arDATE = new Array( "December 2004" ) arARTIST = new Array( "Guest Selections", "Trembling Blue Stars", "Ulrich Schnauss", "Takeko Minekawa", "Elijah's Mantle", "Macha", "The Moldy Peaches", "The Notwist", "Various Artists", "Oneida", "The Helio Sequence", "Various Artists", "Calhoon", "Bobby Sue and the Freeloaders", "Tandi & The Teammates", "Wire", "The Critters", "The Bop Chords", "Marie the Waitress", "David LaStampa", "IrishBeard", "Throbbing Gristle", "TJNorris" ) arTITLE = new Array( "", "Her Handwriting", "A Strangely Isolated Place", "Maxi On!", "Angels of Perversity", "See It Another Way", "The Moldy Peaches", "Neon Golden", "Elemental Chill, Vol. II Earth", "Secret Wars", "Love And Distance", "The Amalgamation of Soundz", "(Do You Wanna) Dance, Dance, Dance?", "Relief Check", "Trampoline Queen", "Outdoor Miner", "Mr. Dieingly Sad", "Castle in the Sky", "Anna Domino", "Cranes", "Music From the Soundtrack to Liquid Sky", "Third and Final Report", "November Group" ) arTRACK = new Array( "t00", "1. A Single Kiss", "4. Monday - Paracetamol", "6. Follow My Dreams", "3. Misere De Profundis", "8. Mirror", "5. Downloading Porn With Dave", "5. This Room", "1. Alex Cortiz - Glamour Girl", "7. The Winter Shaker", "7. Blood Bleeds", "4. ICE: A String Tribute to Bjork - Come To Me
5. Geche - Htrs (Instrumental)
6. Akasha - Brown Sugar", "Side A", "Side B", "Side A", "Side A", "Side A", "Side A", "88", "4. Far Away", "2.5 Me and My Rhythm Box", "2.1 Hamburger Lady", "2.2 The Popular Front" ) arDESC = new Array( "d00", "Named in honor of a passage from Pauline Reage's infamous novel The Story of O, the melancholy Trembling Blue Stars heralded the return of singer/songwriter Robert Wratten, best known as the frontman of the British indie pop band the Field Mice. Ostensibly a solo project with significant input from producer Ian Catt, Trembling Blue Stars originally emerged in the wake of the dissolution of Northern Picture Library, the project Wratten mounted after the demise of the Field Mice with then-girlfriend Annemari Davies; 1996's Shinkansen label debut Her Handwriting explored the couple's breakup in heartbreaking lyrical detail, couching its elegiac songs in airy, evocative guitar soundscapes. As of 1998's Lips That Taste of Tears, some measure of reconciliation had apparently been reached, as Davies' ethereal vocal presence again surfaced. 2000's Broken by Whispers was issued in the U.S. on Sub Pop.

Also included here is an old Field Mice recording from Robert Wratten's days on the legendary Sarah records label. Click on the link at left.", "A somewhat mysterious producer from Berlin, Germany, Ulrich Schnauss debuted under his own name in 2001 with Far Away Trains Passing By. Released by City Centre Offices, the album seemingly came from nowhere and wound up on several journalists' year-end favorites lists, impressing many with a beguiling level of charm that referenced the shimmer of the Cocteau Twins and the beat mining of the Black Dog. A Strangely Isolated Place followed in 2003, which was much closer to shoegaze than U.K. techno. Schnauss has also had his hands in a number of other projects, including Hexaquart (minimal techno-house) and Ethereal 77 (drum'n'bass), in addition to engineering work for a number of other artists.", "Singer/songwriter Takako Minekawa stands apart from many of the other female recording artists from Japan. Instead of creating faceless, saccharine pop, Minekawa crafts her unique brand of pop from her personal obsessions -- cats, keyboards, French pop -- and her sweet, girlish voice.

A child movie and TV star in Japan, Minekawa was always interested in music and formed her first group Lolita with some college friends. This morphed into Fancy Face Groovy Name in 1990, which also included Kahimi Karie. After playing in a number of groups, Minekawa was ready to strike out on her own. She released her solo debut Chat Chat in 1994, which she followed up with 1995's A LittleTouch of Baroque In Winter and 1996's Roomic Cube (released the following year in the U.S.).

With each album, Minekawa's writing and arrangements showed a more refined mix of innocence and complexity. However, her ideas were still fresh and playful, as the 1998 remix EP Recubed -- which featured Roomic Cube songs remixed by friends like Sukia, the Pulsars, and Buffalo Daughter -- showed. Cloudy Cloud Calculator, Minekawa's most independent statement yet, was released at the end of 1998; it was followed by 1999's Fun 9 and 2000's Maxion EP. ", "Elijah's Mantle is the productive alter ego of London-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Mark Ellis, most often in collaboration with Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance, with whom Ellis occasionally appears on the side. Elijah's Mantle is a project of almost obsessive specificity of theme, a theme which can only be described by a line from the group's press kit: 'The legacy of the gnostic heretics and the supplanation of the ideals and idols of the classical world by repressive Christian theology.' All of the Elijah's Mantle records feature Latin and other dead-language texts sung and chanted by members of the Dublin Philharmonia and have similar-sounding titles. Not only that, but all of the album covers follow the exact same art design template, much as releases on Creed Taylor's CTI Records had in the late '60s.

