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foxes-that-run · 6 months

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Little Freak

Did you dress up for Halloween? Little Freak is a sweet song, Harry is thinking about an ex and looking at the relationship with distance. It has many references to Taylor. It was written when he was in Tokyo Oct-Dec 2018. Taylor had her last Reputation concert 21 November, 2018 in Tokyo.

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Little Freak was written on bad rental gear, he said it went through 19 versions before finally being on Harry's House. Ophelia is possibly written at the same time, it references Tokyo. TBSL is similar, references Taylor in a similar way, but Harry said it was written in Bath later.

To Howard Stern, Harry said if a song didn't make a previous album why would it make this one, however noted 2 songs on Harry's House are older, but they fit sonically on the album. There is another great post here.

Lyrics

Little freak, Jezebel You sit high atop the kitchen counter Stay green a little while You bring blue lights to dreams

Jezabel is possibly a reference to 'Slut!' Taylor also references this line in the opening of the Bejewelled MV "the prince would not have anything to do with that Harlot again."

Harry references kitchens in Haylor songs Sunflower Vol 6 (kiss in the kitchen), Two Ghosts (fridge light washes the room white), here it is a device to remember a calm intimacy with his muse

A Blue film is an adult film, the last line is a wet dream.

Starry haze, crystal ball Somehow, you've become some paranoia A wet dream just dangling But your gift is wasted on me

The starry haze, crystal ball is a reference to the Ready for it...? MV. Which is about Harry, he also referenced it in To be so Lonely. Ready for it also references a sexual dream "In the middle of the night, in my dreams (eh) / You should see the things we do (we do), baby" It was an impressive tour open too.

The paranoia refers to the complicated nature of their relationship (Fine Line, DBATC) he is asked about her a lot and while their songs imply they interact, they are almost never seen together so they may work hard at that.

The wet dream, just dangling, to me means unfinished business with her that he doesn't know how to resolve.

He feels her musical gifts are wasted on him, (they aren't Harry, you're the best muse)

This producer video comments on the use of a Linn drum machine as something Jack Antonoff uses on Taylor Swifts songs. (26:30)

I was thinkin' about who you are Your delicate point of view, I Was thinkin' about you I'm not worried about where you are Or who you will go home to, I'm Just thinkin' about you

This verse refers to another Haylor Reputation song, Delicate, which also tells of sexual tension. However, here Harry uses the song title to flatter her and adds that he is not feeling possessive, just thinking of her.

Did you dress up for Halloween? I spilt beer on your friend, I'm not sorry A golf swing and a trampoline Maybe we'll do this again

This verse refers to Taylor and has links back to their time dating.

Taylor does dress up for halloween, like this 2014 1989-era Pegacorn. Harry and Taylor were also both in Tokyo a few weeks after Halloween

The spilt beer is often thought to be this photo of him with Karlie Kloss on a fashion persons yacht. It looks like water in front of him but I like to imagine this is it.

Blank Space MV Taylor took a golf club to a classic luxury car. Harry has many nice classic cars. In the Red era when they first dated Taylor had a trampoline on her tennis court and it also featured in the 22 MV.

in the close he asks maybe we'll do this again, I interpret that as maybe be together again one day. Olivia, WITW and Someday maybe have similar messages.

Tracksuit and a ponytail You hide the body all that yoga gave you Red wine and a ginger ale But you would make fun of me, for sure

Above I have a grab from Miss American, which was filmed during the Rep tour, in most of the back stage, home or recording scenes she is wearing a variation on a tracksuit and ponytail.

Red wine and ginger ale mixed is a seltzer type drink, here it is an 'easter egg' as there are red wine references in a lot of Haylor songs: DBATC (My time, my wine..), Clean (You're still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can't wear anymore), Maroon (The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed your wine into me), Olivia (This isn't the stain of a red wine, I'm bleeding love) and Grapejuice ("Give me something old and red")

I disrespected you Jumped in feet first, and I landed too hard A broken ankle, karma rules You never saw my birthmark

In the last verse Harry has started reflecting on how things ended, he acknowledges he disrespected Taylor. This may refer to the time in Now that we don't talk.

Harry broke his foot playing football while on tour in Ireland in October 2015, this is close to the time period in NTWDT, Harry includes a reference to Karma, Taylors maybe album, evential song from that time period.

Harry has a birthmark on his back so many think this means he has and will never turn his back on her. (I have seen another fandom say this means they were not intimate, dude- strangers on the internet can link to it)

to me the birthmark is not literal, I think she never saw his full self because of his age & the band. He spoke to both Howard Stern and Zane Lowe about all of his adult decisions being made as part of a group from 16-20. It was in a context of leaving One Direction. To me this emotional coasting (he says he was 'away' in TBSL) was a factor in the events of NTWDT and Is it over now?

But both of these are true, he won’t turn his back on her and he wasn’t his full self then.

#Youtube #happy halloween #harry styles #taylor swift #little freak #haylor #harry’s house

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singlesablog · 6 months

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The Closet, Part 1.

“Everything She Wants” (1984) Wham! Columbia Records (Written by George Michael) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 1

Not since Warhol painted his silkscreens of Mao Zedong in the early 70s had a project as blatantly propagandistic as Wham!, and their second album, Make it Big, appear on US shores. It was a record with its intentions splashed across the LP cover in large, unironic text above the image it was selling: the nubile duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, hairdos perfectly coiffed, all done up like doe-eyed fashion models in high-end sportswear. Even the colors of the album were strategic: red, white, and blue. Wham! was clearly setting their ambitions straight for the Reagan 80s, and toward US domination.

