If There Is Hell Below. Podcast 17

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Episode 17. In this episode we celebrate makers of influential soft pop the hugely underrated The Free Design following the death of chief song writer Chris Dedrick. We've also thrown in quite the selection of shoegaze with Yeti Lane, Slowdive and A Sunny Day in Glasgow, with room spare for some hip hop and a track you're probably going to grow really rather bored with soon, but for now you can enjoy it.


Tracklisting
Free Design - 2002 A Hit Song
Yeti Lane - Twice (Team Ghost)
Slowdive - Souvlaki Space Station
Fiveng - Give a Taste
All Tiny Creatures - An Iris
A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Drink Drank Drunk
Sleeping Bags - Cantaloupe
Idiot Glee - I Want The Night To Stay
Phosphorescent - The Mermaid Parade
Hype Williams - Get Choong and Look at the Sky
Strong Arm Steady ft. Phonte - Best of Times
Cee-Lo Green - Fuck You

Podcast Tracklisting: Episode 16

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Here are those track names for the last podcast. Check links for downloads and release details.

Jean-Claude Vannier - Petite Agonie De Le'Enfant Assassin (Finders Keepers buy on Boomkat)

No Age - Glitter (Sub Pop)

Hotel Mexico - It's Twinkle (Second Royal Records)

Gaslamp Killer - Baiafro (Brainfeeder buy on Boomkat)

Matthew Larking Cassell - Heaven (Stones Throw)

Star Slinger - Dutchie Courage (Taken from the beat tape Volume 1 available free here)

Small Black - Photohournalist (Jagjaguwar)

Active Child - I'm In Your Church At Night (Filter US)

Nightlands - What Have I Done (Download album Forget the Mantra here)

The Soundcarriers - There Only Once (Melodic buy the album here)

Becky Severson - A Special Path (Numero Group)

Pisces - Sam (Numero Group)

Buddy Holly - Rave On

VIDEO: Summer Camp- Round The Moon

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SUMMER CAMP - Round the Moon from Paddy Power on Vimeo.


Summer Camp have a new single out on Moshi Moshi on September 13th. Here is the video for that track, continuing on the of getting a cult film and slicing it up like a cinematic remix. I like it.
The butchered film in this video is 1970 Swede flick 'En kärlekshistoria' or A Swedish Love Story, apparently it's pretty sweet, the kids all look pretty cool. I bet that main girl grew up to be a babe (I am being careful here).
It's more of the same woozy, hazy synths and breathy voices that we have come to expect from every corner of the blog nation, but with Summer Camp I think they stand proudly near the top of the Chillwave mountain; they make great pop songs.

Oh an as a special little bonus, here is a trailer of the film, or maybe someone made this themselves. Either way I like the track on this trailer.

Video: Strong Arm Steady - Chittlins & Pepsi

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New video from Strong Arm Steady for the track Chittlins & Pepsi. It's about food, eating, a good meal, a delicious little snack... Madlib is so prolific I am sure he doesn't find the time to tuck into some good food.  This song must get him so hungry, maybe even get him away from making beats for 1 second to grab a bite.

This track has reminded me how good an album In Search of Stoney Jackson is. Madlib does more in a year that most people in music have done in their career.

Get In Search of Stoney Jackson from Stones Throw today
Listen to it on Spotify NOW!

Psychedelic Aliens Probing Your Mind with Voodoo Funk

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Got turned onto the Voodoo Funk blog earlier and before I could get digging through what was clearly a website of wonders, I was distracted by a video featured atop the page by a band called 'The Psychedelic Aliens'. I am not going to ignore a band called the The Psychedelic Aliens.
They're from Ghana and make fuzzed up psychedelic African garage rock and boy is it GOOD!



DOWNLOAD: The Psychedelic Aliens - Gbe Keke Wo Taoo

Frank from Voodoo Funk will be releasing 8 of their 9 recordings (the 9th was on a tape that was destroyed in a fire)on LP, CD and a mouth watering limited edition 45 box set with a patch for your denim on October 26th.
Check Academy LPs and Voodoo Funk for further information, this is definitely something you need on your Hi-Fi

If There Is Hell Below Podcast. Episode 16

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Episode 16. In this episode we explore the power of dreams and talk to Dr. Von Hizzenfizzenfroid on how your dreams may be holding you back. Or we don't. We don't at all. We talk about everything being dreamy from our music to our films and along the way we play some Bieber 800, some Small Black, No Age, Active Child, Gaslamp Killer, Matthew Larkin Cassell, The Soundcarriers and other such ear pleasers.

