Under The Influence

I went through a period where I listened to a lot of Mercury Rev, All Is Dream and Deserter's Songs in particular. In the early days I'd get the strangest feeling that I'd heard it all before. I have no idea how it worked but it felt like I was listening to something from deep in my childhood. The more I listened the more the songs became associated with Mercury Rev.

This album didn't do that to me. This sounds like Mercury Rev from the get go. That's not a bad thing, they have a unique sound and it's a pleasure to listen to. I think this is one that with a bit of work will stay with me.

Ha! In A Funny Way just did that Beach Boys thing - that drum sound like in Bat For Lashes.

Love, love, love, love, love... oh please make it stop. Listening to this with the boat healed over beating through the waves at 10kts and me in the galley trying to bake bread, bad idea.

The whole thing felt a bit amateurish to me. The lyrics were really the killer though - too much ecstasy makes you think you can heal the world tih love. Any lyric that wasn't about love seemed to be thrown in for the sake of creating a rhyme - despite how non-sensical the sentence became.

Obviously Love Generation is going to stand as a classic summer anthem. Just wish I hadn't heard it in the context of the rest of the album. Had it not been for the dough all over my hands I would have torn my headphones off.

I like computer game music. In particular I like the music of the games I spent hours/days/weeks/months/years playing as a kid. Unlike most kids in NZ I had an Amstrad (CPC6128) while everyone else seemed to have Amigas and Sega systems. As a result many tunes of my childhood differ from those of others. Remember, often different themes were composed for the same game on different consoles.

I really admire the games composers of yesteryear. They had so little to work with and they managed to squeeze every bit (excuse the pun) of goodness out of it. Even as an 8 year old I recognised in this work. Just as I salute those still creating magic with little more than 8 bits I also salute those reworking the classic 8 bit tracks that have inspired the geekiest among us. Thanks to Rob Hubbard for writing this one and to Marcel for bringing it back to life.

Sweet sweet cover of a sweet sweet song. And you can really feel The Smiths in there when you listen to the vocals. It has this great happy little guitar loop that makes the whole thing so special. Wow, 2001! I just assumed it was a recent ditty.

'I would go out tonight but I haven't got a stitch to wear. This man said "It's gruesome that someone so handsome should care"'. mmmmm, Love it.

One of the acts I was lucky enough to stumble upon whilst in Berlin last week. She was actually playing at the place we were staying (Bar 25). Great place by the way. Fun and friendly people supplying/enjoying a great selection of cultural highlights.

I don't really have that much to go on with this - just what I heard at the gig and the scattered bits I've found around the internet. The older recordings I could find have a Portishead quality to them (I think that's actually got a lot to do with the Phillicorda Organ she uses).

Great songs. Great twisted melodies. Check out Woodfull of Love on her myspace (sorry) page.

You can grab a few mp3s from Kliklak (Berlin music blog) including a cool little cover of Nirvana's Something in the Way.

Looking back a couple of years my mind falls on a period where I can recall listening to very little else besides this album. Fred Avril was one of the great Pandora finds for me - The Date in particular. I'm not sure how much popularity Avril gained in his home country of France but his Prix Constantine award (similar to the Mercury prize) suggests to me that he wasn't entirely unknown.

In any case, this work is very special indeed. You can tell it's had a lot of time put into it. Every last little sound feels 120% considered. I almost picture the guy going insane in the studio adjusting and readjusting every last little dial. Maybe that's how he got to the point of discussing killing his girlfriend in Like Everybody Else (itself a pop masterpiece, by the way) - complete with noises of sharpening of knifes.

The sound itself is generally all about smooth, dark electronic production, but he executes the realisation in a number of different ways. Some of the tracks like Helium Life Boat are particularly ambient while others (eg French Kiss) are really dancey.

One of my top picks of 2005.