Free Kitten - Never Gonna Sleep

Free Kitten - "Never Gonna Sleep"

1997 was a pretty good year for music. So many great albums! Here's one that's always been lost in the shuffle and commonly dismissed as a fun but inconsequential side project, but that's a mistake. This was way ahead of its time. Sentimental Education was all over the place as an album (which people hold against it for some reason) but this is one of its best tracks. Give this jam a chance and you won't be let down!

Kill Rock Stars was never the same after they started courting shit bands like Numbers and The Decemberists. I miss their old sound and their passionately feminist and gay (not fey and prissy and whiney, but homosexual!) and creative attitude. This same "old sound" turned out to be the sound of tomorrow. Too bad no one gives a shit today! Too busy blogging and listening to "quirky" (but serious!) bands dressed in their best steampunk outfits, I guess. RIP KRS (Grand Royal, too). Indie rock suuuuucks.

video #74: Miracle Fortress - Have You Seen Your Dreams

This was going to be one of the longest entries I'd ever published on this blog but after a month of fussing over it and considering what it is about it that bothers me and what I think it all means within some bigger context or something, I was unable to form any real opinion about it or say anything truly interesting at all. My brain is rotting into a useless mass I'll be flipping burgers when I'm 40.

video #73: The Rice Twins - Can I Say

I don't know who these two guys are or where they came from and outside of their rare and regrettably short releases since 2006, (if Discogs is to be trusted) they don't seem to be doing anything else on the side. But since their first release on K2 they've been Kompakt's secret weapon and I keep hoping that they'll eventually release an album, one we won't have to wait for as long as Rex the Dog's.

"For Dan" and "For Penny and Alexis" were the highlights of Immer 2 and Total 7, but only now am I realizing that I never actually heard Total 8 and, thus, missed out on this great track. Wistful but pounding, gloriously blissed-out and breezy, this won't make people toss their drinks at each other like Justice or MSTRKRFT or Basement Jaxx so that probably makes it dance floor poison by hipster benchmarks of 2009 but if you like shoegaze-y techno and haven't jumped on the "mnml sux!" bandwagon then this is for you.

Oh, I almost forgot. This is a really wonderful video, too. We're fortunate that The Rice Twins care enough about their music to support proper visual treatments of it (another of which I'll post sooner or later), because how many other artists in the realm of dance music who stick to putting out 12" releases on independent labels are bothering to? I got a big Watership Down-vibe from this. Whether this was the intention of animator Tommy Vilkensen is unclear. Grab some tissues and judge for yourself (be warned, big spoilers on the other side of that link).

Jesper Dahlbäck - What Is The Time, Mr. Templar?

Jesper Dahlbäck - "What Is The Time, Mr. Templar?"

I first came across this track sometime in 2003. An internet acquaintance had burned a mix CD for me and had tossed in an extra burned CD-R labeled "Ellen Allien" along with it. This was around the same time as the release of Berlinette, and I was eager to hear more from her. This disc turned out to be a DJ mix, however, and with no title or tracklisting, hunting down any of the songs on it was an almost impossible task. It would be a few more years before Discogs.com had a through and accurate listing of all her releases, or at least until I would be patient/desperate enough to comb through all of them to identify exactly what I had. The Flieg Mit Ellen Allien mix was released all the way back in 2001, and of all the great tracks on it (mostly deep house, German techno, etc.) I was most interested in finding out what track #10 was. And here you have it, but things get even stranger when I tried to track down its precise origins.

"What is the Time, Mr. Templar?" is not officially listed on any release from Jesper Dahlbäck, at least not until earlier this year, when it was reissued as a 12" single. While online retail blurbs allude to it as a "classic item from the 90's," even in 2003 it seemed like it was ahead of everything else I was hearing from the Kompakt/Playhouse scene and still does today. Further investigation finds this clue from his 1997 release "The Persuader." At only four tracks long, I'd only been able to find and download the first three from it sometime last year. The final track is listed as 5:13 in length, the same runtime as the full version of "Templar" I was able to download elsewhere.

