Mogwai - Friday Night Part 3

And so we finally come to the headliners - Mogwai. Pretty much veterans of the post rock scene now, this year saw a tenth anniversary of their debut album, Young Team. Despite their age they can still cut it live as they proved in a close to two hour set that included a healthy sprinkling of early favourites from Young Team and Ten Rapid amongst more recent material. I've always preferred the full on LOUD stuff over some of the quieter material and for me things really kicked off with Friend of the Night, the lead single from Mr Beast, the last-but-one album. Other highlights included Scotlands Shame, one of the best tracks on the new album.

The set closed in spectacular fashion with Like Herod being followed by Batcat. The latter was a trully brutal experience with thunderous bass and a punishing light show.



The worry with instrumental music is whether it can hold the attention for 2 hours - well Mogwai managed that, and I doubt there would have been any complaints if they had played for another 2. Just a word on the encore as well - Helicon 1!!! Excellent.

F*** Buttons - Friday Night Part Two

After the excellent Errors came more bleepy goodness in the form of F*** Buttons. If you're not in the know then check out this year's album, Street Horrrsing. They make what I guess you could call electronic post-rock (post-dance?) conjuring drones, bleeps and beats out of cheap synths and childrens toys. Or to put it another way, this is the band you want to see if you like gameboy solos. This was my first time seeing them, and like many of the beardy post-rock types present if I wasn't exactly dancing then I was definitely nodding my head...

From the Edinburgh gig:


And this is from a gig in Florida:

Errors - Friday Night Part 1

Friday's gig was immense, all three bands were on top form. I'm planning to deal with all three separately so bare with me...



Errors were on first. I think I mentioned previously that they were one of the highlights of this year's Latitude where they headlined the Lake Stage. Since then they seem to have tightened up, and moving indoors for this show gave them the acoustics to project the muscular nature of their set. Musically they resemble Hot Chip on steroids, and probably provide the missing link between post rock and techno or IDM. Although they only have released one album to date (the excellent It's not something but it is like whatever) some of their best stuff can be found on the singles and EPs put out on Mogwai's Rock Action label. One such set highlight is the closer, Mr Milk which was taken from the EP "How Clean is Your Acid House". Other songs to hit home were National Prism and next(last?) single Pump.

Anyway here's some footage of them from Latitude (couldn't find any from Friday) doing the excellent Mr Milk.

Soul on Sunday - Breaking Up Somebody's Home / Ann Peebles

Another Hi Records Alumni, Ann Peebles was the only female singer to record for the label. Her bluesy style won her many fans and resulted in a clutch of successful singles, the best known of which is "I can't stand the rain" (later covered by Tina Turner) which was reputed to be one of John Lennon's favourite tracks. Like many soul singers in the 70s, her style fell out of favour with the rise of disco, however she kept singing and enjoyed something of a renaissance in the late 80s. Amazingly she is still recording, and released a new album in 2006.

This song is from her early 70s hayday, and is a tale of a woman wronged and plotting her revenge.

On a rainy night like this:


Recommended:
The Complete Ann Peebles on Hi Vol.1:1969-73

Tonight...

...I'm back on the gigs again after a break for a month or two. It's back with a bang as not only am I seeing one of my favourite bands - Mogwai - the support is pretty excellent as well. On first are Errors who were one of my highlights from this year's Latitude. Then it's F*** Buttons whose Street Horrrsing album is excellent. Can't wait!

Soul on Sunday - I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) / The Four Tops

Just one contender for Soul on Sunday this week following the sad death of Levi Stubbs. The Four Tops tend to be overlooked when people are considering the Motown story these days, however their contribution should not be underestimated. Their work with the Holland-Dozier-Holland hit producing team in particular gave us a string of hit singles the equal of anything else on the label: Reach Out I'll be there, Standing In the Shadows of Love, Bernadette, the list goes on. I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) is one of the more dancefloor friendly singles they released, in 1965 and was a bona fide hit, reaching number 1 in the pop and R&B charts.

You know that I Love you:


Something I only learned when reading this week's obits was that Levi Stubbs did the voice of the plant in little shop of horrors...


Recommended:
The Ultimate Collection

A Football Post

When my team loses, I have a tendency to come home and put Daydream Nation on at full blast. This is pretty much the last vestiges of teenage angst to be found round these parts.

