More Mary Hansen (Stereolab) Obscurities

I was in the casino last weekend to play a little poker and make a couple of bets on the NFL playoff games scheduled for that weekend. The place I go has a huge sports book, with multiple giant screens covering a vast back wall, showing every current game (football, college and pro basketball, hockey, etc.) being played at that particular time on various broadcast networks.

As I was walking in to the space to place my bet at one of the automated machines (go Kansas City!), I was jolted when I suddenly heard Stereolab's "Lo Boob Oscillator" blasting at top volume all around me. Now, Stereolab isn't generally what you'd expect to hear coming out of a casino's music system... so needless to say, I was momentarily confused, as I couldn't immediately place the source. Then I looked up and one of the display screens, and saw it was running the following commercial for Hotels.com:

I couldn't believe it - a huge corporation choosing to set their ad to a tune by a band that I'll wager the vast majority of Middle American viewers had never heard of, and one of my favorite songs of all time, as I've related in a previous posting here! Now, I'm not overly superstitious... but I took that out-of-the-blue Stereolab encounter as a good omen... as it turned out to be. I not only won my football bet that night, but also came away with a solid win at the hold 'em tables.

As I've detailed time and again here, I adore Stereolab, and over the years have managed to gather up pretty much all of their recorded output as a group (or "Groop", if you will), both albums and singles, along with many of the band collaborations and individual member side projects. In the past, I've posted a couple of these harder-to-find releases here earlier, including the Rose, My Rocket-Brain! tour EP from 2004 and the Eaten Horizons Or The Electrocution Of Rock art-house release from 2007.

I was ecstatic when they reformed in 2019 after a ten-year hiatus, and went running like a bastard to their show at Boston's Royale back in September of that year, a couple of months before COVID hit (damn, hard to believe that show was THAT long ago...). The concert was superb, and even with the long break, they didn't seem to have missed a beat (and yes, they played "Lo Boob Oscillator"). But seeing the group up on stage that night once again made me wistful for the presence of Mary Hansen, their late percussionist, keyboardist and background vocalist, who died in 2002. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Mary brought an ineffable quality to Stereolab's music:

Hansen's voice was the perfect complement to Sadier's; their singing styles and vocal range were very similar . . . but different enough to add nuance and color to many of the band's songs.

So, in the wake of a previous request for these items from an intrepid blog visitor, I thought I'd post a few more releases I have that feature Mary's work.

• Europa 51 - Abstractions

Over the years, Stereolab's drummer Andy Ramsay has been the catalyst behind an number of the band's experimental singles/EPs, offshoots and collaborations, Either with his bandmates or working independently, Ramsay has appeared on, written for or arranged releases with artists as diverse as The High Llamas, Ui, Wire, The Charlatans, Add N to (X), and many, many more. In the past, I've featured some of his work here on this blog. But this release was probably his most eclectic.

Named after Roberto Rossellini's early '50s Italian film starring Ingrid Bergman, Europa 51’s lone album, Abstractions, is the work of Ramsay and fellow Stereolab member Simon Johns, also featuring Mary Hansen, High Llamas members Dominic Murcott and John Bennett, jazz bass player Simon Thorpe and classical harpist Celine Saout. The album was a hybrid project that combined styles like lounge, jazz, bluegrass, and folk. While this album sounds somewhat like Stereolab from time to time, in many ways it goes far beyond anything The Groop had ever done - unfortunately, with somewhat uneven results. Mary's vocals are featured on tracks 4 through 7 ("Voyeurism", "Three Steps In The Sun", "Golden Age Of Gameshows" and "Free Range Corona"), and are lovely as always. But be sure to check out the entire album - it may not all be to your taste, but you will definitely find sounds that pique your interest.

• Splitting the Atom - Splitting The Atom EP:

Another Ramsay one-off, a short-lived project with Stereolab's sound engineer Simon Holliday and Peter Kember, a.k.a. Sonic Boom (Spaceman 3, Spectrum, etc.). Only 2,500 copies of this EP were pressed for release on black vinyl, making it one of the rarest Stereolab-related discs. Mary Hansen added vocals to one track here.

Trivia: "Monkey Brain" (vinyl pops and all) was later used as the soundtrack to a short film/digital video called "four" by Man and Martin, described as "four whole minutes of pulsating thought muesli, ultra-violet and ultra-compact bulletproof adventures for ages four years and above" (Man and Martin is graphic designer, sculptor and AppleMacintosh convert Andy Martin). "four" premiered at the onedotzero2 digital film festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in May 1998. Here it is, if you'd like to see it:

• Various Artists - Spooky Sounds Of Now:

An ostensibly Halloween-themed compilation CD - plus a very cool comic collection in book form ("Spooky Tales", subtitled 'Spirit Summoning Stories', edited by Mark Baines) - all housed in a lidded box. In addition to inclusions from alternative heavy hitters such as Jad Fair, Yo La Tengo and The High Llamas, this release also includes a short track by Blips, "Blip^/Blip~", featuring Stereolab's Tim Gane and Mary along with Sonic Boom once again. It sounds a lot like what was released on the Turn On side project, also released that year - hard to tell if it was an outtake from that session or not. No matter - it's a pretty good tune.

Here's the full track list:

1. Dymaxion - The Haunted Radio
2. Blips - Blip^/Blip~
3. Jad Fair & Jason Willett - Werewolf of London Town
4. Two Dollar Guitar - The Lonliest Monk
5. Herald - It's Under The Waltzers
6. Kooljerk - Mailor Jeune
7. Mount Vernon Arts Lab - Scooby Don't
8. Cylinder - Red Moss
9. Pink Kross - Spooky Dooky
10. Mystery Dick - Screambirds
11. Amplifier - Cat Whisker
12. The Yummy Fur - Saturday Night Mo-Mo
13. Dick Johnson - Vertigo
14. Angel Corpus Christi - Clown Sex
15. Project Dark - Full Length Mirror
16. G. Mack - Red Moss [Frame Trigger]
17. the Dramatics - Hallucination of a Deranged Mind [Inspired by Coffin Joe]
18. Yo La Tengo - 3D
19. Supermalprodelica - L'etat De Grace
20. High Llamas - Spool to Spool
21. Will Prentice - Singing Floorboards

• Alternative 3 - Original Soundtrack Recording:

In June of 1977, England's Anglia Television aired a documentary called 'Alternative 3' on its weekly Science Report program. The episode was presented as a factual expose, in that the show's investigators had found evidence that life on Earth was soon to be doomed to extinction from global warming, and the two superpowers of that time (Russia and the United States) had been secretly working together for decades to terraform and eventually

colonize the Moon and Mars with selected superior humans - leaving the rest of us here on this planet to die off when the inevitable end came. The show detailed what appeared to be a global 'brain drain', with scientists, engineers and other highly skilled technicians and thinkers from all over the world seemingly disappearing or dying - but, in the course of the program's investigation, finding that they all had been recruited for the interplanetary program, and sequestered at a secret base to work on it. 'Alternative 3' was filled with interviews with authoritative personnel and film footage showing the level and scope of work on this secret plan up to the present day.

Within minutes of its airing, network and government phone lines were inundated with thousands of calls from jolted viewers, demanding more information on this all-too-real effort. Needless to say, 'Alternative 3' was all just a big hoax, a spoof of similarly styled conspiracy documentaries from that period. It was originally planned to air on April 1st (April Fool's Day) of that year, in order to drive that point home, but due to production issues was not broadcast until June 20.

Needless to say, it freaked a whole lot of people out, in the same manner that Orson Welles' radio broadcast of War Of The Worlds caused mass hysteria almost forty years earlier. Although Anglia Television and the show's producers freely and readily admitted that it was fake, the basic points and premises of 'Alternative 3' live on to this day in various forms in other global cabal/UFO/extraterrestrial conspiracy theories.

The score for the 1977 broadcast was composed by no less than Brian Eno, who subsequently released a portion of it on his 1978 album Music For Films. And in 2001, a collective of musicians (including Stereolab, Add N to (X), Richard Thomas and others, all recording under the Alternative 3 moniker) recorded and released an 'alternative' version of the film score, allegedly for a feature film on the hoax that was scheduled for release that same year (I didn't find any evidence that this movie was ever produced or released, however).

This album is promoted on the label's website as "Super fried electronic madness. Long lost sessions mostly recorded at the Centre of Sound in London plus some dubs done at the ‘labs studio, stretched and twisted into dense and filmic slices of electronica." Can't really argue with any of that description!

 

So here for your listening pleasure is a smorgasbord of Stereolab's Mary Hansen-related ephemera:

• Europa 51 - Abstractions, released by London-based experimental music label Lo Recordings in 2003;
• Splitting the Atom - Splitting The Atom EP, put out on Stereolab's own Duophonic Super 45s label in 1997;
• The Spooky Sounds Of Now compilation, launched by Scottish independent label Vesuvius Records, also in 1997; and
• Alternative 3 - Original Soundtrack Recording, another Lo Recordings release, put out on April 30th, 2001

Have a listen and once again contemplate and revel in the artistry of the late, lamented vocalist, who left this world way too soon - you are still missed, Mary, by multitudes of music fans.

And as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

• Europa 51 - Abstractions: Send Email
• Splitting The Atom - Spiltting The Atom EP: Send Email
• Various Artists - Spooky Sounds Of Now: Send Email
• Alternative 3 - Original Soundtrack Recording: Send Email

2021 In Memorium - #1: Richard H. Kirk (Born 1956)

As I did during this time last year, the following are a series of posts regarding possibly less heralded/recognized musicians and artists who died in 2021 who will be sorely missed.

Richard H. Kirk, a founding member of influential English industrial/electronic band Cabaret Voltaire, died on September 21st at the age of 65.

Cabaret Voltaire came together in the early 1970s, when Sheffield, England resident Chris Watson, an admirer of Brian Eno's early work, began experimenting with his own self-made electronic music gizmos.   His early noodlings caught the attention of fellow Sheffieldite and Eno devotee Kirk, and the two began working together making sound collage tape loops.  Kirk began adding traditional instruments into the mix, and late in 1973 enlisted his friend Stephen Mallinder to add vocals and bass guitar.  The band began appearing live at venues in the central UK in the spring of 1975, but these performances leaned more towards performance art than actual concerts.  Their provocative stage antics led to some highly raucous and violent incidents in those early days (with injuries incurred by both audience and band members), but with the rise of punk rock in the late '70s, audiences became more accepting of what Cabaret Voltaire had to offer.  By the end of that decade, the group was sharing bills with the likes of Joy Division and Gang Of Four.  Their debut album, Mix-Up, was released in 1979, the first of over a dozen LPs put out during the band's initial run (they broke up in 1994, only to reform in 2014. albeit with Kirk as the sole remaining member).

