Twenty Songs, 8th October 2006

It was an interesting Twenty this week but a good one, definitely. More than usual we kept track of the songs we were listening to throughout the week and that gives us a bit more variety than we usually get in the twenty, with songs from the past year rather than just the past week cropping up. Plus a couple we've been waiting for for ages..

Kicking off with Buffseeds and Who Stole The Weekend, which is as old as it gets for us. Apparently Buffseeds are now IKO but it's a similar path they tread. Have you ever read one of our write ups for a song we don't like where we say "this is probably someone somewhere's favourite song", Buffseeds write those sort of songs for us. Simple, not massively adventurous but just delightful and elegant and somehow perfectly weighted for our ears. No revolutionary but right up our alley, what more can we say. We chose Who Stole The Weekend this week instead of the more delicately plaintive Coward because we've just figured out, after about two years, what the chorus is. Ha. Soppy as hell but cute, eh.

a minute with you is better than a year with myself..

Next up is The Horrors who, I am assured, would definitely get it, and their party-in-a-morgue anthem Death At The Chapel which we quite enjoy, after a while. Their current song hasn't grown on us yet but then it took a while for Death At The Chapel to so, we'll leave it for now. Then we have the infinitely more artfilled The Rapture and possibly our favourite anthem of theirs, Out Of The Races And Onto The Tracks, which combines out their awkward post punk with a disco sensibility and sing-a-long chorus. Okay, House Of Jealous Lovers is better but it's not as arty so, nyah. Neither is Listen Up! but we've been listening to it more this week and it's possibly the song, if any, that'll get us liking Gossip after years of dismissing them. Slinky and soulful and like acoustic Basement Jaxx trying to impress Giles Peterson. Comedown disco of some description.

The current single from Sound Team, No More Birthdays, sounds just like TV On The Radio, a band we're only just considering liking after ages of dismissing them as being too plasticky. Still, this booming post artrock affair is far from plastic and more likely to swallow your pets whole, which is good. Unlike Pernice Brothers who annoyed us slightly this week by being overly precious about their music, and whose pretty little pop ditties wouldn't eat anyone. This track, Microscopic View, is delightful in its ability to float and pirouette through yor room - good job we don't judge music on its creators, eh.

A bit of a random choice next, William's Five Minute Wonder is a song we don't love start to finish but has a little hook bit that we're very partial too. From the Tough Love label and a little chuggy post punk affair which strays in places too close to garage rock but brings is all back with that but she wants me on fire, oH no Oh no!. Hey! After which we've got the infinitely more solid The Playwrights and Why We've Become Invisible, a band that grew on us over time after their music proved too much to digest all at once we don't think we've even reach the centre of their dense tentacle strewn indie rock even yet. Unlike Tunng who we reckon we've got the measure of. Don't take that as a criticisim, though, as the likes of Bodies is so heavenly we can still have their songs creep up on us like a loved one in the night, wrap warm hands around our eyes and breathe "guess who" into our ears and not have it be anything other than spirit lifting after a long day. Mmmmm.

Now. We're not saying Gay Against You are the anti-Tunng but their music is more like your lover repeatedly kicking you in the stomach with big rubber wellies. In the best way possible. We've been courting them for ages and we finally bought their album and what a joy it is. Bleeping, raging, madcap and pretentious as you like. It's pisstake sensibility does grate on a few songs and occasionally it's cheap and tinny but when it's good, like TeleRAD, it's like drill 'n' bass raping a fruit machine. To be fair Hot Chip are a lot more subdued but then as much as Gay Against You are exciting songs like Arrest Yourself and the whole The Warning album is just dripping with sweet intricacies and moments of genius. Different, sure, but better, ultimately.

