Thursday, January 30, 2020

Alternative Radio - First Night (1986)

This Liverpoolite brother act (Rob and Alan Fennah) had only negligible chart success in the mid-80s, despite bearing a smart yet accessible wave-pop sound that put them roughly in league with contemporaries The Korgis, Split Enz (and perhaps more coincidentally The Three O'clock).  First Night is a cobbled-together compendium focusing on Alternative Radio's initial blush of (mostly) synthy singles, and offers delightful confections aplenty like the the title track and the yacht-rocky "Strangers in Love," alongside strummier forays "No Indispensable Man" and "Emotional Disaster."  A couple of proper full lengths arrived belatedly in the mid-90s (and another in 2008), but these days the brothers are said to be scoring show tunes.  Do check this one out. 

01. First Night
02. Valley Of Evergreen (long version)
03. No Indispensable Man
04. Everybody Wants To Be Loved
05. Strangers in Love
06. Concertina Ballerina
07. Harmony
08. Emotional Disaster
09. What a Dream
10. Summer 85
11. First Night (Long Version)
12. Strangers In Love (Long Version)

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Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Marshal Crenshaw - Miracle of Science (1996/2020, Shiny-Tone) - A brief review

For an artist who arguably peaked on his first two albums, Marshall Crenshaw has remarkably not pumped out a subsequent steady stream of diminishing returns.  That's no easy feat given the caliber of 1982's Marshall Crenshaw and the following year's Field Day which are revered by both guitar pop purists and early adopters of the gentleman in question.  In fact, from a creative standpoint things never really went "south" so to speak for Crenshaw, rather just on divergent tangents.  Nonetheless, some of his albums (roughly a dozen of 'em) fared better than the rest, and there are even ones I've modestly taken exception with (Life's Too Short anyone?).

If anything else, a good chunk of the man's catalog has been neglected, specifically a slew of albums he cut in the mid-90s through the 2000s that didn't bear a major label imprint.  His seventh studio LP, Miracle of Science, circa 1996, was his maiden indie foray, and is now being released on vinyl for the first time, with a rejiggered song sequence and significantly refurbished sleeve art.  And it's not a bad album to revisit at that, as it proved to be one of his loosest and varied affairs.  Thing is, virtually every album Marshall Crenshaw brings to market feels like casual day at the office, with Miracle... being especially representative of this modus operandi.  The commencing "What Do You Dream Of," with it's serendipitous flow of acoustics and electrics, is the kind of pop tune that would seem a miracle of musical science in the hands of any other singer/songwriter, but for M/C it emanates as naturally as putting on a pair of slippers.  Another absolute stunner, "Starless Summer Sky," harkens back to the aesthetic of his breathtaking early records, brandishing a structure that smacks of the finest Field Day had to offer.  "Laughter" and "A Wondrous Place" amble along on a considerably lackadaisical path, particularly the latter which features strings, marimba and some faint flamenco affectations.

Amidst the inspired originals on Miracle reside a pair of covers.  A reading of Dobie Gray's 1964 oldie "The 'In" Crowd" isn't much of a revelation, but how about a Grant Hart solo cut?  And not just any old Hart song, but one of the finest the sadly departed Husker gave rise to, "Twenty-Five Forty-One." Truth be told, it wasn't the original incarnation that Crenshaw became acquainted with, rather Robert Forster's version on the I Had a New York Girlfriend covers collection, but no matter. It's great. 

"Seven Miles an Hour" winds Miracle... out, but not before M/C messes with us by prefacing it with a backwards take of the song in it's entirety, included as a bonus cut.  Furthermore the vinyl variant of the album is coupled with a bonus single of two more recently recorded songs (both remakes including Michael Pagliaro's "What The Hell I Got").  Elusive Disc will take care of you if opt to spin the black circles, while Amazon is holding down the CD and digital fort.  Available as we speak.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

All the love's been taken away.

A chilly, murky and thoroughly immersive sonic tempest from 1993.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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Thursday, January 23, 2020

Elton Motello - Pop Art (1980, Passport)

Just four short months ago I posted an Elton Motello single, and was enthused enough about it to spend some quality time with his second long-player, this one.  You can refer back to that original entry for some pertinent biographical specifications.  Pop Art is a minor new wave masterpiece, exuding just about everything that was creative and incisive about that genre's nascent era, while gracefully sidestepping any of it's patently negative shortcomings that would become ubiquitous over the next couple of years.  A fantastically nervy strain courses trough virtually every morsel of this album, that sonically points to the acerbic modus operandi of some of Elton's (actual name Alan Ward) contemporaries likes Devo, Donnie Iris and to a lesser extent Gary Numan.  Some surprisingly rollicking and punky outbursts crop up here in the guise of "Pocket Calculator," "In the Heart of the City" (not the Rockpile tune but just as ripping) and "Panic in the Classroom," and if you're looking for par excellence power pop the title piece is both flashy and a hell of a lotta fun.  Enjoy.

01. Pop Art
02. Can't Explain
03. Night Sister
04. Falling Like a Domino
05. Out of Limit
06. 20th Century Fox
07. In the Heart of the City
08. Pocket Calculator
09. When All the Boys Are English
10. Queen
11. Pay the Radio
12. Panic in the Classroom

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Sunday, January 19, 2020

You been swearing to god, now maybe if you'd ask...

The expanded edition of this legendary band's somewhat maligned final record from 1990.  Despite what many have opined it ranks as my fourth favorite by them.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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Sunday, January 12, 2020

Is it better to be up in the air or flat on the ground?

