Frankie Machine - The Cartesian Product (EP)

Label: Artists Against Success
Year of Release: 2000

Blame Babybird if you want, but at the tail end of the nineties and during the eye-blinking morning of the 21st Century, the music press developed something of a fascination with eccentric lo-fi or semi-acoustic dabblers. They'd always been around, of course, the origins being easily traced to people pressing their own folk records in the fifties and sixties - but seldom before or since had the practice been given so much scrutiny, with some hacks admiring the anarchic, independent spirit of the artists in question, whilst others (who probably also freelanced for "Loaded") dismissed them as no-hopers and losers.

Some of the output was indeed self-indulgent silliness which should have remained locked away on the home Portastudio, but other items from the era - like this - are beguiling. The Cartesian Product isn't really an EP as such, but two sides of ambient noise, effects and melodies creating a well-woven whole. If the vinyl had been released as a two track single you'd genuinely be none the wiser. Wonderfully, though, it seeps with gentle menace, suggesting a creeping violence more intriguing and disquieting than most hard rock records. "I only wish that people wouldn't trust me enough to allow me to raise their children" Frankie gently sings as if performing a lullaby, not long before being interrupted by some discordant sound effects. Simultaneously comfy and utterly wrong, the use of melodic subtlety here is both manipulative and pleasingly odd.

There's not really a massive amount of point in me offering the EP below as its available free on the Frankie Machine website - but I've done so anyway, just so you can hear the both sides strung together as a coherent whole. Unbelievably, the act is still going, and I'm pleased to report that a new album "Squeeze The Life Back In" was issued in July of this year.

Tracklisting:
The Film I Never Made
Rhumba for the Mainframe
Happy/ Sadistic
St. Agnes Day Epilogue

Commercial Zenith
Tragic Love, Easy Listening
No Love Boat
Every Sunday Morning

Lazycame - Yawn

Label: Guided Missile
Year of Release: 2000

Following the dissolution of The Jesus and Mary Chain in 2000, William Reid popped up again unexpectedly quickly with a new project he called Lazycame.  This initial release "Yawn!" was oddly like early McCartney in its basis, although not in overall sound.  Just as everyone's favourite cheeky thumbs-aloft Scouser returned looking slightly bedraggled and bedroom studio-bound for his initial lo-fi works, so too did Mr Reid come back with something which sounded like a smorgasboard of sounds waiting to be fleshed out.  The rush-release appeared to many fans to offer two things - value (the final track "Commercial" is 43 minutes long and consists of a lot of ideas meshed together) and a relieving statement of intent.  There's a sense of "down but not yet out" about the whole project.

Still though, the rambling experimental nature of the first track "Drizzle" must have jolted everyone at the time, and the release is also notable for featuring an extended version of "Male Wife", originally found on Earl Brutus's "Tonight You Are The Special One" long player.  This always was credited as being a joint Reid/ Sanderson track, so it's possible that both parties got to use it in their own marginally different ways.  The Brutus version is a short sharp shock, whereas the Lazycame version extends the scattershot mayhem out to five minutes.

JAMC eventually reformed, of course, and Lazycame got put on the backburner, largely to be forgotten by all but the most hardcore fans.  I still think that throwing out an hour's worth of music on a small indie label for the price of a single was a brilliant way of settling a new project down, however, and if only other ex-members of bands would be brave enough or generous enough to go through their chrysalis stage in a similar way.  Mentioning no names, of course.

Tracklisting:
1. Drizzle
2. K To Be Lost
3. Who Killed Manchester
4. Male Wife
5. Commercial

Download it Here

El Vez - Feliz Navidad

Label: Poptones
Year of Release: 2000

Say what you like about Alan McGee - and most people do, so there's no reason to hold back - Creation Records was probably one of the best independent labels in music history.  As prone to folly as genius, the uneven nature of the label's catalogue understood exactly what it was like to be a true music fan, and be in love with esoteric bits of plastic as much as you are the genuine, stone-cold classics.  For every "Screamadelica" there was a piece of bemusing ballast such as Bill Drummond's "The Man" (I must upload that one day, actually) or records by Les Zarjaz, a baroque styled musician who sang songs about nuclear fall-out shelters to the accompaniment of a harpsichord.  I could, if I really wanted, spend a whole three months doing nothing on here but exploring the flops of Creation's back catalogue, or I could also offer up nothing but classic output from the label for the same period of time as well.  In short, a whole blog could be created focussing on nothing but Creation Records.

