I’m a big fan of the Blues Brothers but this track stands on its own. Maybe in hindsight the track feels more poignant due to John Beluchis personal experiences and death which seem to be intimately reviled in the track. But I also think it’s these experiences that enable him to deliver the lyrics with an authenticity that make it so powerful for me:
On hearing Crystal Castles had broken up last week I got a bit nostalgic and gave their albums a listen through.
I managed to see them live four times. Two of those gigs were easily in my top ten and one of which was one of the worst I’ve been to, I think it sums up the band quite well. They were bottled lighting, trying things that were always different and when it did work it reminds me of the descriptions of the punk movement in the 70’s. Anarchistic youthful rebellion wrapped up in a sound scape that forced you to either be in the gang or out.
I’m most certainly In that gang. When I look back at their catalogue Baptism stands out as to me as the perfect introduction to their work. It has everything that made them great, The video game style synths, the screeching vocals of Alice Glass and the hard compressed repetitive drums all make for a unique and exiting work:
This weeks track is an all OP-1 joint based around a heavy distorted bass sound. The track was mixed with ableton live but every sound was produced by the OP-1.
Happy Songs for Happy People is an album i still go back to years later. The harder eadge of the post rock sound is here, but used with softer dynamics to create allot of raw power.
Killing all the Flies manages to demonstrate both sides of this album and the development of mogwai as a band into their future works:
This Weeks track came together today when I added the guitar to it. It’s a slowly drifting piece that features use of Teenage Engineerings OP1, My modular and an electric guitar.
On Long Pig I Started with a simple step sequence that I ran through my modular. Several hours later I’d dragged the modular screaming and wailing into some rather dark territory. The base of this track is made from a section of the modular recording during my evening with it.
To build on the base of the modular I decided to stick to focusing on pure analogue Instrumentation that didn’t fit within tempos or pitch. To do this without going back to the modular again I decided to use an old mixer as a no-input mixer to create a collection of accompanying hums bloops and crackles to make a bleak track suitable for a horror film.
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It’s taken too long to release this album, but it’s finally up on Bandcamp for all to hear. You can listen to it on the site or pay what you like to download it.
This album comes from tracks made each week between March and June of this year and marks the halfway point of the music produced for the entire year.
Give it a listen and let me know what you guys think in the comments section:
My Favourite track by the Specials. Stereotype features the darker side of Ska that was also found on Ghost town. Mixed with the cynical and political lyrics that are synonymous with the band and the punk movement:
I’d like to start with the caveat on this one that metal isn’t really a genre of music I enjoy on the most part. When I boil down my issue with most of the genre and all of it’s sub-genre I would say that although It contains allot of talent It usually feels a bit empty to me. By definition its sound is Harsh and angry and yet allot of the time the lyrics and vocals don’t seem to put across this anger and hate.
In Toxicity System of a Down don’t have this issue. The whole album seems to come from a place of overt anger and hatred conveyed perfectly in its title track below:
This week I started work on a track using my modular and realised it was a bit dark. So I’ve decided to give it the benefit of another few days in the studio and make this weeks track a bridge between the more pop sound of previous tracks to the new darker angle of the next few weeks.
Transition was made mostly with teenage engineering’s op1 but with some splashes of sound from the modular for good measure and then mixed in Ableton Live: