Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Raincoats, girl drummers, life 2.0

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I love girl drummers, espeically the ladies from ESG, Kleenex/Liliput, the Raincoats. These are my girls. They keep their drumming simple and sparse, rarely riding any noisy cymbals, rarely cluttering things up with overly-complicated and show-offy fills, never bound to the standard repertoire of mainstream manly drumming convention.

Palmolive from the raincoats is a perfect example - totally creative, totally crafty and homespun in feeling. The Raincoats remind me a bit of Delta 5, especially the staggered stiff vocal harmonies, but their sound is decidedly less muscular and polished. From their self-titled debut (1980):

The Raincoats - Adventures Close to Home
The Raincoats - No Side to Fall In

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

the moves moves makes me nervous

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Sometimes no wave has too much no and not enough wave. For example, I prefer the more accessible work of James Chance to the noisy mess of DNA. It's probably better to assume that most no wave acts did it all, not restricting themselves to one style or genre or "wave," but rather producing accessible pleasant work as well as noisy challenging feedback puke - that breadth of output is what makes them no wave - but I still tend to put no wave groups into one of those two boxes.

I always thought Lydia Lunch belonged more to the DNA camp, full of noisy scary things, but "Lazy in Love"from her group 8-Eyed Spy had me thinking otherwise - until I listened to the rest of the album and some live stuff. Don't let the polished, tight, melodic bliss of this song fool you, the rest of the stuff is pure no wave abrasion. Obviously she's a woman of many talents.

8-Eyed Spy - Lazy in Love
8-Eyed Spy - Diddy Wah Diddy (Captain Beefheart cover)

Bonerus:

Awesome free no-wave mix + annotated tracklisting from the Optimo guys, and

Awesome no wave photo archive!!!

Monday, October 02, 2006

The Importance of Being Synthetic

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Daniel Miller is best-known for his behind-the-scenes work as producer for early-period Depeche Mode, as well as his role as founder of experimental/industrial label Mute -- but he also released some excellent material as an artist in his own right.

As "The Normal,"  Miller used the sharp and piercing sounds of early electronic instruments to full effect on 1978's "Warm Leatherette," a futuristic noire whiplash inspired by J.G. Ballard's car-crash-fetish novel Crash. You've all heard the song - it's been covered by everyone and their mother (Grace Jones, Chicks on Speed, Vitalic etc). Here's the original.

The Normal - Warm Leatherette

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Somewhat more obscure is his subsequent work as Silicon Teens, a completely fabricated group that he invented to take responsibility for Music for Parties, an album of electronic versions of 50's and 60's rock tunes. The covers are cutesy and fun, but the best tracks from the album are the three original songs - including this one with vocals by one-time Depeche Mode tour-manager Daryl Bamonte

Silicon Teens - Sun Flight

Bonus - video for Silicon Teens' version of "Memphis Tennesse"