Andy Warhol, "Mao", 1972, Silkscreen.

Like the Reagan 80s, the ideas behind the first single, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, were as fun, retro and catchy as his signature jelly beans. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the song (first heard over the piped-in radio at the Chick-Fil-A I worked in at in the mall) until I saw the video. There he was: George Michael, costumed in short shorts, wearing a white sweatshirt that screamed Choose Life, hugging himself as he ponied and swam about in a sea of neon colors. It was then that the song really took off for me: George, Andrew, Pepsi and Shirlie, all having a romp, signaling that the New wave was over, and that something much bigger was ahead of us: pure, unadulterated fun. Of course I zeroed in on George, his Greek curls laboriously blown out into a perfectly feathered mane and dyed into the colors of artificial sunshine, and in the pivotal video moment, hugging himself tightly with fingerless cotton gloves, two gold-hooped earrings glittering for the camera. I am telling you, those earrings on George Michael were the gayest thing I had ever seen (not the straight “one” earring, but two), and thereby an annunciation: looking at him, right there on regular TV, I felt reborn.

Make it Big would spawn five top ten singles in the United States (if you count “Last Christmas”, a one-off that would appear as a double A side with “Everything She Wants” in England) and included three US number ones. “Everything She Wants”, which followed “Wake Me”, “Careless Whisper”, and “Freedom”, would be the last to be released from the album, and it was unique in that it did not seem to be cut from the same cloth as the other singles, which were in essence modeled after Motown. It was a song that also did not depend on a video to sell itself (not that they didn’t make one). I was in the bathroom blow-drying a crest into my swing bang when I first heard it on the radio, and I know I must have frozen mid-bang. Something was very different with this track. First and most importantly it was entirely built on a synthesizer, from the Linn drum bongos that open it (George’s rough demo sample was kept for the final product) to the beautiful synth notes; in fact, like “Last Christmas”, the entire song was written and performed on one instrument, a Roland Juno-60, and both songs would be performed solely by George without any other musicians to sweeten it. He wrote and arranged it overnight, with no thought of it being a single until everyone responded to it so well. According to engineer Chris Porter:

"I think this was when George started to realize that if he wanted to, he could do everything himself. He could [just] cut out all these other people and their ideas."

Back in my bathroom, frozen in place, I wouldn’t have perceived any of this. What I was perceiving was something even gayer than George hugging himself in “Wake Me Up”: this new George had a voice speaking directly to me. “Everything She Wants” is a song about a man in an unhappy marriage, an unhappy 80s marriage, to be precise, because the female in question is fixated upon perfection through consumerism. George in the song is projecting the role of the long-suffering woman, and in an act of pure subversion instead plays the hard-working husband who has to pretend that he is fulfilled by having a wife. He is, in essence, bitching about having to play it straight, and in my mother’s bathroom I understood completely that a song dripping in sarcasm about being in a marriage was the queerest (and possibly most liberating) thing I had ever heard in my life up until that moment, the peak, the essence, being when he sings the lines: And now you tell me that you're having my baby I'll tell you that I'm happy if you want me to But one step further and my back will break If my best isn't good enough, then how can it be good enough for two?

Not only were these priceless, hilariously bitchy lyrics (the song is punctuated with his backing vocals screeching “work!”, “work!”) it directly expresses the reality of a gay man suffering miserably in the closet, and delivers a pungent commentary about the reality of living in the shadows of straight conformity. The most delicious thing about it was the era it was tucked into (with its new rush of bubblegum pop)—if the song had a real message, it was sure to be lost in all of the neon fun. The import was not, however, lost on me.

Looking gay, as Wham! did, does not make you gay. Making fizzy, lush pop songs, in and of itself, of course does not make you gay. Being a male pop duo does not make you gay. After taking over the world, hit after hit, the final No.1 for Wham! in “Everything She Wants” definitely, definitely made me gayer. In sound and vision, it would mark the beginning of George Michael as a real solo act, on the precipice of joining the ranks of the biggest pop stars in the world. Soon, George would have all the fame he could ever desire; sadly, it would prove to be the biggest closet of them all.

Last Christmas, 1984

Written in 1983, recorded in August of 1984, Wham’s “Last Christmas” would of course be announced as a December release (George had performed the song alone in a studio fully decorated for Christmas with engineer Chris Porter to set the mood).

In the UK there is a long history and competitive spirit surrounding a Christmas No. 1 , which meant the hit should be the last to chart for the year. Famous examples of a Christmas No. 1 in the UK would include The Beatles’ “I want To Hold Your Hand” (1963), The Human League's “Don’t You Want Me” (1981) and Pet Shop Boys’ “Always on My Mind” (1987). In 1984, during the filming of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, which was produced for famine relief in Ethiopia by Bob Geldof, one can see George Michael lamenting that the song they were recording would surely keep the Wham! track from going to No.1, and he was right. “Do They Know It’s Christmas” won the year, with “Last Christmas” coming in as No.2. He had smiled shyly when he said it, but one could tell he was over it. If George Michael was anything in the 80s, it was ambitious.

