New Noise
Jon Hillcock’s New Noise podcast is always a great source of new music, but the first edition of 2012 was particularly good. After I listened to it I went and downloaded ever single track featured on it, because they’re all great. The likes of ScHoolBoy Q, Tonstartssbandht, and Altarboy particularly stand out.

Listen to the whole podcast here:

Julia Holter
Julia Holter released a great album called Tragedy last year, and has another coming out via RVNG Intl in March, which, from the sound of the track below, Marienbad, will be even better. Aly at CMU has this one covered.

Marienbad:

Mallard The Wonderdog
I think David Williams is a shockingly underrated songwriter. As frontman of Derby band Plans & Apologies he churned out countless brilliant songs, and has an amazing way with words. Now recording as Mallard The Wonderdog, he released his second proper solo album this week. It’s called Miserable Fuck and is only a quid on Bandcamp, why would you not buy it?

Rock Bottom
I’m not sure Rock Bottom is that great name to give a band, any band, but that’s what these guys have done and we’re just going to have to live with it. They make up for it by playing really good, no frills hardcore. There are three new demos streaming on their Facebook page now, which you can also download here.

Flight
This isn’t really new, it’s from 2010, but I only heard it last week thanks to DðlfinZ on a recent edition of the Song, By Toad podcast. Something about Witch Hunt Town by Flight instantly grabbed me, so I shot off and bought the whole The Lead Riders EP on Bandcamp, which contains yet more lo-fi joy.

Graphics
Producer Alfie MacGibbon has released a number of EPs as Graphics through various labels, with the latest, Mama Grizzlies, out via GETME! two weeks ago. The title track, which you can hear below, is a stunning piece of work that has no real business being a chilled as it is, considering its component parts.

Mama Grizzlies:

Akira Kiteshi
When I first heard Akira Kiteshi a year or so ago he was already making fairly heavy dubstep. Since then he’s ramped the levels right up and branched out into other areas of bass music. I’m intrigued to hear the whole album, but for now here are some short snippets of each track.

Industrial Avenue album sampler:

Postiljonen
I don’t know a great deal about Postiljonen beyond the fact they’re from Sweden and what little I could decipher from the brief write up of this track on French blog Fluokids. And, yes, I could look them up, but until I absolutely have learn more about them I’m just enjoying the images the choir-heavy 7 conjures up by itself.

7:

Skirt
Another one from Fluokids, this track by Skirt is a nice slice of creepy minimal techno. You can hear the first minute and a half below, or download the full track here.

Racing The Sea (clip):

Gracie
Every project needs a good back story, and Gracie‘s Andrew Balasia’s is that he’s a dog. I suspect he isn’t. Whatever, he has an EP called Treehouse coming out via Small Plates Records later this month. Check out the video for a track from, the laidback, dubby Southern Place, below.

Sleep Party People
I spent about an hour rifling through Sleep Party People videos on YouTube a few weeks ago, so when a new one popped up in my inbox this week, I hit play straight away. Accompanying what is probably their most beautiful song A Dark God Heart (from their We Are Drifting On A Sad Song album, which is out in the UK in April) the video is very good, but also a bit NSFW.

Tracklist:

