Machines Do Have Hearts

In 2002 I purchased a fantastic compilation called Rough Trade Electronic 01. Put together by the staff of London's cult record shop Rough Trade, it was "not an Electronic Greatest Hits' Compilation, (but) rather a reflection of some of the revolutionary music which has passed through (their) shops on its way to good homes". And whilst it was perhaps not a direct attempt to track the history of electronic music, it has done a highly commendable job of it nonetheless, starting way back in 1960 with Rod Freeman's aptly named 'I Hear A New World'. The tracklist is on point, and the sequencing is often inspired - check the 1967 ad for headache tablets "Bufferin" segueing into that Smiths cover.

It introduced me to, and encouraged me to dig deeper through the back-catalogues of acts such as Autechre, New Order, Kraftwerk, Stereolab, Can and Kraftwerk, and was instrumental in my realisation that there was warmth in what I had previously thought one of the coldest genres of music.

Up until this compilation I had solely known The Human League for their one inescapable hit, however Being Boiled helped me see them in an entirely new light. Two years prior to this Richard X had taken Being Boiled, overlayed TLC's No Scrubs, and released the bootleg as Girls On Top - Being Scrubbed. However, instead of being prosecuted he was hunted down to produce some of the great pop tracks of the last decade, including Annie- Chewing Gum, Sugababes - Freak Like Me (which was previously another Girls On Top bootleg), and his own Finest Dreams featuring Kelis. Hence the man is a certified pop genius in my books.

X's 2004 compilation Back To Mine was a favourite of mine at the time. The RA review said it sounded like a mixtape you found in the back of your car in 1985, but that was largely what I liked about it. Plus the fact that such obvious pop songs (Kelis, Goldfrapp) could share record space with lost electronic pieces from yesteryear.

I am also in debt to Richard, as this was my first introduction to John Carpenter (via his theme song from Assault On Precinct 13). It took me a little while to work out that he was infinitely more famous for being a movie producer than a music producer.

Whilst Assault From Precinct 13 is probably not Carpenter's greatest movie (critics prefer Halloween, I prefer Escape from New York), it is still good watch, and that theme tune is a corker.

As it turns out, I am not alone in thinking so. I had been trying to track down I-F's 1998 record Fucking Consumer since I heard the song Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass (which is as amazing as the title suggests) on Rough Trade's aforementioned Electronic 01. Thankfully, their record label saw fit to reissue it this year, and I was pleased to find that track 11, Assault On Radical Radio, is a Carpenter tribute. It takes a Precinct 13 inspired/jacked synthline and reimagines it as a nighttime stormer which does Carpenter proud.

Downloads:
Rough Trade - Electronic 01

Richard X feat Kelis - Finest Dreams
Annie - Chewing Gum
Sugababes - Freak Like Me

Richard X - Back To Mine

John Carpenter - Assault on Precinct 13 (movie - mp4)

I-F - Fucking Consumer (Part 1 / Part 2)

Four of a kind: disco dancefloor burners

Over the weekend I had a mate ask what 'underground disco' was (i.e. is there more to the genre than Saturday Night Fever) and whether house music came from disco. I also missed disco don Greg Wilson play for a second time, but we won't go any further into that as my psych told me to bury the pain deep, deep down, so the time is right for a disco post.

Love Committee - Just as long as I've got you

To be entirely truthful though, this post is mainly an excuse to show off one of my favourite compilation covers of all time. Ten years on and I'm still in lust.

The Love Committee track is off a 1999 box set put together by Dimitri from Paris, whom I had only known previously from slightly cheesy disco house mixes like his Playboy Mansion effort. This was probably my first introduction to 'underground disco', but not necessarily my first introduction to semi-naked French women.

Love Committee's song has long been a staple of many disco sets, and it was also sampled by a house track in the late 90's/early 2000's, the name of which I can't put my finger on. All remember was the video clip of a bobblehead dog in the back window of a car being driven around and nodding at bobblehead bitches (in the canine sense of the word). Anyways, I digress. The original is obviously far superior.

download: Just as long as I've got you


Womack & Womack - Baby I'm scared of you (Frankie Knuckles Edit)

"This portion of our Saturday Night Live Ain't No Jive, Chicago's number one dance party, is being brought to you by the Third Annual Summer Hot Mix Dance Fest, tonight at the Rainbow."