In 2006, Michael released a Greatest Hits, Twenty-Five, featuring four new songs, one of which, “Understand”, would serve as a sort of apologia to “Everything She Wants”, imagining the couple 30 years later, and seeing the relationship more from the woman’s point of view.

George always insisted that “Everything She Wants” was his all-time favorite Wham! song, and he performed it regularly in concert.

#80s music #1984 #wham!#popmusic #andy warhol #christmas no. 1 #UK #george michael

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saleintothe90s · 5 months

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490. The 1980 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, November 27, 1980

(the whole parade is here, if you just want the commercials and highlights, it's here)

Randy Hamilton from the soap opera Texas sings "Deep in the Heart of Texas" with a small child? Who is this small child. I want it to be a random child that they chose three minutes before turning the cameras on. Randy doesn't have a Wikipedia page! Sadness.

Ahhh!! Is that a baby Mark Linn Baker in the GE commercial?!

I love the crowd whooping it up for the cast of One 'Mo Time. I was wondering what was behind them --- I think it was the broadcast booth for host Ed McMahon! Just ... there with the saddest looking Woolworth decorations ever.

What a weird closing card (what do you call that?) for this Child World / Children's Palace commercial that aired constantly. Ok, the bear didn't fall on his butt? That was the best shot we could get?

For some reason Marilyn Michaels takes off her gloves while singing "Watching the Parade go Byyy". That couldn't of waited, Marilyn?

Todd Bridges sang a song about the Summer. I felt bad for Todd, he had no back up dancers, just dancing in the street. Was this a time filler? Loved the song!

A baby Glenn Close was there with the cast of Barnum. I feel like Ed is auditioning for the Star Search hosting gig with this parade. I love his energy.

I love the juxtaposition of Bryant Gumbel thanking the Museum of Natural history for letting people warm up in their building with Doodlebug.

Ed sang a song! When was the last time a host SANG.

I thought Cootie ran over a clown, but the clown deliberately laid down in front of him??

Just for us Hampton Roads girlies, Busch Gardens of Williamsburg had a Loch Ness Monster float! It's still at Busch Gardens! The cast of Brigadoon was on the float.

Ed was trying to find a date for Happy Dragon. He said "I guess now that he's 21, he's free to go out in the evening and date whomever he chooses. So if you have an eligible dragon hanging around your house moping, we might be able to set them up and in the years to come, who knows how many dragons we might have in the parade!"

There was a float for everyone's favorite box office flop, Popeye! I think that's supposed to be Olive Oyl?!

1980 was electric football's year. It felt like it was the only toy advertised!

"Tonka's Bear in a Box! Everyone's favorite!"

Finally, a game that looks like one of my dad's vintage fire scanners.

Cowboys were HOT this year, due to the movie Urban Cowboy, and the TV show Dallas. Modern equivalent to this would be this past Summer's Western Barbie! We even had Dean Butler from Little House on the Prairie sing "Don't Fence Me In" while riding a tortoise. The Lone Ranger even showed up. Oh, and even the McDonalds commercial with Ronald was western themed.

While Snoopy couldn't fly this year due to a leg injury, we had Underdog.

Can we discuss how a station wagon is pulling a float. Later on, I saw an Oldsmobile sedan towing the float with the Spinners on it.

This beautiful phone store.

I feel like by the time we were growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, Kermit had more bad days at the parade than good, but 1980 was a good year for him. Just look at him.

Casper is over here looking like the baby from Ally McBeal.

Bob from Sesame Street sang a song while Bert & Ernie danced. Even Oscar liked the song.

Unfortunately, the entire parade isn't on YouTube. Looks like the recorder only set their VCR for two hours. One of the final things you see is Linda Ronstadt and the cast of The Pirates of Penzance. "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" slaps.

Related: previous thanksgiving entries.

#thanksgiving #Macys thanksgiving day parade #1980 #ed mcmahon

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dustedmagazine · 6 months

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Dust Volume Nine, Number 10

Older, but not a bit wiser, the Hives return

Fall comes with its smell of maple in the leaves, its intimations of mortality and, this year, its share of unsettling events—war in the middle east, AI in everything and the murder of our beloved Bandcamp by capitalist privateers. (We are not equating these things by any means.) Like always, we turn to music, the annihilating blare of metal, the agile interplay of improvisation, the well-shaped contours of pop, depending on our individual tastes. We hope you’ll find something to ease your own personal burden in all this as well. Contributors include Bryon Hayes, Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Alex Johnson, Jennifer Kelly and Ray Garraty.

Due to technical issues we're posting this in two parts, so don't miss the second one.

Ad Hoc — Corpse (Shame File Music / Albert’s Basement)

Ad Hoc was a Melbourne-based improvising unit, an experimental outfit that should have higher prominence. It only took 40-plus years, but Shame File Music and Albert’s Basement are finally spearheading a reissue initiative. Last year saw the arrival of the trio’s sole release, the hypnotic Distance cassette. It disappeared the moment it became available. Corpse documents an unconventional live performance from the group. They prepared their instruments (guitars, an EMS Synthi AKS synth and tape loops) for performance prior to the arrival of the audience and then shut off their amps. When all were seated, the trio turned on the amplifiers and unfurled an aleatoric blast of sound. The resulting music is far removed from the ambient tone clusters of Distance. The first piece shimmers in a way that calls to mind Matthew Bower’s Sunroof project, while the latter piece bathes in guitar noise so thick that it may have influenced The Dead C’s The Operation of the Sonne EP. Ad Hoc have today’s noisemakers beat: Corpse presents itself with a freshness that belies its 1980 provenance.