Less like the Cribs, more like the Lips

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Was listening to Radcliffe and Maconie on Radio 2 last night, and although I'd heard this when it was announced, it hadn't dawned on me that there is something a little Flaming Lips about this. Suddenly my enjoyment of this song has sky rocketed. The Cribs can do nothing wrong in these eyes.

Jim Noir Free EP.

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Just a quick one. Jim Noir has an album 'Zooper Dooper' 'out soon' and it's sounding pretty good, To tide you over till 'soon' comes he's dropped a free EP 'Melody Junction'. It's plain old Super Dooper; title track Melody Junction features a sample from somewhere (too lazy to find out... this is a quick one remember) and reminds one of Super Furry Animals. It's all very sunny and pastoral, i'll blurt out Teenage Fanclub and The Beach Boys a little bit, cos I'm lazy like that.
Shooting Deer is as good a pop track you'll get, it was merry-go-rounding my head after one listen.

Click here for Jim Noir's free EP Melody Junction

Gaslamp Killer.

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Gaslamp Killer makes me sick. I don't even try as a DJ really. Maybe I should play some Turkish psych, jazz and breakbeats in Swindon tonight?

Gaslamp Killer - I Spit On Your Grave by ChoiceCuts

Podcast Tracklisting. Podcast 14: Summer Holidays Special. Podcast 15: classic pod

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Oops. Should've put these up earlier. Here are the podcast tracklistings from the podcast episodes 14 and 15. For previous podcasts click 'podcast' up there on the top of the page for further listenings.

Podcast 14 Tracklisting (click here for original post)

Summer Camp - I Only Have Eyes For You
Still Corners - Endless Summer
Mark Eric - Just Passing By
Neil Young - Vampire Blues
Blue Cheer - Summertime Blues
Arcade Fire - Suburban War
Harpers Bizzare - Come To THe Sunshine
Simon & Garfunkel - El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
The Beach Boys - 'Til I Die (Desper Mix)
The Style Council - Long Hot Summer

Podcast 15 Tracklisting (click here for original post)

Serge Gainsbourg - En Melody
Prizes - Rumours
Foxes in Fiction - Lately (Memoryhouse cover)
Kisses - People Can Do The Most Amazing Things
Beat Connection - Sunburn
The Bess - Silver Line
Moby Grape - Bitter Wind
Years - Kids Toy Love Affair
SBTRKT - When Doves Strike
Bobby Welch - Benshaw Glenn

...And all because pussy love Thom Yorke. w/ some ace Radiohead remixes

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A little bit of eye candy for the girls innit.

'Thom Yorke is like a fucking genius, but also surprisingly buff... despite that eye thing, but he can just like flop his fringe over it'. You'll be saying that later.

Here is an unbelievably amazing remix of Kid A by producer DangerDan that was doing the rounds about blogtown a few months ago. It's deep, immersive and his groove levels are just right (sorry that sounded like I was a judge in Masterchef wanking on about a well seasoned fillet).

 Radiohead - Kid A (dangerDAN Remix) by dangerdan_

DOWNLOAD: Radiohead - Kid A (DangerDan Remix) 

And for an extra little treat here is SBTRKT's working of Everything in its Right Place, which you can listen below and download from the ever excellent RCRD LBL.

Video: Mayer Hawthorne, a vinyl obsessive with a heart full o' soul

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Sometimes I get up in the morning and I just need some smiling like a lunatic soul. Here's a bit of Mayer Hawthorne to get you through the morning, noon and night.

Pick up his album 'A Strange Arrangement' released on Stones Throw here.

He's a digger too. Check out this video, I love seeing a real music fan and seeing that 'kid in a sweet shop' look they get when they're among a mouth watering amount of musical treasure.

Free EP from LAKE R▲DIO bridges the gap between chillwave/glofi and witch house/haunted house... and about bloody time too.

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LAKE R▲DIO?... LAKE R▲DIO!?... LAKE R▲DIO!!!

Have you been pronouncing the triangles alright? You wouldn't wanna look like a wally when you say "oh, so I'm like really into Lake RuTriangleDio at the moment" in your local boozeshop would ya? If you wanna get into the new Witch House (see this article for a bit more information on the genre) scene you better be able to pronounce your ▲'s.  ▲ is like the new A. Or is it? They don't use a ▲ in the A in Lake do they? My dear god, what will we do?

