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Yes, I know I have essays to write. But they’re no fun. So I’m doing this instead. I was going to call this my song of the week, but I probably won't have the time/motivation to make this into a weekly feature. So I'll call it the song of the moment and now I can do these as and whenever I wish.

Sébastien Schuller is an artist that someone recommended to me in a “If you like Radiohead, you’ll definitely like this guy!!!” type fashion. A statement I found a little ambitious, but not totally ungrounded. His debut album ironically titled ‘Happiness’ is littered with instances reminiscent of Radiohead’s Kid A/Amnesiac phase. It is incredibly melancholic in places, not least in 'alone you walk', which was realised in a hauntingly gloomy music video.

However, it features an odd mix of your traditional acoustic instruments, crossed with electronica. It worked in some places better than others. The problem comes when that electronic sound becomes a centrepiece rather than a supplement and the album suffered as it bounded from soothing acoustics to pulsating electronica. But I still found it resonating and was one of my highlights of 2005.

Sébastien Schuller released his second album ‘Evenfall’ in May of this year and it totally passed me by until last week. So I got to downloading it and when I finally got to delve into it, ‘Morning Mist’ is what I was greeted with. You’ll notice that this first track of this album is totally unplugged. Nothing even remotely electronic. Just a man and a piano. Its brilliantly simple and outstandingly powerful considering his more cluttered work of previous years. And the whole album continues in that vein. This release is much more relenting, more uplifting and optimistic. There are still hints of electronica in there, but its not overpowering like in Happiness. Its much more subtle and works so much better to create a sustained, composed mood. ‘Morning Mist’ encapsulates this and shows Schuller has become a much more accomplished musician.

Electronic Music and The Beatles

By Thom Holmes

One need look no further than The Beatles for examples of classic electronic music techniques and analog synthesis in rock music. Much has been written about the importance of the recording studio to The Beatles who, at the peak of their popularity in 1966, stopped touring and spent the remaining four years of their partnership solely as recording artists. With the aid of the extraordinarily gifted producer George Martin and a cadre of talented and inquisitive recording engineers, many of the sound-making techniques associated with electronic music began to slip into the recordings of The Beatles.

The Revolver Sessions
The Beatles became fascinated with tape loops during the recording sessions for the album Revolver (1966). One of the first loops the group used was set-up by engineer Geoff Emerick for the hypnotic rhythm of the song Tomorrow Never Knows (1966). Paul McCartney was so taken with the effect that he went home and recorded a batch of additional tape loops using his guitar, the ringing sound of wine glasses, and other noises. He came back to the studio and handed Emerick a little plastic bag full of tape snippets that the engineer dutifully threaded onto a tape deck for the band to audition.1 This led to a session devoted to the live mixing of tape loops during which all five tape decks of the Abbey Road studio were employed. Many of the loops were long and required technicians to stand nearby spooling them in the air with uplifted pencils. In the control room, Emerick conducted the live mix, controlling the sound balance while others adjusted the panning and levels. Emerick likened the result to a human-enabled synthesizer. Some of the sounds were mixed into Tomorrow Never Knows, including the seagull-like noise that was made with a distorted guitar.2 Another effect used on the song was the continuously varying speed of some of the background tracks, the result of The Beatles having access to a varispeed tape recorder.
In 1971, shortly after the breakup of The Beatles, George Martin described the process of composing with tape loops on Tomorrow Never Knows. He knew that the band had been listening to avant garde music, particularly that of Karlheinz Stockhausen. “They discovered Stockhausen for themselves.” detailed Martin.

…They’d bought themselves tape-recorders and they'd started playing with them in their own homes—I think Paul discovered it first; they got into making little loops for themselves. … For Tomorrow Never Knows they all went away and made loops at various speeds and brought them to me. I'd play them on a machine, keep some and discard others, and we eventually ended up with eight loops of different sounds. … Then, putting all these loops on, we got eight tape machines and put one loop on each, and I fed each of those machines into the control desk, so that by raising any of the faders at any moment you could bring up the sound of any one particular loop. We already had the rhythm track and the voice, so then we did a mix, and brought up any loop we fancied at any particular time. That's how we got that effect.3

The use of tape reversal in a Beatles’ song was first heard by the public in the release of the single Rain, also produced in 1966 just a week after Tomorrow Never Knows. There are two conflicting stories about how this effect made its way into the song. One is that John Lennon took his vocal track home and accidentally threaded it upside down on his reel-to-reel tape recorder, causing the sound to be played back in reverse. The other is that George Martin intentionally mounted the tape backwards on a tape deck in the studio to demonstrate the effect to Lennon, who had stepped out of the studio for a minute. When Lennon returned and played the tape, he was “amazed.” One way or the other, Rain “was backwards forever after that.”4 Experiments with tape loops continued to be used on various Beatle albums, from the whirling calliope effects of Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite (1967) to the atmospheric nature sounds that form an aural bridge between Here Comes the Sun and Sun King on the album Abbey Road (1969).

Carnival of Light
Paul McCartney recently shed a little more light on another famed Beatle excursion into tape music. In December of 1966, McCartney was asked by to contribute a recording for an event known as the The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave to be held at the Roundhouse in London. There were two scheduled events, one on January 28, 1967 and another on February 4, 1967. Posters for both events advertised “music composed by Paul McCartney” and the tape work may have been played several times at each of the two events. In addition to a number of rock groups, the concerts also featured a collective of BBC Radiophonic Workshop composers calling themselves Unit Delta Plus.