If you love it so much, why not buy the record? The original? An expensive collector's item. And the reissue seems out of stock everywhere online. For now I'll continue enjoying this for free, the time I spent looking for it already feeling like more work and fuss than I've ever gone through for almost any single song before. And no, I don't think this makes me any kind of hard-working mp3 crate digger or anything.

video #72: Moby - Shot in the Back of the Head

Of course this sounds like Moby, or at least it's unmistakable when you go into it with the expectations laid out by Play, 18, or Hotel. Maybe even Last Night, but after its listless predecessor I gave up on the man and haven't attempted to give it a listen. But this new song, the first single from a surprisingly-quick follow up album coming out this summer, is blessedly free of any lyrical baggage and is just Moby doing what he does best. Chilled out, slightly mournful, but not sappy or trite. It all sounds a little too easy, perhaps, but it's a step back in the right direction for an artist whose past accomplishments should earn him a chance to redeem himself from recent disappointments. Even the album cover is a welcome return to form.

The video is directed, and apparently hand-drawn, by David Lynch!

Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians (Coldcut Remix)

Steve Reich - "Music For 18 Musicians (Coldcut Remix)"

Steve Reich remixed? A great idea, for sure, and a hearty bunch of attempts on this 1999 compilation. Unfortunately, it's all downhill after the opening track. Howie B? Tranquility Bass? Barf! There are a few more promising contributors, but even Ken Ishii and Nobukazu Takemura sound like they're phoning it in. Was Aphex Twin busy? John McEntire? This was a great idea that would probably turn out much better today. As it is, it's fodder for the used bins, not a bad album but a missed opportunity.

At least Coldcut get the CD off to a good start. Their remix of this solid little minimalist jam doesn't cover it up with dusty samples or cartoon sound effects like you'd expect, but preserves the original mallet percussion melody and adds some pleasant electronic pulses and swells. It sounds like the album cover looks, and if that floats your boat then you're going to be one happy camper when you give this a spin!

video #71: KMFDM - A Drug Against War

"Do I really like this, or would I rather be listening to KMFDM instead?" That's probably the closest thing to a personal "test" that I have for any music that I can't form an immediate opinion about. Unfortunately, most of the time the answer doesn't fall in the favor of whatever hot new indie band everyone is talking about.

I can't say how authentic KMFDM's anti-corporate posturing was or how subversive their songs truly were or weren't. They weren't Throbbing Gristle or Negativland but obviously they were aware of this and for a popular band they had a rare self-deprecating streak about themselves that that would soon be lost on an entire generation (or at least whatever tiny fraction of it would actually hear them once their sound was left out of the Vans Warped Tour/Korn Family Values scenes). I think that's what troubles me most, the fact that they were essentially a joke but it was one their fans were in on. Today, they'd be crucified for empty "sloganeering" by bloggers but taken completely literally by everyone else. Just another sign why this decade has surely been the dumbest I've lived through so far. Of course, you can't take this stuff too seriously but why can't some mock-agitprop still be fun in these image-obsessed times?

The transition from the optimistic and culture-savvy 90s (when skepticism of the media and globalization seemed to be growing into a burgeoning movement -- though maybe I'm embellishing the past as everyone eventually does) to the comparitively retarded 00's (seemingly doomed to be remembered for awful television, butchered attention spans, and the shallow self-mythologizing and prejudice-reinforcement enjoyed by all on the Internet) didn't have to happen. I don't think I'm imagining it all either. I'm not nostalgic for the 90's (not in any meaningless VH1-defined sense of the term) but I truly believe that the thought process of the average person was radically different back then. Maybe I'll end up feeling the same way about this decade in another 10 years?

