far as troubling with record sleeves. Missy and Aaliyah are not just musicians, they're stars whose images can fill a twelve-inch frame. So many of the American "Urban" records I've picked up in the last five years, you couldn't begin to compile their sleeves, and that reflects the fact that in posterity those records will be remembered as mercilessly functional club bangers.
Scratchin'
Surely this was the most disastrous experiment? Ancient Termites does work as a record though, and I've always been tempted to pick up the DJ Faust LP.
Undie
I don't have nearly the affection for this stuff that I do for earlier Hip-Hop. Somehow it seemed like all the juice has been sucked out of it. Even the Madlib stuff is a little wanky.
Hip-Hop Mutates
My ambivalence about Hip-Hop's mutations is tempered by things like Rammellzee's work and the earlier Non-Hop records. Also it's interesting that someone like Kool Keith, one of Rakim's seven MCs, a pillar of Hip-Hop, should make something as perverse as the Dr. Octagon record. Another surprise is the Material record which is one of the best things Laswell has ever done.
Wu Bonus
As far as I'm concerned, beyond those key Wu LPs these would have to be the best Wu bits and pieces. Kodwo hipped me to both the Sunz of Man twelve inch and the Killah Priest which he described as "Gnostic Hip-Hop". That's a record I picked up in NYC when I visited as blogging eminence about 4 years ago- back in the day, sighs!
The Mary J Blige/Method Man is quite a healthy antidote to Wu Tang's lack of estrogen. However the hilarious N Tyce twelve inch, dealing with her cheating behind her boyfriend's back, (which pre-dates all the famous Wu material but is still blessed with the RZA's signature sound) is also sexually complicated in an interesting way.
The Ghost Dog CD, an import which differs from the inferior standard film soundtrack is another must-have. The RZA instrumentals, which are the highlight of the movie, are reproduced here in all their glory.
Pillars of The Wu
Well there's no disputing that!
NWA
The record which kindled my interest here is "EFIL 4 ZAGGIN". At the time I completely missed out on N.W.A. My brother had "Straight Out of Compton", but it didn't really appeal to me. Just the other day I heard it for the first time and it completely blew me away. This is an utterly seductive, brutally compelling sound which Dre achieves. In fact it transpires it's widely viewed as his production masterpiece. "The Chronic" I did have, but that's nothing on this. By that stage the G-funk sound, put crudely an update on George Clinton's synth funk, is utterly cliched. To a fan of Hardcore-era Jungle it's the gigantic, pulverising breakbeats which are so remarkable.
What people object to with "EFIL 4 ZAGGIN" however is its lyrical content, and particularly the misogyny. When Ice Cube left, probably as a reaction to his assumed worthiness, the remaining crew became as plain nasty as they could. Among the topics touched upon are gang-banging a fourteen-year old Vicar's daughter and murdering a prostitute in a drive-by. There are moments when the women appear to get their own back, a poor shmuck phones his "bitch" from jail telling her to come and collect him, she answers thinking it's another of her boyfriends then hangs up, he rather pathetically pretending to the prisoners waiting behind him in the queue to abrogate her, hiding the fact that the line is dead. But mainly this a war of the sexes with one very cruel winner.
What marks a lot of the great Mid-Period Hip-Hop on the other hand is an even-handedness when it comes to women. There are moments of nastiness, for instance Gang Starr's "Ex Girl to Next Girl", which I've always thought exceptionally callous, though perhaps tempered by Guru's alleged homosexuality. But for instance Main Source's "Looking at the front door" is a painful, even tender account of how the rapper is made to feel stupid by his girlfriend, Pharcyde's "Passin' Me By" deals with unrequited love, and even Double XX Posse's majestic "Not Going To Be Able To Do It" involves a discourse with women, even if it details a breakdown in communications. It aint all Strippers and Hoes! Women are beautiful, worshipped and though sex is often illicit it's still fun, for instance on Ed O.G's "Bug A Boo" or Finesse and Smooth's "Strictly for the Ladies". On one level it all seems hopelessly charming (I can't pretend otherwise, ha!) but, really, nice.
Wild Pitch Twelves
Great label. The Jamose, the Chill Rob and the N Tyce record (see Wu Extras) are all on the excellent Wild Pitch compilation "Hi-Phat Diet" which you must definitely pick up if you come across it.
Ragga Hip-Hop
At the time, rushing rave-kid, I was heavily into the Ragga/Hip-Hop crossover, which was one of the more extreme manifestations of Negritude in the USA. There were all sorts of traces: Shabba Ranks with KRS One, the (via Eric Clapton) sampling of EPMD's "Strictly Business", Busta Rhymes's patois digressions (can't imagine him doing this these days), Phife Dawg's rhymes on A Tribe Called Quest's "Buggin Out", Chubb Rock's "Just the Two of Us" etc etc. However, as with the slightly spotty Mad Lion tunes, often it was an idea which worked better on paper. These three records though (the Fu-Schnicken's even graced with a Steely and Cleevie remix) are excellent.