01. Excision – Boom (Feat. Datsik) (0:03-1:01)
02. Two Fingers – ? (0:32)
03. Eskmo – I Dream I‘m Flying (1:55)
04. Amon Tobin – Theme From Battery (3:11)
05. Amon Tobin – Slowly (4:04)
06. Eskmo – San Francisco (The Rhythm) (4:59)
07. Photek – Deadly Technology (8:50)
08. Dom & Roland – Sylo (Feat. Amon Tobin) (11:19)
09. SPL – Nihil (14:00)
10. Spor – Three Faces (Feat. Infiltrata) (18:22)
11. Evol Intent – 8-Bit Bitch (Spor Remix) (19:00)
12. ?? (20:30)
13. Two Fingers – ? (21:40)
14. Two Fingers – ? (23:42)
15. Two Fingers – Sweden Rhythm (27:04)
16. The Sea Nymphs – Sarah On A Worm (30:03)
17. Amon Tobin – Technique (32:00)
18. Amon Tobin – Taxidermia (34:07)
19. Amon Tobin – It’s A Lovely Night (35:42)
20. Two Fingers – ? (38:22)
21. Two Fingers – Better Get That (Instrumental) (39:42)
22. Two Fingers – Don‘t Hurt Nobody (Feat. Ms Jade) Acapella (39:42)
23. ?? (41:18)
24. Amon Tobin – Taxidermia (Edit) (43:56)
25. The Sea Nymphs – Tree Tops High (46:26)
26. ?? (48:00)
27. Amon Tobin – Kitchen Sink (48:40)
28. Ms. Jade – Jade’s A Champ (49:42)
29. Amon Tobin – Big Furry Head (51:48)
30. Broken Note – Dubversion (53:39)
31. ?? (54:38)
32. ?? (57:42)
33. Spor – The Eyes Have It (59:44)
34. Dom & Roland – Deckers Theme (65:02)
35. Amon Tobin – Straight Psyche (67:50)

So, my plan is to start pulling together bits and pieces I’ve enjoyed recently every now and then, some of which I will have already written about, some of which I won’t. If nothing else, it’ll help me remember what I’ve heard and enjoyed.

Porcelain Raft
Porcelain Raft‘s Strange Weekend is my favourite album of the year so far, and I expect it to stay at or near the top of my personal chart for the remainder of it. I wrote about the album here, and Mauro put together a brilliant playlist for CMU here.

Put Me To Sleep:

Suzanne Ciani
Often compared to Delia Derbyshire (although her advert jingles probably put her closer to Raymond Scott), Suzanne Ciani is an award winning and influential electronic composer. Next month Finder Keepers will release a compilation of her work from 1969 to 1985.

Lixiviation:

Magical Mistakes
Producer Erik Luebs formerly went by the name Death By Panda. Having switched to his current Magical Mistakes moniker, he release his debut album, Dislocation, last summer and has just put out a new EP, called Special Friends.

Supermoon Crashed featuring Mutual Benefit:

Bernholz
Producer Jez Berns, aka Bernholz, began releasing singles through Anti-Ghost Moonray Records last year, and his latest, Austerity Boy, is out in February. It’s a great odd pop track that pays strange homage (maybe homage isn’t the word) to Madonna’s Material Girl.

Austerity Boy:

Frankie Rose
When I’ve not been playing Porcelain Raft’s album lately, I’ve mostly been listening to Frankie Rose‘s solo debut, Interstellar. It’s a very lovely record and will hopefully do very well. My colleague Aly Barchi wrote about Frankie for CMU here.

Know Me:

Asbjørn
I first heard Asbjørn when I saw him play to a packed 1000 capacity room at last year’s SPOT festival in his home town of Aarhus, Denmark, when he was going by the name Asbjørn And The Strange Ears. Still in his teens, he’s already written a raft of great pop songs. I wrote about Asbjørn for CMU here.

The Criminal:

Die Hard
Somehow involved in the set-up of Glasgow label Halleluwah Hits, Die Hard make music it’s hard to define. They remind me a bit of The Beta Band, although that might just be because they’re Scottish and make off-kilter pop music. Their debut album is out in February.

Nailed To The Cross:

Bad Weather California
Psych-rock outfit Bad Weather California release their new album Sunkissed through Akron/Family’s Family Tree Records label next month, and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face then you must be having a very bad day.

You’re My Friend:

A Whisper In The Noise
I love the back story to A Whisper In The Noise – it’s almost to perfect to be true. Until fourth album To Forget, which is out next month, all their music was written by one man, West Thordson, in the now abandoned primary school he attended as a child. Now a duo, they write music on a farm in the middle of nowhere. It’s very cinematic. I wrote about this for CMU here.

Black Shroud:

 
Meanwhile, brilliant “ecstatic trance” duo Blondes have just released a video for their new track Wine. Using little more than some flashing lights and a few people on drugs, it effectively depicts the experience of watching the NASA video above.

