and neither one / particularly / appeals to me

Beach House

are you not the same / as you used to be?

These two songs are taken from Beach House's forthcoming third album, Teen Dreams; Norway in particular is an especially blissful track. Teen Dreams is out on the 26th of January next year.

Beach House - Norway

Beach House - Used to Be

DJ Shadow

no wonder / the sound has so much body

Credited as the grandfather of underground hip-hop, this song comes from DJ Shadow's breakthrough album Entroducing. It samples heavily from Giorgio Moroder's Tears, taken from Son of My Father.

DJ Shadow - Organ Donor

The Lovin' Spoonful

back of my neck / getting dirt and gritty

A song for all time. It might just be me, but the guy on the bottom left looks scarily like Michael Palin.

The Lovin' Spoonful - Summer in the City

The Specials

why must you record / my phone calls?

I foolishly ruled out two-tone ska like this from music for next year's play. You're left listening to this and wondering what might have been...

The Specials - Gangsters

The Smiths

and if the day came / when i felt a natural emotion

I realize The Smiths are a bit of a recurring feature here but decided to share my favourite song of theirs regardless; the Peel Session version of Nowhere Fast. 1.50 minute mark...

The Smiths - Nowhere Fast (Peel Session '84)

i've been down so long / it looked like up to me

J Dilla

can't you see / it's me that loves you

Another song from one of J Dilla's 3 Beat Tapes, this track sampling the Supremes heavily for a breathless minute and a half.

Track 04 - 3 Beat Tapes #1

Diva

Diva is one of my favourite films, even if its extremely hard to track down. I won't destroy this film du look classic by a plot synopsis but will prvovide this song, the recording of which drives the plot in absurd and beautiful directions.

La Wally - Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez

Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood

she reassured me / with an unfamiliar smile

A reissued vinyl of this duo's LP is one of my prized possessions. I've shared Some Velvet Morning before and after acquiring a more portable mp3 version of the album I've been devoting a lot of my time to Ladybird and Summer Wine.

Nancy Sinatra surely needs no introduction - not only is she the daughter of the ultimate Stranger in the Night, but also the singer on the Billy Strange-arranged Bang Bang. Strange also arranged the songs on this LP, another notch in a belt that has spanned most of the 20th century (most notably including a writing credit on Little Less Conversation). Hazlewood's work with Sinatra is much less maudlin than his profligate solo output but this is every bit as good as what I think is his finest work in isolation, My Autumn's Done Come.

Summer Wine - Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood

Billie Holiday

i long to try / something i never had

Kerouac mentions this beautiful song amongst the coruscating rhythms of jazz and bop that punctuate On the Road and Holiday's truth and sadness stands out, even in such Beatific company.

Lover Man - Billie Holiday

The Smiths

take me out / tonight

I wrote a 3000-word document on music of the period in which Alan Bennett's play The History Boys is set for the director of next year's Autumn Production, accompanied by two cds. On the first The Smiths featured heavily, alongside The Cure, New Order and Joy Division, while the second was a much more ostentatious exercise in showing off the eclectic (Zoolook etc.)

My favourite Smiths song is the John Peel '84 session of Nowhere Fast - the section after 1.50 should be showcased next year - but this is almost as special.

The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

all mine / all mine / all mine

The Triffids

David McComb

come ride / come ride / this pleasure slide

In the first half of this I'll be throwing you in the deep end of the swimming pool that is Australian post-punk, indulging in a lot of Triffids, before trying to balance that metaphor with the circus-style, literal balancing act of Canadian husband-wife italo-disco. And if you think focussing on Australian music is bad, be thankful I'm not including any Essendon Airport...this time.

The Triffids' lead singer, David McComb, died in 1999. Even if the complications from a car-crash injury that eventually killed him, he had spent many years gradually tipping himself over the edge through alcohol and heroin abuse, to the point where he needed a heart transplant at the age of 34.