That said, it turns out that these records are nowhere near as eye-rollingly pretentious as the above description sounds. Ellis happens to be a gifted composer and arranger, and the atmospheric production, usually by Perry, is dark and mysterious and usually quite lovely. The whole thing is rather like a less naff version of the horribly misguided Enigma, with clear antecedents including serious British composers like Gavin Bryars and (especially) John Tavener. Elijah's Mantle began with a full-blown aesthetic with 1993's Angels of Perversity. 1994's Remedies in Heresies and 1995's Sorrows of Sophia followed, with 1996's Betrayals and Fantasies and These Wings Without Feathers, 1997's Poets and Visionaries, 1998's Psalms From Invocations, 1999's The Soul of Romanticism, and 2000's Legacies of Corruption continuing and amplifying the themes. Along with his audio releases, Mark Ellis collaborated with filmmaker Daniel Faoro on Philosophy With a Hammer, a short film completed between 1993 and 1995 and released on video in 1995; the film assiduously explores Christian symbolism of the Renaissance and beyond by presenting tableaus in the manner of Caravaggio and La Tour to a soundtrack by Ellis and Perry.", "Macha survived the turn-of-the-century indie rock wars and lived to tell the tale. Always one of a kind, the band, which was formed in Athens, GA in 1996, carved out a significant place for themselves in the pantheon with two extraordinary releases, 1998's Macha and 1999's See It Another Way. Critics and fans praised Macha early on for their astute use of non-Western music styles and techniques, and for incorporating unusual string, reed, percussion, and electronic instruments into their sexy but enlightened rock'n'roll swagger. Alternative Press called See It Another Way a ‘flash of avant-exotic brilliance.’

Macha appeared on the scene with their distinctive sonic identity fully formed: an exciting blend of influences ranging from kraut-rock, 70's-rock, post-punk and trance-music, to the street musicians of Indonesia encountered by founding members Josh McKay and Kai Riedl during their travels there. Forget Tomorrow is more soulful and funk-tinged than previous efforts. The band continues to effectively explore unexpected sonorities and atypical timbres, their music resonating remarkably well in the post-post-punk, post-punk-funk early 21st century.

Anticipation for the new album is high. Macha’s debut hit the top five in the college radio charts and See It Another Way spent three weeks at number one. Work on the new album began during the summer of 2003, when percussionist Mischo McKay (the third founding member of the band) worked out the rhythm tracks with his brother Josh, who then wrote and laid down all of the instrumental and vocal parts. The brothers McKay used this methodology very successfully on their highly praised collaboration with now-defunct Texas band Bedhead (Macha Loved Bedhead, 2000). Ten of Forget Tomorrow's thirteen selections were produced by Josh and created in this way. Despite the decidedly experimental approach, the music grooves, stomps, and soars as much as any rock you'll hear this year.

Kai Riedl produced three songs with Tim Hankins (a longtime friend and former bandmate of the McKays) that explore additional textures and Eastern influences. These selections, along with the rest of the album, distill Macha's rich palette of sounds into a layered, harmonically dense rock music that sounds like no other. For the first time, one is tempted to label Josh and Mischo 'Soul Brothers.' More than ever on Forget Tomorrow, Riedl and the McKays look deeper within to find emotionally stirring beats and melodies. It is their most stylistically diverse album to date. From the New Order synths and Studio 54 beats of the title track to the blissed-out dreamscape of ‘Now Disappearing’, and from the classically minimalist Philip Glass meets The Seven Samurai of ‘Paper Tiger’ to the dubbed-out trance pop of ‘Smash and Grab’.

Not content to bang a gamelan gong at a problem a vibraphone or zither could fix, Macha characteristically employ instruments including hammered dulcimer, keyboards, and double-reed instruments to assimilate the sounds, motifs, and textures of non-Western music into their danceable, wide-screen rock'n'roll. The music, while still using abstract and unconventional structures, is uncannily expressive. Forget Tomorrow revisits moods familiar from the record released by Josh McKay's Seaworthy project, ‘The Ride’, in late 2001, and sonics inspired by his spent time on the road with the New Year (featuring the Kadane brothers from Bedhead).

This sophisticated album gives the listener the effect of tuning through a fourth dimension short wave radio band that encompasses many nations and historical time periods. Macha manipulate rhythm, melody, harmony, dynamics, atmosphere and found sounds like no other band in the world.

Forget Tomorrow represents the next step for Macha, more emotionally wide-ranging, and arguably darker than previous efforts, but it is undeniably upbeat in the end and rooted in appealingly funky retro-modern, cosmopolitan rock.

Macha's avant-garde approach to rock music takes their incorporation of other cultures’ traditions way beyond mere exotica. Josh, Mischo and Kai have created a totally new and unparalleled integration of pop, experimental music, and so called ‘ethnic music’. Greater by several orders of magnitude than the sum of its parts, the highly original synthesis that Macha present on Forget Tomorrow place the band is a class by itself. The album is their most significant achievement to date, and it sets a new standard for this kind of audio artistry. It is a new century for Macha but their vision, as always, is artfully assembled for maximum aural and glandular pleasure.

Unless the blood has completely drained from the cheeks of every free-thinking music fan in the world, MACHA is going to ring bells and blow minds.