Stop worrying, for a start. Relax, and just listen with your ears and minds to the gap being bridged between Chillwave and Witch House, it's a gap waiting to be bridged and my boy LAKE R▲DIO have finally done it.  It's really just chillwave's glitchy dreamy electronica but a little darker. It could work for you. It might not.  I really like it, and as second EP 'The Weather' is going free on the LAKE R▲DIO bandcamp site (I'm falling madly in love with bandcamp, I really am) there is little to lose bar your mind.

Check out the La Roux remix/cover below. Where it has been transformed from an unbearable slippery sleek, soulless, sterile and bland pop track into a disturbing piece of electronica-italo-horror gem.
Then head over to lakeradio.bandcamp.com/  for your free download of The Weather EP.

Post Punk Dub with Vivien Goldman - Private Armies

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Download: Vivien Goldman - Private Armies (Dub)

Vivien Goldman is supposedly the 'Punk Professor': she preaches, documents and lectures about punk and reggae at New York University. She's also written a Bob Marley biograpy; not that there hasn't been anything written about the Patron Saint of the Stoner's that hasn't already been said before. I could be wrong. I won't be checking.

While she was writing for the New Musical Express in 1980 she provided a vocal for Adrien Sherwood's post punk dub collective New Age Steppers.
Private Armies is a nice bit of heavy moody punk dub that sounds way ahead of it's time. Be nice to see Burial, SBTRKT or King Midas Sound have a little play with the track.

Despite being a New Age Steppers tune, I actually discovered this from the excellent Wild Dub - Dread Meets Punk Rocker compilation credited as a Vivien Goldman track.
What does it matter really?

NEWS: A J.Spaceman'less Spacemen 3 reunite and get Kevin Shields out the house for some fresh air.

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Walking With Jesus

Story taken from Pitchfork via Slicing Up Eyeballs

I think I heard the news of a Spacemen 3 reunion gig at Hoxton Bar & Grill a while back, and dismissed it thinking 'No Spaceman - no Spacemen". How could you have Spacemen 3 without Jason Pierce? Obviously it'd take some kind of 'revolution' (that was lovely wasn't it?) to fix the obliterated bond between Sonic Boom and J.

He did however manage to pull off the miraculous feat of dragging Kevin Shields away from what ever he does. What does Kevin Shields actually do now? We want output Kevin! How long has it taken you to write those sleeve notes? Will we ever see that ever illusive Loveless reissue? Will you ever bother to write a collection of new songs?
Anyway. Dragged from whatever he was busying himself doing - maybe he just stares at a wall made of noise all day - Sonic Boom managed to get him along for the reunion to pepper the gig with some noises.
And as these videos will attest, Spaceman or no Spaceman, this Spacemen 3 version 2.0 sounds pretty, pretty, pretty, Pretty… Pretty Good © Larry David.

You can find Kevin Shields skulking about in the background, he can't even be bothered to be looked at.

Revolution

Suicide


In next weeks news: It dawns on John Squire that nobody cares about his "art" and all he is good for is playing guitar while Lee Mavers decides it's time to leave the house.

If There Is Hell Below. The Podcast. Episode 15.

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Episode 15. It starts with Serge wooing your easy ears; before before we sail off on Dazzle Ships to a little island for a chillage pillage with Beat Connection. The wind blows Moby Grape and later we dance to some dub house from SBTRKT, we soak up some of The Bees, Kisses and enjoy some forgotten country rock gem along with a good ol' fashion rant off.

Dungen Return!

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DOWNLOAD: Dungen - Marken Låg Stilla (right click, save link as)

Dungen give me the musical horn; every element of the band is precise, every member is a craftsman of expert abilities, every song they've ever written is a little mini masterpiece and even using their mothering Swedish tongue the songs are as catchy as any good pop song written. So I'm delighted to hear they've got a new album Skit/Alt, which literally translates as Fuck All in English, out in early September, and with that salivating news they've dropped a little free orderve onto your lap in the form of a free download (that one up there, below the photo).

You'll probably hear me on the pod and on the blog writing about how much I adore this band. Here's a favourite Dungen clip of mine.

And while you're at it buy everything they've ever released ever, money better spent than on that let down of a holiday you went on.
AMAZON

Have I told you about the time I Joined A Motorcycle Gang? Well almost did. I contemplated it. I gawped at a motorcycle gang and thought it was cool.

