We hand over to Mr. Malcolm Garrett again this time for a pretty special selection of tunes. This is a real grower, and for those of you who don’t buy albums any more this will remind you of the joys of a well constructed tracklist, it’ll grow on you - I guarantee. A lot of consideration has gone into these tunes and as ever, his words are better than mine:


There was once a time (as the sixties turned into the seventies) when pretty much all music that wasn’t classified as pop, classical, jazz, or (the dreaded) easy listening, was known simply as ‘underground‘ or ‘progressive‘. 

Everything contemporary, unusual and otherwise unclassifiable found its way into a rack in the record store that was labelled just ‘progressive‘. Naturally this was the principal place I would look for anything exciting or challenging. I would return to the same few stores in Manchester and thumb through the same collections of discs week by week, wondering whether or not to buy a particular disc, invariably one adorned with a curious image and with an esoteric sounding title, trying to decide if the music would be as enjoyably intriguing as the sleeve. There was no internet to aid research, so almost everything I sampled was based on personal recommendation, or a lead from an enthusiastic NME or Melody Maker review. More often than not I simply bought it on a whim, or after a cursory listen to a track or two in the listening booths still installed in the better stores.

Faced with a mixed lot of largely unknown and previously unheard discs, and with precious little guidance, it is remarkable that most albums I picked up were by and large fresh and eminently listenable. Some of what I found was truly progressive, in a way that I don’t think has been heard since. The world of music really was opening up. In that first explosion of audio experimentation, I discovered things that are genuinely timeless, and so, with the passing of time, here I am still listening.

A cautionary note, however. Please do not confuse ‘progressive‘ with ‘Prog’. At some sad time in the early- to mid-seventies, the likes of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Rick Wakeman and Yes would appear to have embarked upon a willful and systematic ruination of the genre. With each new album they recorded longer and longer pieces, but for no discernible benefit, and with less and less musical discipline or charm. Often they had fairly meaningless ‘concepts’ underlying them, in an attempt to imbue them with some sort of higher musical significance.

Thus it was that the perfectly acceptable, and suitably descriptive, tag of ‘progressive‘ was mercilessly shortened to simply ‘Prog’ rock. This was a quite different term for what was quite different music altogether, albeit springing from similar origins. This rather pejorative term has lingered in the collective memory as one which not only sums up this other largely unpleasant musical backwater, but sadly has also besmirched the heritage and credibility of musically sophisticated recordings such as the ones to be heard in this collection.

What we have in this playlist, by way of clarification, is mostly work from those early days of ‘progressive‘, and is definitely not what I would call ‘Prog’. This, instead, is from the time when pop seemed to turn to rock almost overnight, and the LP found favour as a preferred medium to the 3 minute single, which by then was already somewhat redolent of the first psychedelic era. A later playlist will address more directly the transition from pop single to rock LP track, but these recordings are definitely album material only. They are somewhat longer than 3 minutes, no longer constrained by 7″ vinyl nor daytime radio restrictions, and whilst they feature extended instrumental passages, and are musically quite complex, they display a sparkling sense of musical invention. The basic instrumentation of electric guitar, bass, drums was augmented first with keyboards, then often with wind and strings, and most significantly, with their electronic counterpart: the magnificent mellotron.

This collection begins and ends with pieces by Van der Graaf Generator, who are archetypal ‘progressive‘, and a band truly without equal. The opener ‘Man Erg’, from their opus ‘Pawn Hearts’, has been played continuously by me since its release in 1971, and it still chills me with its haunting presence. The last piece is an impassioned live rendition of ‘Childlike Faith in Childhood’s End’, which was the closing track from the penultimate Van der Graaf album, ‘Still Life’, before they called it a day in 1976, and laid the way clear for Punk.

I could write much more about the other songs in this list, and detail my reasons for selecting them, but I’m hoping that you’ll discover and enjoy this music with that same spirit of enquiry that I did first time around. 

