I Really Love Bananas!

Alright, so we're here to write a blog, mostly about music, but much other things are sure to crop up once in while. Hopefully this will be a space for me to vent, enthuse, discuss and otherwise blab aboot whatever shiny object has currently caught my attention. I'm intending this to be read mostly by close friends, acquaintances and/or enemies, so I'll try to keep things reasonably accessible, but really, this is largely a solipsistic endeavor on my part, which means no complaining about big words! The four-letter-word rule is definitely not in effect...This blog is largely an effect of my thesis work not being overly busy right now, and an over-engagement with music criticism, philosophy and politics that currently is currently lacking outlets, so we'll see how this goes.

One of the main things I figure I'll be using this whole monkey blog to do is post mp3s and links to songs that are currently kicking my ass, similar in a way to the emails I sometimes send my bro. So first off, via the all-mighty Woebot (and this partly to see if I can pull of the nifty embedded youtube linky-thing) is some strange Italian italodisco-pop thing from the late 70's. Don't know anything about it beyond that, but I want to point out two things. First, the disco-violin section is obviously awesome, seems up there with the start of Abba's "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" that Stuart Price sampled for "Hung Up" in terms of sheer kick-ass danceability. But what I really like is the warm synth pads that come in at about 15 seconds. It sounds very pre-techno to me, and I always enjoy spotting little precursors to house and techno in pieces of music that pre-date the trend. Give the slow vocal interludes a chance, they'll grow on you too, I swear. That was the second point by the way. Also, as Woebot points out, man has a massive nose!





Hrm, while on the theme of woebot, I might as well point out his imposing 100 best records of all time list, complete with cover scans from his own record library. It has definitely lead to me to some real winners over the last year, especially in terms of krautrock, which I'm just beginning to really appreciate. You wish your taste was this good.

In order to not make my first full post here not just some big fellating of one of my favorite music critics, I'd better post about something I didn't get hipped to from woebot (watch out for upcoming posts on Hot Chip, and "Beatles for Sale"). So then what to do but fall back on my old friend Kompakt, king of modern-day techno labels. For today, we're focusing on Kompakt sublabel Kompakt Extra, whose Speicher series has been laying down the dancefloor-ready burners for a while now. This track by the Rice Twins is a bit atypical for the series, in that it's a much lighter, trancier affair than the usual dark techno speicher is know for releasing. Perfect summer time neo-trance for living the good life in the sun.

The Rice Twins - For Penny and Alexis


Well yes, why don't we post some summertime music, given that it's DAMN HOT outside and the sunshine is just beggin for some sunshinin' music to go along with it. So how about some Aphex Twin? This one, taken off of the tail end of his otherwise quite nasty "Come to Daddy" EP, is just so filled with glorious late-afternoon amber light that I had to rip me an mp3 of it off of my own copy of the EP. Sit back and enjoy some lemonade...

Aphex Twin - IZ-US


And when the sun has set and the streets are still muggy with heat radiating off the sun-baked pavement, put this on and contemplate overheated empty city blocks. Shattered dubstep for urban isolationists...(this shit's been hyped up the wazoo 'round internet way, just in case yer wonderin).

Burial - Gutted




As always, your mileage may vary and the descriptions given may or may not sound anything like what you hear. Don't expect all blog posts to be this epic...just settling into the groove...



So yes. Well. Peace. And welcome.