In a recent interview with BBC Radio 4, McCartney expressed hope that the piece—13:48 minutes long—could finally be officially released to the public if Ringo Starr and the estates of Harrison and Lennon could agree. Back in 1967, the free-form improvisation was considered too “adventurous” for release.4 George Harrison and producer George Martin, in particular, were not fond of this particular sonic experiment.
Although the piece hasn’t been heard publicly since 1967, the existence of the tape has long been known. McCartney apparently tried to include it on the Beatles Anthology in the late 1990s but was again thwarted by one of his band mates. “It was up for consideration on The Anthology and George vetoed it,” explained McCartney in a 2002 interview. “He didn't like it.”5
What’s not to like? The piece was the result of a brief recording session that McCartney organized while the Beatles had a free half hour of studio time after recording vocal overdubs for Penny Lane. The date was January 5, 1967. The work was McCartney’s idea but he enlisted all of the Beatles for the in-studio realization. “There's no lyrics, it's avant garde music,” said McCartney. “You would class it as... well you wouldn't class it actually, but it would come in the Stockhausen/John Cage bracket... John Cage would be the nearest. It's very free-form. Yeah man, it's the coolest piece of music since sliced bread!6
Lewisohn acknowledged the recording of the work, then simply called Untitled, in The Beatles Recording Sessions. The track is also known as Carnival of Light, which was an alternative name for the Million Volt Light and Sound Rave at which it was premiered. The piece comprised four tracks mixed in real time. McCartney gave the other members of The Beatles instructions for the performance. "I said all I want you to do is just wander around all the stuff, bang it, shout, play it, it doesn't need to make any sense. Hit a drum then wander on to the piano, hit a few notes, just wander around.” So that's what we did and then put a bit of an echo on it. It's very free.”7
Lewisohn listened to the track while writing his book. He described Carnival of Light as follows:

Track one of the tape was full of distorted, hypnotic drum and organ sounds; track two had a distorted lead guitar; track three had the sounds of a church organ, various effects (the gargling of water was one) and voices; track four featured various indescribable sound effects with heaps of tape echo and manic tambourine.

But of all the frightening sounds it was the voices on track three which really set the scene, John and Paul screaming dementedly and bawling aloud random phrases like 'Are you all right?' and 'Barcelona!’8

McCartney still hopes to release the piece, now going on 42 years old. “I like it because it's The Beatles free, going off piste,” offer McCartney. “The time has come for it to get its moment.”9

Revolution 9
Carnival of Light was influenced by McCartney’s interest in the experimental and electronic music of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The same can be said for John Lennon and Yoko Ono about Revolution 9 from The Beatles “white album.” Revolution 9 was a montage of tape loops mixed with recorded sounds from the BBC archives and live studio improvisations. The piece was constructed in a manner similar to the way that Tomorrow Never Knows was produced two years earlier. Dating from the June 1968 recording sessions for The Beatles, the 8:13′′-long work was produced by Lennon with help from Harrison and Ono, both of whom contributed occasional recitations and, in the case of Ono, high-pitched singing.10 All of the resources and technicians were once again recruited to keep the tape loops flying and to manage the mixing in the control room. Although the final stereo version consists of several overdubs, each original track comprised a live-studio mix of whatever sounds were being looped at the time. Martin had the job of mixing the elements of Revolution 9 into a whole. “I was painting a picture in sound,” explains Martin, “and if you sat in front of the speakers you just lost yourself in stereo. All sorts of things are happening in there: you can see people running all over the place and fires burning, it was real imagery in sound. It was funny in places too, but I suppose it went on a bit long.”11

A Beatle Touch of Moog
The Beatles are not normally associated with synthesizer music but were actually one of the first groups to effectively integrate the sounds of the Moog into their music. This came about through the efforts of Paul Beaver and Bernie Krause, a musical duo who also acted as sales representatives for Robert Moog and his synthesizer. Krause had already sold Moogs to George Martin and Mick Jagger and in the fall of 1968 was contacted by George Harrison for a demonstration. Harrison hired Krause to play the synthesizer on a Jackie Lomax record being produced in Hollywood. After the session, Harrison reportedly asked Krause to hang out for a bit and give him a demonstration. Krause gladly obliged and played a few patches he had been working on with Paul Beaver for a record they were producing called Gandharva. Harrison recorded the demonstration and headed back to England. He eventually purchased a Moog through Krause in early 1969 and asked him to come to London to set it up and teach him how to play it. As the story goes, Krause arrived at Harrison’s home where the synthesizer was set-up in the Beatle guitarist’s living room. Before starting the lesson, Harrison wanted to play Krause a bit of dabbling on the Moog that he had already recorded. “Apple will release it in the next few months.”12 To the amazement of Krause, the sounds on the tape were none other than the demonstration sounds that he himself had played for Harrison during the Jackie Lomax demonstration months earlier. Krause confronted Harrison on the spot, but to no avail. In spite of Krause’s complaints, the album Electronic Sound was released in May, 1969. Unwilling to spend the money required to sue a Beatle, Krause demanded that his name be removed from the album jacket. Rather than replace the original album cover, Apple smudged over his name with silver metallic ink. Electronic Sound was by no measure successful and sounded like nothing more than what it truly was: a demonstration of Moog sound effects and patches.


In the summer of 1969, while The Beatles were recording their final album, Abbey Road, Harrison had his synthesizer transported to the EMI studios for all of the group members to access. The Moog was used subtly on the album and appears on nearly every track. Producer George Martin felt that the Moog was a challenge to use but sparked the imagination of the Beatles. “When you had been used to playing real instruments,” explained Martin, “this was an innovation, and we put it to good use.”13
McCartney was playing with loops again and assembled a collection of Moog and other sounds for use on the album. “Paul took a plastic bag containing a dozen loose strands of mono tape into Abbey Road,” writes Beatles’ archivist Mark Lewisohn, “where—together with the production staff—he spent the afternoon in the studio three control room transferring the best of these onto professional four-track tape. The effects—sounding like bells, birds, bubbles and crickets chirping allowed for a perfect crossfade in the medley from Sun King into You Never Give Me Your Money.14
Musician Mike Vickers (from the group Manfred Mann) was hired to tame the Moog and provide patches for The Beatles. The instrument was installed in a booth of its own and wired into all of the available control rooms, and all of group members utilized it in one way or another. The Moog solo played on Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was performed by McCartney using a ribbon controller.15 Perhaps the most extreme Moog effect employed on the album was the three-minute span of modulated white noise added by Lennon to the conclusion of I Want You (She’s So Heavy). In 1969, Lennon mused about using the Moog on I Want You (She's so Heavy), saying, “It's pretty heavy at the ending, you know, because we used the Moog synthesizers on it and the range of sound is from minus to way over. ... well, you can't hear it; that instrument can do all sounds and we did it on the end, if you're a dog you can hear alot more.”16
While the Moog found it’s way onto Abbey Road, it was merely just one more tool in the group’s bag of aural trickery. Martin recalled, “We played the synthesizer on something like Because or Maxwell's Silver Hammer just as a different extra sound, but we were using other original sounds that weren't synthetic … and our own innovations of using different speeds and weird sounds for harmoniums and mouth organs and that sort of thing. …You have to remember that for most of the Beatle’s time, we had the Mellotron, which was a kind of synthesizer, but not an electronic one. It was simple tape passing over heads and things. We didn't get computers in those days; we didn't get anything that we have today.”