Our other nwlx band of the moment is Cutting Pink With Knives whose impenetrable destructive noise vs the-screamy-bit-in-an-emo-song racket is harder to write off as all front and no trousers. This song, We Are The 18th Largest Town In England stands out because it cuts entirely out of its usual raa riot and gives us a bit of slinky disco screamo which, surely, is a bastard genre if ever we heard one. Thankfully Fujiya & Miyagi fuse much less antithetic styles with their consistantly beautiful music, in this case the gorgeous Collarbone which features the mildly nonsensical lyric got to get a new pair of shoes to kick it with her, not kick it with you. Though if all that gets too smoooootth jazzzz for you, get your battering ram around Milanese, a dubstepish artist who isn't afraid to drop the dub and just give us some whiplash from time to time, something perhaps the likes of Boxcutter and Pinch are missing. The whole album is full of crunchy, blistered moments like this, albeit Sight Beyond Sight, included this week, is a bit more stretched out and complete overall.

Back into the art wave world and the angry Hot Club de Paris of Dananananaykroyd give us their poppy cum messy post anglepop effort, which goes from twisty, satisfying indie into more charged, biting bits towards the midsection. All good noise. More smooth than that are Junior Boys and their softly softly eighties via nu now melancholy pop treats, in this case The Equalizer (Morgan Geist Graphic Remix), which we chose over the almost equally good original cuz of the cool little sped up vocal bits. Wonderful album, by the way.

Also wonderful is the Tired Irie single Like. Gentle. Men., on the also pretty damn good Try Harder label. Downtempo post hardcore with one of those always fun sing-a-long sections in the middle and wandering, multifaceted instrumental bits either side of it. Superb. Not as flat out in your face, however, as Triple Schipol, our favourite Gay Against You song, which throws itself between out of tunes bleeps - if such a thing were possible - interjecting bits of noise and drum attack, frenzied vocals, washy synths and acid lines of bass, with a big hip hop beat midsection. Watch out for that kitchen sink.

What more is there to say about Atlantis To Interzone or, indeed, the Klaxons in general. We saw them live earlier this week and managed to have a bit of a chat to them too which was cool. Their live show was incredible because, they played however many songs, only a few of which we knew and yet, despite their claims of having short attention spans and, indeed, for the different styles on display, every one sounded like a song you'd known for ages. The instant appeal of the songs they manage to pen is absolutely top drawer. However none of them are quite as big as Atlantis To Interzone, which'll have yer 'ead off.

Which brings us to our number one for the week, all minute and five second of I ♥ Structuralists by Cutting Pink With Knives. It's loud, it's abrasive, it's got swearing in it and it's absolutely immense. You can't really dance to it as maybe go looting and you can't really nod your head and agree with it as much as be pinned to a wall by the marauding relentlessness of the machine gun drum attacks and incessant screaming. Y'know how we don't like Enter Shikari, well we don't like them because their an average hardcore band who underpin their songs with average nineties synth dance and get called new rave cuz, well, it's dance music and rock music, right? Problem is, the two are both average and they're not linked in any way, might as well be two separate bands in two separate rooms. Cutting Pink on the other hand have the two disperate starting points and link them so they're so integral that you'd barely bother to mention them separately. The synth and electronics are just part of the music and, moreover, they're not cheapy little rip offs of another genre, just another instrument in the mix. Superb stuff. A little painful to listen to perhaps but hey, that's just another compliment to add to the mix.

Tags: cutting pink with knives, dananananaykroyd, fujiya & miyagi, gay against you, hot chip, junior boys, klaxons, milanese, morgan geist, tired irie, twenty songs
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: IKO. Cinema.

Twenty Songs, 21st May 2006

Great. Windows Media Player has just hung on me, meaning I can't actually listen to any of the songs while talking about them. Well, no, I can, except I can only listen to the number one in the chart which is a bit pointless since I tend to go from bottom to top. However, it is a good, well compiled chart this week so I'm sure I'll manage.