More Classic Mid-Period Hip-Hop
This totally classic cruncher featured both Pete Rock and DJ Premier on production. Never rated Pete Rock actually.
"Flavour of the Month" is the tune here.
Lovely, cheerful stuff, though sometimes the beats are so different from the dominant production style they're almost unlike Hip-Hop.
A great LP from start to finish. Like many of these records it benefits from the first wave of sample rediscovery. Samples tended to get less and less hooky as the once seemingly inexhaustible reserves of golden breaks became over-used and depleted.
Essential for "Regiments of the Steel".
The debut LP is remarkable for its catholic samples. Hall and Oates?!? Steely Dan?!? (...and to their cost) The Turtles?!? But even when they decided to fall into the slipstream and celebrate the funk they did it differently, hiring the JBs to play on this LP, to (surprisingly) wonderful effect.
Not a great record, but a fascinating, early intervention by this legend of Undie.
A great, consistently amazing LP.
Not brilliant but beyond Diamond's debut one of the best records to come from the DITC family.
Puerto-Rican Frankie. "Boriquas on da set" my fave here, but a consistently wicked set with an amazing guest-list.
Wicked Premier classic. Shades of the backpack.
The UK lot on Warner brothers on the Public Enemy tip.
Awesome twelve off the "Return of the Boom Bap" comeback LP. Another Primo joint. Can I say joint?
Always wanted a copy of this. Sometimes the rapping is a bit over-wrought. The best of this stuff strikes a balance between the rap and the instrumental. Undie's mistake was often to be too verbose.
Thanks to Oliver Craner to hipping me to this crisp, spectral, desperate LP. This was an augur of things to come, Mobb Deep were so young when they did this they practically belonged to a different generation.
Classic.
Love Premier's "Unbelievable" from this and the Mtume-sampling "Juicy" is great too.
Along with the later "My World", classic OC.
Organised Confusion definitely a cult thing.
Brilliant Busta Rhymes track. Love the piano on this.
A bit of a one-hit-wonder from the former Ultramagnetic MC, but what a hit.
Proto Mid-Period
These three records pre-date what I'm calling the Mid-Period of Hip-Hop and are all from 1987-88. If you were trying to define this period it would be from 1990 until the Wu-Tang's "Protect Ya Neck". So for instance (and tellingly if you look at the LP's visual iconography) Eric B and Rakim's "Let The Rhythm Hit Em" (1990) is in, but all the Wu solo LPs (by merit of their pointedly inaccessible content are out). If there is one clear visual signifier it's in a thrillingly up-front, though somehow exclusive, idea of black-ness. The cover for Black Moon's "Enta Da Stage", with its "so-black-it's-saturated-red" sleeve is paradigmatic.
The pugilistic Black Pride evinced in Public Enemy's music was taken to the next level; Black Pride was a given, naturally! Where once record sleeves tried to dodge the race issue now they celebrated difference. Sonically this went hand in hand with a shift (pioneered initially by Marley Marl) by a shift from using neither electronic instrumentation nor rock hooks, but a delight in funk samples. Concomitant with that was a celebration of Black History.
Cold Chillin'
Cold Chillin' records was pretty much synonymous with Marley Marl's Juice Crew a collective of artists who are represented by the discs above but most quintessentially by Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie and Roxanne Shante. Very often, especially on the earlier records, production was handled by Marley Marl- though later on (like for instance on the Kool G Rap & DJ Polo record) he seems to take a back-seat.
Cold Chillin' had a five year deal with Warner Brother Records, a label which throughout the seventies and eighties seemed to effortlessly combine solid business with the highest artistic values (see Reprise etc). The problem with Hip-Hop is that, after what I keep referring to as its "Golden" Mid-Period, it split into two halves. On the one hand there is the Platinum-fixated R'n'B-tinged, Gangster-inflected vein comfortably-ensconced within the tawdry values of the mainstream record industry and on the other a militantly bohemian Undie scene dedicated to preserving the values of "Real" Hip-Hop. Something like the Cold Chillin' label represented the absolute best of both worlds. This was a label whose output was neither in bed with the man nor drippily marginal, at once glamorous and refreshingly of-the-streets.
Of the Kane LPs, the first "Long Live the Kane" is clearly the greatest, but the other two are also very strong. Biz Markie's debut is utterly indispensable. Both the Marley Marl production Samplers are excellent, though the second is extremely rare on vinyl. Roxanne Shante's "Have A Nice Day" is a personal favorite. I've had Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's "Streets of New York" for fifteen years now, but thanks to Luke Heronbone for encouraging me to check out the LP, which is excellent.