It's so easy to overlook this branch of Australian music and its influence across the world, even while bands like The Saints are far more acknowledged. It's a strange fate suffered by post-punk bands like the Triffids but overwhelmingly like Gang of Four, to be immensely influential, loved by today's most famous artists (U2 and Chilli Peppers for Gang of Four, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave for the Triffids) but now largely ignored, and also telling that the Triffids record label, Domino, is now host to artists like Franz Ferdinand. Incidentally, as a hypocritically responsible digital citizen I've started including links to places where you can buy albums that songs featured are taken from. But either way:

This first song was recorded by the legendary John Peel for the Field of Glass EP; its certainly longer than many of the band's other works but is easily one of their best. McComb shows here why he was held in the highest regard by artists like Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave, and established himself alongside Cohen, Dylan, and Morrissey as one of the best lyricists of the 20th century.

The Triffids - Field of Glass

Domino Records - Beautiful Waste and Other Songs

The following don't do the same justice to the singer's voice or even to the band itself, but are of interest in terms of watching the band's development throughout their early years. The tracks are all ripped from cassette tapes released by the band and as such the quality leaves much to be desired, but they're still great even if you're unfamiliar with the Triffid's work. Instead of giving you a link to somewhere you can buy them all, because there isn't one (unless you count here), go and check out Vagabond Holes and Beautiful Waste, two books recently published, the first a collection of essays and other writings about McComb and the other a collection of his poetry.

And bless whoever was obsessively kind enough to put all the pictures of the tapes themselves alongside track listings on Wikipedia.

Tape #2

you're such an authority / and all

The Triffids - I'm Not Losing Sleep

Tape #4

she thinks she's a natural / but i think she needs tuition

The Triffids - Actress

Tape #5

there's a six-car pile up / on memory lane

The Triffids - Pile Up

Tape #6

now the orderlies / take your elbow

The Triffids - The Marrying Kind

The Triffids - No Desire

Lime

a moment / like forever

This should be what you need if you've been driven into a state of high maudlin by West Australian melancholy. I could really go for one of those lime spiders right now...

Lime - The Party's Over

Lime - Greatest Hits

Panda Bear

tried to tell me / how to do it

Hopefully the shark won't get him before Meredith and AC will play Comfy in Nautica as part of their set...

Panda Bear - Search for Delicious

Panda Bear - Person Pitch

Television

i remember / how the darkness doubled

Ten minutes of brilliance from 1977.

Television - Marquee Moon

Television - Marquee Moon

i cannot say for sure the reasons for his decline

- David McComb, "Tender is the Night"

i'll be your mirror / reflect what you are

The Flaming Lips

she keeps wishing / for a secret society to call

The Flaming Lips are releasing their album Embryonic in the near future (already tipped by some as their White Album equivalent, slightly sad we had to wait for their 12th until this happened), and if the three songs they've released are any musical litmus test then it should be very good indeed. Here's one of them, getting a lot of airtime on JJJ at the moment.

The Flaming Lips - Silver Trembling Hands

Moby

don't speak to me that way / don't ever let me say

Moby is headlining this year's Falls Festival alongside the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (I would love to see them both, but bearing that in mind I'd even rather see both Animal Collective and Why? at Meredith, but that's another saga in a sentence...), and I include two songs of his latest album below, as well as Alice from Last Night, which I have a tendency to overplay on my earphones while wandering around, absently tapping the rim of my coffee cup, before performing.

Moby - Mistake

Moby - Walk With Me

Moby - Alice

J Dilla

anyone could see / you're the one for me

There are a lot of very dedicated J Dilla fans out there who would happily devote their entire lives to reconstructing his immense back catalogue. I'm a bit different: I hate his pure hip-hop. What a heretic! But hear me out.

His sample-driven work - most notably the album Donuts - is sheer brilliance, and the extent to which it is immensely, superlative-most-heavily good, just emphasises how shallow a grave his other work digs in the disco-topography. These very short song snippets below are by no means well-known, as I had to get them from the musical-acquiring equivalent of "the back of a truck": short (all a minute or less) sample-heavy songs from tape recordings which showcase his immense talent. Track 27 from 3 Beat Tapes in particular is quite special: enjoy!