The Beatles did for rock music what Varèse, Cage, and Stockhausen had done for classical music—they opened up the world of music to any and all possible sounds. McCartney also seems to have revived his interest in electronic music based on a close listen to his latest release, Electric Arguments (2008) with The Fireman.

The Sunday Times guide to today's music scene : Part 1
The Sunday Times guide to today's music scene : Part 2
The Sunday Times guide to today's music scene : Part 3


Fourth and final part of the series, grabbed from the Sunday Times, linked up with Last.fm. Sorry for the slight delay.

(Typos corrected where caught. Please let me know if you find any more)

Watch tracks from Culture's definitive guide to modern music

1st February 2009


The Sunday Times Encyclopedia of Modern Music - Index:

Ambient I Alt-country I Americana I Anti-folk I Art rock I Blue-eyed soul I Conscious Rap I Electro I Emo I Fence Collective I Folk traditionalist I Folktronica I Freak Folk I Fridmann's Freaks I Gangsta rap I Garage I Grime I Hardcore I Heavy Metal I House I Hip-Pop I Indie rock I Manufactured pop I Montreal scene I Neo-Psychedelia I Nordic pop I Post-rock I Power-pop I Progressive rock I R&B I Second Childhood I Singer-songwriters I Slowcore I Synth pop I Techno



CONSCIOUS RAP

Key names: Common, Lupe Fiasco, Talib Kweli

It’s no more ferrets-in-a-sack-like than jazz, yet rap — and conscious rap in particular — is synonymous with disagreement and name-calling. Albums that include conscious-rap moments (most recently, Kanye West’s) attract particular opprobrium — not least for getting the acts concerned (see Hip-pop) played on national radio: from the political-rap crowd for pandering to pop and from conscious-rap fans for opportunism. Both camps believe they are keepers of the true flame. Releases as seminal as Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (1988) and Black Star’s self-titled 1998 album have long been bracketed separately, the first as hardcore and incendiary, the latter as considered and inclusive. This simplistic division continues: acts such as dead prez pursue an avowedly militant line (for instance, disowning Obama before he even took office); while the likes of Common and Lupe Fiasco produce more thoughtful but no less thought-provoking records. Staying out of the dispute and just sticking with the albums is the best option: as Grandmaster Flash demonstrated 27 years ago, the message (pun very much intended) is everything.

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

Recent: Common, Like Water for Chocolate (2000); Lupe Fiasco, Food & Liquor (2006); Q-Tip, The Renaissance (2008)

Classic: Boogie Down Productions, By All Means Necessary (1988); A Tribe Called Quest, The Low End Theory (1991); Nas, Illmatic (1994)

Key track: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, The Message (1982)


FREAK FOLK

Key names: Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Espers, Bat for Lashes

The prefix could just as easily be “psych”, “acid” or plain “strange”, but “freak” it is for the broadly folk acts who revive and, at their best, reinvent the late-1960s sounds of The Pentangle, Trees, The Incredible String Band et al. Nobody is sure why — perhaps it has something to do with the old David Crosby line about letting your freak flag fly. These neo-hippies certainly sing and play with a straight face, and conviction casts spells. Espers indulge in such stately tempos, the Tudors could cop off to them. The guru lite Devendra Banhart is king of the scene, though his own music never quite justifies the crown. The impishly mannered Joanna Newsom — harpist, Rapunzel lookalike, mould-breaking marvel — is the real deal. Vetiver, led by the Banhart sideman Andy Cabic, are only freaks by association; theirs is a dreamier, Appalachian country vibe. With bands such as CocoRosie, White Magic and those on the Language of Stone label, the genre is seen (in an upgrade of the Greil Marcus phrase) as a manifestation of new weird america. This side of the pond, though, Bat for Lashes’ debut album, Fur And Gold, has its freakish charms, as does Goldfrapp’s latest album, Seventh Tree, while Voice of the Seven Woods show you can be a freaky folker in Manchester — but Bez-watchers knew that already.

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004); Espers, Espers II (2006); Bat for Lashes: Fur And Gold (2007)

Key track: Joanna Newsom, Bridges and Balloons (2004)


FRIDMANN'S FREAKS

Key names: The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse, MGMT

Way over to the west of New York state, not far from Fredonia, you’ll find Tarbox Road Studios. It’s an out-of-the-way place, and in winter you could find yourself snowed in, but it’s worth the discomfort because you get to work with the producer Dave Fridmann. Over the past decade or so, he has been the secret weapon behind America’s weirdest and most wonderful bands: The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse, MGMT. Sure, they’re all talented people, and could doubtless make good albums without Fridmann, but why would they want to when — as Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue puts it — “what you end up with is almost always more than you could ever dream”. Fridmann has worked in many genres, from the post-rock of Mogwai to Weezer’s power-pop, but he is most clearly associated with the Americana-meets-psychedelia-meets-prog of the Lips and the Rev, crafting a sound that — while it clearly spends a lot of its time being warped and reworked on a laptop — remains refreshingly human. Fridmann’s latest high-profile project, MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular, typifies his work in its ability to combine clever invention with big, brash, joyous noises such as the unforgettable synth riff on Time to Pretend.

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

The Flaming Lips, At War With The Mystics (2006); Mercury Rev, Snowflake Midnight (2008); Sparklehorse, It’s A Wonderful Life (2001)

Key track: MGMT, Time to Pretend (album version, 2007)


HEAVY METAL

Key names: AC/DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Lamb of God, Mastodon

Not many acts can sell 10m albums in a month, but towards the end of last year, the 35-year-old Anglo-Australian rock band AC/DC sold 5m copies of their new record and chucked in 5m units of back catalogue for good measure. Their success was emblematic of an era dominated by the old guard: the long-awaited returns of Metallica and Guns n’ Roses were the big stories in heavy metal, as well as Led Zeppelin’s one-off reunion at the end of 2007. The American thrash band Testament even won Metal Hammer magazine’s 2008 album-of-the-year award, after a quarter of a century in the business. Don’t think, though, that this is a heritage genre: the combination of old masters and a legion of younger bands means headbangers have never had it so good. And metal certainly is heavy these days: Metallica’s recent offering, for instance, had all the scorching intensity of their 1980s work. Perhaps even more notable is the rise of math metal, which combines ferocious noise levels with tricky time signatures and advanced technique, as if to expunge the memory of nu-metal’s dumb formulas.