Bryon Hayes

Axolotl — Abrasive (Souffle Continu)

The French trio Axolotl existed for a few years in the early 1980s, and it reflects the aesthetic concerns of its time. Guitarist Marc Dufourd’s playing betrays some acquaintance with the work of Derek Bailey and Henry Kaiser, and the fibrous tones and agile exchanges between reeds players Jacques Oger and Etienne Brunet recall Evan Parker. All three double on electronics, hand percussion and utterances. These accessories, in combination with the concentration of the album’s 12 tracks, give the music a truculent attitude and just-the-facts brevity that brings to mind punk and post-punk. This may be free improvisation, but it is improvised from a point of view, and it’s that informed attitude that makes the album worth visiting nearly 40 years after its original release.

Bill Meyer

Will Butler + Sister Squares — Self-Titled (Merge)

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Will Butler joins with Sister Squares — multi-instrumentalists Jenny (Butler’s wife) and Julie Shore, Sara Dobbs and drummer/producer Miles Francis — for their debut album. Bouncy, heartland rock garlanded with that 1980s Fairlight and Linn drum sound mixes with touches of art rock as Butler emotes wholehearted. The influence of the 20 years Butler spent with Arcade Fire is inescapable, but it feels like the quintet have also been listening to Billy MacKenzie (“Long Grass”) and Russell Mael (“Arrow of Time”) as well as Springsteen, Mellencamp and company. “Hee Loop” sounds like a mash of Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel. The themes and emotions can be big in that Arcade Fire way that’s equal parts exhilarating and exhausting, but the album works best when the band dial down the melodramatic flourishes as on “Car Crash” and “The Window,” where Butler is right in your ear, tired, disillusioned, real. This is a record I wanted to like both more and less. For every heartfelt moment and interesting musical choice, there’s a cringe-inducing gestural overreach that makes you wince. A bit like his former band but with enough promise to persevere with.

Andrew Forell

Claire Deak — Sotto Voce (Lost Tribe Sound)

Melbourne-based composer Claire Deak’s last release on Lost Tribe Sound was 2020’s The Old Capital, a fantastic collaboration with Tony Dupé. In my Dusted review I said, “There’s so much wonderful stuff going on across these seven songs that it’s a delight to revisit.” As its title suggests, Deak’s solo debut, Sotto Voce, very much sits at the opposite end of the musical spectrum. This is subtle, minimal music that softly arises out of silence and speaks an elusive language. The background to the album’s creation is Deak’s exploration of the work of two women composers from the early baroque era, Francesca Caccini (1587–c.1645) and Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677). The dominant musical elements are strings, harp and voice, with other instruments coloring the edges of these understated, starkly beautiful compositions. Across the album’s 42 minutes the music feels, at times, to be battling the entropy of erasure, struggling to be heard amid the cacophony of these overstimulated times. For that reason alone, it’s necessary to invest your attention and listen closely. The experience is eerie and transportive.

Tim Clarke

Mike Donovan — Meets the Mighty Flashlight (Drag City)

On a musical Venn diagram showing the intersecting circles of garage rock, lo-fi, and psych, Mike Donovan has set up his sandbox. With Sic Alps he veered more noisy and lo-fi; with Peacers he favored a straight-ahead garage-rock sound. On this new record with Mike Fellows, AKA The Mighty Flashlight, Donovan steers in the direction of shambolic psychedelic-pop in the vein of the Olivia Tremor Control. (To anyone who knows and loves OTC, this is obviously a very good thing.) The splashy drums and percussion tracks feel like a gestural afterthought rather than a rhythmic backbone the songs are built around, and Donovan and Fellows steer these songs into some choppy, unexpected waters. Opener “Planet Metley” is the clearest and most successful distillation of their aesthetic, offering up a staggering range of ideas in under four minutes, stopping and starting erratically, the bass roving all over the fretboard. At the other end of the spectrum, “Laurel Lotus Dub” is the kind of experiment that sounds like it was more fun to create that it is to listen back to. Between these two extremes there’s the junkshop boogie of “A Capital Pitch,” which features the hilarious line, “Hanging out on the ramparts with some dickheads in black,” the concise drum-machine and organ instrumental “Amalgam Wagon,” and the plaintive, country-flavored “Whistledown.” Wherever Donovan roams it’s usually worth following, and Meets the Mighty Flashlight is a winning collaboration that fizzes with fun.

Tim Clarke

Everything Falls Apart — Everything Falls Apart (Totalism)

“Somn” means sleep, or more poetically death. It’s the title of six of the seven tracks from Everything Falls Apart, the self-titled album from the duo of Belgian bassist Otto Lindholm (born Cyrille de Haes) and English producer Ross Tones. Those titles (numbered six to 11) and the coda “Wonderfully Desolate” tell you only part of the story of the music the pair produce. Their conversation focuses on the nuance of the Lindholm’s double bass which Tones swathes in electronic effects, stretching notes and motifs into near drones in timbres that rise from the murk like lugubrious sentinels. This is seriously heavy music but the dynamism of the duo’s understanding and interplay distinguishes Everything Falls Apart. Whilst many of the pieces focus on stasis and decay, “Somn 9” is a desert storm with clicking percussion, almost didgeridoo like growls from the bass and screeching electronic noise. On “Somn 11”, deep bowed notes support Lindholm’s move through the registers as if shaking from fitful dreams into the morning light. “Wonderfully Desolate” is comparatively unadorned, a string quartet playing against the end times, shimmers of light through the cracks.