I didn't know anything about Cabaret Voltaire until the mid-80s, during my senior (First Class) year at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.  That year, an underclassman nicknamed "Rock" moved into my company.  Rock was the antithesis of what the standard template for a military officer was or should be - he was tall, gaunt and geeky, in a young Ric Ocasek-sort of way.  And he had both a biting wit and a semi-rebellious attitude, features that did not serve him well with the Academy leadership and hierarchy.  

But he had superb musical tastes, and he and I began bonding over our shared enjoyment of bands considered to be outside of the popular mainstream.   Rock turned me on to groups like Pere Ubu and Bauhaus with its various offshoots (like Tones On Tail and Love & Rockets).  And he was the one who introduced me to Cabaret Voltaire, playing "Crackdown" from the album of the same name for me one weekend afternoon.  But even with exposures to that album and songs like "James Brown" and "Sensoria" from their next disc Micro-Phonies, I can't say that I was a huge CV fan until after I graduated and moved to Athens, Georgia for a few months.  As I've mentioned before, mid/late-80s Athens was a musical hotbed, and the University of Georgia's student-run radio station, WUOG, was amazing, always playing interesting stuff.  And one day they spun the song "I Want You", off of the group's latest disc The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord:

That was the tune that hooked me, and I immediately ran out to purchase the album.

The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord was one of Cabaret Voltaire's most contentious and controversial albums. From Wikipedia:

"Cabaret Voltaire struggled with several censorship issues with Some Bizarre and Virgin Records upon the release of the album. The original title... was forced to be shortened [to The Arm Of The Lord] in the US to avoid reference to a former American white supremacist organization. Musically, the album featured a more abrasive, sample-heavy sound than its predecessor and contained many sexual innuendos in the lyrics, to which Virgin Records took objection. Several speeches by Charles Manson were also mixed in between songs."

Virgin laid down the law to the band, saying that there had to be a charting single released from this album, otherwise they would be dropped from the label.  In response, Cabaret Voltaire cheekily wrote and directed the above video for the brutal "I Want You" (they later admitted the song was about masturbation).  Shockingly, the move worked - the album made the British Top 60, calming the label's fears (the band still left Virgin for EMI for their next album in 1987).

Long before the original band's first dissolution, Kirk had begun releasing solo albums, the first of which being 1980's Disposable Half-Truths.  He released six more solo LPs prior to the breakup, then significantly increased his output in the 1990s, with releases and collaborations under his own name and scores of aliases (including Sandoz, DR Xavier, Biochemical Dread, Electronic Eye Dark Magus and Wicky Wacky) dabbling in not only the industrial, but the techno/dance genre as well.  Not only was he a pioneer, but he was prolific, and will be sorely missed.

In celebration of the life of Richard H. Kirk, here's a copy of my favorite Cabaret Voltaire record, The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord, put out by Virgin Records in November 1985.  Remember, enjoy, and - as I always say - let me know what you think.

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the real ok boomer - Consume. Be Silent. Die. EP (direct link)

About six years ago, I posted a piece on Single Gun Theory, a prolific and innovative Australian electronic band which, during its fifteen-year active life (from 1986 to 2001), had some fairly popular releases, including two Top Fifty albums in Oz. But by the time I wrote about them, more than ten years after their dissolution, I noted that the group seemed to have been all but forgotten, both by its former recording label and by turn-of-the-century electronic/dance music fans... which was a pity.

So I was very happy and surprised to receive a message yesterday from Peter Rivett-Carnac, former sample master and multi-instrumentalist for Single Gun Theory. Seems that Mr. Rivett-Carnac hasn't been sitting still since his former band's demise (I'll correct myself here now, and note that the group - comprised of vocalist Jacqui Hunt, Kath Power on background vocals and synthesizer, and Rivett-Carnac - never officially broke up; it's more like the members just sort of drifted apart into other interests). Peter got married and moved to Singapore in the early 2000s, where he and his wife raised two daughters. But he remained active in music while there, writing songs and handling production duties for less-heralded electronic groups like The Gaza Strip and Joyless. And just recently, he began releasing his own music, under the nom de plume the real ok boomer.

Here's the email message I received from him:

"Hey, I noticed a nice post in your blog about Single Gun Theory from a few years ago.  I’m one of the co-founders of SGT, and I’ve just launched my first-ever solo project, so I thought you might be interested in it (yes, shameless self-promotion). :)

My attempt at a press release is below - I hope it’s helpful."

Along with his note came the attached 'presser':

Pete Carnac from Single Gun Theory has just released his first EP under the artist name "the real ok boomer”. 

It's cheerily titled Consume. Be Silent. Die., and is mostly downtempo / lo-fi / chill-hop, with female vocals, some anti-war politics and a dash of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.

Electric Sound Of Joy calls it “an ambient, swirling, sample-laden delight”.