Tracklisting

Man Erg - Van Der Graaf Generator
Stagnation - Genesis
In The Land Of Grey And Pink - Caravan
Cirkus - King Crimson
Hollow Stone (Escape OF The Space Pirates) - Khan
Tropical Fish: Selene - Gong
Symphony No. 2 (3rd Movement) - Egg
Nothing Is Easy - Jethro Tull
Alucard - Gentle Giant
Starship Trooper: Life Seeker/Disillusionment/Wurm - Yes
Instant Kitten - Matching Mole
Death Walks Behind You - Atomic Rooster
Childlike Faith At Childhood’s End - Van De Graaf Generator

Tight on time this week, so its time for another quickmix. Here’s some of the bits and bobs i’ve been listening to over the last week or two, its all a bit random. Mainly dance music, hopefully good ‘work’ music, there’s at least one shady mix in there, a prize to the first person who spots it. Also check out hte new on from Q-Tip, glad he’s back. Go Buy His Album!

Tracklisting

She Loves You - Peter Sellers
Leggo Beast - Gregory Issacs
Let it Bump - Missy Elliot
Wow (Modeselektor remix) - Sirisumo
Hercules Theme - Hercules And Love Affair
Gettin’ Up - Q-Tip
Smornin’ - DJ Koze
Summer Party - Breakbot
Symptom Of Disease (with Mr. Velcro Fastener) - Erlend Oye
Hold On (Mock and Toof remix) - Holy Ghost!
Mit Dir - Juergen Paape
Sweet Lies (Patrice Baumel remix) - Booka Shade
Detroit - Morgan Geist
Do The Whirlwind - Metronomy
Love Action (I Believe In Love) - The Human League
Pilotes Automatiques - La Caution
Body Language (Senor Coconut remix) - M.A.N.D.Y Vs. Booka Shade

p.s. it seems that older episode files are being deleted of my server by my hosting company, so some of the older episode links are going to stop working. Email me if you want links to old files put back. ta.

Another cracking guest episode from djtc this week. As a remedy to the monotony of 4/4 time, it’s something subtly different…

why 5/4? well, it’s just different. but why? because, essentially, 5/4 has a flexibility that three- or four-time just doesn’t offer - a song can allude to speed or twitchiness, serenity or space in 5/4 just by how each bar is phrased.

5/4 can give a song a sense of propulsion that regular timings just can’t offer: splitting a bar in two and making the second half a beat shorter than the first makes a song feel like its falling over itself to reach the next down beat and, in doing so, quickens the pulse, raises suspense. see the mission impossible theme tune for a perfect demonstration.

then again, treated differently, 5/4 can serve to slow a piece down: a regular 4/4 bar can be cooled by adding an unexpected fifth beat; when a new bar is hinted at, there’s still one more beat to go, offering thinking space between each phrase and a more laid-back feel. the nick drake record in the mix does this pretty well.

but then sometimes, just sometimes, it simply feels right to have five beats in a bar - no matter how awkward it is to dance to or drum to. sometimes there’s a perfect melody that just fits into five, and that’s that.

Podcast - listen now!

Tracklisting

 

Lalo Schriffin and his Orchestra - Mission Impossible (Theme)
Stereolab - Percolator
XTC - English
Sufjan Stevens - They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For the Homeless in Muskegon)
M. Craft - Silver & Fire
Nick Drake - River Man
Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Drake
PJ Harvey - Water
Radiohead - 15 Step
Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five

Getting back to my routs a bit this week, a bit more uptempo, mainly dance music. In fact entirely dance music. Some classic house to kick things off, then some neo-disco with a couple of Aeroplane remixes and a rather good Hot Chip remix. From there it gets a bit heavier (but in a good way) yet more Modeselektor, and we finish with some Baltimore mashups. Baltimore is so hot right now. It finishes with something so ridiculous it goes right the way beyond stupid and comes back on the other side into brilliance:

Tracklisting

 

Fanfare Intro - Aaron Copland
Voodoo Ray - The Williams Fairly Brass Band
Voodoo Ray - A Guy Called Gerrald
Fool For Love (Aeroplane remix) - Das Pop
Sea Lion Woman (Chromeo remix) - Feist
Miura - Metro Area
Now ‘Till 69 (Aeroplane remix) - The Shortwave Set
Here In The Night (Long Version) - Kelley Polar
King’s Cross (Hot Chip remix) - Tracey Thorn
Tenderoni (Renaud remix) - Chromeo
Minuit Jacuzzi (DatA remix) - Tepr
Une Bande De Mec Sympa - TTC et Modeselektor
Don’t Go (Lightweight Bmore edit) - Yazoo
Jump In The Line (John Bourke’s Bmore remix) - Harry Belafonte
Club Action (Bagraider’s Sailing To Baltimore remix) - Herve & You Majesty