When Creation shut up shop and McGee opened up the doors at Poptones, he still seemed to love blasting the odd oddment into record stores, and this was one late period Alan-shaped wonder.  El Vez is a middle aged Mexican-American rock and roller who performs both cover versions of other songs and his own material in a greased up, swaggering style.  In this case, he mashes up Public Image Limited's "Public Image" with the yuletide standard "Feliz Navidad".  This did actually receive a fair volume of airplay from alternative radio stations at the time, but disinterest in the record seemed to reign in spite of this.  Clearly the kids weren't ready for the Lydon/ Feliciano crossover, which saddens but fails to surprise me.

I'm also unsurprised by the fact that El Vez has a whole Christmas album online ready for download, which includes this track - hear snippets of both it and its B-side below.

And incidentally, that concludes this year's Christmas offerings on "Left and to the Back".  I'll be back on the 22nd with a surprise, mind you, so don't give up on the blog just yet.

Sweeping the Nation "Noughties By Nature"

Just a quick update to let all you all know that "Sweeping The Nation" are presently spending the rest of the year looking back at some of the best tracks of the Noughties, with contributions from other folk included.

Naturally, I've chipped in a few suggestions (starting with David Cronenberg's Wife here) and there's plenty of other people also pitching in with artists as varied as Jarvis Cocker, Girls Aloud, The Avalanches, The Hold Steady, Bright Eyes, and Kate Nash. Plenty to savour there, and also enough to shout abuse at the screen about too, I'd say. What more could you possibly want from a comprehensive list of various tracks which were released in a certain timeframe?

Sadly, no mention of The Vengaboys, David Sneddon or even Howard Brown yet, but I'm hanging on with hope and confidence that somebody will do the right thing.

Animals That Swim - The Moon and the Mothership (plus interview)

Label: Snowstorm

Year of Release: 2001

Well, here's an unexpected treat. A video I must admit I didn't know even existed for Animals That Swim's single "The Moon and the Mothership" has turned up on YouTube, having been uploaded not by just any common-or-garden fan but the band's very own Del Crabtree.

By the time "The Moon and the Mothership" was issued on Snowstorm, it's safe to say that Animals That Swim's career was rather on the wane. It had never quite hit the heights of their friends and peers in the nineties in any case, but by the noughties they were playing to a hardcore group of fans and watching as each single came out to reasonable reviews rather than the raves which has accompanied their work in the previous decade - a far cry from the days when they did actually get mainstream television and radio plugs.

"The Moon and the Mothership" perhaps wasn't the best choice of single from the final album, but it's still a neat little tune nonetheless, and the accompanying video is an inventive and curious frolic through the sour old streets of London (and Stamford Hill, it would seem, round the corner from where I used to live).

Del has also uploaded a video of the band being interviewed on French television here, which might fill in some of the early blanks. Eee, something new turns up on Youtube every day.

Girls On Top - Being Scrubbed/ I Wanna Dance With Numbers

Label: Black Melody
Year of Release: 2000

As we begin the final year of the "noughties", as this decade has been rather unsatisfyingly referred to by most people (is it really the best we could collectively do?) it's hard to think of many musical genres, innovations or even quirks which arrived as the 21st Century began to make itself comfortable. Whatever the quality of the music itself has been like - and that's probably no better or worse than most other decades, if we were to do a fair analysis of it - it's still a source of disappointment to me that a technological leap like the Fairlight didn't come along to change the way people thought about writing music. It seemed as if it should have done. In the early part of the nineties, revolutionary new sound recording systems were written about by hi-fi journalists, and we were told that music would soon wrap itself around your ears in three dimensions and smother you, even on ordinary, cheap steroes. Hasn't bloody happened yet, though, has it? The way we purchase music may have changed, but it still sounds much the same*.

