look out / im just too fake / for the world

Professor Murder

Dance-punk is a pretty hectic genre. Its the only genre that will tell you when your sister gets home, because you can hear your Death From Above 1979 being switched off downstairs. While DFA 1979 are the undisputed kings of this collective, Professor Murder take it to another level, and not just by using cowbells.

Professor Murder - Free Stress Test

(As an aside I found this using last.fm's recommended radio, which I recommend)

A complete change of pace...

Diva

...from New York dance-punk to classical, namely Vladimir Cosma's take on Erich Satie in the 1981 "film du look" French cult classic "Diva".

Vladimir Cosma - Promenade Sentimentale

The Passions

This one hit wonder from The Passions is a rare example of the genre defined as "dream-pop", and thus is the perfect accompaniment to having mild concussion, like me at the moment.

The Passions - I'm In Love With A German Film Star

its ok i've overstood / this is a wordy rappinghood

Adam and the Ants

The story of Adam and the Ants is a moral story of redemption; when you are hospitalized after attempting suicide, change your boring name, you son of a half-Gypsy father and former-cleaner-for-Paul-McCartney mother. Changing it to Adam Ant will of course, result in a string of successful international hits, even in sunburnt Australia, and your eventual status as MTV's "Sexiest Man Alive".

Continuing on this purely hypothetical theme, you might found your band after going to see one of Eric's other favourite bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and one day produce a song at odds with your usual output of what Eric's mum terms "boring drum sections", a song with horns, and a funky journalistic theme around the middle.

Adam and the Ants - Desperate But Not Serious

"On St Crispin's day!"

Moving on...

I found this slice of 80's heaven on a torrented "Rare 80's" compilation. The best way to describe it is Men At Work having the bastard (and presumably gay) lovechild of the Pet Shop Boys, in song form.

Rhythm Method - Broken Haloes

"Rhythm Method" - get it?

i've been waiting for tomorrow / all of my life

RATATAT are an instrumental (i.e. lacking in the vocals department) Brooklyn band who are rather keen on what Mike Oldfield (of Tubular Bells fame) would term "two slightly distorted electric guitars", and whose catchy Wildcat has been lurking around the borders of my musical consciousness for the last few years. Luckily for me, however, they released their monstrously awesome new album LP3 this year, which has garnered them a lot of Eric Gardiner airtime. The first song below is from the album Classics, while Mirando (which YACHT did a rather good "my older brother has a gun" remix of) is from LP3.

RATATAT - Wildcat

RATATAT - Mirando

The liveliest shoegazing I've seen in a good while

The The are an amazing band from the U of K, and if they sound familiar its probably because you listen to too much Smiths, as former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr made the jump to The The and had a great influence from the whole "what they sound like" perspective. This Is The Day, from their debut album Soul Mining, is one of my favourite songs not just because of Matt Johnson is unafraid to wield an accordion, but because its a profound breath of optimistic air in a genre otherwise dominated by nihilistic closet heterosexuals, often wearing capes (namely, Morrisey).

< align="center">

The The - This Is The Day

put your hands / in a parting wave

Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees

As a child of the mp3 revolution, its pretty unnatural for me to trip the vinyl fantastic (even less to pull out a tape, the most-maligned of all formats, suited only to family car trips in off-chocolate coloured 1993 Peugeots). Even so, this is one piece of shiny blackness that deserves to be played in its entirety, with the pauses, as Boz Scaggs intended.

Silk Degrees is instantly identifiable as late 70's, thanks to the lack of Eurythmics-esque percussion and the lilting disco flute, and although nearly all tracks are seamless examples of relaxed disco-funk (with the exception of the singlular release Lido Shuffle, which ventures down a long and winding road fraught with "missed boats, tombstone bars and jukejoint cars" into the land of rock and roll), Lowdown sets itself apart as the album's standout.

Boz Scaggs - Lowdown

no, not that kind of triffid!

"Please don't drag me back to Rosevel/underneath your creaking bed

No air, no hatches under there/no pleasantries hatched overhead"

A fantastic song, one among many from Australian band The Triffids, featuring the late David McComb's fantastic lyrics alongside his trademark ascending/descending melodies.

The Triffids - Rosevel

a completely unrelated and altogether irrelevant post-punk group from the 1980's, the Cravats

the problem / of leisure / what to do / for pleasure?

This blog aims to promote both music and happiness, two tower-of-powering giants of the human condition, whose unity only results in more symbiotic power for each and for mankind, and whose separation can result in the most terrible of fates, standing on a garden in Manchester with your friends, looking glum...

"Did I listen to music because I was depressed, or was I depressed because I listened to music?" - High Fidelity

Either way,to get the ivory ball rolling, check out the song below from what Wiki terms "an American pop-rock band", Harper's Bizarre. The band name is a rather tricky example of wordplay, parodying the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar, and in so doing setting up an ironclad standard in band nomenclature which continues to this very day (the Pogues being the greatest example...ha-ha)

The song Witchi Tai To deviates from this band's normal style ("Broadway-Baroque"), taking inspiration from Red Indian healing chants to create something truly relaxing and invigorating, without being pretentiously psychedelic. This means you won't find Timothy Leary muttering "You get elves, everybody does!" in the background. Modern listeners could even draw parallels with Youth Group's Forever Young, as a point of musical reference, a port of call in a storm of aural insecurity, but to do so is to do injustice to a song that doesn't need faux-retro footage of long-haired louts skateboarding to stand up on its own. Its not exactly a foot-stomping, barn-storming, shotgun-barrel-chested bitch of a compound adjective, as far as music goes, but it will keep your inner foot well and truly tapping.

Harper's Bizarre - Witchi Tai To

Next post is looking like a bit of 70's souped-up synth magic from Fabio Frizzi, or Sailor's Jacaranda, or Leaf House, or a YACHT remix of RATATAT etc...

High Fidelity

(he's ordering his records by the date of their acquisition, in case you're wondering)