Andrew Forell

False Fed — Let Them Eat Fake (Neurot Recordings)

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Is it accurate to call a band including members of legendary underground acts Amebix (Stig Miller), Nausea (Roy Mayorga) and Broken Bones (Jeff Janiak) a “supergroup”? It might help to note that Janiak has sung for Discharge since 2014, and Mayorga has done a couple stints as drummer for Ministry. All names to conjure with (though a few of us first encountered Mayorga as a teenager back in the 1980s Lehigh Valley hardcore scene, when he drummed for Youthquake; West Catty Playground Building forever, man). In any case, the players have pooled their talents to create this death-rocking, sorta goth, sorta post-punk record, and it’s a lot of grim, grimy fun. Most of the music is mid-tempo, grand and romantic in its gestures, but shot through with a crusty growl in the guitars and production tone. The best songs speed things up a bit; both “The Tyrant Dies” and “The Big Sleep” have compelling momentum, complementing the stakes of songs’ ideas. It's Armagideon Time, people. Here’s your soundtrack, from dudes that know.

Jonathan Shaw

Hauschka— Philanthropy (City Slang)

German composer Volker Bertelmann’s 15th album of prepared piano pieces under the name Hauschka is noticeably warmer than some of his previous works. Joined by Samuli Kosminen on percussion and electronics and cellist Laura Wiek, Hauschka continues his exploration of the rhythmic and timbral possibilities of his instrument. At times almost jaunty, there are echoes of Bertelmann’s previous experiments with melancholic atmospherics but the general tone here is welcoming and optimistic. Kosminen adds subtle effects which frame rather than obscure the piano. There’s a touch of Satie in Hauschka’s playful iconoclastic approach to the piano and his deceptively simple melodies, especially on “Loved Ones” where Wiek’s plangent cello lines sustain and decay over an allusive harmony that speaks both of innocence and experience. At the other end of the spectrum, the closing piece “Noise” builds abstract ambience from repeated piano notes, smears of cello and a quiet wash of effects as if the players are enveloped in a thick damp fog. A lovely album for both fans and newcomers.

Andrew Forell

The Hives — The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons (Disques Hives)

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There are usually going to be some questions when a band comes back with a new record after over a decade, maybe especially so with an act like Swedish garage/punk flamboyants the Hives; can they match the energy of their youth? Are they still willing and able to give us the old thrills? Or have they (and this is usually asked with a small, tasteful shudder of disgust) matured? It doesn’t take very long into first single/first track “Bogus Operandi” for the concerned listener to have reason for a sigh of relief. Anyone who used to (or still does?) blast “Main Offender” or “Hate to Say I Told You So” or “Walk Idiot Walk” should feel the galvanizing charge of a true, Frankensteinian resurrection once the riff hits. And across these not-quite-32 minutes (the brevity is also a promising sign) Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist and the boys kick up exactly the kind of racket you’d want from them, with tracks like “Trapdoor Solution” and “The Bomb” savoring the kind of gleefully dumb fun they’ve always provided (with a nice sideline in some of Almqvist’s deliberately, over-the-top awful narrators on “Two Kinds of Trouble” and “What Did I Ever Do to You?”). They even continue to throw out small, satisfying variations on the classic Hives sound like the brassy swagger of ��Stick Up” and the surprisingly heartfelt thrash of “Smoke & Mirrors”. They may have killed off their “sixth member,” but the Hives are otherwise in rude health.

Ian Mathers

Islet — Soft Fascination (Fire)

The Welsh psych-electronic oddballs in Islet are on their fourth full-length now but show no signs of settling down. Soft Fascination is a bonkers mash up of dance pop, art song, hip hop, noise and folk. “Euphoria” floats a feather-light daze, a la Avey Tare, then punctures it the rat-at-tat of snare, the rifle shot rap repartee of Emma Daman Thomas. Gossamer textures of synth weave in and around the main action, snapping tight at intervals, like sails catching a hard wind. The whole thing is butterfly ephemeral with strong wires holding it up, a combination of daydream and architecture. “River Body,” if anything, tips even crazier, with its infectious sing-song, skip-rope vocals, its tootling toy keyboards, its blasts of noise and friction. And what can you make of “Sherry” which bucks and heaves and shouts out “Ay, ay, ay, ay,” like a lost Matias Aguayar cut? “Ay, ay, ay, ay,” indeed.

Jennifer Kelly

Jute Gyte — Unus Mundus Patet (Self-released)

Unus Mundus Patet is not the most dissonant or challenging record Adam Kalmbach has released during his 20-plus-year run under the Jute Gyte moniker. But neither is this black metal for the kvlt trve believers or for the hipster-adjacent sets, be they transcendental or ecstatic or blackgazy. The songs twist and turn in on themselves, always clear in their expressions of complex musical ideas, and also — somehow, someway — listenable and enjoyable. Avant-garde? Sure thing, and likely a much more authentic iteration of that phrase’s meaning than the music many other metal bands churn out under cover of high-minded beard stroking. See the by-turns undulating and fragmenting “Killing a Sword” or the trudging, vertiginous and then utterly thrilling “Philoctetes.” Jute Gyte doesn’t make music for the background, but if you can give these songs your full attention, you’ll be rewarded. Turn it up and open the portal into somewhere much weirder and more marvelous.