In fact, the only real noughties trend which some people seem to argue is without precedent is the mash-up. Taking the melody of one record and splicing the vocals (or other aspects) of another across the top of it has become an online phenomenon, although the limits of such an idea meant that the whole affair appeared to have totally lost the interest of most record buyers by early 2005 (and I remain convinced that I first heard somebody say mash-ups were 'over' in 2001). I have heard that club promoters threaten DJs who play mash-ups now with their P45s. From starting life as a bold and exciting new way of crossing genres and making people realise that everything is, as Andy Partridge once said, pop, then becoming a worn and tired gimmick, it's perfectly possible that people will actually be nostalgic about mash-ups next year if things move fast enough.

For what it's worth, I was genuinely excited about them when they first became apparent to me. OK, admittedly the first I heard - Evolution Control Committee's "Rebel Without A Pause" in 1998 - seemed more like a laugh-up-one's-sleeve attempt to soften Public Enemy by mixing them with Herb Alpert than having any kind of particular point. By the time I caught some of the Girls On Top mixes by Richard X, however, I was totally and utterly sold on the idea. It seemed to me to be something that, far from being remixing at its most idle, utilised the new tools and the ease of access of knowledge available to the music lover. As more people began illegally downloading and therefore sampling a wider range of music from the present and the past, the idea of welding it together into one strangely workable whole seemed enticing. It could be distributed easily (the above is a bootleg seven inch white label single, but by the mid-part of the decade most people were doing this online), created without too much fuss, and - without being explicit, and perhaps in most cases purely by accident - toyed with people's ideas about such precious things as 'classic rock' or seminal sounds.

Whilst the best Girls On Top release by far was "We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends" which later became "Freak Like Me" by the Sugababes (a cover of a mash-up? How preposterous), "Being Scrubbed" is still a great little chunk of vinyl, mixing TLC's "No Scrubs" with The Human League's "Being Boiled". It's low grade eighties electronic music mixed with sex, replacing something which seemed cold and calculated with urban sass. Every time I hear it, I think that it's probably what The Human League would have wanted to sound like eventually, if they'd actually stumbled across TLC rather than some girls at the Sheffield disco.

The other side mixes Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" with Kraftwerk's "Numbers", and comes out less successfully, but still works well enough to be more than just a casual gimmick. Whitney sounds better than she did on The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's "Whitney Joins The Jams", which I've often suspected this is referencing - here she sounds like she belongs rather than gatecrashing into the mix. For all their pioneering work in illegal sampling, Drummond and Cauty could never quite master the art of making Abba, Whitney, Jimi Hendrix, or The Fall sound like anything other than rude interlopers. The best of these records, on the other hand, are inclusive, seamless affairs.

By the time 2010 rolls around it's unlikely anybody will still be bothering with this stuff apart from a few die-hard mixers on some Internet forums, keeping the flame alive for the sake of a sense of community rather than the end product itself. That shouldn't be surprising. There are limits to how far you can take this kind of idea before everybody gets bored. Nonetheless, whilst I frequently bemoan the fact that the sound of music didn't greatly change in the so-called noughties, I quite like the fact that, right at the starting block, we had a phenomenon that claimed that all music was just pop, and could be listened to as such - that artists who seemed to exist at polar opposites to each other actually weren't that far apart, and could co-exist happily. It's perhaps not the terrible start to the century some would say it is.

Now it's over with, let's move on to the future, shall we?

http://sharebee.com/99855d5a

(*Yes, I know the big technological revolution in this decade has been the cheapness and ease of availability of decent home recording equipment. I'm not that daft.)

Birdie - Triple Echo

Label: It
Year of Release: 2001

The last time I tried to do an entry on Birdie, Blogger decided to "eat" it for reasons best known to itself, and in a fit of frustration I ended up summarising the band with a brief paragraph. This was an unjust result which probably left the average reader with the impression I didn't give that much of a shit, really. Sorry if you walked away feeling no urge to click on the YouTube clip I provided - you should go back and look at it again. Now.

Birdie emerged at a time when the alternative end of the British music scene was in a rather confused and varied state, and as such was perhaps more interesting than we gave it credit for at the time. Whilst Post Rock was in full flow, Skunk Rock was trying to get off the ground, numerous techno acts threatened to be 'the future of music as we know it' and more dreary epic guitar-driven Wonderwall inspired ballads were strung together by half-wits than we sensibly needed, Birdie were frequently lazily slotted into another bracket altogether, that of the twee revival. One listen to this album should tell you that they had very little place there - this isn't the sound of some idle Belle and Sebastian copyists or a few kids with cheap jangly guitars, it's the noise of the best moments in sixties girl pop and summer cafe juke boxes combined. Lead singer Debsey Wykes has a voice which is so slick, smooth and honeyed that, whatever your feelings on the music itself, it's hard not to be awed. Had the numerous one-hit wonders of the era who peddled out music made for summer "chill out" compilation CDs gone more analogue and expanded the scope in their songwriting, this is what it would have sounded like.

