Tuesday, 9 October 2012

The Smashing Pumpkins-Soothe


Remember trying to save up some serious paper round money to get this when I was a kid. It was available at the time on import and in HMV it was about 17 quid or something ridiculous. I got a bit lucky and picked it up in Vinyl Exchange for a bit less complete with promo blurb stickers attached to it, albeit only several months before it was released properly. Some of my favourite songs ever written are on it. Including this.

Smashing Pumpkins-Soothe (buy)

Monday, 8 October 2012

Sensations Fix-Fragments of Light


I share something different to start the week with; a bit of Italian cosmic prog form the 1970s. A mammoth retrospective has just come out entitled 'Music is Painting in the Air' has just been released on RVNG Intl. Certainly worth picking up if it's your kind of thing. Only with the last few years excessive determination to discover all that has gone before (and repress it) this is music that was probably destined to be out of print forever.

Sensations Fix-Fragments of Light (buy)

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Yo La Tengo-Gentle Hour


No one does covers like Yo La Tengo. A new album of their own material will be dropping in the new year, marking their 28th year as a band. This track is off 'Dark Was the Night' an ace double CD charity compilation produced by the Dessner twins from the National from a few years back. No words can come close to describe how beautiful this is.

Yo La Tengo-Gentle Hour (buy)

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Maxmillion Dunbar-Pretty Please


Second track I've blogged about from Maxmillion Dunbar's 2010 album 'Cool Water'. Played this out a few times over the last couple of months. Get on it.

Maxmillion Dunbar-Pretty Please (buy)

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Chris Lawhorn-Fugazi Edits



Chris Lawhorn Announces Charity Album Based Around Fugazi Samples

With no new Fugazi material for over a decade, fans and interested parties are continuing to find new ways to use Fugazi's back catalogue to showcase their talents. After the hit and miss (much more miss to be honest) Wugazi's 13 Chambers release which mashed together 13 Songs from Fugazi and 36 Chambers from Wu Tang Clan comes something different from DJ and multi-instumentalist Chris Lawhorn.

Lawhorn will release the album (his fifth) entitled Fugazi Edits on October 30th on Case/Martingale Records. Fugazi Edits features 22 tracks, which were pieced together using excerpts from every song in the band Fugazi's discography.

The album's been in the works for almost two years. It's entirely instrumental and combines over 100 Fugazi samples with a variety of effects. Ian Mackaye (from the band and their label Dischord) has authorized the album's release. And, the profit from will be donated to a pair of charities—one that works with senior citizens in Washington, D.C. and another that provides aid globally to folks impacted by disaster and civil unrest.

Lawhorn started the Case/Martingale label in 1996, while playing drums for the (admittedly Fugazi-influenced) band Cataract Falls. A decade of disastrous tours and middling solo albums followed. Along the way, he became the staff DJ at a spring break company—playing for drunk, college students on South Padre Island each March—and recorded the rap album Pole Position.

This gradual switch from rocking to beat-making isn't exceptionally unique. But, it led to an 18 month stint as the resident DJ for Marie Claire magazine. When that concluded, Lawhorn began work on Fugazi Edits—in an attempt to make something that employed both the musical influences of his youth and his love of cutting up tracks and reassembling them.

Interested folks can visit http://www.chrislawhorn.com to check out samples from the album, the artwork, and so on.