It was a well contested chart as well, not least because the artists that were in there all wanted to contribute three and four times, the limiting to two was purely so that I could fit more than five artists on. Starting with Thee More Shallows, who cropped up on the Public Service Broadcast album and are here with the lead track of an EP of theirs we picked up, randomly, in HMV. An interesting song which has definitely grown on me. Bearsuit are next up, possibly because this week we re-wrote the Team Ping Pong review, definitely because they're just ace.

Zongamin is also here because we've been listening to his album a lot, wondering where he is while his remixes keep coming. The Aliens' Robot Man was reviewed this week and has just the greatest video of nonsense ever while Infinite Livez's White Wee Wee is just clearly nonsense. Genuinely, an ode to ejacule, it is actually really good, which is part of the dichotomy of Mr Livez in general. As part of our Aphex Twin dedication this week Squarepusher's awesome let the bass kick moment Come On My Selector crops up lower down although we could've included a couple from Big Loada to be fair. The Fratellis indiefy things again and are still in the chart for no reason other than association, but it is a fun songs so I'll let it by.

From this point we start the duplication in earnest. Mystery Jets are at both twelve and nine with remixes by Vicarious Joy and Justice respectively. Justice's remix is a lovely little thing but took us a bit of time to get into, Vicarious Joy's is a much more immediate fix though still riotous. This Et Al are the next solo entry, with Sabbatical still riding high and, erm, out tomorrow folks. Don't forget it.

That's it for the rest of the chart. Everyone else in the top eleven also appears in the top five. In the top five, then, we find, all alone, Tunng with yet another remix. This time its the fantastic Vive Voca remix of Woodcat, all liquid guitar and brass section, adding oomph to a single that sounds awfully like an album track.

Into the top four and the second appearance of Hampshire's Elle Milano with their breakthrough song, Swearing's For Art Students, an incedinary little number that brims with potential. Lower down they also contributed Men Are Bastards, although it is only really these two tracks on the EP that really make a statement. A hot prospect but certainly one that need a little longer in the oven.

AFX, aka Richard D James, aka Caustic Window, aka Aphex Twin etc etc also makes his second appearance on the chart with Reunion 2, one of the many stunning acid tinged breakbeat tracks on the Chosen Lords album. It is coupled, lower down, with Mt. Saint Michel Mix+St. Micheals Mount, the wonderfully unhinged - in name and sound - spastic drum 'n' bass number from the infinitely more hit and miss LP Druqks.

Into the top two and it was a hard choice. Fujiya & Miyagi's album was the more overall life affirming of the two big names this week (both starting with F, both featuring punctuation - how rare) but the standout track of the week belonged elsewhere. However, Fujiya contributed the more tracks to the chart, with Photocopier, Ankle Injuries and Sucker Punch all in the top ten. Sucker Punch won out due to being the more instant of the tracks but even with the tempo and timbe turned down Fujiya are still a potent force.

Which leaves the second contribution this week from the mighty ¡Forward, Russia! at the top. Sixteen is a perfect example of what they do best. Experimental and leftfield song structure and idyiosyncratic lyrical content married perfectly to a song you can sing along to. Lower down they also gave us Thirteen, partly in as a show of good faith - as much as the version of Thirteen on Give Me A Wall was the real disappointment of the album it should also be noted it is still, even if that guise, a fantastic track - but mostly because, well, it's a fantastic track. To be honest, it's an album of towering greatness but one that shows frailties in the ¡Forward, Russia! sound that mean, in theory, they'll just get better. To be honest, that perhaps makes it even more special. Watch that space.

Tags: afx, aphex twin, elle milano, fujiya & miyagi, mystery jets, this et al, tunng, twenty songs, ¡forward russia!
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: Hood. End Of One Train Working.

I'm renaming today ¡Forward & Miyagi! Day in honour of these two albums. The Fujiya one is pure beauty and I'm only on track four. The only disappointment is that Conductor 71 - my least favourite Fujiya track - is on here, and that's not a disappointment because I knew it would be and it's a good track. Just, not my favourite of theirs (bit interlude-y for a four minute song for me). The ¡Forward, Russia! album is growing on me in my head already, especially because it actually loops (track 11 runs into track 1 (if you clip off the last second of it, dunno what happened there). Otherwise, I can't wait to play it again.