Frankie is affectionately known as the Godfather of House, and this is taken directly from a cassette recording of a young(er) Frankie Knuckles playing on Chicago radio in 1986. The sound quality leaves a bit to be desired, but it's by far the best version around.

The Womacks' original recording is sped up, chopped and screwed by Frankie, drawing it out to a full eight minutes. The interplay between the couple after the breakdown is fantastic; not to mention the 1986 club night ads.

Actually, a certain friend of mine still owes me a drink for picking the name of this tune purely from her generic description of this mix as "a 1980s Frankie Knuckles radio show". Way to be stingy with the details Aneta.

download: Womack & Womack - Baby I'm scared of you (Frankie Knuckles edit)
(via Dalston Shopper)


Debby Blackwell - Once you got me going

Track one off a recent disco compilation - The Blank Generation: Blank Tapes NYC 1971-1985. It's on Strut, who always have quality output (check out Disco Not Disco if you get the chance). The vocal riff has been playing in my head for over a week.

download: Debby Blackwell - Once you got me going


Gwen Guthrie - Seventh Heaven

It would be remiss of me to write a disco post and not include some Larry Levan. Disclaimer: I am a complete and utter Larry fanboy.

Larry is widely regarded as the first legendary DJ, and was "the Jimi Hendrix of the decks" back in the 1970's and early 80's. His club the Paradise Garage was a New York disco hotspot with the best sound system in the world bar none, and seeing Larry DJ there will probably always be my number one time travel choice, gay door policy and all.

Gwen Guthrie's 1982 Padlock EP is something of a disco allstar affair. With Gwen on vocals, Sly and Robbie on production duties and Larry mixing it was always going to be a winner. To put it in the words of Morgan Geist (Metro Area), "it's 34 minutes long and it's pure butter. Spare, soulful, synthy and dubby. It's pretty much perfect, until you get sick of it from listening to it for six days straight." (Muzik Mag)

download: Gwen Guthrie - Seventh Heaven (Remix - Larry Levan)

The Seventh Heaven bassline was used to great effect in this Shola Ama remix too

bonus: Shola Ama - You're the one I want (Di Paradise Mix)

Pop Will Eat Itself

I have owned two items in my lifetime which I would classify as being ‘Fine Young Cannibals-related’. The $2 Indonesian bootleg tape of their sophomore album, The Raw And The Cooked, easily enough fits that description, however a 2007 ‘Pet of the Year’ edition of Australian Penthouse Magazine usually requires a little further explanation.

My introduction to the Fine Young Cannibals, as with most new music during 1989, was through a bootleg cassette. I would like to think that my father brought that cassette back from Indonesia at my behest, and that I played it the whole way through as a child, however I’ll admit that both of these are unlikely. As I recall it, after initially battering the singles She Drives Me Crazy and Good Thing, the tape was retired from my oversized 80’s boombox to the purgatory of my music storage cupboard, where it would sit unplayed for the following 14 years waiting to be rediscovered.

During the early part of this decade my music tastes expanded considerably, and by 2004 I was just beginning to become comfortable enough in my own musical skin to openly like great commercial pop songs again. Admittedly though, it did still help if I could justify them somehow.

Drawn back to The Raw And The Cooked by the promise of pop gold, I also found more than enough justification to (again?) fall in love with the album’s ten near-perfect pop gems. Starting from the end, the album concludes with a cover of the Buzzcocks’ punk anthem Ever Fallen In Love? Added to this was the fact that FYC had risen from the ashes of ska band the Beat (known as the English Beat in the US courtesy of a Phil Collins lawsuit). Thanks to Solid Steel stalwarts DJ Food and DK, the Beat’s hit Mirror In The Bathroom was fresh on my mind in the form of a bootleg version which topped it with an early Roni Size d’n’b number to rousing effect.

Clocking in at a little over half an hour and spanning at least six genres, The Raw And The Cooked took some surprising directions for a chart-topping pop album, particularly in the form of Don’t Let It Get You Down. Listening to the tech bassline and the acid squelches in the chorus I was convinced that I had found a long lost tech-pop gem. Having only been properly introduced to Detroit Techno and Acid that year, I felt that this song tied FYC to respected and renowned acts such as Inner City, produced by Detroit originator Kevin Saunderson. The four bars of Kraftwerk-esque sounds at 2:58 were an added bonus. To this day, it remains one of my two favourite FYC tunes.

