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Seven years. Okay.
Underworld: Beaucoup Fish
Driving, very late at night, through the Devon countryside in a car with my best friends. I'd stolen the tape off my brother and hadn't had a chance to listen to it yet. I stick it in the deck. John Peel used to go on about a moment when he was in the states, driving late at night and a Jimmy Reed track came on the radio. He said it was the first time he'd ever found the mix between situation and soundtrack to be sublime, how he was always after that feeling again, this was it for me.
I'd had other Damascus moments, of course, but something about the trees in the Dartmoor wind, my friends and I silent, stoned in the car and Karl Hyde whispering to us about the secret eroticism of thumbs on a tetris keyring was so right, so untouchable. I knew I was leaving Devon and that my destination was Brighton and that this was one of the last times I was going to see these people for a while. It moved me. Still does. And if anyone wants to deny that Hyde is one of the greatest british vocalists/lyricists of all time then it's outsides, I'm afraid.
The Factory: Path Through the Forest
In Brighton finally, hanging out with the sharp dressed psych heads of my teenage fever-dreams and clubbing downstairs at London's Mousetrap club. The DJs played non-stop 6ts Garage, Beat and Yeh-yeh and also, oh wonderfully also, Brit-Psych. It was to be my consuming musical passion for years. The sense of dark dementia that inhabits this song, the billowing clouds of orange feedback, the strange tannoyed vocals, sum that era up for me perfectly. I started a club in Brighton with some like-minded friends. I didn't play this often, it was MINE and I couldn't bring myself to share it.
Amon Duul II: Archangels Thunderbird
I knew a bit about krautrock. I knew Can and Neu! and a bit of Faust, but something about the Duul had always scared me off. Maybe it was their analloyed hippyness; the length of their beards; the lack of mod aggression. This changed that. A thundering three-chord holocaust of nonsense lyrics and whacked phasing that went perfectly with the three day speed benders me and my friends were enjoying at the time. The first chord of this song, wherever it is heard, will get me and my flatmate and guitarist, the legendary Sean "the Goon" Lewis, roaring onto a dancefloor like warthogs. Ugly music for ugly people. Paved the way to prog nirvana.
Comets on Fire: Beneath the Ice Age
Oh fucking mama. The one. After my club collapsed I was unpleasantly depressed for a long time. I couldn't get with electro-clash, the records: yes. The people: oh, just fuck off. This reminded me that there were like minded souls elsewhere: burning heads who wielded guitars like cavemen. This track is the history of out-rock in 8 minutes. From jangling tibetan percussion, to thunderous full throttle screaming bastard howling at the temple too late! Too late! rock, to massed chanting. It just knocked my head off. There is one moment on this song, just after the second verse, where a noise occurs that sounds like a robot's enormous erect penis exploding out and knocking down a building. It does...it does.
Bobby Gentry: Rainmaker
Delicate, beautifully sung and summery as hell. Fast times, high prices. Impossible to find as well, which adds to its appeal.
Which brings us up to date with...
Jan Hammer: Crockett's Theme
I don't know why this track has such a hold on me at the moment: the mere mention of it will bring some of my friends out in boils. It has pleasant memories of childhood attached, sure, but that's not all. It's all in its gently undulating electronic pulse, the beauty of the melody, its subtlety, its SOUL, 'cos, fuck, this tune has soul by the gallon. A robotic heart, alone and teary: as beautiful as strip lights shining off a Testerossa. |
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