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Underground > Radio & Music >

A 'What are you listening to?' thread

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00:04 / 17.03.04

My recent listens, among many:

Beach boys - pet sounds...great great great great!!!

Billie Holiday's greatest hits...I like this gal

Palace Music - viva last blues

07:17 / 17.03.04

BB: Yeah, I listened to again the other night and I liked it more. The beats are lovely, I think I enjoyed it when I gave up trying to work out what the fuck he was on about. Though on one track you can understand every lyric, then it's back into incomprehensible world again. One complaint though - and this goes for every Hip Hop album ever - too long. I like albums you can listen to all in one go, but 15 tracks! What's all that about? (and yes, this is just me being weird).

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

08:50 / 17.03.04

See, when it comes to length, I'm all "Bring It On". But that goes for all musical genres. I just like getting my money's worth.

09:09 / 17.03.04

One complaint though - and this goes for every Hip Hop album ever - too long. I like albums you can listen to all in one go, but 15 tracks! What's all that about? (and yes, this is just me being weird).

YES! I thought I was the only one who found hip-hop albums way too long.. I mean, it's about the densest form of music ever and demands a huge amount of concentration from the listener to take it all in, and yet rappers seem to think people will laugh at them or something if their album is anything less than a 18 track/74 minute magnum opus..

..meaning that a)I find most hip-hop albums impossible to listen to all the way through without about 10 cups of coffee and a spare afternoon, and b)hugely talented artists end up diluting their material and knocking out filler tracks due to some perverse need to make a reeaally long album (see about 90% of Wu-Tang related albums).

Keith, like a scientist

13:47 / 17.03.04

got the new Funkstorung 12" "Fat Camp Feva/Disconnected" the other day, and I definitely loving it. Bizarre glitched out electro hip-hopness on the A side featuring Tes, and weird indie folk blues featuring Enik on the AA side. They are going to piss off a lot of IDM people with this album, I think, but going to a more musical focus can only make them more interesting at this point, I say.

Oh yeah, I got this Express Rising CD on Memphix Records, too. The guy is a friend of DJ Shadow and apparently some legend among the crate diggers in SF. Really nice instrumental album, very smooth and pretty.

stephen_seagull

16:12 / 22.03.04

I'm currently loving Scissor Sisters and Franz Ferdinand. They make me smile. They make me dance. They make me want to be a better man. Or something like that.

And I really want to see Scissor Sisters at the Wedgwood Rooms on 30th March. But I'm scared. I'm poor. And I'm very, very unfortunate.

19:49 / 22.03.04

Phoenix - Alphabetical (almost on constent loop, the album that summer is/will be made for!)
With a bit of Ultra Vivid Scene - Joy: 1967-1990, Superpitcher - Here Comes Love and lots of Princess Superstar thrown in to to stop me from becoming a Phoenix-a-holic.

00:14 / 23.03.04

Killing Joke (the new album)
Probot
Blur - Think Tank
Ima Robot
Bauhaus - Mask
The Scumfrog - Extended Engagement

12:28 / 23.03.04

Illmatic highfives Rizla

... so true and lets not start talking about the skits..

12:59 / 23.03.04

righto - in view of the fact there is no Q&A on this forum - (one of you kindly souls should start one - I would - but feel like a bit of an imposter as I hardly visit your corner of the lith) - I thought I'd ask you salty seadogs for a spot of help.

I am currently listening to a tune that refuses to leave my mind even after exposing it to the catchiest and annoying tunes around. I wouldn't mind so much excpet I only know a bit of it, that goes round and round and I don't actually know who it's by, but I'm willing to wager that one of Barbelith's musically minded members will be able to help.

Okay - as far as I know, it's on two adverts at the mo on UK tv. One is for the BBC (new talent?) and involves the voiced over word "egg nog", the other is for Orange (I think).

A little bit modern, a little bit electronic, kinda royksoppe, airy type vibe. not really sure. please help me!

15:06 / 23.03.04

Currently: WFMU. Their 9AM to Noon shows (or 2PM to 5PM here) are supoib.

Ended up listening to some 6 Music yesterday, Liz Kershaw. She was bitching about how the charts are full of easy listening dullness, lacking adventure and experimentation. Regular listeners emailing her, telling her how pleased they were that 6 Music exists to provide some truly original sounds.

Then she played Oasis, Bruce Springsteen, Talking Heads and Big Audio Dynamite. The 6 Music album of the day was by The Vines.

There's nothing quite like the sweet smell of self delusion in the afternoon.

19:46 / 23.03.04

Ha ha, that's brilliant.

I'm currently listening to;

New Liars album; absolutely love it. Maybe I'm just weird, but it's exactly the kind of crazed, haunting, post-Lynchian music I've wanted a fairly well known art-rock band to make for years.. "Choke, choke, the devil I evoke.." Best of ..this kinda thing.. since Sonic Youth's 'Bad Moon Rising'.

