S3: Goldfrapp - Oompa Radar

Guided by instruments.

In 2000, Goldfrapp appeared on the scene with Lovely Head, a song that, along with Utopia, also from 2000's Felt Mountain, featured on a number of club chill-out compilations, yet they failed to trouble the UK charts in any way until around 2005's Supernature, when they made it high up in both the singles and albums charts. Certainly, I didn't help them any, though I was aware of them thanks to being, at the time, developing interests in different types of music thanks to magazine cover discs and compilation albums, long before the Internet became my primary source of music journalism and I lost all touch with what was current and became unable to participate in conversations with friends about what's going on now as it all seems to have happened so long ago to me. Ignorance in a case like this would be bliss for many, except for the fact that I really enjoy hearing a wealth of different things and very occasionally I hit upon something really very special.

This album is not one of those things, but remains my favourite of Goldfrapp's works to date. This is generally due to my own F.A.B. (First Awareness Bias) which means that in almost all cases the first few songs, or album, I hear by a particular artist or group become my favourites, most likely due to the feelings of excitement that surround that first exposure, but there is a chance it is down to these songs actually being their best works. I cannot argue this case with Goldfrapp so much, as I've not heard much of their later work. I am aware that the bloggers out there are in two minds about the latest, Seventh Tree. Pitchfork didn't rate it at all, Song, by Toad considered it "shopping music" and Marcy of Lost in Your Inbox concurred, in spite of wanting it to be better. On the other hand, Van - who commented on Marcy's entry - gave it the title of best album of 2008 so far, as did Alex of Quiet Color, whilst ÜberDrivel's Roland - though seeming unconvinced on the whole - thought it a bold change in direction.

If I were feeling up it right now I would offer my own appraisal of the songs that have been made available through the blogs and give an opinion of my own, but, as implied by the opening word of this sentence, I don't. I shall leave you with this instrumental track from their debut, and the video of that first single that seemed to so allude everybody at the time.

Download: Goldfrapp - Oompa Radar

Official website.
Buy Felt Mountain: UK | US

S2: Negativland - Bluhbluhbluhluhluhluhluhluhla.

Negativland became one of, if not the most famous sound collage bands in the world when their release U2 brought them to the attention of the band's lawyers - then to the band themselves (in a somewhat fascinating way) - and nearly destroyed them. But still they persevere and continue to put out new material, most recently Thigmotactic, released earlier this year. All of their music can be streamed from their website and several downloads are available.

This particular soundbyte is one of the system sounds created by The Weatherman, whose own part of the main site can be found here. I can no longer find most of the sounds, though a few are still available. Negativland's philosophy of art and music is an interesting one, and their archives are well worth examining, whatever your opinion on the culture of plunderphonics, unauthorised sampling and intellectual property ownership.

Download: Negativland - Bluhbluhbluhluhluhluhluhluhla.

Here's a video of one of my favourite Negativland things:

Official website

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EDIT: Anybody who came here recently might have noticed the video wasn't correct. This has since been fixed.

S1: Kid Ory - Savoy Blues

Kid Ory, besides being a jazz trombonist, was also a bandleader (hiring many illustrious names in his career, including Louis Armstrong) and was composer of the Savoy Blues. Trying to find accurate information about the composition itself appears unseasonably difficult, but it seems to be (at least according to this page) one of the key pieces that drew the focus in ensemble performance toward key solo performances rather than keeping the group uniformly balanced.

As I cannot find accurate information I'd sooner not take the risk of saying anything too wildly innacurate, so shall leave the description of the piece at that and let those who wish to learn more do their own, probably more successful research.

As for the collection this is featured on, Hittin' on All Six: a History of the Jazz Guitar, it is a reasonable document of early jazz up to the 1960s, though it must be said the full history of jazz guitar does include its early development as a full-fledged jazz instrument, so many of the earlier tracks, such as the one featured do not feature guitar so prominently (Savoy Blues is more a cornet solo piece, but there is a guitar solo in there). I have also read a few reviews of it as being mediocre in terms of recording quality. What it lacks in quality it certainly more than makes up for in quantity (as Michel Gondry says, "quantity lasts and quality goes") and for the price this stands as a very decent introductory record for those wishing for a convenient starting point in the genre and/or early popular music history.

Download: Kid Ory - Savoy Blues

Kid Ory on Wikipedia
Buy Hittin' on All Six: a History of the Jazz Guitar: Amazon UK | US

A rather poultry apology.

Cluckin' A.

This blog so far has been all good intentions but with little in the way of actual content. I hope with this post to redeem myself a little before beginning afresh on Monday as previously planned. A full explanation is included in the file, but in short this is my by-now moderately (but internationally) infamous chicken-themed compilation, which has been given in CD-swaps, as currency in small bartering exchanges, and snuck into the CD collections of several Brighton cafés, bars and shops. I call it That Chicken CD?.

[Edit: This is the same version as was received by James of Appetite for Distraction. I include notes to this effect in the .zip file itself, but neglected to say so here, hence his comment.]

Download: That Chicken CD? (rapidshare | sharebee)

Another blank page.

I will start here again on August 1, which seems as good a day as any, with something a little special. Thenceforth shall I restart this faltering project as intended. Until then, please do keep checking in with those feeds that populate my sidebar; I put them there for a reason.

The best laid plans...

Scratch that "starting tomorrow" as this computer is still not right. One day I'll have a working desktop and be able to actually do the things I want to do with this machine. Until then my PC guy and I are going to be having a few unplanned (and undesired) extra meetings.

S17: JHH Lowengard - Ada Went to the Library // A Fresh Start

"She read some books, she walked around."

I would not normally post on a Sunday, but have decided to as I have something to report anyway and I might as well write something up at the same time. We'll come to that a little later. First, a little about the song.

JHH Lowengard has a peculiar little corner of the Internet where occasionally things pop up. It is well worth a look. Jhhl can also be found at one of my favourite haunts: WFMU.org. This song is from a small group of tracks written for his then 0-1 year old daughter, Ada, with his wife, Nancy Graham. As is quite often the case with these things, I cannot recall exactly how I came about the site. It could have been via the 365 Days Project, it could have been by some other avenue. A full set of MP3s is available from this page.

There is a potential video for this entry, but I'll only be linking to the page itself from here. This is Love is So Sweet: A short animated video by JHHL, Nancy and Ada.

Download: JHH Lowengard - Ada Went to the Library

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I will, starting tomorrow, be running the S+7 Method from scratch. This follows from a talk with a friend about the merits of the system as a process of selection. He quite correctly pointed out that it is not a perfect system as it is not an all-inclusive sorting method and looping can occur quickly in some lists, especially small ones. I have been looking for fresh ways to apply this constraint on various aspects of my day-to-day life, such as selecting films to watch, books to read, even food from menus and have found plenty of occasions where items have been left out of S+7 arrangements. As a consequence the decision has been made instead to run a reductive S+7 system.

Besides this, I plan to be a little more open about the iteration of each step within the system so there is no doubt as to the methodology.