 

Also in a move that puts me dangerously close to an uncool section of society I done a remix of the Reckoner by Radiohead, as part of their remix contest. I’ve not put it here to win so don’t worry about voting, just have a listen and let me know what you think:

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, but it feels right to put it out now. Taking it back a couple of decades to a time when rock was only performed while under the influence of mind bending psychotropic substances. The result is some of the best band names of all time and songs which are simultaneously of their time and out of time.

Tracklisting

 

Carpet Man - The Nocturnes
Sunshine Superman - Donovan
Flash and Crash - Rocky And The Riddlers
King Midas In Reverse - The Hollies
Haunted - Peter Thorogood
When Will The Rain Come - The Troggs
Kaliedoscope - The Marmalade
Spinning Wheel - Blonde On Blonde
Sometime You Just Can’t Win - Mouse And The Traps
Suddenly Winter - The Tremeloes
Psychotic Reaction - Count Five
High In A Room - The Smoke
Phenomenal Cat - The Kinks
Long Agos And Words Apart - The Small Faces
You’re Gonna Miss Me - The Spades
Psycho - The Sonics
Locked In A Room - The Poets
Cherry Red - The Groundhogs
My Daddy Walked In Darkness - Gil Bateman
Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie
10,000 Miles Behind My Mind - Focus 3

 

Special guest show from djtc this week:

Although stylistically they vary, here are a group of songs with one very specific thing in common - a fascination with London. Whether they’re directly about a district, station, road or public space, or just about a chain of events that take place there, their location in the capital was deemed worthy enough for mention by the songwriter, and so worth enough for this podcast.

Tracklisting

 

1. The Westway, W12 - Blur (For Tomorrow)
2. Clapham Junction, SW11 - Squeeze (Up the Junction)
3. Lee Green, SE12 - Gamages Model Train Club (Lee Green Blues)
4. Morden, SM4 - Good Shoes (Morden)
5. Waterloo, SE1 - The Kinks (Waterloo Sunset)
6. Mile End, E1 - Pulp (Mile End)
7. City Road, EC1 - Traditional (Pop Goes The Weasel)
8. Primrose Hill, NW8 - John & Beverley Martyn (Primrose Hill)
9. Battersea, SW11 - Super Furry Animals (Battersea Odyssey)
10. Brixton, SW2 - The Clash (Guns of Brixton)
11. Wardour Street, W1 - The Jam (A-bomb in Wardour Street)
12. Mill Hill, NW7 - Edward Ball (The Mill Hill Self-hate Club)
13. Mornington Crescent, NW1 - Belle & Sebastian (Mornington Crescent)

 

Guest show this week from new comer Mr. Chevalier. An electronica excursiona, this is the state of play with modern electronic music. You’ll be up on your feet before the end. Guaranteed.

Salut, i’m not much of a dj so forgive the mixing. The tunes must speak for themselves anyway. I hope you enjoy, if you do not then your taste is immature. Merci, au revoir.

Tracklisting

 

Dead Dogs Two - cLOUDDEAD
Got 2 Let U- The Knife
The Talk- Erland Oye
Isolation- Joy Division
Ankle Injuries- Fujiya & Miyago
Crimewave- Crystal Castles
Flux- Bloc Party
Mathletics- Foals
I Want I Want- Digitalism
Fuck Friend (CSS Remix)- Bitchee Bitchee Ya Ya Ya
Make It Happen- Playgroup
Silver Screen Shower Scene- Felix Da Housecat
Hustler- Simian Mobile Disco
The Best Revenge- Fischerspooner
Seventeen- Ladytron
Enjoy The Silence- Depeche Mode

 

Sort of a follow up to the Deep Dub Disco episode a month or two ago with some more long remixes, its a dance music journey. It also turns out that this genre is known as Nu Balerica (which is Nu to me), and Fred Deakin has just put out a compilation on Ministry Of Sound which I can wholly recommend if you are into this kind of thing. And in a similar vein Boomkat records have a 14 track called Deviant Disco for just £7 or so, again very highly recomended.