They lost today.

Soul on Sunday - Angel Baby (Don't You Ever Leave Me) / Darrell Banks

Easy choice for this week's "Soul on Sunday" as this album arrived on Wednesday, and has hardly left my stereo since.

One of a long list of contenders for the title of "Best Soul Singer You've Never Heard Of", he had the misfortune to be one of the few Detroit-based artists on the Atlantic roster. With his label concentrating it's efforts on it's Memphis and Muscle Shoals acts, ...is here was under-promoted on its release. It did feature one hit single, Open the Door to Your Heart, but both album and subsequent singles were largely ignored. One of the follow-up singles is this one where Banks shows his ability as a singer of up tempo R&B stompers.

Banks went on to release a second album, this time on Stax (the album, Darell is here to stay, is currently unavailable), however shortly after he was killed by an off duty policeman after an argument over a girl.

Girl, you are my sunshine:


Buy this:
Darrell Banks is Here
(Note: You don't need to pay Amazon's £14+ price, several of the Amazon marketplace types have it for under 6 quid - money well spent)

Firstborn - Mood Club

It's Friday night, so here's a tune from perhaps the Friday night film, Human Traffic.

Have a good one..

A-Ha Take On Me

For those of you that don't remember the 80s (which seems like 90% of the people on the internet these days!), A-Ha were Norwegian before it was cool to be Norwegian (2011 - you mark my words). There 1985 single, "Take on Me" featured a, for the time, groundbreaking video. Some clever so-and-so has taken it upon themselves to re-word the song to match...

Shara Nelson - Friendly Fires

I just upgraded my cassette copy of this album to CD. Shara Nelson is, of course, best know for her vocals on one of the greatest songs of all time: Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy.

After parting company with the Bristollian collective, she went solo and Friendly Fire is the second album she released under her own name. It's a little bit more soul than Unfinished Sympathy, but the Massive Attack influence is obvious.

It gave birth to one hit single, Rough With the Smooth.


Her wikipedia page claims another album is on the way.... It would be good to see her get her dues as she was unfortunate to be around at a time when more soulful vocalists like her were often ignored.

Soul on Sunday - Come on Train / Don Thomas

Sometimes it's nice, in this information-saturated age, to not know anything about a song. Don Thomas, the writer and performer of this mid 70s classic seems to have left no trace on the internet. There was a follow up as he continued the theme with "Train Start Movin'", but more than that I have been unable to find out...

All that's left then is the music, and I love the production on this. Horns, strings, that distinctive plucked melody all contribute to backing up Thomas' bluesy wailing. Unsurprisingly for a Soul on Sunday track, it deals with a failed romance, although this time the protagonist still has hopes as he waits for the train to come so he can try and win back his lover.

Got to get my baby back:


Come on Train appears on a number of Northern Soul compilations, I own this one:
Cooler Shakers - 20 Northern Soul Footstompers

Bon Iver vs Lykke Li

I may have mentioned previously how much I like the Bon Iver album... well I still like it. I also like how much they seem to be enjoying themselves - many who have spent the years plugging away might let the success and critical adulation go to their heads but not this lot... Witness this collaboration with Lykke Li on Dance Dance Dance.... That is a band having fun. Amazing.

Brightblack Morning Light / Motion to Rejoin

So the last couple of weeks have been pretty darn amazing for new releases. I've already talked a little about the new Otis Redding whilst I'm sure you don't need me to tell you about the new TV on the Radio or the new Mogwai - you can hardly turn on your interweb access point without reading a review (short review: Mogwai - amazing, TVOTR - quite good).

One new-to-me band with an album out is Brightblack Morning Light. The album in question, their second, is Motion to Rejoin. It's very laid back, perfect for a late night session. The obvious reference point is Spiritualised, only they've stripped away much of the gospel and added in hints of Blues and Americana.

Hologram buffalo:


The album stands up well as a whole; it subtly works it's way into your subconsious before dragging you down into it's carefully woven haze. The lyrics are... well they're definitely there, but they're not for these ears to work out. The publicity on the bands label page suggests the band are heavily in to ecological issues and saving the planet so one might guess they might be themes on the album.