I posted some Paul McCartney solo stuff last week and just wanted to follow it up with some more classic, under-appreciated gold from his second solo album, ‘McCartney II’. I figure alot of you out there may have heard these but I just post as I hear it.
Apparently ‘Check My Machine’ was literally Paul walking into his studio and testing out the equipment and ended up working up what he recorded into one of the best tracks on the album.
Something a bit off our usual stream of beats here on waves. Angus Tarnawsky (of currently on ‘hiatus’ Melbourne outfit Bachelor Of Arts, and NYC’s Apache Beat) has sculpted us a rhythmically challenging and sonically exploratory mix of experimental electronic twitch-beatscapes under his latest musical endeavour, ACTUEL.
It’s a 1am, up working late at the computer mix when you can let your mind sink into the topography of sound.
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Continental Drift Mix
ACTUEL
1. Karlheinz Stockhausen – Kontakte: Struktur VI: Page 12
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2. Luc Ferrari – Remontée du village (excerpt)
Whilst both very short, these pieces help set the mood for an exploration of micro-sound. Stockhausen and Ferrari are equally well known within the electronic and classical music worlds. Their work is groundbreaking and highly recommended.
3. Giuseppe Ielasi – Rubber Band
An Italian artist, this track is built entirely from rubber band sounds which were recorded then digitally manipulated. From his 2010 record ‘Tools’
4. James Blake – Pan
Blake’s pop work is becoming very well known. However, he continues to release amazing bass orientated music through a string of independently released records. This cut (and the next track too) were discovered through Hard Wax in Berlin. Check them out online for a curated selection of record tips.
5. Surgeon – Remover Of Darkness
From this years ‘Breaking The Frame’ LP. Surgeon is Anthony Child; A British musician who’s driving sound has really captured my imagination. This is very precise and inspiring music.
6. Zwischenwelt – Änigmata
Created from international web collaborations, this is a Rephlex release which caught my ear. The groups name is German for ‘between world’
7. Aphex Twin – PWSteal.Ldpinch.D
A classic Analord session track from a true genius. It felt like a really nice way to say ‘goodbye’ within this mix.
I actually hit a happy and slightly sad moment the other day. As a completist obsessed with shoegaze, and in particular Slowdive, it was an ambivalent moment when I found a copy of one of their most obscure releases, 1992′s Flexi-disc ‘Beach Song/Take Me Down’ 7″ released not on Creation as usual but on Sunday Records. They actually come the closest to sounding like a lost My Bloody Valentine cut than the usual cavernous dream they push.
Every little B-Side, bootleg, soundtrack cut, alternate version that they have released I fall in love with. There will be no more new Slowdive hidden gems.
I can’t honestly say to you that ‘Japanese downtempo electronic tropical jazz lounge’ was ever a genre I would find myself blissfully enjoying after years of listening to No Wave.
Seaside Lovers are that stroll on a plastic beach, sipping a fluorescent pina colada, with warped VHS star wipes and soft focus.
A collaboration between Akira Inoue, Masataka Matsutoya and Hiroshi Sato and released in 1983, this would have sunk in bargain bins covered in hologram contact paper in a city record store in Tokyo, only to properly make sense now.
Seaside Lovers – Evening Shadows
Throbbing Gristle were a harsh act. Playing live with blistering bleating snyths, backed by Nazi or pornographic imagery and followed by a steady stream of provocation of the audience, usually coming from transgender Genesis P-Orridge (aka Neil Megson).
Chris Carter and Cosey Tutti (longtime partners and founding members of TG) became almost a polar flip to their initial sound (as did Genesis’ later chart topping pop project, Psychic TV).
Chris & Cosey released ‘Exotika’ (both as single and title of Album) in 1987 on Belgium’s Play It Again Sam Records (home to Front 242, Meat Beat Manifesto, The Cassandra Complex, Neon Judgment et al), and it still stands as one of my favourite outsider balearic beats of the late 80′s.
Chances are French/Benin Afro-synthpop artist Wally Badarou appears on at least one of the albums in your collection that for a while you just couldn’t stop listening to and couldn’t figure out why. Working with Robert Palmer, Marianne Faithfull, Fela Kuti, Herbie Hancock, M (Pop Muzik), Talking Heads, Foreigner, Power Station, Melissa Etheridge, Manu Dibango, Miriam Makeb and even writing for the beautiful 1985 film ‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’.
This impossibly funky ear-worm comes off his first solo album, 1979′s Back To The Scales To-night.
Chances are French/Benin Afro-synthpop artist Wally Badarou appears on at least one of the albums in your collection that for a while you just couldn’t stop listening to and couldn’t figure out why. Working with Robert Palmer, Marianne Faithfull, Fela Kuti, Herbie Hancock, M (Pop Muzik), Talking Heads, Foreigner, Power Station, Melissa Etheridge, Manu Dibango, Miriam Makeb and even writing for the beautiful 1985 film ‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’.
This impossibly funky ear-worm comes off his first solo album, 1979′s Back To The Scales To-night.
As a few of you may already know, Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles work is severely underrated and a bit forgotten by time. Im not sure why really.
I have to admit that I actually prefer it to anything by The Beatles (I’m not ashamed to say it).
This track is one of my fav’s, and played down at half-speed it manages to pull a seriously tough beat and a mean groove out of it.