This video was (probably) directed by Aiden Hughes, whose iconic art appeared on pretty much all of KMFDM's releases, even 13 (!) years after this clip was first aired. Of course, this was when MTV actually played videos, which is almost impossible to talk about now without sounding embitteredly out-of-touch or furiously betrayed by its direction since. You can't even talk about talking about it anymore without using tired words like "rockist" or "oldster" and sounding like some 40 year-old who just discovered the world of online music criticism and is discovering how to use it to vent about his deepest-held values and prejudices. But don't act like it's all relative and there's no difference between progams like "120 Minutes"/"Yo! MTV Raps"/"Daria"/"Aeon Flux" and "MADE"/"Room Raiders"/"The Hills"/"Paris Hilton's my New BFF."

Fleetwood Mac - Albatross

Fleetwood Mac - "Albatross"

Look, yet another classic song I've somehow never heard before! What's next, blogging about how totally great the Pixies were? Great bands you've never even heard of like Can or Joy Division? How genius the hook in "Toxic" is and how all you indie snobs are too busy stroking your chins and listening to Isan and Brothomstates to ever get it? Stop standing around with your arms crossed and get out there and dance! OMG, this "Losing My Edge" song is so good. I hate those kind of indie pricks! Lol.

A mellow instrumental hit from an era of the band that I pretty much didn't know about at all. I didn't hear it until renting Man on Wire a month ago and since then I've been hooked on it. Brilliant movie, though most of my chums online have a radical aversion to Mr. Petit's excitable recollection of the events portrayed within it, strong enough to keep them from sharing my opinion on the film.

Great song. A number 1 hit in the UK!

video #70: Wagon Christ - Receiver

Luke Vibert's music has inspired a lot of great animated videos. Here's another one, directed by Tom Perrett.

Turn On - Electrocation Of Fire Ants

Turn On - "Electrocation Of Fire Ants"

I had no idea that this band even existed until a week ago. Turn On included Tim Gane, Sean O'Hagan and Andy Ramsay, with Laetitia Sadier contributing vocals to a track. Essentially, this line-up was Stereolab without Mary Hansen or Morgane Lhote, and releasing an EP at the height of the Groop's prime in 1997. I've done my best to follow the Switched On collections and other related projects over the years (Monade, UiLab) but this one slipped past me.

I was really into this track for about a week, but went a little overboard and don't know if I'll want to hear this again for a while. Don't get me wrong, this is mellow and pleasant, though not as inspired as the Lab's best instrumental work from the time. Oh well. Trying to track down as much abstract pop from this time period as I can, still searching in vain for something else like it.

video #69: Fol Chen - No Wedding Cake

Animated video for the latest Asthmatic Kitty band. Pretty tired of this kind of indie pop to say the least, but the video reminds me of Delphine games from the 90's and their somewhat-related imitators. Don't expect anyone else to conjure up those for a reference, though.

Directed by Nancy Jean Tucker.

Telefon Tel Aviv - I Lied

TELEFON-TEL-AVIV-BOTH
Originally uploaded by kirstiecat

Telefon Tel Aviv - "I Lied"

News of the passing of Charles Cooper hit the Internet last week, first in a post by bandmate Joshua Eustis on Telefon Tel Aviv's Myspace page. News was quickly picked up by local sites like The Reader, Chicagoist, and Gaper's Block, not to mention Pitchfork and a bunch of other music websites (most of which had been gleefully happy to shit on the band's faces for most of the past 5 years, if only for making pleasant electropop that wasn't 100% groundbreaking or part of some trendy and easy to write about revival). Even at this point, details about Cooper's death have not been released to the public, though that hasn't stopped some from not only speculating on what they might be, but also on the appropriate response of his family and friends.

Checking the band's last.fm page, I'm kind of shocked that they have as many listeners as they do. They were never very hyped or given an overwhelming push by either Hefty Records or Bpitch Control. I'm glad to see that it looks like they had, in fact, found their audience, one that had surely been eagerly anticipating their new album, out mere days before Cooper's disappearance had been reported.

Here's a song from their second album, Map of What is Effortless, which helped get me through many long nights at my last job (and still could at my current position if only music were allowed).