Critics may well argue that the band were clearly inspired by both Stereolab and Saint Etienne, but neither are terrible places for any act to start. More than either of those two bands, however, they managed to create their songs with a conciseness that makes each track a warm, intoxicating hit. None of them outstay their welcome, and the fondness grows with repeated listens. "Such A Sound" in particular is a textbook example of effective atmospheric dream pop.

Despite (or perhaps because of) all this, of course, they didn't really go the distance, although Debsy still regularly produces material with Saint Etienne (with whom she co-starred on the hit "Who Do You Think You Are?"). At the last check, Birdie were on an extended break, and it seems unlikely it will be broken.

Oh, and the first person to say "Dave, you really should have uploaded this one during the summer months" gets a nasty boot up the rear. Just think of our poor Australian readers (of whom we have next-to-none). Just put this CD on, sit on top of the three-bar fire, and try to imagine it's July again.

Track listing:
1. The Original Strand
2. Such A Sound
3. Rosie's Drugstore
4. Sidewalk
5. Poster
6. Blue Eyed Son
7. Silver Line
8. Twin I Love You
9. Monday
10. Hammond
11. Blue Eyed Son (Reprise)
12. Coda

http://sharebee.com/2ec1e570

Murry The Hump - Cracking Up

Label: Too Pure
Year of Release: 2001

Another defunct noughties act I'm afraid, retro fans - although that doesn't mean to say that you shouldn't download the single and listen to it anyway.

Aberystwyth's Murry The Hump were earmarked by some critics in the alternative music press as being "ones to watch" at a time when, quite honestly, nobody was very sure what was or wasn't going to sell anymore. In the post-Britpop, pre-New Rock Revolution days, the NME in particular gave coverage to acts who have now almost completely been written out of overground history, from post-rock bands to "skunk rock" artists and even "intelligent techno" (whatever happened to that phrase? And what was so stupid about techno in the first place?) In The Hump's case, however, they also had other bands on their side who seemed completely convinced they were the next big thing. Alex James out of Blur referred to them as being "the best new band in Britain" at a time when they actually weren't very new and had already paid their dues on the unforgiving pub circuit, and they were offered endless support slots from key bands of the period.

If the singles "Cracking Up" and "Colouring Book" had been issued in the mid-nineties, there's little doubt in my mind they would at least have nudged their way into the charts. Timing is everything, though, and by 2001 there may have been something slightly passe about their lyrically wry, upbeat indie rock. Whilst Travis and Coldplay were bothering the world's airwaves like a bothersome spell of particularly fine drizzle, the humorous, frivolous touches in Murry the Hump's songs didn't have a hope. Low tempo emotional intensity wasn't really their thing, man, as the lyrics "You're like a ten foot wall, I can't get over you" on this single prove.

Almost immediately after their rather good album "Songs of Ignorance" was issued, the band decided to call it a day. According to the lead singer Matt Evans, there was bickering amongst the members and it had "stopped being fun". There were even rumours about court action being taken by ex-members of the band, which seems somewhat unbelievable for an act who never charted - who in their right minds would spend money fighting over 25% of nothing? After all this hoo-ha, the band The Key were formed from the remaining members, who were considerably more Rock in their outlook and nothing like the outfit they all originated from.

Murry The Hump seem destined to be one of those bands who came and went in the blink of an eye, failed to fully realise their potential, and left a lot of fans cursing in their wake. They barely even merit a mention on music sites dedicated to Welsh bands these days, which is a shame for an act who actually produced two of my favourite singles of 2001.