Jonathan Shaw

Danny Kamins / Chris Alford / Charles Pagano — The Secret Stop (Musical Eschatology)

Free improvisation may be a little sparser on the ground in the southern USA than it is in Chicago or New York, but The Secret Stop affirms the vigor of those who participate. Guitarist Chris Alford and drummer Charles Pagano play in New Orleans, and Danny Kamins is a saxophonist from Texas; this encounter took place in the Crescent City. As even players in places like the aforementioned northern cities or London will affirm, travel comes with this territory. Their interactions display a capacity to sustain balance when the energy is high and to back off when doing so will transform the music’s tension. Kamins intersperses long, coarse tones with emphatic pops, and Alford evidences a fluent stutter that suggests he’s spent a lot of time studying James “Blood” Ulmer’s sound grammar. Pagano’s cymbal sizzle and mutating not-quite-patterns provide both forward momentum and a framework within which the action occurs.

Bill Meyer

MIKE \ Wiki \ The Alchemist — Faith Is a Rock (ALC)

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The long awaited collaboration between The Alchemist and MIKE took a sudden turn when they took on board another New York rapper Wiki who steals the show here. Both Wiki and MIKE were outcasts recording music in the vein of Earl Sweatshirt, even though MIKE was always a better version of Earl with only possibly a tenth of his fame. Knowing no rest, The Alchemist (that is his fourth collab this year) takes both MCs way out of their comfort zone, refusing to pander to the needs. MIKE and Wiki have to deal with The Alchemist’s fast and thick layered production, and it works for all of them. “Mayors A Cop” is a standout here, and Faith Is a Rock is one strong contender for the tape of the year.

Ray Garraty

Camila Nebbia — Una Ofrenda A La Ausencía (Relative Pitch)

The title translates as An Offering To Absence, which of course raises the question, what’s missing? Camila Nebbia is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but has seems to have spent a fair chunk of time moving around Europe in recent years, and is currently based in Berlin. She has a sizable discography, but this correspondent has not heard most of it, so let’s just focus on the album at hand. Its 16 tracks present three facets of her work — acoustic tenor saxophone, electronically adjusted saxophone and poetry — with the first method best represented. The unaccompanied saxophone performances reveal her mastery of both weight-bearing muscularity and adroit tap-dancing on the far side of the fences that confine conventional tonality. But when she layers long tones and feedback, Nebbia becomes a one-woman orchestra transmitting heavy Penderecki vibes. The one poem included, “Dejo que me lieve” (“I let it lie”), is recited in Spanish, and no translation is offered; perhaps home is what’s not there, so she needs to manifest it creatively?

Bill Meyer

[Continued in Part 2, because Tumblr decided we only get 10 audio links.]

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c-40 · 4 months

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A-T-4 009 Adrian Sherwood Remixes

In 1984 Adrian Sherwood starts using his talents to remix artists outside his On-U Sound stable. Bristol's Y Records go under in 1983 and Y artists Shriekback sign with Arista, they have Paul "Groucho" Smykle co-producing and get Adrian Sherwood in to remix their singles

Skriekback - Cloud Of Nails (Pump Up A Storm) this is a version of Hand On My Heart which almost made it into the UK top 40. The Adrian Sherwood mix is reserved for a second 12" (which has a Paul "Groucho" Smykle remix on the a-side) as it's gloriously nuts but slides into the track effortlessly

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Skriekback - Mistah Linn He Dead Mr Linn Drum is dead? is also on Shriekback's Hand On My Heart (Remixes) 12" but it first appears on their 12" EP Knowledge, Power, Truth And Sex, it's another remix of Hand On My Heart but taken further from the original. What do you think a little like African Head Charge but a bit harder than Drastic Season? Defo proto-Tackhead. I think it's great, remember this is before digi-dub

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This is a slightly better quality copy of Mistah Linn He Dead, it's Chapter 6 if it don't come up straight away

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On the bandcamp page for this Atmosfear remix I think it said something about Andy Sojka and Adrian Sherwood being a strange collaboration but I can totally see it. They're both involved in black music scenes in London from the late 70s, they both start record labels, both are pulling talent from the pot, lovers artists are recording soul and boogie records and vice versa. Surely you'd hear On-U Sound and Elite tracks on the same night at a Wild Bunch or Soul II Soul doo? Anyway this gem is released as...

Atmosfear - When Tonight Is Over (US Thunder Mix)

Depeche Mode - Are People People? The second of Adrian Sherwood's remixes of Depeche Mode's People Are People, this one is found on the limited edition embossed yellow Master And Servant 12" L12 Bong 6, the first is the On-U Sound Mix on the limited edition People Are People 12" L12 Bong 5. Sherwood was the first person asked to remix Depeche Mode

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The original Science Fiction Dance Hall Classic is a remix of Master And Servant. It's different from what Art Of Noise are doing. There beats, synths, and samples are so clean and clear and this pushes up the noise and feedback

Depeche Mode - Master and Servant (An On-U Sound Science Fiction Dance Hall Classic)

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#1984 #adrian sherwood #dub #new wave #synth pop #london #england #uk #80s music

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natromanxoff · 1 year

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JOHN DEACON of Queen, and musician/engineer Henry Crallan are partners in a new recording studio venture — Milo Music, a 24-track recording facility in North London, which is part of a complex that also houses video and design studios plus other related businesses.