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

Recent: Mastodon, Blood Mountain (2006); Metallica, Death Magnetic (2008); Meshuggah, obZen (2008)

Classic: Black Sabbath, Paranoid (1971); AC/DC, Back in Black (1980); Motörhead, No Sleep ‘til Hammersmith (1981)

Key track: Tool, Vicarious (2006)


HIP-POP

Key names: OutKast, Kanye West, Cee-Lo Green

In America, the term has come to mean artists such as Nelly, who are allowed on the radio because they make formulaic, unthreatening rap lite. Over here, it is used to describe hip-hop musicians whose love for, and sheer breadth of knowledge about, other genres has come to influence the music they themselves make. It’s not as simple as a hip-hop act cynically adopting some pop moves to score a hit, more a reflection of the frequency with which, when you encounter them, many acts steer talk away from their own genre and start dropping some unexpected and leftfield names into the conversation. OutKast are prime examples: with roots in southern rap, Andre 3000 and Big Boi proved too restless and inquisitive to be boxed in (characteristics that would bear glorious commercial and musical fruit with the hit single Hey Ya!). Kanye West has followed a similar line of inquiry, mashing up Daft Punk in 2007, with Stronger; and, last December, releasing an album of sepulchral electro, on which he sang, and from which rapping was entirely absent. Both acts, of course, are played on the radio — but with their integrity intact.

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

Goodie Mob, Soul Food (1995); OutKast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003); Kanye West, Graduation (2007)

Key track: OutKast, Hey Ya! (2003)


NEO-PSYCHEDELIA

Key names: The Aliens, Mars Volta, Super Furry Animals, The Tyde, Animal Collective

Psychedelic rock emerged, under the joint influence of hallucinogenic drugs and eastern musical scales, in the mid-1960s. American psychedelic bands, largely located in San Francisco, were emblems of the emerging counterculture, while British psychedelia tended to be low-key, inward-looking and prone to whimsy, as in the songs Syd Barrett wrote for the early Pink Floyd, or the work of The Small Faces. Psychedelia was one of the musical forms killed off by punk in the mid-1970s, but it re-emerged in the 1990s thanks to the bands of the elephant 6 collective (The Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel), stoner rockers such as Kyuss and such inveterate experimentalists as The Beta Band and Super Furry Animals. Modern exponents include The Tyde, who offer a 1960s double whammy of psychedelia and surf music; The Aliens, an offshoot of the Beta Band with two excellent albums under their belt; Mars Volta, from Texas, who tread the fine line between psych and prog; and Animal Collective, from Baltimore, whose latest album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is an early contender for album of the year.

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

Recent: The Tyde, Three’s Co (2006); The Aliens, Astronomy For Dogs (2007); Super Furry Animals, Hey Venus! (2007)

Classic: Pink Floyd, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967); The Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever (1967); The Small Faces, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (1968)

Key track: Animal Collective, My Girls (2009)


HOUSE

Key names: David Guetta, Eric Prydz, Swedish House Mafia, Deadmau5, Stimming, D Ramirez

It’s hard now to imagine a man earning more than £150,000 in one night for putting some records on, but the Manchester DJ Sasha was paid at least that much on Millennium Eve.

That night was the pinnacle of house music’s global reign — it had become a bloated and cynical money-making industry. When electronic music fell out of favour at the beginning of the new century, house, the biggest of all the dance styles, was hit hardest. After 15 years as the planet’s most fashionable music, it all but disappeared except in its spiritual home, Ibiza. Yet house is too versatile, too danceable, to die, and by late 2006 it was back at No 1 in the form of Fedde le Grand’s single Put Your Hands Up 4 Detroit. With a new, sharper sound, influenced by French electro producers such as Daft Punk, house has been retaking its old territory and can now boast superstars again — the Frenchman David Guetta has more than 50m YouTube views to his name. For the cognoscenti, the German deep-house sound has made the genre respectable once more.

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS David Guetta, Pop Life (2007); Chloé, Live at Robert Johnson (2009), Various artists, Global Guide 09 (2009) (Amazon UK)

Key track: Eric Prydz, Pjanoo (2008)


SECOND CHILDHOOD

Key names: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Al Green, Emmylou Harris, Neil Diamond

For the first 20 years of its existence, rock music was deemed to be a young man’s (and woman’s) game. When musicians hit 30, it was widely assumed, they would get a proper job, buy some slippers and start listening to Des O’Connor records. But they didn’t — and, for the next 20 years, we rather wished they had done, as artists who had shone brightly in their twenties churned out a poor imitation of their best work in their thirties and forties.

Then something magical happened. Entering their fifties and sixties, and gazing rather closely at mortality, singers started to recapture their early form. The phenomenon began with the producer Rick Rubin’s at the time extraordinary, with hindsight inspired, decision to sit Johnny Cash down, tell him to forget about musical fads and fashions, then make him sing from the heart. Next, Bob Dylan rediscovered his muse, and re-established his reputation, on Time Out of Mind. The second-childhood effect is not limited by gender or genre: Emmylou Harris is on rare form these days, the soul legend Al Green is at his magical best and even the MOR mainstay Neil Diamond has benefited from Rubinisation. And the concert sensation of last year? None other than Leonard Cohen, peaking nicely at 74.

ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

Emmylou Harris, All I Intended To Be (2008); Al Green, Lay It Down (2008); Johnny Cash, American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002)

Key track: Bob Dylan, Not Dark Yet (1997)


Watch tracks from Culture's definitive guide to modern music


Babs _{My Gang}



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Primeiramente, gostaria de deixar bem claro que se eu tivesse assistido a um show dos Beatles, seria “hour concour”. Como isto foi e sempre será impossível, então precisei revisitar minha memória, fazer uma análise “holística e passional” para decidir quais foram os melhores shows que já fui. Infelizmente, não fui a muitos shows. Se eu tentar listar os shows de artistas nacionais e internacionais que assisti, deve dar algo em torno de 20 (incluindo festivais e excetuando logicamente shows pequenos em barzinhos com bandas que tocam covers ou banda de amigos). Agora, uma coisa que eu realmente não gostaria de fazer é listar a quantidade de shows que perdi de artistas/bandas que eu aprecio que já vieram ao Brasil. Isto sim deve dar uma lista enorme! Nem gosto muito de pensar nisso. Mas na vida é assim, às vezes perdemos e outras vezes ganhamos. Por isso mesmo, não quero ficar me lamentando e prefiro me lembrar de cinco shows inesquecíveis:

05º Lugar – Spoon – 08.11.2008 – Vila dos Galpões (Planeta Terra 2008)
O Spoon para mim é uma das melhores bandas de rock da atualidade, mas infelizmente eles possuem o mesmo estigma que o Pavement, por exemplo, de nunca ter estourado no mainstream americano e sempre ter seus trabalhos subestimados pela crítica. Não quero fazer propaganda, mas se tiver oportunidade, você que não conhece esta banda, ouça Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga de 2007 e comprove por você mesmo a qualidade musical deste álbum. O show no Planeta Terra foi no palco Indie, um palco secundário, onde havia um público que não ultrapassava 5000 pessoas, sendo que destas 5000, acredito que 30% conheciam o Spoon. Mas nem por isso, o show não foi prestigiado pelo público. É verdade que a grande maioria estava lá para ver o breeders. Mas quando o Spoon apresentou o seu arsenal de boas músicas, aconteceu aquilo: sensações de emoção, atmosfera vibrante e felicidade por simplesmente estar ali ouvindo e vendo ótimas músicas...


04º Lugar – White Stripes – 04.06.2005 – Credicard Hall
“Punch”, acho que melhor tradução para essa palavra no português coloquial seria “pegada”. E isto não falta para a dupla Jack and Meg. Lembro-me que no show houve os momentos mais tranquilos, densos, acústicos onde músicas como Jolene ou I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself foram realmente de arrepiar. Eu e minha amiga Denise, ficamos realmente extasiados em You've Got Her In Your Pocket; dizíamos um para o outro “olha o público todo cantando junto”. Mas o White Stripes é assim: tem o momento quase folk, mas tem o momento da pegada, onde eles mostram a sua força; Quando Meg, com sua forma primitiva de tocar bateria, e Jack, com seus potentes riffs, apresentam composições como Hotel Yorba, Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground ou Seven Nation Army é isso aí...


03º Lugar – Oasis – 15.03.2006 – Estacionamento do Credicard Hall
Foi a segunda vez que eu assistia a uma apresentação do Oasis. Choveu durante o show inteiro e o público de 15000 pessoas não arredou o pé. Pelo contrário, a chuva contagiou ainda mais o público que estava ávido por ver o Oasis fazendo um show para seus fãs, e não fazendo um show para os fãs de Guns ‘n’ Roses (como aconteceu na apresentação do Rock'n'Rio). Este show foi melhor que o show de 1998 no Anhembi, primeira apresentação da banda na turnê mundial do álbum Be Here Now. Em 2006, na turnê do álbum Don’t Belive The Truth, o Oasis não estava tocando Supersonic em suas apresentações. Mas em naquele show, naquele dia, naquele momento eles tocaram! Por este motivo, e por outros inúmeros motivos que já contei anteriormente, com certeza este foi o melhor show do Oasis no Brasil. Pelo menos até o dia 09 de Maio de 2009...


02º Lugar – U2 – 21.02.2006 – Estádio do Morumbi (Segunda Apresentação)
Quando comento sobre este show do U2, digo sempre que quem assistiu a segunda apresentação, na terça-feira, teve felicidade dobrada, porque pode assistir pela TV ao show da segunda-feira e assistiu ‘in loco’ na terça. Claro que sempre tem a parcela de fanáticos que assistiram as ambas apresentações. E, com toda a certeza, todos que assistiram se emocionaram e se arrepiaram com todos os momentos que um show de grandes sucessos de uma grande banda como o U2 pode proporcionar (com direito a uma mega-estrutura de palco e efeitos visuais, o mais espetacular e melhor que já pude presenciar em shows no Brasil). Sem falar no carisma da banda né. Realmente foi inesquecível. O show da terça teve um outro diferencial: o set list foi um pouco diferente e contou com esta música aí...


01º Lugar – Radiohead – 22.03.2009 – Chácara do Jockey
Quem espera sempre alcança. E como alcançamos. Demorou anos. Anos e anos ouvíamos sempre boatos que o Radiohead viria ao Brasil. Dia 22 de março de 2009 foi o fim de uma espera, mas o marco na história dos shows de rock deste país. Não pela organização do show, mas sim pela performance apresentada pela banda inglesa. Daqui alguns anos, muitas pessoas vão se lembrar deste show como sendo “o melhor show que elas já assistiram”. Será lembrado, pelos grandes momentos propiciados por músicas como Karma Police, Faust Arp ou Reckoner. Será lembrado pelo desfalques de algumas músicas no set-list do show. E mesmo estes desfalques são memoráveis, pois, como li em outra resenha, é incomum ver atualmente bandas que podem excluir de seu set uma música como Just ou Street Spirit e substituí-la por Exit Music ou Airbag. E acredito que este show será lembrado também pela alegria em palco (o Thom abria um sorriso aqui e acolá) e maneira como a banda se entregou para o público...

Um vendedor “honesto” autorizado a trabalhar no meio da multidão do show do Radiohead anuncia seu produto:

V - Óia a água,óia a água, é 5 real, é 5 real...

Um espectador interessado (E) em saciar a sua sede, fica abismado com o preço:

E - Que isso, é água de fonte de ouro! É água importada?
V - Má du quê tú tá reclamandiu? I cê qui pago quasi 300 pilas pra vê uns cara estranhu, um qui grita quinem muié e pareci tá cum “bituquera” e outro qui toca guitarra i pareci tá cum taqui pililéticu...Então meu fio, si quisé é 5...
E - Tio, já embassô, sai logo da minha frente que eu quero ver All I Need...

Apesar da verdade sobre a organização do show, preços e condições do local – é minha gente, Chácara do Jockey quase não é São Paulo Capital – o show da banda liderada pelo cara identificado como “estranho” pelo vendedor, Thom Yorke, foi uma bela comunhão entre fãs e músicos (dedicados a executar com perfeição novos e velhos sucessos) desde seu prenúncio até o seu final.

