This week has mostly been...
Super Furry Animals - Guerilla/ Rings Around The World/ Love Kraft/Hey Venus/Out Spaceded.
Great pop/psyche/rawk/folk from those magical Welsh troubadours. Some albums can be more hit and miss than others, but every one has at least a couple of moments of pure sublimity (is that even a word?). Think their slower songs create an amazing atmosphere, with many giving me a huge lump in the throat.
Tony De Gamorre VS Gruff Rhys - The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness
V Strange collaboration between GR and TDG. One crazy Argentinian with a rather cool home made drum machine guitar thingy singing protest songs. Most songs are sung in Spanish or Welsh (GR) with sparse guitar and drum machine jams. More miss than hit, but an interesting 30 odd minutes, that's fer sure.
Yazoo - Upstairs at Eric's/You and Me Both
Found a couple of V old Chrome Dioxide (remember those!) tapes from my youth )when MUTE was a proper independent label) so gave them a spin.
Was a massive Yazoo fan back in the day, but after more than 25 years, they sound a little, well, plinky plonky now. Still some great songs amongst the two albums, tho for some reason I had it in mind they were a little darker than the fair on show here. Just shows how your memory can play tricks on ya.
Add N To(X) - On The Wires Of Our Nerves
Patchy second album. Not as good as I remember it, and nowhere near as good or quirky (in my opinion) as Avant Hard, Loud Like Nature and Add Insult To Injury.
Revolutionary Dub Warriors - State of Evolution
Found this in a Blue Cross store in Pershore for 95p. Figured if it was On U Sound/ Adrian Sherwood produced it wouldn't be half bad. S'OK. Not quite enough digi dub stylings for my liking, but have certainly heard a lot worse over the years.
FSOL - Radio 1 Essential Mix from December 93'
Another old tape dug up, really great 2hr mix this. Played this lots back then, often accompanied by plenty of soft psychedelics and healthy doses of sunshine and countryside.
Had forgotten quite how great at atmospheres FSOL are. This is a stunning example of why they were so good back in the day. Also, you can see in this mix the debt owed to them by much of the Hauntology crowd (Pye Corner Audio and Moon wiring Club particularly)
Some kind soul has uploaded it to you tube...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XMM3vcmJME
Fever Ray - Remixes
CDr I put together from singles and mixes. Some mixes are better than others but the subliminal kid mix of When I Grow Up has had me hooked all week...Taster here (1st track)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReNzZVbnRJM
Other Stuff
Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power DVD/ Rings Around The World DVD
A trip into the world of all things 'Furry'. Some great animation on these discs courtesy of long time collaborator and Monsterism creator Pete Fowler. Loaded full of extras, easter eggs and Remixes, this is how to put together a music DVD.
Gruff Rhys - Seperado!
Great musical road movie where Gruff sets out to find out about an ancient relative who was exiled back in the 1800's for a dubious crime and helped to set up a Welsh in Patagonia, South America.
He's just finished making another film at the minute called American Interior about another Welsh ex-pat and distant relation John Evans who travelled to North America and sought out contact, and lived with a few of the First Nation tribes in search of a tribe of Welsh speaking indians.
Trailer here....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHV_6H2hQnM
Well that's about it for this week (well that's all I can remember truth be told).
In honour of the final drudion I'm gonna dig up me Cope albums and singles and trawl through them next week, just to remind me how good he could be, and how through his music, he enriched our lives and helped us enjoy significant personal moments. We all shared in his trip, and he, inadvertently shared ours too.
Have a good one!
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