So. Two artists I've been waiting for new albums (or debut albums at least) from for absolutely ages both fess up the goods on the same day and are both a pure joy to listen to. How often can I say that? Indeed. Give Me A Transparent Thing.

Tags: fujiya & miyagi, give me a wall, transparent things, ¡forward russia!
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: Fujiya & Miyagi. Transparent Things.

The good news is that I finally got something for your mum on the open market and managed to claw together the ¡Forward, Russia! and Fujiya & Miyagi albums. I'm on track eleven of Give Me A Wall now, funnily enough called Eleven. Strangely, given that the band theoretically name songs after the order in which they were written, that Eleven should follow on directly from Fifteen pt II.

Transparent Things, Fujiya's album, is up next but in the meantime my reaction to Give Me A Wall is mixed. Strangely - and stupidly - I can tell the extent to which the songs of ¡Russia!'s which we previously owned here in Unlixesham have been re-recorded. Thirteen, for example, just seems to have been stripped of all bite. If I'd heard it for the first time I may have just loved it but I know it can sound better. Problem is, Thirteen is the first song on the album and as such it deflates you immediately. Once I've got over that and into the album I may love it again, the way I would've if, for example, Sixteen was first. I think it was Sixteen anyway. There is a track in here where the count off to tens, it's just crazy timing. It's tracks like that that remind me why I cut off my hand to buy this album in the first place.

Fingers crossed for similar warm feelings, from the outset this time, from Fujiya's LP.

Oh, I also bought the new singles by The Sunshine Underground and Zero 7. The Zero 7 single was dull and The Sunshine Underground one was a little impaired. It was okay it just could've been a lot, lot better plus it had dull b-sides. Oh well. Heroes and associates, that's what life is made of.

Tags: fujiya & miyagi, singles day at hmv, the sunshine underground, zero 7, ¡forward russia!
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: ¡Forward, Russia!. Eleven.

Twenty Songs, 14th May 2006

I am genuinely less than impressed with how high the percent of indie music is in my charts at the moment. I blame a lack of money and the difficulty in finding leftfield and grime in convenient sources at decent prices. Mostly, though, to be honest, it's just the lack of money. How disappointing. However, don't let that detract from the Twenty. It was another difficult to compile list for all the right reasons.

I wanted to put a Zongamin song in and here we get his remix of Mystery Jet's Zoo Time. It's not his best remix being more subtle than anything but the Japanese Londoner is just so damn good behind the controls it's not really our place to judge. Our version of Brakes' All Night Disco Party seems ridiculously short but it gets the main bits in. It's a pretty repetitive song really but when you see the video and the looks on the kids faces as it plays you realise, it really just an all night disco party and - other than being short - does exactly what it says on the tin.

GoodBooks' Second Edition remix of Kalev's Cutting at Nothing is a fine example of their creative prowess albeit in a much more electronic direction than we were expecting. Certainly, it piques our interest even more in a band we already were pretty squarely sold on. Justice are in the chart this week too, with Waters Of Nazareth. Like many second releases it's easy to compare it to their Simian remix but it isn't, this is a much more hardcore affair and frankly, we're grateful for that. Ex Models pop up yet again with that infectiously arrhythmic Sex Automata, one of the oldest songs still to get such regular chart action. Set On You by The Acutes is next up and is the type of song so equally admirable and loveable that you just know they couldn't possibly fill an album with the like. Still, it'd be interesting to find out, maybe we should get onto that.

At the top of the bottom half of the chart are The Fratellis with their Kids Love It ragtime number Creeping Up The Backstairs, here because it's fun but mostly because it's a personal shared favourite of my dancing partner and me. You gotta shake your hands like a cat on a hot tin roof, y'all.