Here, Deacon and Crallan, a former keyboards player with the Kevin Ayres band, talk about the project which is now up and running and open for business.

MW: Is this your first venture into the commercial studio world?

JD: Yes, for me it is. As a group we've been involved with Mountain Studios in Switzerland for quite a few years now, but unlike a lot of bigger UK bands where the individual members have their own studios at home and that sort of thing, none of us has ever really got into that before, got involved with a 24-track professional studio, though I used to have a 16-track at home. Henry and I first discussed this project about two years ago.

How did the partnership come about?

HC: We've known each other for about eight years. I used to work with Edwin Shirley, the trucking company, and worked on a number of Queen tours which used to have a reputation among all the crews as being a bit special, which, retrospectively, I think they were. For three years I managed the staging department at Edwin Shirley and did further Queen tours including Mexico and South America. To build a studio was an age-old dream that I had. I think I first discussed it with John on a flight to Japan, and it's grown from there.

How does Mountain Studios fit into the scheme of things?

JD: Montreux is something we got involved with some years ago, at a time when UK taxes were quite crippling. It was a group investment we made. Jim Beach (Queen's management) basically runs that studio, and the four of us don't really have a lot to do with it, though we have recorded there, and Roger did a lot of his solo projects there.

In a way, we began to find it was becoming very difficult to do group investments — all four of us have got such different ideas about what we want to do. We've really started venturing out, doing more things individually, whereas in the old days we all used to work solidly on Queen 52 weeks a year. We have actually slowed down the work rate now so it gives us all time to work on other projects.

I have always enjoyed studios and that side of the business - I did electronics at college and have always wanted to learn. That's why I got a 16-track at home — but it was only a back-bedroom sort of affair. It was a development from this that Henry and I started this project really. Henry had said he wanted to build a studio, and I said I had the equipment which would be better suited to a proper studio than to a bedroom...

[Photo caption: JOHN DEACON and Henry Crallan take stock of the newly-completed studio area at Milo. The studio measures 24’ x 14’ and is fully isolated with hard and dead ends. There is also a 7’ x 7’ isolation booth. The resident piano is a Steck Baby Grand. A number of instruments are available for hire at discount subject to availability, including Linn Drum, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Korg CX-3. Yamaha DX-7 keyboards, Fender and Gibson guitars.]

[Photo caption: FEATURES OF Milo's control room (14’ x 15’) include 24-track Studer A80 Mk IV. Studer 810 1/4" and Sony F1 digital, an Amek Angela 28:24 console in-line with extended patch-bay. Monitoring is Sean Davies 3-way LS 841, power amplifiers by BGW, Turner and Quad. Mini monitors are Auratones and Visonik Davids. There is the usual range of microphones, compressors and limiters, reverberation & delay effects and processors.]

#queen #queen band #john deacon #queen scans #magazine’s title is unknown

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medicus-felini · 8 months

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rumour ! "A little bir—....A huge pitbull once told me that you're quite the cunning manipulator yourself, ga ne. Having all of your crew update their vaccine's record card. Hya hia hia! Good work, ga ne!"

Cunning manipulator? Now who would even think such a thing of her? Linn pauses, picking up slowly with the little joke and giggles.

❝ I try my best to keep everyone up to date. Some of them never had a shot before I joined the crew. It was quite the stressful first week! ❞

#waxgentleman #I wonder who the pitbull was #whole gym talking about her or what?#⚕ ⦅ I can spare some time for that. ⦆⠀⠀/ ask games .#⚕ ⦅ Consultation hour. ⦆⠀⠀/ ic .

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canonicallysoulmates · 2 years

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J2 Gold Panel Kansascon 2022

The panel starts with the boys being all soft for each other, so Jensen participated in the Saturday night concert, and one of the fans shouted out "rockstar" and Jared agrees that Jensen is a rockstar! But even cuter is that Jensen goes "he is a rockstar, look at this guy" 😭

And then when Jared says he doesn’t have the rockstar hair anymore that he needs to grow it back out, Jensen says he should that he personally misses Jared's hair. That they need Jared’s hair back, and his gone to which Jared says "i don't know, I like it" but Jensen finds it annoying as hell and when he says that Jared's goes “I told you that for 15yrs!” And Jensen's like “I know you told me that but I didn't believe you so now you- you proved me wrong”. Your honor, they are married.

Jared says that his hair got to a point where if they were doing a scene outside and it was windy they would have to redo the scene because the wind would blow his hair all over the place and make it look like a wind tunnel, and Jensen shares that actually happened to him on Friday. He was doing a walk and talk outside with his Big Sky co-star Katheryn Winnick, who plays Jenny, and the wind came and messed up his hair. And he grabs part of his hair to lift it up as an example and Jared says he likes it 😂

Jared has never been to Kansas before so he took the opportunity to go to Lawrence and he ate a bunch of BBQ which led to a small conversation and debate about BBQ and who does it better because Texas has a different way of doing it- as I am typing this I am realizing some people might be like ??? about this, BBQ is a big deal in both states, and people who like it have very strong opinions about it.