Formed in Athens, GA, MACHA (which is Turkish for ‘The spade card’) has no viable contemporary parallel - it's like a DIY garage Gamelon orchestra. A list of easily audible influences include My Bloody Valentine, Martin Denny, Girls Against Boys, Legendary Pink Dots, the Holiest of the Holy - Can, a touch of the Fall, bright flashes from the Bad Seeds/Neubauten nexus, and MDMA-friendly, participatory vibe that recalls San Diego's guerrilla noise collective Crash Worship. However, its important to understand that, rather than simply combining these elements into a hybrid for hyphen-happy music critics (biography writers included) to use as crutch, MACHA owns it all. MACHA (Which is Yiddish for ‘The Big Cheese’) was realized at the end of 1996 when multi-instrumentalist and MACHA mastermind Joshua McKay (vocals, hammered dulcimer, vibraphone, giutar, bass, various double reed horns, gongs, the Fun Machine, Baldwin Organ, The Kitchen Sink...) learned that his brother Mischo (drums) was moving to Athens. The two had been previously playing in bands together but had not lived in the same town since the demise of Emperor Moth, a band they had in Gainesville, FL three years ago. Once in Athens the brothers were joined by friend and housemate Kai Riedl (same instruments as Joshua) and the three began forming loud, trance inducing, out of control, semi-improvisational and thoroughly ass-rocking shows. MACHA (which means fun in Hindi) was recently joined by childhood friend Wes Martin, who has become a full fledged band member and shares the multi-instrumentalist duties as well as pitching in with vocals. Instead of the murky chaos one might expect from such a conglomeration of skills, influences and instruments, the grace of MACHA's native talent glows steadily on the group's self titled debut album on Jetset Records. MACHA (which is what Mark E. Smith asks for when he needs a light) introduces itself with an instrumental cut aptly named ‘When They First Saw the Floating World’. The smooth and groovy ‘Cat Wants to be Dog’ follows, then leads to the hypnotic, revelatory gong banger ‘The Buddha Nature’. ‘Double Life’ satisfies the music freaks need for groove and opiate simultaneously. Moving on through the melodic lament of ‘Capitol Cities’, the album never lets the listener down until the sombalistic album closer ‘Samma-Samma’ ends and the he/she realizes that the trip is over.

Throughout, MACHA maintains fierce sexy power and exoticism that may have something to do with Joshua's affinity for Indonesian arts, music and culture. (witness the bonus CD of Joshua and Kai's recordings of Indonesian musicians included in this package) But whatever it is, MACHA is here, and believe me, you are ready." , "As a child, Adam Green loved mathematics. In his teens, he became interested in the occult, particularly Satanism. At the age of 19, he became acquainted with a volunteer minister named Eldar who took him under his wing. Eldar, who was an alchemist in many ways, asked Geoff Travis(the owner of Rough Trade Records) to provide him with funding to put together a hard hitting Satanist boy/girl group. Travis, already impressed with Eldar’s success with The Strokes, was all too eager to dish out the cash. Now that the money was coming in, Eldar began to form the band. He teamed Green up with Kimya Dawson. As a child Kimya sang her devil music to the good catholic kids in school, but her only previous experience in the ‘business’ was singing subliminal satanic backup vocals for young Hellraisers Ben Kweller and the Bay Area Bad Boys known more commonly as Third Eye Blind.

After teaching Adam and Kimya the songs, Eldar brought in four new musicians to add textures and to fill out the sound. Most of them were exotic male models who had recently left their agencies. With the exception of Jack Dishel, Strictly Beats, Toby Goodshank, and Steven Mertens, none of them had ever played musical instruments before, especially Steven. Jack, known mostly for his tender listmaking, was also trained in quantum-enthusiasm and was called away from his vittles ranch in NYC to gently play sweetly with the band. Beats, responsible for the ‘I'm with stupid--->' shirts, and Mertens, responsible for the ‘<---I'm with stupid’ shirts, used blindingly complex rhythms to express the anger they felt towards each other, accidently weaving a delicate web of spiderlike understanding. Goodshank, on the other hand, had to be pulled from the soccer field kicking and screaming and is still, to this day, in a permanent state of drug induced compliance. Eldar and Travis agreed on the bandname ‘The Moldy Peaches,’ and then they were off to the studio.

Working long hours in a Chelsea dance rehearsal space learning routines, was hard, but it paid off when their single, and favorite song, ‘Who's got the crack?’ hit the top of the UK indie charts. With the help of master choreographer David Scheid, who had worked with such greats as Mike Watt and J Mascis and whose top selling home video, ‘D.S.'s Breaking and Popping’ came out 3 months before Alfonso's from Silver Spoons did in 1984, they learned how to really backlight their strengths. After a long and successful tour with The Strokes in arenas across Europe and America Eldar, passed the baton to Juliet ‘you do the math’ Joslin, and now it looks like The Moldy Peaches are unstoppable. ", "Formed near Munich as a hardcore punk band, the Notwist gradually began to embrace a fusion of classic '80s indie-pop songwriting and scruffy electronic backings indebted to Oval and Autechre. The quartet is comprised of brothers Markus and Micha Acher (on vocals/guitar and bass, respectively) plus programmer/keyboard player Martin Gretschmann and drummer Martin Messerschmidt. Their self-titled 1989 debut and 1992's Nook were rough-and-tumble punk LPs. Third album 12 marked the group's first flirtation with electronics, though the chord structures and vocals of Markus Acher marked the nowtist more as an alternative band. The band then gained an American distribution deal with Zero Hour, and after 12 was reissued, fourth album Shrink appeared in 1998. Gretschmann has also recorded on his own as Console.", "The Elemental Chill Series is comprised of four CDs, each one representing a different element found in nature, Fire, Earth, Air and Water. Each CD is carefully compiled to reflect the mood that each element evokes. Volume 2 in the Elemental Chill series, Earth, has organic rhythms and deep, sensual grooves that hint at a slightly grounded vibe. I purchased this CD because it has Amalgamation of Soundz on it, and we love them!", "Brooklyn's genre-defying Oneida takes their primary cues from '60s garage and punk bands (especially the MC5), but throw in plenty of heavy, bluesy '70s stoner rock (think Blue Cheer, Foghat, etc.), plus dashes of jerky synth-pop, avant-garde jazz and kraut-rock. Featuring guitarist/vocalist Papa Crazy (aka PCRZ), keyboardist Bobby Matador (aka Fat Bobby), drummer Kid Millions, and bassist Hanoi Jane (aka Baby Jane), the group made a name for itself in the New York area by virtue of its raucous live performances, which were frequently conducted in lofts and warehouses. Oneida's 1997 debut A Place at El Shaddai's was released by Turnbuckle, but by 1999's Enemy Hogs, they had moved to Jagjaguwar. They were especially prolific in 2000, releasing both the Steel Rod EP and the full-length Come on Everybody Let's Rock. They continued to issue albums at a relatively swift pace, issuing Anthem of the Moon in 2001 and Each One Teach One a year later. Atheists, Reconsider a split EP with the equally formidable Liars, also came out that year on the Arena Rock Recording Company imprint. 2003 saw Oneida release their sixth album Secret Wars, as well as writing and recording the score for Speedo, a documentary about Long Island and New Jersey's demolition derby circuit.", "From the album 'Love and Distance', this is new for 2004. I was a little disappointed; their other stuff has more of an edge to it, and the vocals are a little less up front.