Eric B and Rakim
Eric B and Rakim's first three LPs were really remarkable. At the time I picked up the Coldcut mix of "Paid In Full" which was a balearic staple and is credited with kick-starting all manner of things, as well as the second and third LPs. You could take a purist approach to that remix, but have you heard the original recently? It's a work of genius but does have the feeling of an idea sketched, but not fully fleshed-out. A lot of the "Paid In Full" LP is turned over to Eric B, and perhaps "Eric B is On the Cut" and "Extended Play" are a little dry. There's a pervasive influence of Marley Marl's crashing breaks across the disc, but on the bass-heavy flow of "As The Rhyme Goes On" and innovative JB-sampling "I Know You Got Soul" the future and Eric's signature style really emerge. Rakim's rhyme for "Paid in Full" is one of the only raps I can perform from start to finish- a party trick waiting for a suitable audience.
"Follow The Leader" is probably the more consistent disc. I first heard the title track having broken out of school, booming out of a sound-system at the legendary Acid-House club Heaven under the arches at Charing Cross in 1988. It was mind-glowingly cosmic, maybe the first Hip-Hop track which really embraced the palate of modern audio production (rather than working against it and striving for rawer sonix). The third LP is excellent too. I used to dig "Mahogany" but have recently rediscovered "In The Ghetto". Apparently Eric B is worth a fortune these days. He owns a chain of restaurants and was invited to the White House (in Chocolate City) to meet George Bush.
Early Non-Hop
Among the first people in Britain to latch on to Hip-Hop were the UK's musical Avant-Garde. Mark Stewart and Bristol's Wild Bunch were caning mixtapes of the New York Underground just as Malcom McClaren was fixating on the early Rap. Adrian Sherwood deserves kudos for going right to the source and hiring Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbush and Keith Leblanc, the Sugarhill Records rhythm section.
The Akabu record is fascinating for a number of reasons. It's on Tommy Boy Records, is a joint On-U/Tommy Boy production (rekindling the NY/London relationship that Y records and 99 records enjoyed) and it also features not only improv refugee musician Steve Beresford, but also Steinski on the edit.
Rammellzee
Rammellzee on vinyl is so impossible to come by. This is my original copy of "Beat Bop" which I found in a car boot sale in Camden for 50 pence.
I remember round at Stuart Argabright's appartment him showing me the Death Comet Crew "At The Marble Bar" record (which truly is as much Stuart's record as Ramm's) and him practically cradling it. It really is a lovely sleeve design, a real visual relic of that era. Jim Clarke was particularly lucky and picked up a copy a few years back for five pounds. I paid a bit more for mine. You can get the tracks off this on the excellent "This Is Rip Hop" reissue CD which I reviewed for The Wire.
The "Death Command/Lecture" disc might even be the rarest of the lot. Kodwo mentions it in the back of "More Brilliant than the Sun" and I despaired of ever finding it. Damn, what a weird fucked up record! Rammellzee MCs over the longest. most obtuse, skronky "rhythm track" (if you can call it that) in history. There's a lot of those slightly antiquated synth stabs, but nevertheless it's very cool. I don't often make lazy comparisons, but Scott Walker does Rap just about nails it.
Rammellzee is a hell of an interesting character. The reason he's up first in this monstrous Hip-Hop-a-thon (which I'm now going to add notes to, finding just pictures wholly unsatisfying) is that he not only lays the aesthetic foundation for the Golden Age of Hip-Hop, but also for its mirror image, the legion of Non-Hop interventions.
September 27, 2007
WOEBOT_lite
I'm opening a new Category for WOEBOT which is going to be called WOEBOT_lite. Within it i'll simply be posting collections of images of record sleeves with extremely scant commentary.
I've thought about this long and hard. When it comes to putting together what I used to call "Specials", the real effort, and the area I'm most interested in, comes in cherry-picking the "right" records. I try to accurately build up a picture of what was going on with an artist, a label or a scene. When it comes to the writing more often than not I rely (rather cheaply) on the inter-web. Sure there's always a healthy element of stuff I've read in books and magazines and what I've experienced first-hand, but I often feel that this written element is unnecessary window-dressing.
There's also the question of what place writing has these days in the appreciation of music. At least with posting images I feel I'm contributing non-detrimentally to the promotion of music in a way that benefits the ecology of the net. Have you ever searched on Google images for a rare record sleeve? Very often you'll find WOEBOT images at the very top of the rankings. Compare the format of this blog to the mp3 blog, and really, in the most mercenary sense, what exactly am I offering up usefully beyond pictures?
Moreover what I try to convey here at WOEBOT is (pretentiously/portentously) the value of music as an object and not, I think, for trivial reasons. There's the dimension of the fetishisation of the vinyl format; failing to grasp the importance of the object has been key to the collapse of the music business. Intertwined with this is a celebration of the power of the record cover, of the art, design, fashion and style which goes goes hand in hand with important music. Finally because the images I'll be posting will exclusively be from records in my own collection, records I've paid good money for, that should convey some sense of their libidinal worth. It's possible that by simply posting images I'll be getting closer to what I'm trying to achieve than rambling on incessantly. Though I'll be doing that as well.....