J Dilla:

Track 7 - MPC 3000

Track 12 - MPC 3000

Track 27 - MPC 3000

Track 3 - 3 Beat Tapes #1

Track 4- 3 Beat Tapes #1

Track 38 - 3 Beat Tapes #1

Hot Chip ft. Robert Wyatt and Geese

what is it i don't remember / made my being so much better

I spoke about touching coffee cups earlier, Rob took it to heart...Hot Chip re-imagined several of the more quiet songs from Made in the Dark with the aid of Robert Wyatt and the interspersed remixing talents of Geese on a four-song EP. According to their Twitter their newest and keenly awaited album is "in a brown paper bag on two USB sticks"; yet another reason to love the interweb.

Hot Chip ft. Robert Wyatt - One Pure Thought (Geese remix)

i really want to watch diva again

will all my unused seed / collect like mercury?

Why?

the rain does not respect statements / why should i?

I heard that Why?'s latest album, Eskimo Snow, had leaked on Thursday morning from George, who had heard it from Jack, and who both can be found here. Look, I'll be honest, as Jack has mentioned over there, blogging music before its being officially released is about as low as you can go, and pointing out that its all over the Internet, especially at Hypemachine, doesn't seem like much of an excuse. However, in defence of what I'm about to do for one song only, this isn't like when a really bad version of Veckatimest leaked, or even like when the vinyl rip of Merriweather Post Pavillion found its way onto here a few months shy of January 2009, in the first case because this isn't a really shoddy version (and plus, Why? > Grizzly Bear), or a vinyl rip (which doesn't really prove anything at all).

Anyway, to cut a short story long: Why? are amazing, Eskimo Snow is amazing, and I like the direction they've moved in, even if it is away from the trip-hop that's cemented their place in every true hipster's Ipod. Here, by way of a sample which will induce you to buy the album when it comes out, is Against Me, my personal favourite in terms of Yoni Wolf's writing.

Against Me - Why?

Serengeti and Polyphonic

not feeling patriotic makes you really not wanna learn / pack up little gram bags like you’ll never have a turn

Just in case you're one of those trip-hop obsessives, and that with Why? moving off into the horizon you'll need to grip your copy of Alopecia ever tigher...do not despair! Why?'s Anticon colleagues have released their latest album and here, fittingly, is a Why? remix.

My Patriotism (Why? Remix) - Serengeti and Polyphonic

Thom Yorke

nobody looked me / in the eye

Nothing Thom Yorke or Radiohead does can ever be bad, and bearing that truism in mind here's a Mark Mulcahy cover Thom recorded. I was thinking about blogging Thom's newest original song which he played at Latitude, but the live recordings are really bad (not as bad as Alley Cat, but anyhow) and so I'll hold out until a studio release.

All For The Best - Thom Yorke

Simian Mobile Disco ft. Alexis Taylor


there's nothing there / holding me

Simian Mobile Disco won't be releasing their next album for a while, but neither will Alexis Taylor's Hot Chip, and that's not their only common ground; Alexis has sung on SMD's forthcoming album, and its catchy, and its summer, and its winter and its autumn into the bargain, and here it is.

Bad Blood (ft. Alexis Taylor) - Simian Mobile Disco

On the Snuff Box next time!

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin!

Flaming Lips!

Miike Snow!

The Fabulous Four Skins!

Ladies!

Whiskey!

Plea-suuure!

i would like to give you / what i think you're asking for

In this edition of Cellophane Sunset, a mixed bag of four songs which are rotating highly for me at the moment...

Bibio

This soaring summer jam does strange and powerful things to my speakers...this is definitely my favourite track from Bibio's latest album, Ambivalence Avenue. The album itself has been described as an eclectic mix of J Dilla, the Mamas and the Papas, and everything in between, and is well worth checking out by dint of this song alone.