It's been three years since The Helio Sequence's last album (2001's Young Effectuals, on Portland's Cavity Search label): far too long. Finally and triumphantly, the Portland, OR duo of Brandon Summers (guitars/vocals) and Benjamin Weikel (keyboards/drums) return with their third full-length, and first for Sub Pop, Love and Distance. The time between albums has been well-spent, logging several tours(keyboardist/drummer Benjamin Weikel also lends his percussive skills to Modest Mouse, doubling the tour time), extensive hours of experimentation and afternoons spent 'listening to a lot of pop, Dylan and Can.' More inventive than ever before, the new record finds The Helio Sequence armed with a surprising new instrumentation palette and buoyed by swift pop undercurrents, with this collision of electric and organic elements. Please welcome the Helio Sequence!

Sometimes, the most important revelations come to us when intent is thrown to the wayside. The practice of deliberately rejecting pure deliberation is The Helio Sequence’s newest modus operandi, but it hasn’t always been.

1999’s Accelerated Slow Motion Cinema EP and 2000’s Com Plex (the former self-released and the latter on Portland’s llustrious Cavity Search label) found Helio Sequence in hot pursuit of a very specific kind of sonic perfection—one steeped in amorphous, often ambient sensibilities and punctuated with ethereal, mechanical bursts of energy. The resulting linear compositions, intricately rendered from sonic threads affected by psychedelic and early ‘80s wall-of-sound groups, pointed towards what Helio Sequence would accomplish in 2001’s stellar Young Effectuals (also on Cavity Search). Primal in energy and futuristic in tone, the record was, at that point, the band’s neo-psych-dream swan song. 'It was the pinnacle of what we were trying to achieve at that point,' explains calm-voiced vocalist/guitarist Brandon Summers matter-of-factly. After three years, several tours (keyboardist/drummer Benjamin Weikel also lends his percussive skills to Modest Mouse, doubling the tour time), extensive hours of experimentation and afternoons spent ‘listening to a lot of pop, Dylan and Can,’ the duo has reached a totally different plane of consciousness.

Love and Distance is bright, free, and organic—a collection of refreshingly melodious songs that stand in stark contrast to the ‘univibe’ that Summers asserts their past compositions often possessed. Summers and Weikel had been used to setting up a makeshift studio at the music store they started working at in tenth grade—one room was for tracking, one for mixing. When both parties quit their jobs to tour extensively in 2002, the recording, mixing and production operation moved to Weikel’s parents’ bonus room and basement, various rooms in Summers’ apartment, and Issac Brock’s garage. ‘So many of the takes weren’t meant to stick,’ Brandon chuckles. In the familiar, comfortable setting of family and friends’ homes, however, something happened—Helio Sequence gained an elevated level of ease that allowed them to throw caution to the wind, expanding on the complex, deep sounds they’d so masterfully crafted years earlier.

Their latest album’s strength lies not only in the soft tension created by its disparate elements—the traditional folksy twang of harmonica on ‘Harmonica Song’, the fresh, tropical infusions of electronica on ‘Looks Good (But You Looked Away)’, the passionate, precise collision of electric and organic percussion throughout—but in its natural flow. Eachprogression, each track, is part of a gorgeous, hooky whole. Armed with a surprising new instrumentation palette and buoyed by swift pop undercurrents, Helio Sequence finally felt able to construct their voluminous grooves using laissez-faire techniques that weren’t previously a part of their creative process. The result is a band more confident, inspired and inventive than ever before.

Catch Helio Sequence as they tour in support of Love and Distance throughout 2004.", "Three tracks from this wonderful mix CD; ‘Fabric 12’ flies by in a storm of moods and grooves. It starts with soundtrack elegance, blending music from Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 film, Traffic, Mark Forster’s ‘Monster’s Ball’ (2002) and Mike Figgis’ ‘One Night Stand’ (1997). Geche’s warped breaks bridge a string tribute to Bjork and Akasha’s shuffling, horizontal vibe; Chris Cousin’s lush ‘Pump Da Ball’ sets up TAOS’ heart-stealing re-work of Richard Davis; then some classic ‘Future Sound…’ precedes Hakan Libdo’s weirdbeat house, the genius beats of RjD2 and another TAOS standout, the siren-sounding ‘Simply So’. Angelo D’Onorio, Hi-Lo and Jeff Bennett toughen things up before a suitably cinematic ending: Soultek’s dubbed-out trip, TAOS’ addictive ‘Summer Nights’ and Still Phil’s jaw-dropping ‘Bey Un Bey’.