Eu, Regina e Fabio (primo do Claudio) adentramos em meio ao público postado na frente do palco ainda durante o show dos Los Hermanos. Infelizmente, nossos amigos Cris e Alex não conseguiram nos acompanhar, pois avançamos bastante; ficamos um pouco espremidos, mas ficamos a uns 25 metros do palco. E foi lá, sem querer que encontramos com o nosso outro amigo, Fabão Moreira. Na verdade, estávamos em busca da prima da Regina. Ela dizia estar bem debaixo da câmera de tevê. Porém, acabamos encontrando o Fabão, que logo após o anúncio dos shows do Radiohead no Brasil, não se contentará em comprar apenas os ingressos para o show do Rio.


Aliás, muitos fizeram como Fabão. A demora foi tão grande que casou uma “certa loucura” nessas pessoas. Se não me engano desde 2000, ouvia dizer que o Radiohead viria ao Free Jazz Festival (evento já falecido). E ouvia sempre a mesma estória no mês de Dezembro: “este ano o Radiohead” vem pro Brasil. Um jornalista especializado sempre potencializava este boato em sua coluna eletrônica. Quando não era este tal jornalista, uma revista especializada anunciava tal boato...

E o final de 2008 havia chegado e a mesma estória era anunciada. Quando um amigo me comentou sobre o fato, afirmando que o Radiohead viria mesmo para o Brasil em 2009, eu relutei a acreditar. Tal relutância me levou a uma reclamação no SAC da empresa vendedora dos ingressos pela internet, quando a mesma atrasou em 3 dias a entrega dos ingressos que eu havia adquirido. Liguei e disse mais ou menos assim para a atendente: “...só me falta você falar que Radiohead desistiu de vir pro Brasil e por isso o meu ingresso não foi entregue...”

Confesso que muitas vezes fui relutante a encarar a modernidade de obras como “Kid A” ou “Amnesiac”. Sempre achei que houve muito hype sobre essas obras e que elas não eram condizentes com as críticas. Cheguei a afirmar certa vez que os álbuns pós “OK Computer” são como “A Nova Roupa do Rei”, antigo conto infantil onde só os inteligentes poderiam apreciá-los, ou seja, as pessoas só apreciavam porque elas queriam se sentir inteligentes, quando na verdade a roupa nem existia e o Rei estava andando nu. Entretanto, percebi recentemente que estava redondamente enganado. As composições da era mais vanguardista são passionais e originais. Talvez, quando eu tinha 19 anos não me atentava a detalhes como fusões de ritmos e cadências diferentes em composições de bandas de rock. Mas em 2009, já com 28 anos, tive outra impressão de “Kid A” e “Amnesiac” – a impressão de ter sido bobo, preconceituoso e juvenil ao não ter dado a atenção merecida àquelas músicas.


Sobre o show, não preciso afirmar aqui que Thom, John, Colin, Ed e Phil são músicos virtuosos e que se entregaram totalmente durantes as quase 2 horas de show (com direito a 3 bis). Não preciso comentar que todos ficaram alucinados nos primeiros acordes de “15 Steps” logo no início. Não vou comentar também que o palco, as luzes e os efeitos visuais eram espetaculares. Não preciso citar que todos cantaram a plenos pulmões “Karma Police”, “Lucky” e “Creep”. Não preciso dizer que todos pularam no meio da execução de “Paranoid Android”. Não preciso falar da grande surpresa e emoção ao ouvir “Fake Plastic Trees”. E nem preciso dizer das ausências sentidas de “Airbag”, “2+2=5” ou “High And Dry” no setlist. Blá Blá Blá.

Só preciso mesmo resumi-lo a uma frase: “Everything In Its Right Place”. Pois no dia 22 de março de 2009 tive a certeza de estar assistindo o show da melhor banda do mundo...

Mas e a tal comunhão entre fãs e banda citada no início deste texto? Bem, isso aconteceu durante todo o show, mas logo após a execução de "Paranoid Android" a multidão começou a cantar espontaneamente "Rain Down, Rain Down, Come On Rain Down On Me..." e o Thom começou a tocar, espontaneamente, os acordes dessa música e logo depois emendou "Fake Plastic Trees".


Memorável. Foi perfeito. Foi emocionante. Foi felicidade e satisfação absoluta.

Faltou só colocar o set-list:

15 Step (In Rainbows)
There There (Hail To The Thief)
The National Anthem (Kid A)
All I Need (In Rainbows)
Pyramid Song (Amnesiac)
Karma Police (Ok Computer)
Nude (In Rainbows)
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (In Rainbows)
The Gloaming (Hail To The Thief)
Talk Show Host (B-side - Trilha Sonora do filme Romeu e Julieta)
Optimistic (Kid A)
Faust Arp (In Rainbows)
Jigsaw Falling Into Place (In Rainbows)
Idioteque (Kid A)
Climbing Up The Walls (Ok Computer)
Exit Music (For A Film) (Ok Computer)
Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows)

(Encore 1)
Videotape (In Rainbows)
Paranoid Android (Ok Computer)
Fake Plastic Trees (The Bends)
Lucky (Ok Computer)
Reckoner (In Rainbows)

(Encore 2)
House of Cards (In Rainbows)
You and Whose Army (Amnesiac)
True Love Waits (I Might Be Wrong)/Everything In Its Right Place (KidA)

(Encore 3)
Creep (Pablo Honey)

Viva o Radiohead!

Radiohead em São Paulo 22.03.2009

Track: Transmission (full track)
Artist: Hot Chip
Album: War Child - Heroes Vol.1
Tags: cover, charity, electro-indie, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic...

YouTube - aural upload


The War Child series of charity albums has been my favourite since the first, the Help Bosnia album of 1995 which featured Radiohead - Lucky, the track that made me realise just how great they are. 'Heroes' is the fifth in the series and was released yesterday.

Last.fm

Reviews are varied, ranging from average to excellent and I'd say I'd agree with that. TV on the Radio's Bowie cover of Heroes does sound like they threw everything at it. However, there is one track that, in my opinion, is outstanding: Hot Chip's cover of Joy Division's Transmission.

It begins with the familiar bass and beat, you recognise it and think you know what's coming. For a whole minute, you think you know where you are. Then the vocals kick in. What the... ?? You can't decide if it's right or wrong. And how dare they. A classic. But wait... they sound restrained, respectful. Ok, you think you can go with that. But what's that steel drum doing there? You hear nothing else. "Dance, Dance, Dance" repeats in some sort of electro-dub. You listen closely, eyes narrowed, thinking. "Dance, Dance, Dance on the radio". You're sold. Smile. Decide it's good.