Into the top ten now and Battles appear with their second showing. Last week we listened to a lot of Battles (not Battle or The Battles (?), mind) and my word is that double EP collection a marvelous thing. TRAS was earlier in the chart and the bleep-tastic HI/LO is the higher placing. The way with composition in those tracks is why it hurts me so to not get more leftfield music on a more regular basis. I swear, TRAS is in, like 9/4 timing or something. Like, actually.

Elle Milano's Swearing Is For Art Students comes next and is from their EP of the same name. Definitely the best song on it and while it's grown on us over the past week it's not the best of current wave. However we get the feeling Elle Milano could be so we're keeping our ear to them. Boxcutter, then, is knocking on the door of the top five with the stunning Rikta, that instrumental downtempo grime we were all talking about. This particular dubstep beauty sounds to us a lot like a Dizzee Rascal song and that's no bad thing because, frankly, we love Dizzee too.

Top five, then, and as always tough tough to call. O Fracas keep their high placing with the still fascinating Follow Sue which we almost dismissed on first hearing but gets better each play. It's only by keeping the standard this ridiculously high that indie's been keeping me away from my home genre and if O Fracas keep their song structure so complex every one of their songs can expect the same attention. Everyone's favourite (or so they should be) Fujiya & Miyagi are next, after appearing lower down with King Holer they sit on the higher rungs with Diagrams the deadpan ode to skinny white rudeboys and gangsta poses behind immaculate Ikea furniture. Lovely.

Into the top three and Fuck-Off Machete swap Copper And Lead Fight for the equally elemental If Gold Was Silver And Silver Was Gold. In a week that's been heavy on time signatures and composition it was always gonna be the case that Fuck-Off got up top like this, not just because the time signature is awkward (anyone know what it is?) but because it manages to be awkward while still being jerky and poppy and off-centre. It gives everyone else an uphill struggle straight away. One by ¡Forward, Russia!, however, steps right up to the bat with its 5/4 time signature, which we still love for being such a lynchpin of the song and yet still, again, being so wonderfully accessible.

Finally, then, if we're talking about composition, accessibility, structure and generally being wonderful, hey look, it's This Et Al with their latest single Sabbatical. I expect to see a queue for the last copy when this is released next week people. It sweep and yearns like your favourites, like the best of Radiohead but roughed up, like British Sea Power but less old boy. This isn't even their best single. This isn't even in their top five songs. We checked and this is only their second number one since No, Really's inception and yet I'm pretty sure I've typed their name more than perhaps anyone else. Indeed, this week alone it's not just Sabbatical in there but the b-side, and unsurprisingly awesome, Solemn As My Rifle both not just in the chart, but in the top ten. Sheer class.

They are also this week's recommended band so if you're quick you might be able to download a copy of one of their songs from the recommended section of No, Really too.

Tags: battles, boxcutter, elle milano, fuck-off machete, fujiya & miyagi, o fracas, this et al, twenty songs, ¡forward russia!
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: Elle Milano. Swearing's For Art Students.

So anyway, I'm crying today because I can't afford the two albums I've been waiting longest for of the current batch. Yes folks, Give Me The Wall and Transparent Things by ¡Forward, Russia! and Fujiya & Miyagi respectively, are out today and I have returned home with categorically neither. It's pretty heartbreaking stuff and I'm just having to suffer it. I don't know what to say.

Tags: fujiya & miyagi, singles day at hmv, ¡forward russia!
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: Moloko. Or See.

Twenty Songs, 7th May 2006

A good week this week. What makes Twenty Songs difficult is that we listen to loads of music but with a random playlist you might hear something you love then not hear it again all week. Which is why it's usually only new stuff that gets in. This week, though, our music listening has been pretty concentrated. A few bursts here and there and then a long stint making a compilation tape for a friend's car. So. It's a pretty mixed bag. Which is good, right? Exactly.

