Category Archives: Uncategorized

TOTW: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones_ Chasing The Sun Away

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Over the last week there’s been a heatwave over Britain. And with it, a collection of painting chores I needed to do outside the house.

Ska punk was an obvious choice to go to. I had this track come to mind so I put on the album, “Jacknife to A Swa” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and gave the whole thing a listen.

It’s been a while since I listened to much of this genre. It was probably the first genre I truly got into as a teenager, when music became something I was more conscious of and could afford.

It started with hearing the track “Superman” by “Goldfinger” in the Tony Hawks Pro Skater game. As someone who played trombone throughout my youth, the idea of blending brass with the current alternative mainstay genre of Pop Punk was highly alluring. I quickly got into other bands in the genre, and throughout that time would go to HMV and sift through their small batch of records labelled [SKA/PUNK].

It was the first genre of music I truly took ownership of. It nurtured an obsession with studying, and investigating music; buying records purely on their covers and the genre and finding gems in the rough.

Times have changed and the internet has made accessing music easier, and has also far widened the pool to search in. But it was those teenage years spent in record stores, flicking through ska punk cds, that honed the skills and passion I now have.

During those years “The Mighty Mighty Bosstones” were a band that were obviously on my radar as one of the progenitors of the genre, but they never became a mainstay of my listening habits. However, as time has progressed and my taste in music has slightly matured, the bands that were my favourites in my teens have started to feel the oposite.

Listening to “Jacknife To A Swan” in the sun with paintbush in hand brought back memories of disappointment with the record on first listen that no longer make sense to me nearly a decade later. “How could I have been so wrong back then,” I thought to myself, as track after track of great music that I rememberd inside out came out of my headphones. I think quite simply this album was just a little too well made for my younger self and came out in the burnout phase of my love with the genre.

Today It sounds like a very mature vesion of both Ska, punk and its surrounding genre. It had me fistpumping and dancing my way through the sunshine, untill the painting was finished with ease.

I’m glad “Chasing The Sun Away” made me return to this record and enjoy it with a fresh take.

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TOTW_Giant Swan_55 Year Old Daughter

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Well this track was quite a thrill on first listen. Throwing out any form of subtlety, and going all out crazy with aggressive electronic beats and vocal samples, 55 Year Old Daughter Is an intense but rewarding listen:

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TOTW: Tim Hecker_ That World

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Tim Hecker has always interested me as a composer. His experimental compositions and use of sounds manage to be distinctive and also give him a very strong aesthetic that makes his work recognisable, once you know what to look for.

On “That World,” the looping and detuneing audio mangling of woodwinds creates wide and haunting textures, typical of his work. At first, these drift in and out of the piece in the background of a plucked string instrument. But over time, these swell and develop into the center of the piece.

They are accompanied by a bass line, which provides a clear root note. This grounds the warbling pitch of the flutes, giving structure and changing the whole mood of the piece.

Tim Hecker rarely directs the listener towards strong emotions. Instead, the instrumental vagaries hint at feelings, subtlety working their way into the piece and your thought processes. Although, over time, the instrumentation in his music has changed, his treatment has stayed faithful, lending a consistency to his unique vision and way of stirring up that same subtlety of feelings for the listener, time and time again:

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TOTW: Akasha System- Echo Earth

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Listening through a collection of electronic music from last year, the “Akasha System” album “Echo Earth” really stood out to me.

The title track “Echo Earth” is a good representation of the album as a whole. Fairly traditional sounds are used in its instrumentation, but its a formula that has stood the test of time and has always been a favorite of mine. Polyphonic synth pads provide a base for the shimmering lead lines to twinkle over. The bottom end is filled with rhythmic bass lines, and the percussion ties the whole thing together to create a blissful experience.

It may be a tried and tested formula but Akasha System proves that there’s still legs in a now classic electronic sound:

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TOTW: The Antlers_Two

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This year, on it’s 10th anniversary The Antlers are re-issuing their album “hospice” and backing it up with a tour.

Hospice is a fantastic record that still deserves peoples attention. Its a bleak concept album focusing on a relationship between two people, one struggling with with bone cancer. The album manages to represent and keep this concept in its lyrics, music and production throughout its entire playtime which is no mean feat.

it also makes it an easy record to get lost in and in turn a hard one to pick an individual track from. “Two” comes at the beginning of the final 3rd of the album and it still sticks in my head many hears later. Although a quieter point of the album it’s an emotional crescendo that concludes the relationship between the two characters. The lyrics take you as a listener between the anguish of the current events in the verses and a montage of life events between the couple. Towards the end of the track the past and present blend together for the final verse brilliantly reflecting the protagonists thought process In a time of trauma.

All elements of the track reflect the feelings of the character so well that it can be a hard listen but a worthwhile one none the less. If you haven’t give Hospice a listen and if you have it’s 10th anniversary is a perfect time to revisit a modern classic.

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TOTW: Vangelis_ Blade Runner End Titles

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A sci-fi classic film with a now classic score to match. Vangelis used sequencing through many of his pieces, but probably the most iconic is the end titles of BladeRunner. The Sequencer drives the bass line and in turn the whole track. A powerful ending to a fantastic film, and a great piece of music in its own right:

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TOTW: AQXDM_ Ballad 002

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At the beginning of this month, pioneering electronic music practitioner Aphex Twin played in Berlin for the first time in 15 years. His DJ sets always mix his own music with the work of newer acts, highlighting them to a greater audience.

For those who didn’t get to attend the night, the internet has now become a great resource to find out the music he played and maybe introduce you to something new. Resident Adviser created a playlist of some of the tracks played across the night and that’s how i came across this track by AQXDM.

‘Ballad 002’ is hard hitting techno at its finest. Heavy compression on aggressive percussion drives this track with a laser guided focus. It’s so all consuming it doesn’t need much else. A powerful track that gets right to its emotive point:

 
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TOTW: Dabrye_ Hyped-Up Plus Tax

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I’ve only just started listening to Dabyre’s Three trilogy, where he mixes hiphop and electronica together. Although better known for the second and now third parts of this series, due to collaboration with well known rappers such as MF Doom and Danny Brown, its the first from the trilogy that peaked my interest originally, with its focus on instrumentals.

Hyped-Up Plus Tax keeps things relatively simple computationally. There is a vocoded synth part providing the melody, and that’s accompanied by sub bass and drum sampling to give the track the swing found in Hip hop. It’s this swing that makes the track. Playing with a few elements in different ways throughout the track allows the natural swagger of the musicianship to come through. The track feels physically played rather than sequenced and that blend of the digital with the organic elements to the performance makes it a compelling listen:

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TOTW: Jonny Greenwood_House of Woodcock

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I have been a Paul Thomas Anderson fan for many years and went to see Phantom Thread this week with high expectations that were more than met by another classic of modern cinema.

What stood out from the very beginning was the incredible score by Jonny Greenwood. The House of Woodcock is a highlight, with its muted piano that then blooms into lush tapestry of strings. It manages to be magnificent and intimate at the same time. It is a perfect accompaniment to the film that also holds its own as a piece of music.

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