To make matters even sadder, even their host label Too Pure (which has at various points been home to Stereolab, Jack, Pram, Moonshake and PJ Harvey) closed down in July of this year... but whilst the slate may be completely scrubbed clean in most respects, the good old Interweb still has Murry-ish traces around and about, and their official website is still active here: http://www.murrythehump.co.uk/

And you can download the single (plus flip side "No Girl, No Sex") here: http://sharebee.com/0f5875ab

The album also still seems to be available from a few online outlets, which is more than can be said for most of the pre-21st Century Acts featured here on L&TB. One wonders if it will ever be truly possible to wipe out the history of any post-nineties act in the digital age, or if most of them will have material available somewhere forever.

Fat Truckers - Teenage Daughter/ Multiplex

Year of Release: 2003
Label: Cercle Records

It somehow seems wrong to place bands on this blog who came and went within the present decade - perhaps it's premature to assume they won't come back and conquer the world. Also, in most cases, I generally hope that many of them will, however long the odds seem, and don't particularly want to curse them by placing them on a page filled with people who had careers which were rather less remarkable than they should have been. How would you feel if your band were placed next to Harry Corbett's novelty waxings? Hurt, I would suspect. You might even give up entirely.

One band I can only imagine would be thrilled at this prospect are Sheffield's Fat Truckers, however, who came, released a few singles, then went again without any polite explanations. Their peak exposure came whilst supporting Pulp at some large venues for their "We Love Life" tour. When I caught them at the Brixton Academy gig, they were busy alienating half the audience with a fifteen minute long version of "Teenage Daughter", the very single I've uploaded here. The call-and-responses anthem impressed a number of people like me, but also caused some rather negative outcries. They finished their set by flicking Vs at everyone who was being hostile, and waving to everyone who was being appreciative, and when I tried to cheer for an encore, a rather angry man next to me grabbed my arm and told me to stop encouraging them. It was a bit like being told off by your Dad for enjoying your friend's BMX stunt tricks which also incorporated some creative farting.

Fat Truckers were an unusual act, but pretty damn entertaining and not without some solid tunes as well - the Suicide-esque dirge of "Teenage Daughter" can get a bit trying after too many spins, but "Multiplex" is a much more interesting and durable composition. They would have been quite at home on Mute in the early eighties, but even whilst Electroclash went on around them, they were probably a bit too out-of-sorts for the 21st Century.

Their Wikipedia page also seems to be filled with unchallenged lies:

Interestingly, outside of music Rymer is also well known in scouting circles. In 2006 he picked up a lifetime achievement award at London's scouting HQ Baden Powell House for his work with the13th Sheffield cub group where he has held the position of akela since 1999. He dedicates a lot of time to teach the children rock climbing skills on Stanage Edge just to the west of his native Sheffield, however, in 2003 Rymer suffered a severe knee twist while climbing on the edge, an injury which restricted his movements on stage when the band supported Pulp on their UK tour. Fans used to seeing energetic performances from Rymer were disappointed at this problem and it was reported in the NME at the time seven people demanded refunds following the Brixton Academy show. Rymer at the time was massively upset not to be able to give 100% and suffered, briefly, with a bout of depression.

Of course he did.

http://sharebee.com/56a7d875

Eurovision Song Contest (Part Two)

Apparently, Bob Dylan only watched the Eurovision Song Contest once, in his hotel room during a tour in the year 2000. Sat with his various band members and friends, he critically dissected all the entries with a voice of disgust. We do not have a record of his precise comments, which is something of a shame - clearly Bobby does not keep a biro and pad by his side during the contest, like you and I both do at home - but he apparently expressed disbelief that something so ridiculous should occupy so much television schedule time.

When Lativa's entry (Brainstorm's "My Star") came on the television screen, however, his mood changed somewhat. Pointing an authoratative digit at the lead singer Renārs Kaupers, he announced "That guy... he's got something... what's he doing taking part in this crazy circus?" Whenever Renārs was asked this particular question, he simply shrugged and replied "We have taken part in many song contests before Eurovision". So there you go, then.

Dylan had a point, though. Brainstorm were a genuinely eccentric proposition on the evening, delivering the decidedly poppy "My Star" in a bow legged, pie-eyed manner that managed to disturb plenty of people, but not enough to prevent it from climbing into third place on the final scoreboard. The band are successful throughout Eastern Europe, having supported bands such as Supergrass on regional tours, and continue to do well on the continent to this day. In fact, they're possible candidates for a Second Hand Store dip entry in themselves, since their albums can frequently be found scattered around stores in East London, presumably discarded by people from other countries (their discs sold poorly here, despite being hyped to Kingdom come by none other than Jonathan King).