I hope you get a chance to listen! Please contact pete@therealokboomer.com if you’d like more information.

I had a listen to the tracks Peter put up on his Soundcloud site (located here), including "Signal" and "Com Truise - Persuasion System", and was pleased with what I heard there.  Rivett-Carnac has moved far beyond what he was laying down with SGT two decades ago, into a more ambient, mellow groove that still harkens back in some ways to the sound of his former band.  What's interesting is that in some of these tunes, like "Engage" and "Mockingbird", he couples these beats with some highly politicized sample vocals.  The combination is both hypnotic and thought-provoking... at least to me.

Here's the video for "Signal", the leadoff track from this EP and probably my favorite song so far off of it:

I am always surprised and excited when I find that an artist I post about has taken the time to read my longwinded screeds and respond in kind; it's happened a couple of times in the past, with the late Chris Sheehan (The Starlings) and members of The Veldt.  I'm glad to see that Peter also saw that there are still music fans around who enjoyed and appreciated his old band.  And in that spirit, I hope that you SGT fans out there take the opportunity to listen to what Peter has been up to recently.  I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Here's the Soundcloud link again for Consume. Be Silent. Die. EP and other non-EP tracks; go to it and feast your ears on these offerings... and as always, let Mr. Rivett-Carnac and I know what you think.

(As a bonus, here's a great interview that Peter and Jacqui gave to Chaos Control Digizine back in 2016, discussing their time in Single Gun Theory, their thoughts regarding the current state of electronic music, and then-recent projects they're both working on - good information within!)

Von Südenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions

In August 2004, German electronic collective Mouse On Mars released their eighth album, Radical Connector.  On this album, the group continued its shift from a pure electronic sound (evident on some of their earlier '90s albums like Vulvaland and Autoditacker) to a warmer, more poppier and almost danceable vein, a sound the band had begun fully experimenting with on their previous album, 2001's Idiology.

One of the songs on Radical Connector included a funky and thumping, although somewhat leaden and plodding, tune called "Wipe That Sound", which featured Mouse On Mars' percussionist Dodo Nkishi on vocals:

The album received generally good reviews, but it wasn't considered a significant departure from what the band produced on Idiology.

The next year, Mouse On Mars produced a Wipe That Sound EP, reworking/reimagining this track with guest vocals from The Fall's Mark E. Smith. In lieu of my own words, I'll refer to an analysis of this EP track provided by the blog Music Geek Corner:

"It's a major re-thinking: the track begins with a new drum part whose offbeat hi-hat accents work well to diffuse the original's clompiness. Smith's vocal, of course, adds a completely new texture to the track - but what's often overlooked about Smith is his skill as melodic minimalist. Smith essentially adds a two-note chorus to the song (the recurring bit about the garden), and it provides an effective hook to the track. The string synth part also makes this version more song-like (and commercial, in fact - although the multiple tracks of crosstalking MES are unlikely to contribute to that direction)."

I really didn't follow Mouse On Mars back in the mid-2000s, so I don't know when or how I first became aware of this track. But once I heard it, I thought it was fantastic, and quickly ran out to acquire the song. I heartily agree with every word of Music Geek Corner's analysis above.

I think it was sometime in late 2006/early 2007 that I got word that Smith's work with Mouse On Mars members Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner wasn't just a one-off; they had joined forces into a supergroup of sorts called Von Südenfed. At first, it seemed sort of weird to me that Smith would expend so much time on and effort with an electronic music group, a genre that in the past he'd expressed nothing but disdain for. But, after reflection, I realized that his work with the group was no weirder than his previous collaborations with other unlikely musicians, included Coldcut and Edwyn Collins. Plus, I'd enjoyed what the combo had released on that EP in 2005. So I was somewhat looking forward to hearing what this musical meeting of the minds would generate.

The collective's first release, Tromatic Reflexxions, came out in 2007; I had it rush-delivered to me via mail order. And I have to say that I was NOT disappointed. The album is actually very funky, quirky and dancable, and Smith is in fine form here. He actually sounds happy on some of the songs, perhaps because he's free of the structures (mostly self-imposed) inherent in his main group.

On this album, they even redo the 2005 version of "Wipe That Sound" (retitled "That Sound Wiped" here), and actually improve upon what I thought was already near-perfect. In the Von Südenfed version, they open up the song and the beat, allowing Smith more space to rant and croon - yes, he's actually singing here! - about the "yellow-helmeted bike messenger" who "don't look like no goddamn singer-songwriter" to him. Just a superb effort:

There are so many other great songs on this album - including the very dancable "Fledermaus Can't Get It" and my personal fave "The Rhinohead".

All in all, I found this disc to be a superb addition to the Mark E. Smith canon, and came at a time when he and The Fall were enjoying a critical resurgence of sorts, with the band's album release that year (Imperial Wax Solvent) making it into the British Top 40 (their first appearance of a Fall album there since 1993's Top Ten The Infotainment Scan). I was looking forward to hearing more from this group... but later that year, in December 2007, Smith sent out a notice on the official Fall website that he had been "sacked" from Von Südenfed. There was some confusion as to whether this was true; from all indications, Toma and St. Werner kept the door open for Smith to rejoin them. But for some reason this never happened, and now with Smith's death, never will... which is a damn shame.

