Under The Influence

Considering the slow trickle of completed albums he has released since becoming a superstar in 1986 -- just two albums of songs with vocals, paired with two albums of soundtracks and two live records -- deliberate is expected from Peter Gabriel, so the slow, hushed crawl of Scratch My Back is no shock.

Designed as the first half of a two-part project where Gabriel would cover 12 different artists who would then return the favour by recording their own versions of Gabriel’s compositions -- the counterpart album naturally bearing the title I’ll Scratch Yours -- Scratch My Back divides neatly between six songs from his peers (Bowie, Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Lou Reed, David Byrne) and six songs from younger artists (Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Stephin Merritt, Bon Iver, Elbow, Regina Spektor).

Gabriel doesn’t dodge familiar tunes, choosing to sing “Heroes” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out),” but he twists each tune to his own needs, arranging everything with nothing more than piano and strings, a change that’s almost jarring on Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble,” yet it stays true to the undercurrent of melancholy in the melody.

Immediate it may not be but fascinating it is, and after hearing Gabriel turn all 12 of these songs into something unmistakably his own, the appetite is surely whetted for its companion piece.

Good stuff. The kind of dirty noise you want to be blearing while you're playing up at the sort of late night parties your mother told you never to go to. It's really dark - almost a tad sinister in places. Beautiful.

Their cover of White Horse is definitely going into my record bag. It's like the original, but with filthy filthy bass. High-Rise is going in the bag too for that matter. The songs seem to mellow out a bit towards the end of the album - then War Against Sleep brings things back to where they should be.

Got a funny desire to get mashed up at a dance party now.

In my mind these guys are another Nextmen or Unabombers; a DJing duo that put great lesser known tunes that make you want to dance before everything else. I accidently caught them at The Big Chill in 2005 and really loved what I heard. I think they Manchester based too.

They definitely swing more towards the soul / funky / disco side of the dance floor. The mixing is really simple - in fact, it's not really mixing at all, blending would be a better term. It's primarily a showcase of good tunes.

I've only heard a couple (consistently showing my ignorance, eh?) of the songs on here before (Word Up and Low Rider), though not these versions. Of course they're all killer. The music itself sounds like good old funk/soul stuff - but it can't possibly be. I need to do a bit of digging but I think some of these songs must be from the last couple of years (Lindstrom & Prins Thomas' Ballerina for example).

Yes yes, I have some friends that are about to find out they've been missing this all their lives.

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.

You get a wonderful cover of George McCrae's I Get Lifted. Jesus, that's enough really, isn't it? Well, it's even better than that. Sweet funk licks, great breaks and real horns. Real horns!

Do Your Thing must be a hidden tribute to 90% Of Me Is You (Gwen McCrae). Oh my, look at that - Gwen and George McCrae used to be married. Who'd have thought (I'm not being sarcastic, this connection only just occurred to me).

Anyways, I know some folks that are going to be very very excited when I show this to them.

What a simple loop based bit of loveliness. I love the way the same beat is carried throughout but the work has numerous different movements that all feel distinct. 4:10 sees the introduction of a shaky synth that sounds so frail you think it'll pass away on each note. Somehow the whole thing builds into a big dark cloud of sound. Something very NINish about the final soundscape.

It's the subtlety of this work that interests me - feel like I understand that whole German glitch obsession much better now (through this one piece). Then again, Matthew Dear really did help too.

The piece is far older than I'd originally thought. Not only that but it's also a cover of a Neu! track. Proving once again that I seriously need to go crate digging for kraut-rock.

At first I thought this was going to be kind of cheesy but I think that's just the vibe I often get from latin beats (like Señor Coconut). I left it for far too long before finishing listening to the whole thing. It's actually really good (it makes me smile) - and would surely have been exceptionally original at the time of it's release. I mean hell, it is a covers album after all, I'm bound to find something I like in there. At the moment it's closing track, Brazil, that's really doing it for me.

I never really knew much about Enoch Light but apparently I really have a lot to thank him for. Not only was he a pioneer of stereo effects (in a time when most recordings were still done in mono) but he also created the gatefold album sleeve. The gatefold album sleeve! One word, legend.

It only takes a moment to understand the motivation behind what's going on here - it's a revolt against racism in America. It's done in a very uplifting way, you know, so it's positive sounding.

For the most part it's a gospel record. You get lots of great handclappy gospel rhythms which as you well know always goes down well with me. Though actually, there's some sort of weird synchronisation going on in one of the songs, I can't remember which. The claps on the left and right channels are just far enough out of line to be a tad off-putting.

The first half is upbeat then it gets more acapella based during the 2nd half. I really love the major->minor key changes in the harmonies - in Freedom Is a Constant Struggle it's used to great effect. Check out We'll Never Turn Back for that matter.

Interestingly there's a cover of Come By Here (more commonly known as Kumbaya) on here (ah, this has the crazy handclaps in it). I had never looked into the history of the song before. Seems there's a bit of debate about who actually wrote it. Turns out that a cheeky white reverend may well have stolen it and claimed it as his own. Sums up the tone of the album really, eh?

Bang! Cock/Ver 10 hits you like a kick in the teeth. The drum arrangements are downright amazing. What great interpretations - the potential for screwing this up is huge. Plenty of people have attempted this sort have stuff in the past and the end results are generally disappointing to say the least.

These guys have come up with some very inventive ways of creating the sounds - apparently they had to knock together some strange instruments to imitate the original recordings. Actually the attention to detail is phenomenal - check out the simulated acoustic scratching, inspired stuff indeed.

From what I understand this is some sort of Steve Reich related group - I think they may have performed a couple of the albums he composed. I have no idea whether he was involved with this particular project at all.

Truth be told I'm not a massive Aphex Twin fan - don't get me wrong, that's not to say I don't like the stuff I've heard. Actually I've really loved what I have heard, it's just that I've never owned any of the albums and hence I've never dedicated any real time to it. After listening to this I think that's going to be changing very soon.