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Whilst walking through Holloway on the way to a leisurely game of squash, I heard a gloriously familiar sound surrounding the traffic, that sound was the heavenly west coast harmonies of Crosby Stills Nash and Young singing their version of Woodstock.  It was coming from the sound system of a motorbike. I dunno what motorbike it was, but it was a bike gang jobby and he even had two little members following him; they had the cool denim jackets and that don't give a fuck even though I hold down a pretty decent career and have a family attitude - I respect that.
For that moment they were the coolest mothers I've ever laid my sweet baby blue eyes on. For a brief second I even thought 'fuck the game of squash, I'm joining this gang. See you Nicola, see you London, see you 21st century with your informationphones and interwebs. I'm gonna join a bike gang, not wash, beat up cops, wreck bars, live in the desert (if anyone knows one near let me know?) and not wash (as much)'.
But yet again Rob Morgan is a let down, never ceases the moment, never amount to anything cool like a member of motorcycle gang.

I dream of living like Pete Fonda and Dennis Hopper - my moustache growing abilities suggest I'd be Hopper - in Easy Rider: riding my bike through America, picking up girls from communes, hanging out with Jack Nicholson and then tripping balls in cemetery and a having a ruddy good cry.

Seperado! A bit like a psychedelic 'Who Do You Think You Are' with Gruff Rhys.

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Nobody tells me anything (of worth) anymore! I was thinking about Gruff Rhys and the Power Rangers helmet he never takes off his curly head, and was lead to a film he made last that's getting a full release this year. It's called Seperado starring Gruff and his search for his uncle Rene Griffiths a 70s Argentinian folk singer of Welsh ancestry. It's a bit like 'Who Do You Think You Are' but without some dullard like Davina 'keep your fucking face still' McCall. It all seems a little psychedelic... although what d'you expect from a man who lives in a Power Rangers helmet.
Enjoy this trailer.

Field Day: Pugwall's Field of Ivory

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Field Day is a festival in Victoria Park, a wee walk from Bethnal Green so by London geography that makes it East and in terms of line up it's also pretty East.
This is alright I dig some of what these kids dig, sure they all dress like their living every episode of Pugwall's Summer.

But being drawn to acts like Moderat, Dam Funk, Atlas Sound, No Age, Gold Panda, Caribou, Silver Apples and Pugwall can only make them decent human's really; If one judges merely on their music taste and not their embarrassing tattoo collection (how middle aged am I sounding?) they're decent enough folk.

There were a few thousand people about, they weren't all East, I know at least 8 people who aren't and I've had enough of talking about their geography, let's talk about their race. Boy are these people white. And these whitey's were non-more white than when - my weekend highlight - Hypnotic Brass Ensemble got onstage. Those crackers need to loosen up cos they were stepping like squares. Dancing can be an embarrassing thing at the best of times, but after a few overpriced fizzy's those milks wanna step, maybe they shouldn't, but who are we to trample on their enjoyment? Most of them were not sure whether to do a half-serious-half tongue in cheek gangster strut thing, even doing that right hand outstretched then moving up-and-down motion that we were instructed by the band to do, there was a good group of these salutes. If I had Bernard's Watch and paused it while the arms were halfway between their most northernly and flattest we would've had an altogether different gathering.
Some group in front were doing some kind of 'dosey doe' country barn yard dance for MEGALOLZ, they'd gone too far and were far too wAcKY!!! for this out of touch 25 year old Steely Dan fan. And how did this out of touch Kid Charlemagne dance? Cos boy did this kid dance. Well this video may be of good visual aid for ya…



Nah, just nodded my head rolled my shoulders a little, bit my bottom lip and closed my eyes. Immersed in the music brothers.

Here's some little Hypnotic delights to immerse yourself. Dance to this in the comfort of your own quarters away from my would-be disgusted eyes.



Other thoughts on the day…

Outdoor gigs - all that music floating up in the air, get it in my fucking ears and make it loud.

Caribou - *smuggle faced* I prefer the more psychy stuff he did before */bore*… I really do though.

Gruff Rhys - Still getting his moneys worth out of that Power Rangers helmet.

No Age - Indoor = minimal noise escape and maximum tinnitus inducer

Dam Funk - The perfect remedy to the Jungle the DJ was playing before. Are kids really into jungle now? For fucks sake, it was never good back then.

Silver Apples - Yeah sorry missed ya, you played the same time as my mates, only yourselves to blame. What am I saying? I'm gutted.

Memory Tapes - Bernard Sumner guitar hands… hey baby I aint complaining.

Phoenix - I'm also one of those bores who thinks that Wolfgang is not their best work, but glad to see them able to command such a crowd. Some simpletons were there 1901 and that was it, I'm glad they enjoyed the song, me and my girlfriend were happy for them to jump all over us and everyone else... as long as you enjoyed the song, that's all that matters.