At least we have their sole release as some consolation. Here's Tromatic Reflexxions, released by Von Südenfed (with group member Mark E. Smith) on Domino Records on May 21st, 2007. Have a listen, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Stereolab - Eaten Horizons Or The Electrocution Of Rock

(Yup - back-to-back Stereolab posts! I must be slipping!)

I've previously posted a couple of Stereolab-related write-ups to this blog in the (recent) past - love this band! If you enjoy them as much as I do, then you'll definitely be into this post: an impossibly hard-to-find collection of heretofore unreleased band demos and outtakes from throughout their long career.

This disc was released in Germany in 2007 by En/Of, a sublabel of Bottrop-Boy Records. Bottrop-Boy (apparently named after a minor transit station on a German passenger train line) appears to specialize in releases by obscure avant-garde music artists dabbling in experimental electronic sounds and free-form modern jazz. However, its sublabel, En/Of, ratchets up this obscurity/exclusivity factor to the nth degree. All of En/Of's releases (mostly by bands that even I've never heard of) are on heavyweight vinyl only and produced in minuscule amounts, to a maximum of no more than 100 copies each. Each of their releases is packaged with a separate signed and numbered limited-edition artwork (painting, etching, photograph, etc.) specially created for the album by a renowned artist.

Needless to say, the combination of limited availability and art-snob appeal leads to this sublabel's discs going for big bucks, way more than the average music fan is willing to shell out - even if they'd actually heard of the fucking band... This makes En/Of essentially an exclusive boutique label, the musical equivalent of Versace or Jimmy Choo (sorry - those are the only chi-chi designers I can think of at the moment; hey, I'm a guy - I don't spend a lot of time contemplating high fashion!). To me, all of this artsy-fartsy foofarol seems a little unnecessary, recherche and precious, and does little but cater to bloodless music aesthetes with money to apparently burn . . . but heck, that's just my opinion.

As I mentioned above, this disc contains never-before released sound ideas and rough proto-demo versions of Stereolab tunes, some of which eventually appeared on various 'Groop' albums, including Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements, Mars Audiac Quintet, Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots & Loops. Other songs provided here have, to the best of my knowledge, never before seen the light of day in any version on any official or unofficial band release.

Here's the lineup:

1. Crest
2. John Cage Bubblegum
3. Mountain Instrumental
4. Reich Song
5. Cybele’s Reverie Pt. 1
6. Cybele’s Reverie Pt. 2
7. French Disko
8. Happy Pop Song
9. Jenny Ondioline
10. Lucia Pamela (ICC)
11. Drone Instrumental (with Nurse With Wound)
12. Plastic Pulse One
13. Plastic Pulse Two
14. Plastic Pulse Three
15. Plastic Pulse Four
16. Sad Chicago Organ
17. Brigitte Pt. 1
18. Brigitte Pt. 2
19. Infinity Girl Pt. 1
20. Infinity Girl Pt. 2
21. Cobra Tune
22. Heavy Munich
23. ZigZag Song
24. Monday Song

Here you are - Stereolab's uber-rare Eaten Horizons Or The Electrocution Of Rock, released by En/Of Records on September 30th, 2007 in a run of 100 vinyl copies (each of which included a high-quality Mathias Poledna print, signed by the artist (yeah, I don't know who the hell he is either . . . whatever; I'm just into this for the music)). Took me forever to find a copy of this . . . thus I bestow it unto you all as well.

Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Stereolab - Solar Throw-Away 7"

Stereolab's 2006 double-A side tour single, sold at only a handful of venues in Europe and North America during the band's extremely brief series of concerts in the early part of that year.

By the time of this release, it already seemed as though the band was making plans to wind down from its long career. The death of Mary Hansen in late 2002 and its aftermath (which

included the recording of the group's Hansen tribute album Margerine Eclipse, released in 2004) seemed to sap a lot of drive and energy out of Stereolab, and understandably so. That's not to say that the group's creative juices had run dry - there was still plenty of good music to come from them, including the Fab Four Suture collection later in 2006 and Chemical Chords in mid-2008. But it should be noted that around the same period as

the 2006 tour came two "best of" compilation releases, the three-disc Oscillions From The Anti-Sun retrospective in late 2005 and Serene Velocity (featuring highlights from their years with the Elektra label) in late 2006. Putting a series of comps out in such a short period of time isn't exactly a move made by a band planning on hanging around for very long . . .

But even with the time left allotted to them, Stereolab didn't rest on its laurels. Up until the very end (marked by 2010's Not Music, released more than a year after the band announced it was going on permanent hiatus), the group continued refining and experimenting with its signature sound. This record provided here is no exception.

So, for your enjoyment, here's a hard-to-find Stereolab rarity, the Solar Throw-Away 7", released on their label Duophonic on March 1st, 2006. Have a listen, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Single Gun Theory - Surrender EP

One of the many "one-shot" purchases I've made over the years, when I would purchase a band's entire album or EP just for the one song that I liked or thought was cool (I'm very glad those days are gone - thank God for iTunes).

I bought this disc in Washington, DC (good ol' GWU Tower Records) in the winter of 1992, solely on the strength of "From A Million Miles", a song that was then getting serious play on DC's alternative station WHFS. I had scant interest in "Surrender", the song for which the disc is titled - to my ears, that tune was nothing more than the standard shimmering ethereal gossamer electro-pop being put out ad nauseum back in the early '90s. But I thought "From A Million Miles" was amazing then . . . and still think so today.