I wasn't expecting this. I have disliked Hot Chip from the start. I have shut up anyone who spoke in their defence. I have found it difficult to sit through any of their performances on TV, glaring at the screen in disgust. In short, I wasn't expecting much and if I'd known they were next, I'd have skipped to the next track. Fortunately, I was nowhere near my PC when they came on as I listened via MySpace last week. Good thing. They're the best thing on the album. Actually, there's a nice little trio in the middle of the album: Elbow's cover of U2's Running To Stand Still, then TVOTR, then Hot Chip.

I think whether you like other tracks on the album will depend on your age and your taste. I am no fan of some of the featured artists and am neither here nor there on their contributions, Duffy for one. Beck slays with the album opener, Bob Dylan's Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat. Scissor Sister's cover of Roxy Music's Do The Strand is oddly addictive and makes me laugh (in a good way). Everyone ought to be pleased with Yeah Yeah Yeahs's cover of the the Ramones' Sheena Is A Punk Rocker as well as the album closer, Franz Ferdinand and their cover of Blondie's Call Me. Like caviar on a plate of chips is Rufus Wainwright and his version of Brian Wilson's Wonderful/Song For Children. Lily Allen's take on The Clash's Straight To Hell, featuring Mick Jones, is ever so slightly Radiohead - No Surprises in the way it starts. She was going to do a Clash cover, wasn't she, with Joe Strummer being her godfather. The Hold Steady's take on Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City is thoughtful.

I like the way the album was pulled together. Music legends were asked to select a personal favourite track from their own back catalogue and nominate an act from the next generation to create a modern reworking of that classic song. Their choices offer us a little insight into their own personal tastes.

It's unusual for me to jump around an album, I usually start with track one and let it play, but the variety and range of genres and artists allows for, if not positively encourages, some serious shuffling. Rarely are albums this playful.

http://www.warchild.org.uk/



Babs _{My Gang}

Reco of the Week archives



Admin - Stats as of today:

Last.fm listeners of this track - 360
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 674
Position in Last 7 Days: 56 / 160
Position in Last 6 Months: n/a

Video
Date Added: 14 February 2009
Views: 591, Ratings: 5, Responses: 0, Comments: 8, Favourited: 5 times

Stats after 7 days: (to be added)



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Guides for the newly unemployed are already popping up and seeing as they're directing people to Last.fm, I thought I'd write one too.


Music + Last.fm = never a dull moment ever again

Last.fm is a one-stop-shop of goody goodness. And all for free. Play your CDs on your media player, make it shake hands with Last.fm and start 'scrobbling', ie so the tracks you're listening to appear on your Profile. You'll build your own charts and see what your personal number 1 for the week is. It's a Top of the Pops music miracle. You can scrobble tracks from the site too. If it says full track, that's what it is. If it doesn't, then tag it to appear in your very own personal tag radio, eg fire up the quattro. You have to subscribe to listen but it's bobbins money and worth it. More and more labels are adding new albums here ahead of release date. Everyone can listen to global tag radios, eg 80s.

No you can't upload your CDs to Last.fm.

Not unless you created it and you own the rights, in which case you can. Doesn't matter if you got the wooden spoon and saucepan out and created something musique concrète or if you finally used that keyboard you got for Christmas one year. If you've created a masterpiece, you can share it with everyone here. Just don't go spamming people's profiles or other artist pages with the good news or you'll find yourself unable to log in one day...

The only way to do it is to join groups, hang out, socialise, get to know people, and let people find out for themselves what hidden depths you possess. You'll be surprised how curious people are if you let them have the space. Make sure there's handy info in your About Me and maybe a journal or two, and put your tracks in a playlist so they appear in the flash player on the top right of your page, as well as on your brand new artist page. Everybody likes to go off-piste when they're on a music discovery journey. Remember to add a few tags.


More handy advice

eBay - good
Don't go throwing good money away paying full price. Full price = top quality is an illusion.

Amazon - good
But only in the sales.

Food shopping - essential
But not the ready-mades you used to buy. Get organic fruit and veg delivered to your home. One price every week, you won't be tempted to spend more because you're not in the shops, and because you know you've spent extra, you're not going to throw a single scrap away. Proper money's worth. And you get your five a day. And home cooking is cheaper than shop bought. And you'll be getting all your vitamins so you can stop buying supplements.

Stop smoking
What a waste of money. You might as well roll up fivers and set light to them.

Heating
It's supposed to be 21C in the living room and 17C in the bedroom. Turn it down and save some money. And it's totally green and you'll be helping the environment too.

Lidl and similar
Aceness. But not everything. Try things out, they're dead cheap and won't hurt your wallet too much. If you don't like them, go back to your usual Tesco stuff. No, value ranges are not ok. Check the ingredients, they're supposed to be food, not chemicals.

Music
You're here. And it's all free. Personally, I think it is worth it to pay the £1.50 for monthly subscription so you can enjoy the extra benefits, like my absolutely brilliant personal tag radios. Stop buying daily newspapers, don't buy magazines and cancel your other subscriptions. Why would you buy all that stuff when it's all online anyway? Go here for your news fix - http://news.google.co.uk/. Job done. And look http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/home/you/index.html that's You Magazine online. See what I mean?

Spotify keep giving me invitations so if you want one, send me a message. (Not available in the US, sorry).

Starbucks and other fancypants moneygrabbing shops
They're not top quality. They just want your money. Don't go there. Unless you're taking your laptop out for a walk and you want to use their free wifi, in which case ok.

Facebook
What a waste of time.

MySpace
See Facebook.

Pound Shops
Go here to buy your potential musical instruments. And if you get an egg slicer and make harp music with it, I'm interested.

TV / Broadband / Telephone
Ditch all the expensive deals you no doubt have and get a bundle with freebies. I haven't paid for broadband for years, nor for phone calls to my Mum.