Read more bout Fabric Records and the club here. ", "Calhoon was formed in 1972 by six high school friends who decided to put together a band to play school dances and local events. In the next three years they gained a large fanbase and became New York's top paid non-recording band.

After much success and many performances, Calhoon decided to buy a 20,000 square foot restaurant in Hollywood, Florida and turned it into south Florida's largest New York style dance club / Disco called Rumbottoms.

Every week Calhoon would book top name acts to play at Rumbottoms and Calhoon would be the opening acts for the shows. It was around this time that they were approached backstage by legendary Beatle's record producer Phil Spector's A & R man, Ron Saul about a recording contract on Spector's new Warner Brother's label, Warner / Spector. This labels other acts included such big names as Cher, Harry Nilson and others.

Within four months Calhoon had released their first single, '(Do You Wanna) Dance, Dance, Dance' b/w 'Rain 2000,' which began to climb the charts as they completed their follow-up single 'Soul Man' and completed an album in Philly with Don Renaldo supplying all the wonderful strings we hear on all those great Philly Soul records of the 1970s.

During the next few years Calhoon toured the U. S. and Canada opening concerts for Patti LaBelle, K. C. and the Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor, Four Tops, Tavares, Al Green, Temptations, Harold Melvina and the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, Vicki Sue Robinson, The Trammps, The Stylistics, B. B. King, Sister Sledge, Carol Douglas, The Monkees, and many others including a three-month stadium tour with Isaac Hayes.

Calhhon's music is availble on vinyl at many online record stores such as GEMM and their records were released in the U. S., Canada, U. K., Italy, France, Germany and Japan. In fact Calhoon's '(Do You Wanna) Dance, Dance, Dance' is considered to be one of the earliest 12 inch singles offered by Warner Brothers being released as a promo to DJs in 1975.", "I originally bought this record for its A side, 'It Takes A Lot of Love', which features one of the best vocal groups ever, The Empires, whose 'Corn Whiskey' single rocks like nobody's business. Here is a great blues number, with no backing vocal group, with Bobby Sue lamenting her empty-handed mailman. Released in 1955, and only available in this format. Fabulous.", "The Ember and Herald Records company gave us some of the best known rock and roll 45s from the 50's and early 60's. The Five Satins, The Silhouettes, The Nutmegs, The Mellokings, Maurice Williams, Faye Adams; the list is endless.

This is not one of those. I can't decide what my favorite feature of this record is - the hilarious 'boings' or the thick Brooklyn accent of the singer. A totally golden turkey. ", "One of Wire's classics, the music was written by Colin after Graham had given him the lyrics relating to the domestic problem of the serpentine miner, an insect which lives in a leaf and eats chlorophyll. Graham's lyrics are anxious about the possibility of the roof falling in. In our slightly hermetic Wire bubble, this didn't seem particularly unreasonable at all.

In all the furore over punk and New Wave, it's often overlooked that simply structured songwriting underlies all the bluster and noise. Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middlebit-verse-chorus worked 50 years before and still delivers now. But the Sex Pistols or the Damned didn't write about chlorophyll gourmets.

Wire had delivered poppy, inviting music before. Outdoor Miner relates to Fragile on the first album, but was slightly longer, 1:45 compared with 1:18. We found ourselves in the extraordinary position of being asked by the record company to lengthen the track for release as a single. Normally, tracks turn out longer than the radio-friendly ideal of four minutes or under, and have to be cut in the face of screaming protests by the artists. If anything, Wire were just a little bemused.

The original song as recorded for Chairs Missing had an abrupt two-bar intro then straight into the first verse. A chorus, a second verse, and then we were into the singalong second and last chorus. The suggestion came in for 'maybe a piano solo', which pushed me into the idea (as at the start of my synthesizer and keyboard playing with them, I was a shrinking violet). We copied the 24-track master tape and then added in a verse portion for the piano to ride over, followed by a third chorus (also with large vocals).

The piano additions quicken the pace of the tune, lifting the track before the corresponding point where vocal loops (aaaahs) had previously entered. (Vocal loops are created by singing a steady note then splicing the two ends of a short length together in a loop. Practice Makes Perfect, on the same album, also uses this technique effectively.) The piano part was actually quite difficult to play, being more a strummed guitar imitation than a smooth piece of pianism. The edits and extras were completed quickly, and the mix delivered to EMI. They liked it a lot.

The single got its own very stylish cover, and a special edition in white vinyl. So what if the sound back then of the colored vinyls was inferior to that of black, it certainly looked nice. The public thought so, since they started buying them in alarming quantities. The single got to #51 in the UK charts. The BBC unofficially gave the nod that if it went up the next week, they would run it on the big long-running show 'Top Of The Pops', and since sales were improving I felt justified in already planning my outfit.

At the time, the so-called 'chart shops' saw a constant battle of wits between the measurers (at the time the British Market Research Bureau) whose credibility depended on finding an accurate reflection of all sales from a very small sample, and the record companies who wanted to enhance, or 'hype', the chart position to increase a single's visibility. It was a quite simple process: go into the store and buy six copies with a credit card. Nothing suspicious here, mate.

Dodgy practices came in waves in the UK, and this was crest time. Everybody was doing it, which was perfectly understandable with the sieve-like security of the BMRB. The only problem was that EMI was the one that got caught. The single was deleted from the charts for that week, which suggested that it would have a hard time meeting the BBC's rising-position criterion. Had that 'Top Of The Pops' appearance taken place, the single would have almost certainly entered the Top 20 and launched a visible career for the group. EMI thought that was a real possibility, otherwise they wouldn't have put in the effort. Unfortunately, that was it, despite EMI's (rather unconvincing) denials.