The other song is unquestionably She Drives Me Crazy. There was an all-too-long period of my life in which it inhabited some sort of purgatorial space created specifically for ghosts of pop songs past, and it took a co-starring role in my sole bongo magazine purchase of this decade to seal its immortality.

Disappointed by the prevalence of plastic-based lifeforms in the 2007 ‘Pet of the Year’ Edition of Australian Penthouse, I was trying to wring the most out of my $12 investment by reading the articles. In a written account of the Penthouse Pet of the Year competition at Crown Casino, the author detailed his astonishment at a conversation that took place between him and his friend, which I have paraphrased as follows:


*Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy begins playing on the P.A.*

friend: “I haven’t heard this song for ages. It really is incredible!”

author: “You are sitting here in front of these 12 women on stage and you comment on the music?”

friend: “Seriously though, listen to that beat!”


Predictably enough, the author concluded the article with a poorly written punchline wholeheartedly dissing the Fine Young Cannibals, and calling into question his friend’s sexuality.

I, however, concur with the friend.




Album:
Fine Young Cannibals - The Raw And The Cooked

Tracks:
The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love? (With Someone You Should'nt've)

The Beat/Mask - Mirror In The Bathroom/Square Off

Rhythm Is Rhythm - It Is What It Is
Inner City - Ain't Nobody Better
Kraftwerk - Numbers

In the beginning ...

Miles Davis. To my mind the coolest motherfucker ever to walk the earth.

Let me begin to explain ..

My old man was a jazz fanatic. He had the most music out of anyone I knew as a child. Our familyroom was chock full of records, and the study was rammed with tapes and books about music. He loved it all, but Miles was his favourite.

12 years younger than her husband, my mother's music choice effectively ceased from the moment they were married. From then on it was all jazz, all the time. I got the same deal from birth. I suppose I was born into the family, the music, and Miles. As soon as I could talk my father would offer me money if I could "pick the song playing", or "name the trumpet player" ... with my mother remonstrating in the background. And so my musical education began.

On a family holiday at age eight he had me swimming 25 laps a day in an Indonesian hotel pool in exchange for cassette tapes of my choice from the local bootleg shops. I returned home with two Stevie Wonder compilations and Michael Jackson's Bad, but my dad also stuck in a couple of newer Miles Davis joints, including You're Under Arrest (1985).

By that stage Miles was long past making 'jazz'. Track two of You're Under Arrest was a passable cover version of Michael Jackson's Human Nature, and I would play along on my violin. Over and over. Rewind and repeat. When I heard new jack swing trio SWV's Right Here (Human Nature Mix) on the radio a few years later it probably clicked as 'that Miles song' long before it did as a Michael Jackson one like everyone else.

Human Nature at track two was in the 'safe zone' of the album, as the rest of it used to scare the shit out of me. Opening track One Phone Call-Street Sounds began with a guy snorting cocaine before being arrested, all over a heavy porn funk groove and police siren synths. Popstar Sting makes an odd cameo to read the suspect his rights in French. The album concluded with Medley, and the sounds of babies crying, a clocktower chiming, helicopters, bombs, and general panic, with Miles' trumpet wafting over keys straight out of a creepy daytime movie. I would of course often wake to this final track in the middle of the night in a cold sweat just before the tape ran out.

Although the album wasn't particularly good, the vibe stuck with me. It was my first taste of music being able to make you feel unsettled, uncomfortable.

While those tracks don't have quite that same effect on me these days I can somewhat recreate that feeling listening to Carl Craig in his Innerzone Orchestra guise. His album Programmed is on the b-side of a homemade Carl Craig tape I sometimes play at bedtime. Both the title track and Eruption from that album are genuinely unsettling, and if I wake to them in the night they still catch me off guard in the same way You're Under Arrest did all those years ago as a kid.

.. and as for french producer Jean-Pierre Massiera's 1968 psych scream number Kriminal (performed as Les Maledictus Sound), let's just say you wouldn't catch me for dead listening to this after bedtime.


Tracks:
Miles Davis - Human Nature

SWV - Right Here (Human Nature Mix)

Miles Davis - One Phone Call-Street Scenes (feat. Sting)
Miles Davis - Medley: Jean Pierre-You're Under Arrest-Then There Were None

Les Maledictus Sound - Kriminal

Album
Innerzone Orchestra - Programmed