November commute tunes #3: Small lizard chronicles

Aah, lovely lovely songs.  And I think they're all linked??  Most of them anyway, by Little Dragon.  I first heard of them when they featured on a Gorillaz record.  They already seemed like a band I felt I should have heard of back then.  I can't say I've paid them loads of attention since, but they'll pop up on singles I like here and there. 

First up, here they are with BadBadNotGood.  Another band who have tracks I like, but I'm not necessarily a fan.  They're also an example of a band who I didn't like as much live -- I prefer them on record, their live show was pretty unenjoyable.  Anyway, I love this track, very atmospheric:



Now, here they are with SBTRKT; I heard this next one again today:



Now here's one by just them!  It's from their latest EP, which is meant to be a dancey and positive record.  This track definitely fulfills that mandate:



Ok, last track now, and it's destroying my Little Dragon link cos I don't think this person has any link to them (I could definitely be wrong).  This is by Jon Hopkins and it's pretty great.  I saw him live once, supporting the XX.  Can't really remember much about the show, but I think he'd be good on stage. 

The Joints

The library is demanding I return a few CD's I've had for a while so I thought I'd write a little about them first.  After all the hype around Sampha and his debut album, Process, I decided to check him out a bit, but I wanted to go back to the source -- I read about his guest appearances on albums by SBTRKT so started there.  To be honest, while I think Sampha has a unique voice with a very warm quality to it, he wasn't really doing it for me; I even saw him live recently, with the XX, and felt the same way; just not feeling it.  But I do like SBTRKT!  He has some really great sounds on his records; I particularly love the squelchy synth bass on this track, Wildfire:



Features Little Dragon -- keep coming across them recently.  Another good thing I've noticed about that track in particular is that it rewards repeated listening -- I keep hearing new sounds that I hadn't noticed before, like the warbles behind the singer's voice at certain points.


Second CD due back is 'Malibu' by Anderson Paak.  Now, this guy is hardly unheard of; in fact I decided to check the album out after getting round to listening to a best of 2016 podcast from NPR.  But there's so much music out there these days, including so much lauded good music, that even though he's on best of lists that doesn't mean you've come across him -- all I'd seen was the name, but hadn't heard anything.  Really glad I got the album out though, as it's really good.  I've been listening to the whole thing at a time as it all gels really well, though I can't say it's been sit-down in-depth listening -- mostly it's been on in the living room on a weekend morning.  But I'm cool with that -- music that I can just put on and enjoy is more than welcome.






Non-library and newer listening now.  I came across JLin thanks to NPR first listen.  The accompanying write up for her album Black Origami talks about one of her records being played by Aphex Twin recently, her album being on Planet Mu (a UK label), and how some footwork-y music has junglist elements to it.  All pretty interesting stuff and, to be honest, I even found the fact that she's a black woman releasing this type of music pretty cool and unusual in that I don't come across that often (maybe I'm looking in the wrong places). And she's from Gary, Indiana!  I stopped there, once, in a snowstorm, on the way to Chicago with my brother and cousin -- we wanted to check out what was then described as the most dangerous city in America; we didn't stay long. Anyway, the album's hyper-erratic beats don't necessarily do it for me, but I do like this next track, and can definitely hear sounds that would fit right into some jungle:

Alive 2017

Sorry it's been so long.  I've thought about the neglect I've been showing this blog but kept thinking I hadn't really heard anything so there was nothing to write about.  Thought about it again yesterday and realised I've been wrong -- I've heard quite a lot that I've never blogged on, and all quite recently -- Skepta, SBTRKT, the new Depeche Mode, the new Tribe Called Quest, and more besides.  So plenty of stuff to cover.  I've also started to mess around a bit with making music myself.  I won't bore you with the details, but it's meant that I've been listening much more deeply to the music I hear now, which has been really good; it's been a while since I enjoyed music so much in that way.  I'll take it slowly though.  I'll start here with Roisin Murphy, as I have some time at the moment.

I first came across Ms Murphy back when she was in Moloko.  I heard "Sing It Back" while visiting the UK one summer and loved it.  But that and "The Time is Now" were all I really heard by them.  I'm in the US and Moloko weren't terribly big over here; I wasn't able to follow them or Roisin at all as she never came on my radar.


(Just heard that for the first time in years -- Wow.  The lyrics are great!)

 Then, years later, "Hairless Toys" came out and I made a Petridis-review based decision, one I've not regretted.  It's a lovely album, full of electronic music that's weird enough to be interesting but still very funky and danceable.  In fact I really should get it out and listen to it some more.



 That was in 2015; then Roisin came back up on my radar again at the end of last year, I forget why now.  I started looking her and her back catalogue up and bought "Overpowered" due to more good reviews.  There are some great tracks on there, and reading more about Roisin had me regretting that I wasn't following her all along.  Luckily she's still around and still doing great work so hopefully I'll get to see her live soon.   A stand out track from "Overpowered" is "Primitive", which I'll post below.  I love the sounds, the skittery beats, and Roisin's singing.



That's it for now.  The plan is for more soon.  But you know what they say about plans.  

Fer du dancing

Two completely unrelated tracks today -- one is one of my all time favourite dance tunes, another a new track by SBTRKT featuring Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend.

First up, Dirty Cash by The Adventures of Stevie V -- straight outta 1990.  A class, class tune that randomly comes back into my  head every now and then.  This time I decided to blog it, as I've a feeling it's a bit of a forgotten gem, and since TAOSV were British, perhaps it never really got that big here in the USA.


SBTRKT is one of those dance artists whose name I'm always seeing around but I never really checked him out until I heard this on the radio recently.  It's quite a funky track, and if you go to SBTRKT's soundcloud page you can hear a lot more of his new stuff -- sadly the other tracks didn't appeal to me as much as this one does.  Great artwork too.