Randomly, during the week, we caught the tail end of Kano's Backing My Boy and thought, yeah, we like Kano, we're putting that on. That whole album is still a superb one and well worth getting. Tall Blonde is one of the picks from the compilation tape with the Jungle Book cover Swingers (Original) and also an interesting inclusion as we've just got another of his songs from an Output sampler. Not his best work but then, his best work is Don't Stop and very little by anybody touches that. Autolux were also on that compilation with Turnstyle Blues, a bit of contraversion choice for a driving tape but oh well. It's a great song. We forgot that for a week because we'd overplayed the album while reviewing it, a mistake we won't make again.

Data Panik's Cubis (I Love You) would surely win an award for most appearances so long after release if that hadn't already been won by Sticky's All I Wanna Do, which has been banned from the chart for appearing there almost every week without fail. Disastronaut, similarly, continues to keep our pants wet with the sumptuous less in basslines that is Kick My Teeth Out. Both of these, plus The Diary Fire by Half Cousin, The Fabrics' Bingo, Zongamin's Spiral and Jolly Music's Crociera, were all on the tape. Where are the now, though, that's what I want to know. Disastronaut's album we must admit we got a promo to and never followed up on. Disastronaut has a very hectic release schedule and has a lot of different, mildly confusing guises, including a schlock rock air guitar band, I believe.

Half Cousin, The Fabrics, Zongamin and Jolly Music however we adore. I have a feeling Jolly Music have spit up which is the type of black armband day in music that will probably never get the recognition it deserves because the album didn't. Thank heavens for Sleazenation eh, otherwise I might never have found them either and that would've been a true tragedy. Zongamin I've no idea about but I have just got a Mystery Jets 10" which features a remix of Zoo Time by him, so that's better than nothing. The Fabrics and Half Cousin, really, have no such excuses and should just bloody well get on with it.

Field Music mark our entry into the top ten and it's with 17, one of immediate favourites of the non-single tracks on their debut album. Which, as we keep apologising about, we've only just bought. Still, I can imagine many more appearances for them over the coming weeks. O Fracas are the next highest placers and do so on the back of Follow Sue. Admittedly it's not as good as Zeroes And Ones but again, what is. None of the new music in this chart is as good as Zeroes And Ones, it's just a perfect song. Follow Sue however is definitely in the same class, which says it all. Fujiya & Miyagi's last single In One Ear & Out The Other is next up and is the final chart entry for a song featured on the tape. It ranks so high because it's so good and because we've just found out Fujiya, one of our favourite bands, like, ever, is on the verge of releasing a new album. Gosh.

Into the top ten and we start with The Longcut's best song to date A Quiet Life. Arguably not their most accomplished piece of music but definitely the most memorable and performed with aplomb last night when we saw them live. Middlesbrough's own The Oxford Glamour Models are the surprise entry at four but with lines like those on display in Kick Out The Grams they were bound to get some chart placing. However it's the interweaving mess of guitar noise and riffage that really has us sold. Hopefully that's how they sound all the time, cuz I'm pretty sure we're going to see them live soon too.

The top three looks very familar. This Et Al have absolutely peppered this week's chart, placing three times. Sabbatical is their most recent release, being their next single and due to hit HMV on 22nd May. It's a slower and less direct number than perhaps some others but they do it so well you can't help but flick through theasauruses for words of praise. Mother Was A Vulture you know becuase it's, like, our favourite song or something. Solemn As My Rifle is the b-side to Sabbatical and ups the pace with skyscraping guitars in back and punchy, uppercut riffs up front. ¡Forward, Russia! are next with the re-released, re-recorded Nine. Which we enjoy almost as much as the original Nine, except they pronounce some of the words differently and some of the guitar inflections have changed. Which, obviously, is something we can get over. This is their second placing after One appeared lower down. We love that song although it took a little while to get into. It's just frantic and all over the place. Our favourite part is the fact that it counts out the time signature at the beginning. one two three four five (one) one two three four five (two) one two three four five (three) one two three four five (four!). Hah.