Bibio - Jealous of Roses

Mos Def

quiet dog / bite hard / my god

Mos Def released his latest album The Ecstatic rather lately and after a few listens this is the song I keep coming back to, even if I wouldn't leave my children with it...simmer down now!

Mos Def - Quiet Dog Bite Hard


Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse

every night / it's gone

The result of a collaboration between producer Danger Mouse (famed as one half of Gnarls Barkley) and solo muso Sparklehorse. Their album Dark Was The Night features cameos from other artists on each track, ranging from The Flaming Lips to Iggy Pop himself. This one in particular showcases the talents of The Strokes' Julian Casablancas.


Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse - Little Girl (ft. Julian Casablancas)


Faux Pas


Faux Pas is a Melbourne musician who makes music using his computer, and has a rather entertaining blog here, which has only recently blossomed back to life. New tracks of his are surfacing on the web in such locations as silence is a rhythm too but I thought sharing one of my favourite songs of his would be more appropriate and thus chose Dorothy's Finger below in its full, non-demo glory, after it narrowly edged out his classic Changes, which saved me through its airtime on Triple J during a long family holiday...on a boat (talk about yacht rock!)
Enjoy.


Faux Pas - Dorothy's Finger

not in our stars / but in ourselves

In this edition of Cellophane Sunset: Angus Stone's solo emancipation from his sister under the name Lady of the Sunshine, a 17 minute ambient masterpiece from Brian Eno, live Animal Collective and a dash of infectious post-punk from Essential Logic. I promised myself I wouldn't do this again before I left but obviously I couldn't restrain myself...

Angus Stone - Lady of the Sunshine

Angus Stone, who I featured last issue in his capacity of his work with his sister, has put out a solo record under the name Lady of the Sunshine, recorded up near Coolangatta in a converted watertank. While I love the work the brother and sister team put together, this solo effort is equally special. I was listening to an interview with Richard Kingsmill today in which Angus talked about recording in the watertank, with the stones soaking up the noise of the drums, and it really formed a clear image in my mind of what he'd set out to create. The album Smoking Gun varies between quiet, reflective songs of the kind he and his sister are famous for, and louder tracks, spurred on by his father's Telecaster. Something about the beginning of Jack Nimble has subtle Triffids vibes for me, as well, something to watch out for...

Silver Revolver - Lady of the Sunshine

Jack Nimble - Lady of the Sunshine

Brian Eno

Ambient 1: Music For Airports marked Eno's departure from the sound of Roxy Music and Talking Heads, and massively acclaimed albums like Before and After Science. There are only four songs of which the one below is the first, but they are all quite long (this one weighs in at 17 minutes). I've written before about Eno (the song Not Yet Remembered) and his efforts in his ambient work to strive towards organic minimalism, the kind of music you can have on in the background but instantly connect and grapple with if you choose, and I've put this on here just to give anyone out there with a receptible mind an insight into such music.

1-1 - Brian Eno

Live Animal Collective

you've got to get rid / of your money

I have to stop blogging AC, or come to think of it, any of the bands that fill up my last.fm top 8 (Radiohead, of Montreal, Hot Chip, Why?, Faux Pas, Gang of Four, The Triffids, J Dilla, Animal Collective and The Smiths, since you asked). But nevertheless, I came across this live set over at nyctaper (link below); exquisitely recorded and with great transitions between tracks. For fans of AC check out the site as there's some great versions of their older songs such as Slippi and Fireworks lurking in this set. I chose to share this song purely because they didn't play In The Flowers and as such this one took line honours in terms of personal favouritism...enjoy!

Brothersport (live at Bowery Ballroom 22/01/09) - Animal Collective

(recorded by nyctaper)

Essential Logic

fanfare in the garden / circus in the sun

I'd forgotten I had this elusive post-punk track, ripped off an old NME tape by the very cool dalstonoxfam blog (check it out, very good concept), but it came on shuffle on the way to my formal and I promised Abbey it would surface here.

Fanfare in the Garden - Essential Logic

I'm really going to take a break now, I swear.