Hey.  You've got power pop in my indie rock!  You've got indie rock in my power pop!  From 2015.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Nice Strong Arm - Reality Bath (1987, Homestead)

And so I present you with the final piece of the Nice Strong Arm puzzle, their debut, Reality Bath.  I've featured their subsequent platters Mind Furnace and Stress City eons ago, and a convenient thing that since both were extractable from CDs.  Reality Bath, on the other hand, was a vinyl/tape-only proposition.  Those in the know about these angsty New Yorkers, fronted by one Kevin Thomson, will no doubt boast their noisenik credentials, and rightfully so I suppose, but these folks were emanating from points of catharsis and artful sensibility, not so much full bore aggression. 

On second thought, it's damn near impossible to deny that Reality Bath isn't chockablock with raging, dissonant notions and eardrum-frying sprawl.  Even relatively likeminded contemporaries Live Skull and Red Temple Spirits couldn't quite compete with NSA's near-disorienting sonic alchemy that often fell just shy of surreal.  No, taking this proverbial Bath won't be of Calgon proportions in the least, and dare I say there's not much here that's "fun," but despite it's miles-deep layers of sinewy latticework, the going rarely gets difficult.  Furthermore there’s more guttural, emo pathos at play here than Rites of Spring ever thought to fling in our direction.  If you're looking for some comparatively melodic respites, you may want to dive in at "When Truth Comes Around," "Minds Lie," and "Free At Last."  This one's an acquired taste that's well worth acquiring, and check out NSA's second and third records linked above

01. Life of the Party
02. Date of Birth
03. Copperhead
04. Disenchanted
05. When Truth Comes Around
06. Life is So Cool
07. Minds Lie
08. Free at Last
09. Notes From a Gut
10. Dying Skin

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Sunday, January 5, 2020

Rescue me or here I'll stay, a traffic island castaway.

A handy 17-cut roundup of virtually every song that mattered by these Clash-y Brit post-punks.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Here

Smashing Orange/The Sunflowers - split 7" (1992, Clawfist)

In the early '90s British-based Clawfist Records was responsible for a spate of split singles featuring (mostly) indie band covering one another on the same piece of wax.  Way back, I featured one of their 1991 specimens, Poster Children/Thin White Rope, and some ten years later I'm sharing another in the Clawfist series.  Smashing Orange (not to be confused with you-know-who) were one of my small-of-famers back in the day.  A fantastically noisome blur of manicured noise and dream pop ethos who responsible for handfuo of eps and two albums, The Glass Bead Game being the foremost of the pair.  On this split 45 they cover The Sunflowers, a combo I'd never really investigated before.  Per Discogs the band only released a few singles, and ironically the tune Smashing Orange take to task here, "Something You Said" didn't materialize on any of them.  Nonetheless, it's glorious noise-pop overdrive if I've ever such a thing.  The Sunflowers return the favor by doing a rendition of one of my go-to Smashing Orange songs, "Collide" nailing it quite capably at that.

A. Smashing Orange - Something You Said
B. The Sunflowers - Collide

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Saturday, January 4, 2020

A slight case of underblogging - Best of the blog mix 2019.

It's cherry picking season again.  Here's my annual postmortem assemblage of the creme de la creme of what I just offered you a year prior.  A taster, or sampler if you will.  I'm really not sure if these yearly distillations are really hitting their desired audience (neophytes, stragglers, etc) or if I'm merely preaching to the choir.  At any rate, I've plucked 23 of the most succulent feathers from the wild array that was 2019.  As was the case in 2018, I've grown increasingly slack in the amount of shared content, and as such offered even less in the past year.  Turns out though that a decent chunk of what I managed to get up '19 was of particularly high caliber.

Thing was, I presented such a haphazard pastiche of styles and genres that it made sequencing this mix a bit of a bitch, but I think I pulled it off, beginning with a cluster of acts that loosely skewed to the power pop end of the spectrum.  Midway, I sort of hit a downcast stride with the emphasis on post-punk, but managed to conclude this playlist on a surprising note of levity.  I don't have an adequate amount of time to elaborate on individual cuts, though I plan on attaching links to the original artist entries later this weekend.  Included are three additional, previously unshared kernels that are noted with an asterisk.  One item not to be overlooked is that of a virtually unknown and unsearchable quantity, La Voix Celeste (circa 1983) who deliver the melancholic, minimalist wave piece "Phases," which doesn't just strive for mood, but a sublime hook as well.  This whole package concludes with one of my most listened to songs of the past couple years, a sleeper if there ever was one that you can read more about here.  Enjoy.

01. White Flag & Kim Shattuck - Dont Give It Away
02. NoNames - 1 2 3 Go!
03. X-Teens - All Day Long
04. Giddy'Up Einstein - Wasteland
05. Beat Feet - She's on Time
06. Start - Where I Want to Be
07. Signal Thirty - Wild With Me
08. The Big Picture - Poison Town
09. Honour Society - Ambition
10. Matt Finish - Fade Away
11. Monkey 101 - French Feelings
12. Popdefect - Can't Catch Up
13. The Necessaries - Back to You
14. Tirez Tirez - Razorblade
15. B Team - Right
16. DUSTdevils - Life Guarder
17. Actuel - Just Imagine
18. The Howl - Red is Red
19. La Voix Celeste - Phases*
20. Unity Station - History
21. Rarefaction - All the Broken Seams
22. The Expression - With Closed Eyes
23. Episode 1 - Maggie
24. The Dugites - Mama Didn't Warn Me
25. Koo De Tah - Body Talk*
26. Maria Takeuchi - Plastic Love*

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