Non-Hostile Environment

I've heard this Janet Kay reggae track at various times over the last few weeks.  It's popped up on mixes, on radio shows.  When I heard it, I assumed it was some obscure dusty thing that's been rediscovered somehow. I mean, it does sound a bit off, and Tom Ravenscroft is playing it on 6 Music.  Then I looked it up and it turns out it was #2 in the UK in 1979!  #2!!  A hit, in other words, and Janet Kay, the singer, was on Top of the Pops. 

This wouldn't be a very big deal, but given everything that's in the news these days, the hostility and anger, and how important identity, race, background, has seemingly become (at least online), it's kind of cool to go back to 1979 and a time when things were probably pretty bad, race-wise, and yet this slightly strange track made it all the way to #2 in the UK (it was apparently a hit around Europe too).  What does it mean?  I don't know to be honest... maybe that it doesn't have to be this way, that there are better parts of our nature we should be tapping into?  Or maybe it just means that a good pop song can transcend boundaries -- or at least it used to be able to.  Is pop culture the answer to our troubles?  It's possible (as an aside, when I looked up #TopBoy on Twitter, I came across quite a few users with England flag emojis in their name who'd enjoyed the show...). 

It also reminds me of just how important Black music is to pop music in general.  Especially in the US and UK, one could argue that without Black music there'd be no pop music, no rock music, no dance music, nothing; we'd be listening to skiffle boards, country (maybe?), folk, and who knows what else.  It'd be pretty shit.  So check out this video -- I hope it makes you smile. 



Also, on Tom Ravenscroft, I heard Metronomy do a live track and I have to say it sounded like... something from Flight of the Conchords.  And I like Metronomy.  I wonder if it's meant to be funny?  The official version actually sounds pretty good:

Is it over?

Over the last day or two I've been thinking about the process of making music, especially dance music, genres, and what it all means now.

When I first heard dance music in the early 90's (or was it the late 80's?) it did feel like "the future", and later on I bought into the idea that it was future music.  It kept evolving too, it didn't stay still, and I got into the mutations that came through, like jungle, garage, and then dubstep.  But I'm trying and I really can't think of a new genre or mutation that really got anyone's attention after dubstep?  I know there are always new micro-genres and distinctions, and there's EDM, which is basically an idiotic label for nothing, it's not new.  But there's nothing I hear now that seems really new or ground-breaking, and definitely nothing is having a massive impact like the genres mentioned above.

So is dance-music actually like rock music now?  Where people are just making their own take on what's gone before?  I feel like that's what's happening and that electronic dance music isn't really the music of the future anymore, and I don't think anything's replaced it.  That makes me a bit sad, especially as I've taken up producing my own dance music as a hobby.  Via that I realised that there haven't really been that many innovations in the sound or the equipment since the 90's, other than most of the process going "in the box" (ie being done solely on computers).  The people I come across online seem to mostly festishize old sounds and equipment too, new takes on old drum machines.

All this doesn't mean that good music won't be made, and isn't being made.  But I just think that thrilling edge has been lost, where I felt like what was being made and heard had never been done before.  I mean, imagine the feeling of hearing the first house record, or the first jungle record?  That's not happening any more; hopefully it will happen again, but there are no guarantees.

For me this means I need to get back to viewing my own producing as a hobby to be enjoyed -- no need to overthink it, just have fun.

Switching it up, after a long time, here's a commute tune from this morning's BBC 6 music with Tom Ravenscroft.  Bloody good it is too.  I think at this time anything I blog will be slightly biased by the fact that I'm looking forward to putting together a massive tAO playlist soon!

Metal

Heard some lovely, lovely, atmospheric and groovy music in the past week that I had to archive/share.  First up is this track by BadBadNotGood, who I've written about before.  Time Moves Slow is very soulful without sounding like a pastiche of the past; it's from their upcoming album IV:


I've also featured Bibio on this blog before.  I came across this track, Petals, earlier today.  The video is not official, but it's pretty good regardless, the kind of thing I wouldn't mind having a longer loop of to play in my hypothetical office:


Slightly moodier direction now with Can't Say No by Ivy Lab featuring Roses Gabor.  Makes me think of late nights in cities, shiny glass and concrete, reflections off cars driven slowly.  Kind of menacing.


Bonus Track: Rush by Roses Gabor


Dang, listening to this stuff is making me want to put together a mix tape!  

Triple Threat

Just heard all three of these tracks yesterday.

I posted about Woods a while back and this first track is by the Babies, a band featuring a former Woods member by the name of Kevin Morby.  There's a nice bit of trivia for you there, as well as a link to the past of this here blog.  

Next, Maribou State.  What do I know about them?  I know they're coming to U Street Music Hall in April, that's what.  I'm digging their laid-back sounds so may have to check the show out.

Here are another act that I've featured before, Welsh housesters Bodhi with a decent remix of George the Poet.

Lastly, this gorgeously moody track by the Unthanks -- I really like the organ here.