Clothes
You probably don't have much besides your work suits, do you? You'll want charity shops for everything except underwear, socks and shoes. If you're in London, you'll be surprised what's out there. Some people have more money than sense so there's all sorts of goodies, some brand new with tags! eBay is ok, except you're paying extra for p+p which is a pain. Keep an eye out for Outnet, coming soon. Like TKMaxx but online, brought to you by the woman who runs Net-a-Porter. http://theoutnet.com/ Buy more knitwear. Not acrylic, spend a bit extra on wool. It saves on heating bills. Clothes swapping is really cool right now, find out where your nearest one is.

General shopping and other money stuff
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ - absolutely essential. Get the emails.
http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/
http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/
http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk/ - why not, they all rip us off anyway
http://www.freecycle.org/ - yes, all free

If you're feeling low
www.myspace.com/nevermindthepanpipes
http://xkcd.com/

Books
Read your own stash or join the local library. You can also borrow CDs for a £1 for two weeks, as well as DVDs. Most libraries will buy stuff for you for around 50p if there's something in particular you're looking for. There are also lots of book sites on the net with full texts, all legal and free. Here's one: http://www.forgottenbooks.org/catalog/index.php. Watch Movies and Free TV online (legal but UK only for now) http://www.blinkbox.com/. Loads are free, others you can buy or rent.

Daily Essentials
http://www.cainer.com/
http://www.shelleyvonstrunckel.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
http://www.last.fm/user/Babs_05/library/tags?tag=love+love+love
http://www.last.fm/user/Babs_05/library/tags?tag=music+to+fall+asleep+to
http://www.last.fm/user/Babs_05/library/tags?tag=my+gang+09
Go for a walk

Hobbies
If you make stuff, sell it here http://www.etsy.com/
Or create your own store here http://yokaboo.com/
Browse the web properly http://www.stumbleupon.com/
Start blogging https://www.blogger.com/start
The best word game http://www.playbabble.com/
Daily Sudoku http://www.ironsudoku.com/
Cancel the gym membership. Buy an exercise bike or whatever you like and do it at home. There are loads of pilates videos in YouTube.

That should keep you busy, in between updating your CV and job hunting. Don't give up and good luck!


Babs _{My Gang}





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Track: The Big Sleep (Listen here at prefixmag)
Artist: Bat for Lashes, featuring Scott Walker
Album: Two Suns (6 April 09)
Tags: electronic, piano, duets, minimalist, gothic, haunting, chilling, my gang rotw



No video this week. There is one in YouTube, a tribute to a film, but really, I think you should close your eyes and just listen. Or gaze at the pic above.

The Big Sleep is the closing track on Bat for Lashes' new album and it features Scott Walker. When you listen, it sounds like a short piece, I was surprised to see it's almost 3 mins long. You'll see what I mean when you listen. It seems to distort time. The only instrument you notice is a solitary, old piano, like the kind that accompanied movies back in the days before they had sound. Behind that are strings, drone sounds and distortion, but you don't hear them on first listen. Natasha Khan's beautiful, high-pitched voice holds you while Scott Walker's deep, dark voice creeps around the edges. She's the light and he's the shadow. Conscious and subconscious. The piano stops before the end and you notice the pulsing sound that appears half way through the song, like a heartbeat, which rises to a peak then suddenly cuts out. "It's curtains down time." An abrupt end to a dreamy album.

When I first heard it, it caught me unawares. I played it on Stereogum's site. They had uploaded the track but forgotten to label it. I had no idea what it was! At first, I thought it was Antony Hegarty gone wrong. Then I recognised Scott Walker and thought wow. Once again, I had successfully managed to avoid the hype and all of this came as a delightful surprise.

All the blogs all over the net have all the tracks, in case you're wondering. The whole album is in bits all over the place, a month ahead of its official release date. Any decent blog aggregator will pull them together for you.

The one thing that Natasha Khan didn't have in her debut album she has in spades now - substance. Her first album, Fur And Gold, was interesting, it was clear she has presence, but the material was hollow.



Some very big names come to mind listening to Two Suns: Radiohead, Björk, Kate Bush, Prince, to name a few. Daniel, the current single, sounds Fleetwood Mac to me. At one point, during Two Planets, in the middle of doing something else, I quite forgot who I was listening to and really thought it was Björk. She's very Tori Amos in her vocals on Moon And Moon. If you are one of those insufferable snobs who can't listen to Radiohead, you may as well give up now, because the music is very much in that style and of that calibre. It is excellent. Natasha takes inspiration from our modern greats and marries them with classic themes from 80s electronica. It makes for very interesting listening.



There's a huge sense of the vulnerable, lost soul in this album. Pearl is said to be her alter-ego, the girl in the blonde wig, Natasha's destructive inner self. The Telegraph carried an interview recently where Natasha talks more about this. In 'Daniel', the main line is, "I dream of home". Pearl's Dream is among the best tracks on the album. It reminds me of a hit from the 80s, though I can't for the life of me name it. I don't mean The Big Sky. If anyone knows the song I'm thinking of, please tell me.

Dog Day Press
Envisioning herself as two separate yet ultimately attached beings, we discover her inner character Pearl, the destructive blonde femme fatale that represents one extreme of her personality. Pearl’s troubled obsession with childlike escapism and self-absorption opposes the wild and mystical desert being who represents Natasha’s more spiritual self. Through the songs on the album, Natasha and Pearl take us on a journey as they intertwine and overflow into each other’s realms, struggling to reconcile with each other, love and the forces of the outside world.

Scott Walker joins Natasha for a duet on the final track, ‘The Big Sleep’. It is the last we see of Pearl as the final curtain is called and she hangs up her dress forever. It describes the death of Pearl and symbolically, the death of the world of illusion. It’s a darkly camp and theatrical performance to end the record. Having imagined Walker’s voice on the track from the moment it was composed, Natasha sent it to him almost as a dare to herself. Spectacularly, he returned the favour and added an emotive vocal, perfectly ending this complex story.

'Two Suns' is an intensely beautiful album from another world, but it's not a world we want to know all that well, even though we're all familiar with it. It's a world of sadness, loneliness, performing to order and painted smiles.


Babs _{My Gang}

Reco of the Week archives



Admin - Stats as of today:

Last.fm listeners of this track - 3,934
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 10,646
Position in Last 7 Days: 22 / 1,227
Position in Last 6 Months: 106 / 19

Stats after 7 days:

Last.fm listeners of this track - 4,547
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 13,092
Position in Last 7 Days: 23 / 1,203
Position in Last 6 Months: 106 / 19


555 Unique Visitors
627 Page Views



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