Murder City Devils - "In Name and Blood" ; I must have listened to this a million times, but it still finds it's way back into my CD player.. I know they went a bit new wavey later in their career, but this particular album is just completely awesome melodramatic horror movie rock n' roll.. like a collision between Black Flag and Nick Cave.. massive guitar riffs, church organs and MURDER. Yes.

21:20 / 23.03.04

I have a copy of a live performance of Bowies Glass Spider tour that I have watched about ten times in the last 2 weeks.

MID TO LATE 80 BOWIE ROCKS!

No star here laces

03:47 / 24.03.04

Well, right now am being very contrarian.

First off I'm actually really enjoying the Blink 182 album. "Feeling this" is such an irresistibly joyous opener and "I miss you" is a killer song and the rest of it is pretty good too. I don't know whether I've changed or they have but they no longer make me want to chew my own limbs off and I'm even liking the whiny singing.

Secondly: Finnish pop metal. The Rasmus - "In the shadows" (club mix) has one of those absolutely knockout F-U-N riffs that just screams out for bounce around the room action. Plus the singer wears black feathers in his hair which looks quite good.

Thirdly: Roland Rahsaan Kirk and Lalo Schiffrin. I got these two albums in a Singapore junk shop. Normally can't be bothered with jazz and think soundtrack music is for anal obscurantists, but both albums are absolute genius - the kind of music whose quality just shines through any problems one might have with its style.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:55 / 24.03.04

For the last couple of days I've been all about David Byrne, Nine Inch Nails, Billy Bragg and TISM (Australia's answer to Half Man Half Biscuit). And Wagner, but people seem to look at me funny when I say that.

19:21 / 25.03.04

This week, I have mostly been listening to:

Ulrich Schnauss, Faraway Trains Passing By - lovely German 'ambient techno' as it used to be done. Great.

Arthur Russell - Calling Out of Context - avgant garde cellist makes strange music - some reviewer on the sleeve calls it the missing link betewen house and garage, but I can't see that. However, it is nice music...

Joe Budden - Fire (on channel U. Anyone know if the album's worth picking up?)

Zabrinski - Koala Ko-ordination - nice, SFA-style pop music with a shiny electronic sheen.

Also, and a bit of a plug, perhaps, but I've had the Mountaineers record Messy Century on rotation for quite a while now - a local (Wrexham) band who are actually pretty bloody good. Lovely pop songs again, but fed through laptops and stuff til they come out all odd.

Their single I Gotta Sing - in conjunction with Make Trade Fair - comes out this week, and it's one of the best on the record. As I say, bit of a plug, but it is a good song.

20:11 / 25.03.04

A quick trip to Fopp in covent garden in my lunchbreak fixed me up with five (count 'em) Miles Davis CDs for a fiver each:

Miles Smiles
Miles Ahead
E.S.P.
Porgy & Bess
In a Silent Way

So that's what I'm listening to right now! Not all at once obviously, although that does give me some ideas...

Brigade du jour

21:52 / 25.03.04

Led Zeppelin. Just Led Zeppelin all the way. Led Zeppelin I, II, III, IV and Physical Graffiti. And now I have to blow another tenner on Houses Of The Holy just so I have the entire run of albums that I was vaguely familiar with about fifteen years ago. But that's ok, they doth rock.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:39 / 25.03.04

Just rediscovered the glory that is Pussy Galore's "Right Now!"
Fucked-up punk blues-rock, with metal-bashing. Jon Spencer, Royal Trux- return to the source!

Nineteen tracks. All short, fast and ugly. Fucking yes.

07:34 / 26.03.04

As a motivator on this grey, damp morning, the entire office has agreed to Ben Folds Five. Anyone walking past the delapidated portacabin at this point will hear very bad singing along to One Angry Dwarf & 200 Solemn Faces. You just can't script moments like this...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:05 / 26.03.04

Having finished work at about 6:45 am, I justified (to myself) staying awake and down the pub until 10 so I could get the new David Byrne album. Apparently it's not out yet.

So I replaced my old copy of Wire's "Pink Flag". And it still rules.

13:38 / 26.03.04

Cowboy Junkies, John Cale, Mountain Goats. Cale, John Darnielle, and Michael Timmins (well, and Dylan Thomas) write some of the loveliest lyrics I've heard.

14:20 / 26.03.04

I'm currently listening to a free double-Cd that came with The Wire about 6 months ago and that I never got 'round to listening to much.

There's some good stuff on there of course, but it really annoyed me cos despite the vast range of far-out music (theoretically) covered by the magazine, the general tone of the CDs is so.. inoffensive. Nothing on either CD would sound out of place as a polite soundtrack to some loft-dwelling web designer examining his trainer collection in a trendy advert..