Also here the great Flying Saucer Attack cover of the song. Click on the link at left.", "In 1966, this New York group came off very much like a Lovin' Spoonful Jr., scoring a minor hit with a cover of John Sebastian's 'Younger Girl' and then chalking up their only Top 20 single with the very Spoonful-esque original 'Mr. Dieingly Sad.' The group's soft harmonies and pop folk-rock were in a considerably lighter vein than their Kama Sutra labelmates, though. Much of their material was self-penned, though they also benefited from compositions by Jackie DeShannon and Brill Building tunesmiths Pete Anders, Vinnie Poncia, and Doc Pomus. Recording quite a few singles and an LP for Kama Sutra from 1965 to 1967, their gentle pop/rock was rather lightweight, with the exception of their best singles. After a final Top 40 hit in 1967 ('Don't Let the Rain Fall Down on Me'), principal songwriter Don Ciccone was drafted, and the group struggled on with a couple albums for the Project 3 label before splitting.

I just think this is a fabulous song because of the couplet '...you're so mystifyingly glad./I'm Mr. Dieingly Sad. So many of my navel-gazing friends and fans of The Clientele everywhere desperately need to know this song.", "The story of the group kown as The Bop Chords is so very typical of New York City in the mid fifties. The neighborhood 'rep' was of major importance and many inner city kids looked to music for that respect. That most perfect of instruments, the human voice, was the vehicle that inspired this path. By the mid fifties the sound of the city was certainly that of the R & B inspired vocal groups. But gone were the sounds of smooth harmony that so long had been the identifiable trademark of this style . In its place was a rougher and earthier blend of voices that was more urgent and more 'streetwise' to its listeners. From this atmosphere came the Bop Chords in Harlem of 1956.

The lead singer of the group was Ernest Harriston, the tenor voices were William Dailey and Butch Hamilton, the baritone was Mickey Smarr, and the bass was Leon Ivey. Although all had spent some time harmonizing in the area, only Hamilton had some extended experience appearing on a record made by a little kown group called The Five Wings and had also crossed paths with a fine vocalist who would become famous in years to come as Ben E. King. So there they were, five voices in search of a record company joining so many others on this same maiden voyage. Soon they were put in touch with record man Danny Robinson who was just putting the final touches on his new recording enterprise he called Holiday Records located on Eighth Avenue in uptown New York City. They all agreed that a song that the group had toyed with called 'Castle In The Sky' was a good first choice to put on wax. This tune coupled with 'My Darling To You' was released on Holiday #2601 in late May of 1956.

The up tempo 'Castle' was an immediate favorite of New York dj's Hal Jackson and Tommy 'Dr. Jive' Smalls and both got many requests for the tune. The chime intro, the loping beat, and hook laden bridge section of the song made it very recognizable and gave it that 'X factor' that is so much a measure of success - it was a song that was sung (on and off key) by people on the street and had a maddening way of staying on someone's mind for days. It had all the makings of a winner. Soon the group was asked to appear at that temple of talent, the Apollo Theater in Harlem with the Dr. Jive Revue along with LaVern Baker, Vicki Nelson, Billy Bland, and the parade of groups - The Schoolboys, Cadillacs, Jayhawks, and Cookies. The Bop Chords had made it !

Now with their new found 'rep' the quintet got some local gigs and were neighborhood celebrities. Soon they were aiming for a second record for the label and they came up with another winner in 'When I Woke Up This Morning'. The flip side was 'I Really Love Her So' and the songs were released on Holiday #2603 in the fall of the year. The reaction to the up tempo 'When I Woke' was a duplicate to their first side. Again they performed a recognizable and very danceable tune, one that listeners really liked. And once again the record sold in triple figures mostly in the Northeast, and was a mainstay on area radio programs. But now the nagging questions that troubled so many of the vocal groups of the fifties - where were the royalties from record sales ? The usual trail of creative bookeeping that was so much a part of the vocal group scene in the fifties became apparent. And in what was repeated so many times back in the day, it took its toll on the chemistry among four or five members of the team. William Dailey and Mickey Smarr left the group and were replaced by Skip Boyd and Peggy Jones. The Bop Chords had become a different set of voices by the dawn of 1957.

The third release by the group was the ballad 'Baby' and 'So Why' on Holiday #2608. Ernest Harriston did some impassioned vocalizing on 'Baby' and the record got some airplay, but not nearly as much as the previous happy up tempo sides. Sales of the record were not encouraging. In early February of the year The Bop Chords were part of a big benefit show for the Harlem PAL held at the Savoy Ballroom. On the bill with the group were Johnny & Joe, The Chips, Channels, Fi-Tones, and The Hearts. The group held their act together for a time but they all knew the end was near. There were no more recording sessions held although there was talk of another session for Danny Robinson which never materialized. The last appearance by the group was a big show held by New York radio personalities Jack Walker and Hal Jackson at the Hunt's Point Palace on Southern Boulevard in The Bronx on the first of November. The Bop Chords appeared on stage with a real groupfest with The Bobbettes, Chantels, Rays, Deltaires, Rob Roys, Dubs, and Shells with Big Al Sears and his band. And then The Bop Chords were no more.

Ernest Harriston did some vocal work with vocal groups around the city such as Shep & The Limelights and The cadillacs. He also recorded as a solo artist in the early sixties. But - the golden era of the R & B vocal groups was at an end. And during that era when 1956 was the center of the universe, the Bop Chords were in the middle of the scene that has provided a million memories with their two all time classic tunes.", "Marie is the waitress where I get my breakfast in the morning on my way to work. One afternoon, I was in a stripmall somewhere and I saw here crossng the parking lot while I was in my truck. I opened up mywindow to say hello, and she stopped to chat, and this song was playing on a CDR in my truck's player. Marie loved the song and asked for it here.