Australia's Single Gun Theory recorded for nearly fifteen years, releasing four albums (including a movie score soundtrack) and more than half a dozen singles and EPs during their existence. But since their demise in 2000, any mention of or information about the band is exceedingly difficult to come by. All of their music has long been out of print, and their old recording label carries no reference to them on their website. It's a shame, really - perhaps what Single Gun Theory put out wasn't exactly timeless and universal, but the band made an effort to produce some appealing music to leave to the world, and at the very least that should be acknowledged. A lot of their sounds, as I said above, might have been boring and synthpoppy to me and a lot of others. But to paraphrase Anton Ego: "The average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

Therefore I leave to you all what is, in my mind, one of the band's finest moments - Single Gun Theory's Surrender EP, released by Canada's Nettwerk Records on January 28th, 1992, featuring one of my favorite songs from back then, "From A Million Miles":

I've been dragging my ass on postings over the past couple of weeks, if you haven't noticed. I will probably be backdating a couple for this month in the coming days. Until then, I hope this one tides you all over for a bit. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Uilab - Fires EP

Here's another one of Stereolab's many collaborations during their long band history, this time with New York City-based post-rock instrumental group Ui.   UI, founded in 1990, was known for its frequent use of two bass guitars in their sample-heavy, electronica/dub music, along with other uncommon instruments such as the banjo, tuba and timpani.  These guys (Sasha Frere-Jones (now a writer with The New Yorker), Clem Waldmann and Wilbo Wright) were active for well over a decade, releasing three LPs and numerous singles and EPs before breaking up in 2004.

This particular EP was recorded at Southern Studios, London in the summer of 1996, while Ui was on a European tour with Stereolab serving as their opening act.  However, the label didn't get around to mixing and releasing the EP until well over a year later, in late October 1997.  This EP features, among other songs, an excellent cover of Brian Eno's "St. Elmo's Fire", off of his 1975 Another Green World album, along with three radical remixes of the same song.

I don't have any long-winded story related to this disc, other than I recall grabbing this at the old Virgin Megastore in Grapevine, Texas shortly after it was released.  I was just listening to it the other day, and thought that others might like to have a listen to it as well.  Sometimes, brevity is best!

So, here you are - Uilab's Fires EP, released in February 1998 on Duophonic Records (Stereolab's privately owned label).  Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Renegade Soundwave - Biting My Nails 12"

I used to love "Biting My Nails"!

I'm pretty sure I first heard this song in the spring of 1988 at the old Fifth Column nightclub on F Street in DC, back in the day when that dance club was the undisputed leader and center of DC's nightlife in that part of town.

Back twenty/twenty-five years ago, downtown DC used to have a PUMPING bar/club scene - with Fifth Column and its next-door neighbor, The Vault, anchoring the F Street dance circuit (the old 9:30 Club was right across the street, along with a really good multi-story club whose name currently escapes me that ran through the entire block from E to F St. - one section was an old-school R&B dance club, one section was a quiet live jazz lounge, another featured house music, etc.). The 80's-themed dance club Polly Esther's was just half a block away. A few blocks northwest, close to the Treasury building between 14th and 15th Streets, was Zei Alley, home to Club Zei and its cross-alley dance club companion, the Spy Club. In the scary, dangerous, decrepit neighborhood over by the Navy Yard was the legendary Capital Ballroom/Nation and the nearby Tracks, a gay dance club that nonetheless drew a mixed crowd due to its great music. There was Anastasia's (New Romantic) and Poseur's (New Wave) in Georgetown; reggae clubs on U Street and 18th Street (near the current 18th Street Lounge); samba and live jazz in Adams-Morgan - frankly, there were great places all over town, and you could strike sparks wherever you went for whatever sort of music you were in the mood for. Things have definitely changed in Washington nowadays - most of those clubs have long gone, and with them a major chunk of the city's great nightlife that once made the place so special.

But I digress . . .

Like I said, I probably initially encountered this during one of my forays into DC, and I recall purchasing the EP at 12" Dance Records on P Street, close by Dupont Circle, and transferring it to cassette shortly before leaving the States on my six-month European cruise later that year.

Renegade Soundwave was formed in 1986 by three musically like-minded London friends, Carl Bonnie, Gary Asquith and Danny Briottet. The sound that Renegade Soundwave championed, a dancable sort of industrial/electronic music, was somewhat outside of what was happening musically in Britain and Europe during that time - namely the rise of house music in the late 80s and the advent of Madchester at the beginning of the 90s. To put it kindly, RSW was a bit 'retro' for that period; to put it harshly, they were old fashioned, and more than a step outside of the times. As such, their time window for mainstream acceptability and success was very small indeed - although Lord knows they tried.