I can't help feeling that the Wire has a bit of a quietly conservative vibe to it sometimes, especially in regard to it's coverage of rock music..

17:22 / 26.03.04

i can't stop listening to ms. courtney love's "i'll do anything." i've heard a few other tracks from her record, don't care for 'em much. this one, though, i just love.
i'm also getting into broken social scene. can't wait to see 'em at coachella. (sorry)

11:27 / 27.03.04

today:

Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Le Tigre
Neil Young
Cheap Trick
Outkast
Cheap Trick

excellent.

Locust No longer

18:18 / 27.03.04

Paul Flaherty/Chris Corsano/Greg Kelly "Sanyassi." This shows how Chris Corsano and Paul Flaherty are Thurston Moores choice for his new noise group. Awesome, high energy free jazz.

Envy -New Double Lp. Great Japanese emotive hardcore, reminds me how the Japanese kill every western rock trend.

Fear Of God EP. Classic Swiss grind-core. It actually reminds me of some of the new noisey, post-punk, wall of sound bands that have come out in the last few years. If they had only known that a Swiss metal band had beaten them to the punch in the mid '80s and done it better and with less pretentious wank off bullshit.

Antidote EP - Old school, early '80s NY hardcore that sounds really good and much more "real" than most punk rock produced now.

Otomo Yoshihide's "Anode."

22:29 / 27.03.04

Envy are worth checking out then?

They're playing 'round here next week, rather bizarrely, but I didn't think the description of them on the flyer sounded very promising..

Actually, it's all rather academic since I'll be at ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES! next week, but still.

........

And in a completely different vein, I'm currently listening to the Grateful Dead's version of "Death Don't Have No Mercy", one of those rare moments when the 'Dead actually sounded pretty fucking cool..

I also got Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats" out of the library today.. I was so surprised to see it I had to give it a try.. it's pretty good, huh? Not half as fucked up or confrontational as I was expecting.. sounds a bit like some of that great BBC Radiophonic Workshop stuff with some weird guys reciting mildly unsettling lyrics over the top of it..

01:23 / 28.03.04

Animal Collective - Sung Tongs

I've been listening to this off and on for a week, just not knowing entirely what to think of it, and now I am beginning to suspect that it is absolutely brilliant.

Samples and Acoustic guitars and songs about absolute fucking nonsense, and it is just really , really good.

When it comes out in May I am definitely going to buy it.

04:03 / 28.03.04

Horses - Patti Smith. On the one hand stripped down, kind of straight-forward musically, Velvets, J Richman, that type of thing, but on the other, very beautifully sung. Not in any sense boring.

Love Is Hell ( pts 1 & 2 ) - Ryan Adams. This got a bit of slating in the music papers, but it's really very good. The poster boy of Alt Country contemplating suicide in the Chelsea Hotel with his guitar, the minibar, I'd guess a whole lot of speed, and a real determination not to sound like his influences. Apart from Tom Waits and The Smiths. Even if you hate the guy, this is still well worth it.

The Greatest Hit - The Blue Orchids. The best drug band ever.

13:35 / 28.03.04

The Liars new one
Buck 65 Talkin' Honky Blues
The Knife Deep Cuts - odd swedish electropop
Hella The Devil Isnt Red - a bit like Lightning Bolt

16:34 / 28.03.04

Some Beck
Some old DJ Shadow
And Ulver, a weird(but excellent) Norwegian band that moved from metal to electronica.. Their "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is especially good, as pretentious as it seems, they have made music out of Blake`s masterpiece..

17:29 / 28.03.04

My new favourite thinng is the new Lambchop album... Far more instrumentals than on their previous albums, but the lyrics (when they happen) are just as good as before. Will have to listen to it more, as I only heard it first this weekend, but been brilliant so far.

I also got Ivor Cutler's Dandruff a couple of weeks ago -an aging Scottish geography teacher doing bizzare little spoken word tracks, and far better than that sounds from the description...

17:48 / 28.03.04

Pulp! Jeezezz, I had totally forgot about them.. Im gonna lock myself in my room now..

Haus of Mystery

19:19 / 28.03.04

Kraftwerk - Radioactivity (in particular 'computer love')
MF Doom - Operation Doomsday. never really leaves the stereo
Prince - Sign 'O' the Times - because he's a 4ft deity
Kelis - cos I fancy her
cLOUDEAD - ten. cos I owe them.

Prego the Werlf

09:46 / 29.03.04

Dead Prez, Black Twang, anything by Scott Walker and Miles Davis. Queens of the Stone Age.
I have just moved in with some one who is constantly humming and om pom pomming which is kind of good minimalist psychedelia, especially when the house is in an area with loads of alarms that seem to go off at random as well as squeeky doors and floorboards, giving a hardcore edge to this suburban ambience. Who needs free mp3s, when you have life.

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