All but forgotten, this song from her 1988 album 'Colouring in the Edge and the Outline', was a virtual ANTHEM in the late eighties and early 90's around WZBC. Crepsucule records out of Belgium just knocked us over so many times, and this song was no exception. I also have very strong ties to this song in relation to Christmas, so it seems right for it to be here now.

Anna Domino is an American singer who came to live in Brussels during the eighties. Incredibly 'cool' and low sexy voice. Or, as it was once described in the magazine Smart 'The voice of the erotic, tense, despairing, Peggy Lee-meets-Nico, thinking woman -i.e., postmodern platinum'.

She recorded quite a few albums of her own, but will in Belgium always best be remembered for her cooperation with Luc Van Acker (see Luc Van Acker or Arbeid Adelt) on the memorable single 'Zanna'.

Anna Domino was part of the active Brussels music scene in the middle of the eighties, where quite a lot of 'immigrants' from the States and England contributed to an exiting, experimental musical climate (among others e.g. Blaine L. Reininger, Tuxedomoon, the Legendary Pink Dots, Isabelle Antena, Paul Haig ...). Many of these were housed by the independent record label 'Les Disques du Crépuscule' (as e.g. Marine, The Names ...). She also did a number of guest-appearances on album of others, such as on 'Temperamental' by Kid Montana (another half Belgian/half American affair).

Though she disappeared slowly from the public eye in Belgium, Anna Domino has continued to record and publish her songs ever since. She has worked with Alan Rankine (The Associates), Marc Moulin & Dan Lacksman (Telex), Flood (Depeche Mode, Erasure ...), Blaine L. Reiniger (Tuxedomoon) and Anton Sanko (Suzanne Vega).

In 1999, Anna resurfaced as Snakefarm and the cd 'Songs From My Funeral', a project that has been described as 'Acid-blues? Folk-funk? Troubadour trip-hop?' by the American music-press. Together with her Belgian husband Michel Delory (with whom she has been living in the desert for years), she recorded a number of old American folk songs (or 'murder ballads' as Nick Cave calls them) such as 'John Henry', 'Saint James Infirmary', 'Tom Dooley' ...) in a contemporary wrapper.", "Dave is a coworker who I overheard discovering my jukeboxes a few weeks ago after work. I heard familiar music floating through the corridors, and I went looking to see who landed on my site. Cranes is a mutual favorite band, and we both love this song.

Cranes were one of the major trance-pop/shoegazing groups of the early '90s, combining ethereal vocals and melodies with loud, droning guitars. Cranes were formed by brother and sister Jim (drums) and Alison Shaw (vocals) in 1988 in Portsmouth, England; guitarist Mark Francombe and bassist Matt Cope joined the band two years later. The group independently released their first album, Fuse, on cassette in 1990; a small local label released Self Non Self the same year to good reviews. Both sets of music led to a record contract with Dedicated, an English record label. Later that year, they released their first EP for the label, Inescapable, which earned them a lot of attention, including a Melody Maker cover story; a second EP, Espero, also earned positive reviews, including a Melody Maker Single of the Week. The following year, the band released their first album on Dedicated, Wings of Joy, which received favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as earning the band a sizable cult following, including the Cure's Robert Smith; Smith picked Cranes to open for the Cure on their 1992 world tour, which earned them a larger audience. Forever, the group's second album, was released in 1993. It expanded their cult slightly, yet 1994's Loved found the band in a holding pattern commercially. After releasing the limited-edition Tragedy of Orestes and Electra in late 1996, Cranes returned with Population 4, which was greeted with mixed reviews and found the group's cult shrinking. Self Non Self followed the next year, but then the group took a few years off to rethink their musical direction. Future Songs, released in 2001, is a departure from their former material and step toward a dream pop sound.

'Far Away'

There she goes
Far, far, far away
There she goes
And everything she once had is gone
Everything she had, everything she loved
Everything that made her glad
Everything she loved is gone

There she goes, there she goes
And nothing seems to matter now
And all her things are scattered everywhere
And then from nowhere come these tears
Never ceasing, never ceasing
There she goes, there she goes
Once lit a star that shone
Watched 'til it all was gone.", "This track is for a friend of mine from Live Journal, Irishbeard. This recording is hard to find unattached to a DVD movie, and here it is taken from the vinyl soundtrack.

From the Amazon.com movie review: This 1983 science fiction oddity, set in the subterranean world of heroin addicts, performance artists, and androgynous models in New York's East Village, became a staple of the midnight movie circuit and college campus film societies. A tiny UFO lands on the roof of a grungy penthouse apartment inhabited by androgynous model Anne Carlisle and her drug-dealing lover Paula E. Sheppard (the former child star of Alice, Sweet Alice). As explained with deadpan gravity by hilariously naive alien hunter Otto Von Wernherr, the UFOs congregate in areas of intense heroin concentration and feed off the highs of addicts. This alien has found a better high: orgasms. Russian émigré Slava Tsukerman's punk sci-fi feature takes the alien in alienation seriously, charting the mental disintegration of Carlisle as every sexual partner dies in climax and she turns herself into a heroine-chic angel of death. Easily the strangest to come out of the New York indie explosion of the early '80s, this low budget classic is talky and overlong at almost two hours, but remains an imaginative use of bargain-basement effects (heat aura photography, stop motion animation) for a tale of a most unusual alien encounter. Tsukerman co-composed the minimalist electronic score (in the Laurie Anderson vein). Carlisle, who cowrote the film, also appears as a surly gay male model.", "I thought it would be fitting to kick off this particular series with a work from the band that coined the term 'industrial music' while at the same time reconfiguring some old ideas and contextualizing them for the first time to a new generation. TG opened a drum full of oleic acid that continues to spread without bound in all directions.

