Beat the january blues with a baseball bat
Alright, so this will be up on tuesday but was written on monday, which was supposed to be the most depressing day of the year, it’s the january blues, a grey sky, debts mounting, no escape like good old mummified Sky Saxon said, well, why don’t we just…fuck it? Yeah, fuck it with a good beat, actually, two smashing beats from two great compilations, one that came out yesterday (one less reason to be depressed), and another in 2005 (it was an ok year after all, eh?)…There we go…
New York Noise was one of the best comps ever and New York Noise 2 is a worthy follower, you could do worse than shell a few quid on the beautiful double vinyl that the good folks at Soul Jazz have lovingly selected and just released, it comes with all the hits not hits the New York No New York WTF wave disco mutant cats released, in this case from 1977 to 1984, from A for Arthur Russel to Y for Y-Pants and everything in between, Pulsallama, Sonic Youth, Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca, Don King, Red Transistor, Clandestine and many other names you so need in your life.
There’s for example this band I knew shit about called UT who sound so now it hurts, the sleevenotes say that they were an all-girl post-no wave outfit who changed instruments between songs, well, cor blimey, whoever was doing the drums at Sham Shack had some chops, because the beat pounds along with the poignancy and sheer exhilarating power of say, Can in Vitamin C, sexy voice, ghostly keyboards and a killer bass, I don’t know where these people are now but for all I know they might as well have just moved into my house, I’ll sleep in the sofa.
Go to Best Foot Forward to read about the track that Felix (Arthur Russell and Nicky Siano) got in this compilation, and to Daughters of Invention for some euphoric percussive Pulsallama.
Then you get Sounds of Monsterism Island Volume 1 by that alchemist Pete Fowler who has not created, let us say, he has, erm, discovered a new universe, a lost island full of colourful beings which apparently, or so say certain obscure psychoarcheology treaties, inspired a cadre of 60s out-there artists such as our beloved Silver Apples, United States of America, the West Cost Pop Art Experimental Band, Martin Denny and many other to compose bizarre evocative psyche classics, now it all makes sense because it makes less sense than ever.
Of all the tracks that seamlessly blend in the iridiscent surface of this hypnotic cd, one that has grabbed your 20jazzfunkgreatskid with the intensity of one of those scary squids the japanese scientists discovered last year (discounting of course Program by the Silver Apples, which is the best tune ever, full stop), is this thudtastic flabbergasting barrage by Aphrodite’s Child, to which one can only say one thing, erm, bang, bang like Miles On the Corner or something. I wanna meet this Mary because she sounds hot.
I know you were wondering what Vangelis used to do in the 60s, well, know you know my friends.
The beat advances with the primitive sexiness of a prehistoric shark and the keyboard fangs bite your ass, wait for the xylophone to wack you in the face, now that’s blood all over the dancefloor, i mean, it’s not that you can headbang to this, it is that you have three or four fucking tythms to chose from when you do it. Magnificent, I say, magnificent.
And talking about magnificence and psyche and prehistoric monsters go and check our friend Matt’s band Burning Idiot noise spanking new website.
So yeah, there you go, now that was a big fuck you to depression. It’s tuesday now kids, keep on, keep on living.
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