Finally, then, topping the chart after coming second to GoodBooks three weeks ago, Fuck-Off Machete and the superb Copper And Lead Fight, which is a deliciously haphazard affair. As I've said before they're a lot like old favourites Life Without Buildings but more direct and with better, more coherent choruses. Life Without Buildings were always a little ill defined and slow paced for us but hooked us in with those sublime vocal and lyrical stylings. Copper And Lead Fight we already knew we loved but getting both Fuck-Off Machete singles today leads us to believe me may have found another band to hold close to our hearts. They do a cover of that lets get physical, physical, i wanna get, physical song, too. It's awesome.

Tags: field music, fuck-off machete, fujiya & miyagi, o fracas, the longcut, the oxford glamour models, this et al, twenty songs, ¡forward russia!
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: Thee More Shallows. I Can't Get Next To You.

Things that make me scream like a little girl. Pain, finding out that something I like to wear is ripped or irreversably stained, news that Fujiya & Miyagi have a new album out.

Oh my word.

Good fucking grief.

Fujiya & Miyagi are one of those bands so good that I never play their music and never include it on my portable playlists because I don't want them to be overplayed. The sense of wonder I get when I listen to Electro Kareoke In The Negative Style is what drives things like this journal and the No, Really site. It's just so good, so clearly inspired, so unidirectional. It's glitchy and funky and fun and serious and downtempo and poppy and avant and I just salivate. It has everything. It's one of those albums that, if I sat down and listened to it would just take over the entire of Twenty Songs for that week. If I just listened to it once. It takes a Mezzanine or, uh, I don't even know. A damn good album, to compete with it. It has lyrics and beats and melodies and choruses and angles and skinny ties and, mmmmm. It's just a wet dream and they're releasing a follow up! A mere FOUR YEARS later.

You see, again, I listen to music like this and think. I can listen to nice music by nice bands all day but it's like walking on the spot. It takes music like this to actually get you anywhere.

And they're back! Who knew I'd actually find a use for MySpace after all. Just this bit of information totally justifies the entry fee (i.e. it existing).

Tags: fujiya & miyagi
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: Fujiya & Miyagi. Skinny Punk.

I've done that thing that selects some of your interests and makes you write about them. Dunno why since that's all this journal is but I guess it kinda forces you to talk about someone you might otherwise not bother with. Hi there Shystie, Phi-Life. Long time no appear on these pages.