The band released their Kray Twins single on Rhythm King Records in mid-1987, followed by the Biting My Nails single the following year. I didn't know it at the time, but the latter song was actually a cover version. The original "Biting My Nails" was done by Genevieve Waite, a South African singer/actress of limited ability who had the foresight/good fortune to marry John Phillips (of The Mamas & The Papas) in the early 70s. Her new husband produced her only album, 1973's Romance Is On The Rise. On it, Ms. Waite wraps her annoyingly high-pitched, Betty Boop-esque vocals around a set of songs that both obliquely and blatantly referred to the early 70s cocaine-and-decadence scene (that I assume she knew of first-hand, being married to an allegedly big-time drug-gobbler and notorious sex fiend like Phillips). I mean, just have a look at the lyrics for "Biting My Nails" in particular:

"Catch you later, baby - I've gotta split

I've got a habit I've just can't quit . . ."

or . . .

"A flake of snow on a silver spoon . . ."

and . . .

"I've got a habit, and it's all mine!"

Sheesh - doesn't leave much to the imagination, eh?

As bad as this album was, in its day it still earned some rather over-the-top acclaim from some quarters - in 1977, one critic even ranked it as one of the top 200 albums of all time (he must have fried his brain being part of that cocaine crowd himself . . .). You would think that a Seventies disco drug anthem would be an odd choice for an electro-industrial band to cover nearly two decades later . . . but Renegade Soundwave pulls it off, and in doing so they created their first big UK hit.

The group moved to Mute Records in 1988 and spent most of the next two years putting together content for a long-player; in the end, they released two - Soundclash in late 1989 and In Dub six months later. The former performed very respectably on the national charts, reaching #74 and spawning a UK Top Forty hit, "Probably A Robbery". But soon after that success, the band began falling apart. Bonnie left the band shortly after the release of In Dub, leaving Renegade Soundwave as a duo. The two remaining members released a couple more albums of limited appeal, 1994's Howyoudoin'? and The Next Chapter In Dub in 1995, before disbanding at the end of 1995.

I can't say I've spent a lot of time contemplating this band or their music since the late '80s - like I said, their sound was of a certain time and place, and it really doesn't do much for me now. But I do have a warm place in my heart for this record - else I wouldn't have kept it for all of these years!

So here you are, burned off of my original vinyl disc, Renegade Soundwave's Biting My Nails 12", the original and instrumental mix, released by Mute Records in 1988. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Touch & Go - Would You . . . ? EP

In 2000, I almost got a job with Hewlett-Packard. The company I worked for in Texas had suddenly and unexpectedly been acquired by Citigroup, and as a member of the corporate staff, I knew that my ass, like the asses of many of my compatriots, was going to be grass once the merger was complete. I started trolling around for a new position, and very quickly heard from H-P. They seemed pretty eager to speak with me, so much so that they very quickly sent me a plane ticket to Silicon Valley, California and $150 in cash for any "incidental expenses" I might encounter during my morning-to-evening visit there. I was pretty psyched.

I took an early-morning plane out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and by 9 a.m. local time, I was at the airport in San Jose, picking up my rental car (again, reserved for me by H-P) for the drive down to Sunnyvale. The interview there went pretty well, although I was surprised that I was not the only person the company contacted for the position in question - there were a few of us there, from places as far afield as Chicago and Boston, invited to interview for the job. But H-P kept things moving on an assembly-line basis, and every one of us was in and out of there in less than three hours.

My plane back to Dallas didn't leave until six that evening, so I had several hours to kill before the flight. I decided to head into San Francisco for a couple of hours, grab a bite to eat and have a few laughs. However, one destination in that city was in the forefront of my mind - Amoeba Records on Haight Street.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Amoeba . . . nowadays, there are a couple of branches of this store - the other ones I know of are in Berkeley and the most recent one that opened in L.A. about eight years ago. But the Haight Street location is the flagship. Now, being as crazy about music as I am, I've been to music stores and record shops all over the world, and seen some good ones and some not-so-good ones. I have to say, unequivically, that Amoeba Music San Francisco is THE best record store on the planet. Bar none. It's a huge open warehouse of a space, the main floor of which is covered with bins full of all sorts of CDS and records. One side of this barn is devoted to "new" albums; an equal amount of space on the other side is reserved for "used" records. In previous visits to Amoeba, I'd found things there I'd been searching for for literally YEARS - dirt cheap. For me, that place was and is the Capital of Music . . . and since at that point I hadn't been to San Francisco in a while, and had no idea when I might be back there again, I was eager to spend some time once again browsing those stacks.

I made the hour-long drive into San Francisco with the radio on, scanning the dial, listening for something interesting (great radio stations in San Fran, BTW). I can't remember what station there it was where I heard "Would You . . . ?" during my drive, but the song captured my ears instantly.

Touch & Go was formed in England in 1997 by David Lowe, the only official member of the group. Lowe's day job is as a music producer for British television shows and commercials (all of the music you hear on the BBC News since 1998 was composed by him). He formed Touch & Go as a creative outlet, away from the constraints of TV production. In addition to writing, arranging and producing most of the songs, Lowe plays the keyboards, drums and bass on every release, assisted by various guest musicians who provide vocals, guitar, brass, what have you.

Touch & Go's first release was the Would You . . . ? EP on V2 Records in October 1998. The song's mix of horn-driven Latin jazz, house and electronic elements backing a sexy female voice mouthing laconic come-on lines was a sensation in England, where it shot to Number 3 on the UK Pop charts. Touch & Go began a European tour in late 1998/early 1999, taking their sound to several locations in Eastern Europe, where the song proved equally popular there and in several other worldwide locations (Australia and New Zealand especially).