Industrial Records began as an investigation. The 4 members of Throbbing Gristle wanted to investigate to what extent you could mutate and collage sound, present complex non entertaining noises to a popular culture situation and convince and convert. We wanted to re-invest Rock music with content, motivation and risk. Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant.

We wanted to also investigate music as a Business phenomenon and propose models for entirely new and innovative modes of commercial operation. A parody and an improvement. Industrial Records was founded before any of thee better known of the English Independents and was at its close the 3rd largest, yet the most elusive. We wanted to make music and records more effective and relevant to our Industrial society, and we wanted to make business more efficient and creative as well. Industrial Records Limited was born. Named as the most unromantic yet appropriate title we could envisage. Big records companies produce records like cars; we are connected to a contemporary social situation, not a blues orientated past style; we work hard for what we want, we are industrious; we parody and challenge large industrial companies and their debasing ethics and depersonalisation; we work in an old factory; industrial labour is slavery, destructive, a redundant institution so we call it the Death Factory. Music From The Death Factory, from the world, from life. Records in English also mean files, documents, as collected by Government agencies, employers, schools and police forces. Our Records are a combination of files on our relationship with the world and a Newspaper without censorship. Monte Cazazza suggested our business slogan should be INDUSTRIAL MUSIC FOR INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE. You Get what you deserve. Or do you? Well, from the people with a vested interest in controlling and guiding society to follow their recommendations as to what attitudes you should have, what motivations should govern your bebaviour and what goals you should be satisfied with, you DO NOT get what you deserve. You get what you are given, and what you are given is primarily conditioning that pushes you towards blind acceptance, wasted labour, frustrated relationships and a vast sense of hopelessness. We are trained to feel we are not responsible or in control of our society and world so that we will continue to let 'Leaders' look after us like parents with retarded children.

Leaders are not essential, we are TAUGHT to believe we need them, that we are not able to assume responsibility for ourselves. Lies created leaders, lies perpetuate leaders, lies destroy joy and creativity and hope.

There are NO LIES on these records, no one here is a leader. We assume full responsibility for ourselves. We will not be deflected from our destiny. OUR LIFE.There is currently a trend back towards total control and safety in the record and music industry. Groups are styled, hyped and successful before they even release a record. Old outlaws and thinkers are opting for security, comfortable records that apply radical discoveries to banal musical ends. Show business and its inherited goals and justifications are triumphant again. The public is seduced and cheated by emptiness packaged alluringly in cheap tinsel. Fear is the Government once more. On this record are people who were not afraid to think, did not avoid risks. People of all ages are here, from 16 years old to 70 years old. Truth and hope have no boundaries, no set style, they are implicit most clearly in the way you choose to live. The title of the last record issued by industrial tells the rest. 'Nothing here now but the recordings.'

Or perhaps there is...", "This was requested by TJNorris, real life and LJ friend. He's many miles away now....*sigh*.

This debut by the ex-members of Wunderkind on a label owned by the record chain Newbury Comics (Mopdern Method) contains five songs and lots of heart. Less derivative than their releases on Braineater and A&M, this is probably November Group in a pure, naïve state. 'Pictures of the Homeland' sounds more searching than militant, Alvan Long's drums very present riding Ann Prim's precise and novel riff. Raphael Gasparello is playing the tight elastic bass prior to eventual Down Avenue musician Don Foote taking over making this limited edition E.P. a good document of the band while it was refining the dancey bouncy music regional fans loved.

'Shake It Off' has the hollow vocals that Boston acts like The Machines were lifting liberally from Devo, reprised on side two's 'We Dance'. 'Flatland' has the sparse machine gun guitar/keys trade-off and a splashy group chorus of 'hey' to break things up, but it is hard to differentiate it from 'Pictures Of The Homeland', and that's the major flaw here. Intense, professional and hard working, November Group stayed within the framework of their original concept when that concept should have included, should have demanded, creative growth.

They never got out of the techno-rock rut and without melody that monotone vocal might as well have been the hammer and scythe in a machine shop it was emulating. 'The Popular Front', like everything else on this self-titled first effort, is a cool title caught in a redundant carbon copy of a tape loop. It has charm but gets tired by the time you get to the fifth track. Too bad the Wunderkind 45 wasn't included as a bonus track, the band's earlier incarnation was not as serious, and was at times more powerful.

A live album might have captured the magic more effectively than the black and white image this music projected and became in the studio, for November Group was something to be experienced in the dance venues, dark music echoing in dark clubs. " ) arLABEL = new Array( "l00", "Shinkansen", "City Centre Offices", "PolyStar", "De Nova Da Capo", "Jetset", "Rough Trade", "Domino", "Kriztal", "Jagjaguar", "Sub-Pop", "Fabric", "Scepter", "Harlem", "Ember", "Harvest", "Kapp", "Holiday", "Les Disques de Crepsucule", "dedicated", "Milan", "Industrial Records, Ltd.", "Modern Method" ) arFORMAT = new Array( "f00", "CD", "CD", "CD", "CD", "CD", "CD", "CD", "CD", "CD", "CD", "CD", "45 RPM", "78 RPM", "45 RPM", "45 RPM", "45 RPM", "45 RPM", "!2-inch EP", "CD", "Full Length LP", "Full Length LP", "12-inch EP" )