Let’s get into questions, in some of the scenes where we see Dean’s man cave we can see video game controllers, what games are they playing and who is beating who?

Jared says they're probably playing Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, Pong, Donkey Kong, Frogger that it's probably one of those multi-choice consoles. And that what he and Jensen are playing is what they played in the 90’s so N64 Mario Kart, GoldenEye- he says that if aliens came down to Earth and threatened to blow up the planet unless someone could beat them at something he would volunteer with Super Smash Brothers on the n64. That there were some people on the Walker set talking trash about it so he's gonna take his n64 to set 😂

Jensen says they would be playing Contra because there was a year that that’s what he and Jared would play every time they would get a break on set. The moment the director yelled cut they would run to the trailers to try and beat their record on finishing the game. x

Could Jensen share stories about Big Sky? In particular, the fan is interested in hearing stories about Reba.

Jensen explains that the show has both week-to-week cases and also the long lead stories so the cases that last the season (or longer) his character deals more with the week-to-week stuff but Reba is working more on the long lead story so they’ve only had one scene together. Only one? It's better than nothing but writers please 😭

Jared comments that it’s gotta be intimidating to be on set with Reba and Jesen replies that it is until you actually meet her and see how sweet she is that she’s like Ruth, she’s the sweetest darling of a human being. In the scene he had with her it’s an introductory scene so he's supposed to go "Beau Arlen. Nice to meet you." and she goes "Sunny Barnes" which is the name of her character and they do a couple of takes and during one of them a big airplane went over and messed up the sound so they had to do it again. So he says his line, and she goes "Reba McEntire" 😆 That she just kind of snapped into being her charming self, and- so Rex Linn who plays her husband in the show is her boyfriend in real life and he was standing right next to her and she goes "oh my stars I just introduced myself as myself!" and Jensen's not too sure what he said but it was like "if I had a nickel every time that happened".

Then that same day it was their dolly grip, Josh's, birthday and they all started to sing him happy birthday but everybody quieted down to hear Reba singing, and he leaned over to Josh to point that he just had somebody who has a bag of Grammy's singing him happy birthday. x

The next fan has been handing out worms on a string, and they wanna know what color Jared and Jensen would want. But before they pick their colors, Jared shares a story about how G is terrified of worms, and how one time when they were shooting they had to stop because she saw one- it's a whole thing but the reason I bring it up is that Jensen's facial expressions amuse me. During the story he is not amused but his best reaction comes after they've been given the worms, he's playing with his and he points out that it has eyes and Jared says that's another thing that because they don't have eyes in real life G's like "you don't know their intentions" and Jensen's reaction is as if he has heard the most ridiculous thing.

Anyways for their colors, Jared says he's going red, and that Jensen's gonna go blue. The fact that he picks both his and Jensen's colors is funny in a cute way. He says on spn his and Jensen's marks were always red and blue so the first thing he said on Walker was that he's red, that they didn't have to give him the red mark but that's where he'd be going so if they wanted his character in place to put a red mark there, and Jensen says that when he got to Big Sky he said he's blue. x

Have they thought about doing an spn movie, like a long case?

Jensen says that’s something that he and Jared have talked about that maybe in 5yrs. They've talked about what it looks like but they don't know exactly what it looks like yet but that they definitely haven't hung up their boots for the last time. x

Can they talk about the time they first met and did they click immediately? Um, Jensen says he was actually telling the story, in the Big Sky set, about how he and Jared met I'm gonna need a minute 🥺 Him sharing stories about Jared on set gives me all the feels.

I love listening to this story but I have recapped it a couple times so for the sake of convenience I'm gonna do the speed version which is that they met on the day of their screen testing. Jensen originally auditioned for the role of Sam but he wanted to try out as Dean and asked Kripke and co. to contact him when they were reading for that character which they never did the next time he got contacted was to go to the screen testing with Jared and then they got cast. And Jared almost didn't get the role because he had done the brooding thing which is what most shows were looking for at the time but what Kripke wanted was someone smart so his manager had to call and let them know Jared's academic accomplishments, and he too the next time he was contacted was for the network test with Jensen.

So they go and they're the only ones there which is not usual, usually, there's several auditions and then when it gets to this point it's 3-5 people for each role but in this case, it was just them and they got to talking and the rest is history.

Jensen says that they didn't get a chance to run lines together or get to know each other very well before they were called in to read the scene together, that it was kind of instant the way Jared expressed himself as Sam and the way that he was playing Dean. That it was incredibly cohesive immediately ❤️

What was the best part about being part of spn? They say there’s a lot of really great parts. Jared says this: the conventions. He grew up going to conventions as a fan but he never really thought it possible to be interesting enough for someone to want to spend their time, and their money to come say hey and catch up. So knowing that what they have there in the cons with the fans is so much more than any other convention he's ever been to, that this is a family, that it doesn't feel like going to a con it's like catching up with friends and family in different cool cities and talk about a project they're all pretty thrilled with and that's pretty awesome.

Jensen brings up the saying "If you can make a living doing something you love then you never work a day in your life" and says that's been the best part about this. x

J2 Gold Panel Kansas 2022

#j2 tinhat #they are soulmates and they love each other so much #mine #genevieve critical

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