1. blur:
   Who doesn't like Blur. Lots of people, and understandably. They're shit these days and they were a relatively acquired taste even back then. They remain on my interests list, though, because Blur, the album, got me into music I think. It was my first indie album, probably a year after it was first released and while I bought it for Song 2 I loved it for Death Of A Party. That's what I wanted. Songs that softly but surely decayed from the inside. That's what I wanted all along but I never knew it.
2. data panik:
   Data Panik are what everyone always says Bis were. Sculptors of music that is fine and well crafted, imaginative and intricate but ultimately just top-volume dancefloorparty crazytime. I'm sure there are subtleties to the two Data Panik songs I own (two of four that seem to exist) and if I sit and listen to them I can hear it but. The genius, really, is that when you listen to them you don't really want to sit at all.
3. fujiya & miyagi:
   I'm glad these guys got chosen because they're probably my most longstanding un-underlined band and they are one of my all-time favourites. I don't really need to talk any more about them because they've already had numerous column inches here but needles to say, yes yes yes. Please release a new album.
4. kano:
   K to the izzay, N to the izzo. Everyone's favourite Grime pretty bwoy himself, beholden of some of the finest, most comprehensively complete anthems the scene's produced. None of this stupid eight bar nonsense wherein some two bit MC who's only ever written sixteen bars in his life anyway rhymes the same word four times then "run again"s it. These were songs. Admittedly the album's a bit less street than I'd like in places but the street is still there.
5. mobb deep:
   I only own three Mobb Deep songs but they're three of the best I own. Quiet Storm, Burn (The Learning) and Got It Twisted. These songs spit venom on every line and even if they're not the best MCs in the business with those beats and that menace they're possibly the closest US Hip Hop gets to geniunely creeping up on your innocence and taking that shit.
6. phi-life cypher:
   Phi Life Phi Life, still on here because it's hard to take them off, really. Although I will pretty soon. Their album, the one that I own, Millenium Metaphors, is a showcase of lyrical dexteritory. ABC and BBC are two fantastic tunes but the boys are just a little off beat and a little too hypocritical for my liking. They talk about drugs being bad then talk about the problems with not being allowed to smoke weed. Conscious hip hop that's good but, still, a bit pious.
7. shystie:
   Wow. Who knew my list was so heavy on the urrrban, mate, urrrbaan. Shystie's okay. Frankly, she's in this list cuz I like her voice and because Armshouse is one of my all time favourite Grime tunes. The rest of her album fits and starts and only really gets off the ground in places. Again, a bit too sentimental. Ron E Red Eyes is the real star of it. Maybe I'll put him on the list instead.
8. the boxer rebellion:
   I like The Boxer Rebellion. Even if they are on Poptones and have had a mp3 only single, their music is good. From the single In Pursuit, my first encounter with them, I was expecting a little more searing music from the album but The New Heavy and Watermelon, from their debut and two tracks that did make it onto the album, they also show a more direct, brutal side. Both work well. Good band. Not one you'd pin the hopes of the human race on but not one I'm gonna criticise here.
9. the streets:
   The Streets. The oft pluralised Mike Skinner and occasionally his mates Leo The Lion or Kevin Mark Trail, but The Streets is Mike Skinner, the Brixton born, Birmingham raised, Brixton based wideboy of Blinded By The Lights fame. Not the most talented MC, not the most consistently good producer but someone who can take risks and when he comes up trumps can really, really give up the goods.
10. ¡forward, russia!:
    Aaah. Excellent. ¡Forward, Russia!. I've supposed to be singing their praises. I got their single, Thirteen/Fourteen, and my word it's an absolute belter. Exactly why Leeds is back on the map. It's edgy and barely compromised, it's entirely unalienating without being a pop song and it's caustic and it's interesting and different without forgetting the audience. Roll on an album.

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Tags: blur, data panik, fujiya & miyagi, kano, mobb deep, phi-life cypher, shystie, the boxer rebellion, the streets, ¡forward russia!
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: ¡Forward, Russia!. Thirteen.

Coming atcha now two days late (I've been unwell, leave me alone), here are a few records I've considered worthy of a spin or two. Audioscrobbler has been pretty unrepresentative lately of my actual listening habits so I'd better redress.

Top Twenty. 070805.

  · Unorthodox Family  No Help No Handouts
  · Fujiya & Miyagi  In One Ear & Out The Other
  · Amerie  1 Thing (Sticky UKG Refix)
  · JME  Serious (Run The Road Remix)
  · Ciara  Oh
  · Editors  Bullets
  · Lil Jon & The Eastdie Boyz  Get Low (Remix)
  · Audiobullys  Shot You Down
  · Dr Dre  Bad Intentions
  · Fujiya & Miyagi  Conductor 71
  · Idiot Pilot  Spark Plug
  · Data Panik  Cubis (I Love You)
  · Damian Marley  Welcome To Jamrock
  · Bloc Party  The Pioneers (Junng Remix)
  · The Game  Dreams
  · Editors  Munich
  · Einóma  Á floti
  · Alterkicks  Do Everything I Taught You
  · Test Icicles  Boa Vs Python
  · Sticky  All I Wanna Do

Tags: amerie, fujiya & miyagi, top twenty songs, unorthodox family
Current Mood: Fine.
Current Music: Louis Armstrong. We Have All The Time In The World.