The song did nothing of any chart importance here in the U.S.; but like I said, it caught my attention during my drive into the city. After a nice lunch at a seafood restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf (great crabmeat sandwich), I made a beeline for Amoeba. There, I proceeded to blow EVERY PENNY of the $150 in "expense money" H-P gave me on music - I got some great stuff, including the Would You . . . ? EP. I made it back to the San Jose airport in time for my flight, with a big bag of CDs tucked under the seat in front of me. I didn't end up getting the job with H-P, but no worries - in my mind, it was still a productive journey (and anyway, inside of another two weeks, I found a better, more lucrative position in New England . . . so there you go)!

On the strength of that single, Touch & Go cut an album, I Find You Very Attractive, in 1999. After a couple of other lesser-received EPs in the early '00s, Touch & Go's star has sort of faded in Great Britain. However, the band remains popular in Eastern Europe, and still tours regularly there.

Here's the Would You . . . ? EP I purchased in San Francisco over ten years ago. This is the U.S. version of the EP (there are about nine versions overall internationally), containing five different iterations of the title song. I still think this tune is pretty cool - have a listen, and let me know what you think.

Enjoy:

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Fortran 5 - Heart On The Line EP

Lordy . . . sometimes I look back through my music collection and shake my head. I was into some very odd stuff way back when.

Here's one I picked up during the late summer of 1991: Fortran 5's Heart On The Line EP, consisting of four remixes of said song. I took a two-week vacation in the spring of that year, and flew over to Madrid, Spain on one of those cheap student tickets (the kind where you can only take what you can put in the overhead compartment or under your seat, as the company who sold you the ticket has the rights to your cargo space) to visit my youngest sister. My sis had graduated from college in Virginia the summer before, and had headed overseas to bicycle around Europe for a couple of weeks before planning to head back to the U.S. to start work. Well, that two weeks in Europe turned into a year and a half, and she ended up in Madrid after finding a job teaching English to Spaniards there. Mind you, at the time, she couldn't speak Word One (or is that "Una Palabra"?) of Spanish . . . but by the time I got over there to see her six months later, she spoke the local language like a native. I guess that shows you what total immersion in a country can do for you.

Anyway, I showed up, and we had a high old time. I was relatively flush with cash at the time, while she was living on her meager wages in a semi-hovel in downtown Madrid with her roommates, two Irish sisters who were constantly at one another's throats. So I tried to get her out to see and do things she hadn't had the opportunity to partake in before, due to her penury, stuff that I took for granted - like going out for pizza and hitting some of the local clubs. This was in addition to the touristy stuff I wanted to see, like the Prado Museum.

It was at one of those city clubs where I first heard "Heart On The Line". That dark, thumping electro-techno tune was perfect for the place where we were, and it tickled my ears enough to have me take note of it for when I went back to the States. Yes, as I've mentioned before, I used to like the whole dance/house thing - so shoot me; I was young and having fun!

When I got back the the States, I found the EP, released by Elektra Entertainment earlier that year, at the old Tower Records near George Washington University in DC. Fortran 5, formed in London in 1989, was basically two guys, David Barker and Simon Leonard, assisted by a bevy of guest artists. They cranked out several singles and albums worth of sample-heavy techno during the early 1990s, with the assistance of members from bands such as Can, Orb, and Sly & The Family Stone. Vocals on the Heart On The Line EP ware provided by members of Miranda Sex Garden.

After their final release as Fortran 5 in 1995, the band added Jane Brereton and morphed into Komputer, which began as a veritable Kraftwerk tribute band before modifying their sound in the late '00s more into electronic sample manipulation. As far as I know, they're still at it.

So here - harken back to the early '90s, and relive those old techno club days with me! Enjoy:

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Stereolab - Rose, My Rocket-Brain! EP

Here's a three-song EP by Stereolab, made available on a 3" CD at shows during their 2004 Margerine Eclipse tour. I got mine at their show at DC's 9:30 Club that year - great show, by the way. To the best of my knowledge, these songs haven't been released on any subsequent Stereolab compilation. And since the band called it quits a year ago, I don't expect to see this released on anything anytime soon.

All three songs are superb, especially the last, "University Microfilms International". I like the first one too (apparently, there was an error on the CD label, as the names of the first two songs, "Rose, My Rocket-Brain! (Rose, le cerveau électronique de ma fusée!)" and "Banana Monster ne répond plus" were transposed in error - "Rose" is first). Listen closely to the lyrics of "Rose" - I love how Stereolab inserts pointed political commentary into their songs!

Here ya go - enjoy:

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Turn On - Turn On

A one-off side project featuring Tim Gane and Andy Ramsey from Stereolab and Sean O'Hagen of the High Llamas, released in 1997 on Duophonic Records (Stereolab's label). Instead of a meld between the sound of the two bands, this record sounds totally like a Stereolab instrumental album, circa 1992-93 (think The Groop Played "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music" or Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements). But that's not a knock on the music - it's actually a pretty good album, and a required listen for devoted Stereolab fans.

This album got no airplay or support whatsoever when it came out - I found it almost by accident in a bin at the old Virgin Megastore in Grapevine, TX. But it was a fortunate find. Here - have a listen, and let me know what you think:

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