If Brainstorm had indie-ish leanings, it should be noted that last year's contest had a fantastic entry of that ilk from France which barely anyone voted for. Les Fatals Picards "L'Amour a la Francaise" was a wonderful piece of string-laden pop which in places sounded slightly like Jack at their poppiest (who of course had an entry on here of their own some weeks ago). It was, quite simply, far too good for a contest which traditionally attracts a middle of the road audience, and bombed near the bottom of the board. It did go on to become one of the biggest sellers of the contest on iTunes in the UK, though, proving that it wasn't totally ignored. The video for the track should be viewed first:



But their performance at the final - which partly consisted of a man in a pink suit running around going beserk with a stuffed cat on his shoulder - may have alienated some:



And finally, let us not forget Iceland's entry from Paul Oscar in 1997. Here was a man who clearly predicted both the eighties revival and Hoxtonite stylings way before anyone else had even bothered - roundly mocked at the time, I wouldn't be at all surprised if nobody batted an eyelid at this now. Then again, the stageshow was perhaps a bit much.



Enjoy the second semi-finals tonight, and the finals on Saturday night. Remember, Bob Dylan was right - the Eurovision most definitely is a circus, but it doesn't hurt to indulge in such frivolities once in a while. No doubt I'll be back with another entry next year talking about all the goodness that finished poorly this year too.

Eurovision Song Contest (Part One)

It's Eurovision Song Contest week, ladies and gentleman, and I'm afraid it's beyond my ability to ignore that very significant fact. Whilst the songfest is often mocked by people who haven't watched it in over a decade and therefore seldom know what they're talking about, lovers of backwater pop oddments (which must be you - what are you doing reading this blog otherwise?) will find at least a few ditties to treasure every single year. They normally crash and burn on the final scoreboard, of course, as the majority of international voters favour middle of the road efforts rather than the more peculiar aural trinkets out there.

The trouble is, whilst the contest might seem like easy meat for a blog like this one, it's difficult to find entries that haven't already had maximum publicity elsewhere in the media. If they're unfathomably bad, chances are the BBC showed them in their slightly condescending "Crikey, look at these funny foreigners who think they're talented! Who'd have thunk it, eh?" historical summaries last year. And the year before that. And the year before that one as well. Repeat to fade. Any artist who finished with nul points at the bottom of the board enters an unenviable hall of fame, and becomes known in a manner they almost certainly wouldn't be if they'd just released their song on a small record label and let it sell the twenty copies it was probably destined to.

There are exceptions, however. The rather marvellous Telex from Belgium - bottom rung finishers in 1980 - deliberately entered the ridiculous Kraftwerk styled "Eurovision" to scattered applause. Their concessions to choreography on the night revolved around the gentle movements of their scarves, a piece of sly subversion which would have earned them a vote from me at the very least.



If you're in any doubt that the above isn't especially representative of the band's fare, here's the video to "Moskow Discow", which proves they were utterly ace when they wanted to be.



If you think such electronic diversions are a rarity in Eurovision, you wouldn't be entirely wrong... but the times they are a-changing, as Georgia's Bjorkish entry for last year's contest proves. Sopho's "Visionary Dream" is still on my iPod playlist now, a full year on, and shows that when you combine throttling diva-ish vocals with squelching, honking keyboards, you get something which... doesn't perform that well on the final scoreboard, really. Nonetheless, this is genuinely one of my favourite Eurovision songs of the past decade:



And finally, for this entry, let's finish on the only Ska entry there's ever been on Eurovision (to the best of my knowledge), Athena's "For Real" in 2004. If the lead singer hasn't considered growing himself some hair and becoming the Turkish Kevin Rowland on the tribute band circuit, he certainly should do - there would be a pretty penny in it for him, and that's for sure. This finished in a quite creditable sixth place at the time, though it deserved to romp home given the feeble competition that year.



Apologies for the rather distorted sound, by the way - and it should be me apologising as well, since I uploaded the damn thing.

I will be back with some more Eurovision material later in the week, before the main contest on Saturday night. Meanwhile, on to that bloody Second Hand lucky dip entry I've been promising for ages...