And so we weave through some long (like John Silver), deep (like impact), and spacey (like Kevin) music ending with a classic Italo Disco track from the 80s.

Hope you like the new site too.

Tracklisting

 

Henry (Zero Db remix) - Peace Orchestra
See Line Woman (Masters At Work remix) - Nina Simone
Camino Del Sol (Joakim remix) - Antena
High Score feat. Dynamite MC (Stanton Warriors remix) - The Nextmen
Everything In Its Right Place (Andy Muller remix) - Radiohead
Fate (Tangoterje remix) - Chaka Khan
Eple (Bjorn Torske remix) - Royksopp
Voyage Voyage - Desireless

 

Podcast - listen now!

Just some things i’ve been listening to recently. No theme, just some lush music, hopefully suited to a warm friday afternoon.

Tracklisting

The Fairest Of The Seasons - Nico
The Girls With The Sun In Her Hair - John Barry
One Word - Brian Eno
Obsessed With Gloom - Campag Velocet
Happiness - Goldfrapp
I’m A loser - Marianne Faithfull
Clouds Across The Moon - The Rah Band
Get Innocuous (Geek Chic’s Harm-Free Retouch) - LCD Soundsystem

Guest DJ this week Malcolm Garrett in his own erudite words:

“The year is 1972 and I’ve just met Barbie. I am not long turned 16. Barbie will have an immediate and lasting effect on my life, but, as we’re just concerned with music here, I want to share with you the music that she shared with me.

These were what I consider to be her songs. Yes, this is a collection of songs, whereas at that time my appreciation of music was actually focused at a more specifically sonic level.

I tended to like the instrumental passages in the music I listened to, and lyrical detail always rather passed me by. I’d been enjoying the blues-based riffs of Cream, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and other similar ‘hard rock’ bands of that era. At an opposite extreme I was beginning an exploration into the avant garde electronics of the nascent Kosmische Musik of bands from Berlin, Düsseldorf and Cologne. Meeting Barbie introduced me to another sphere of music, and prepared me for another way of listening.

I’d always heard the human voice as another instrument, and it seems I seldom paid attention to the words I was hearing. I enjoyed the cadence of a female voice, say, or a lyric sung in a language I did not understand. I can’t really have been fully cogniscent of that for I am now genuinely surprised that I feel I am only hearing the songs properly as songs now, and I must previously never have really taken in much specific meaning from what I was listening to at all.

This collection, then, displays more depth and maturity than perhaps I did at the time. And over time I’ve come to appreciate these songs more and more. Barbie adored these songs. She would play them often, and consequently they have stuck with me. That said, there is a somewhat melancholy tone to many of them. This fact was not entirely lost on me,
as I thought some of them far too ‘girly’ and not at all what a sophisticated music afficianado should listen to. How wrong was I?

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that so many sad songs were so loved by a girl who had such a bright disposition and always adopted a happy-go-lucky approach to life. Nothing seemed to get in her way, and things in life always seemed to go her way quite naturally. These songs reveal a sentimentality that she did not display in her day to day life. In many ways she quite suited the name Barbie, although she was not blonde, was nobody’s toy, and had a mind that was already adult, intelligent and focused on a bright future. I wonder what she thinks of this collection now.”

Tracklisting

Everything I Own - Bread
Knights In White Satin - The Moody Blues
Riders On The Storm - The Doors
Life On Mars? - David Bowie
Desperado - The Eagles
So Long, Marianne - Leonard Cohen
Our House - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Mocking Bird - Barclay James Harvest
Heart Of Gold - Neil Young
Man Of The World - Fleetwood Mac
Days - The Kinks
House Of The Rising Sun - Frijid Pink
In A Broken Dream - Python Lee Jackson
Melancholy Man - The Moody Blues
(Find A) Reason To Believe - Rod Stewart
Port Of Amsterdam - David Bowie
Imagine - John Lennon
Alone Again Or - Love
Goodbye To Love - The Carpenters
The Show Must Go One - Leo Sayer