Midday, as Wall Street wakes up and the first US newswires go out (ie 7am there)? Nope, we were pretty sure it was Universal Music Group getting the EMI labels, and that it would be them making the announcement, and its parent company Vivendi isn’t listed in New York so Wall Street’s not relevant. But would it come from UMG’s New York office? In which case nothing was likely to be said before 9am their time, giving me time to go and grab lunch. But then wouldn’t UMG’s owner Vivendi actually make the announcement, and it’s in Paris an hour ahead of us. I wonder what time French people go for lunch.

The day was speeding by and nothing was happening. Was the press release actually going to come from UMG CEO Lucian Grainge’s HQ in LA? In which case, what time would I have to stick around til? But not to worry, because just before 3.30pm UK time Vivendi HQ did the honours, telling us that Universal Music Group had agreed to purchase EMI Music for £1.2 billion.

Phones rang, statuses were updated, a story was written and posted, suddenly the CMU office was alive with activity, where previously all had been calm. It’s quite exciting when that happens. Now I’m sat here writing this in the aftermath.

Although the sale of its publishing division has still not been formally announced, this nonetheless confirms that EMI is definitely being split up, and the music world’s fourth major label is set to become no label at all. Its recordings will be absorbed into Universal’s catalogue, and most likely Sony/ATV will grab the publishing division – insiders say that’s a done deal, though our sources tell us the formal announcement may now not come until next week.

Announcing the deal, UMG Chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said: “This is an historic acquisition for UMG and an important step in preserving the legacy of EMI Music. For me, as an Englishman, EMI was the pre-eminent music company that I grew up with. Its artists and their music provided the soundtrack to my teenage years. Therefore, UMG is committed to both preserving EMI’s cultural heritage and artistic diversity and also investing in its artists and people to grow the company’s assets for the future. As a result, we will be better positioned to fully capitalise on the many new and exciting opportunities in the current marketplace, and also able to better serve our artists, songwriters and business partners, while offering fans even more choice”.

All of this, of course, depends on the deal getting through the various hurdles now facing it. Pan-European indie labels trade body IMPALA had already said it would oppose any Universal/EMI deal, and confirmed that again following Vivendi’s announcement. With Universal already the world’s biggest music company, IMPALA and others feel it absorbing EMI’s record labels will give it an unfair control of the music market.

IMPALA similarly opposed the merger of the Sony and BMG record labels back in 2004, and although it did not succeed in completely blocking the two companies from joining, it did slow down the process and force certain concessions to be made. Even more so when Universal merged its publishing division with BMG Music Publishing in 2007. UK indie label trade body AIM is also likely to react negatively to the news, and it’s expected that competition regulators will launch an investigation in the not too distant future.

However, Universal seems confident that it can get the deal approved, possibly by selling off some of its existing catalogue – it has already confirmed that it will sell off up to half a billion euros worth of “non-core assets” just to finance the takeover. Presumably, so long as it ends up with the Beatles, Coldplay, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Beach Boys and Radiohead recordings, the company will be happy to lose whatever it takes.

Still, after all this excitement, it’s a shame that this means that EMI will all but disappear. Following the rocky years the company spent owned by equity firm Terra Firma, it emerged leaner, fitter and more forward thinking. The strategy of encouraging a closer relationship between the publishing and recording divisions was both sensible and starting to show signs of paying off. And EMI has launched other interesting initiatives in the last eighteen months, most recently an API giving app developers access to content. What will happen to all of that remains to be seen, but it seems certain that much of the work done by current CEO Roger Faxon will be sadly lost.

Meanwhile we’ll have to get used to referring to the major labels as ‘the big three’. It’s not that long ago that we were saying ‘the big five’. And some of us can remember ‘the big six’. Times are definitely changing.

This is taken from my CMU Editor’s Letter for 11 Nov 2011, read it in full here

I wrote about Dems’ new EP Houses for CMU recently. Now the lead track has a video. That’s it up there.

Sadly, the one thing guaranteed to do it happened this week. Just 24 hours after Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the new iPhone 4S, his predecessor Steve Jobs, the man who developed the theatre and spectacle of the company’s announcements, succumbed to the cancer he had been suffering with since 2003.

It was only in August that Jobs stepped down as Apple’s CEO, taking on the role of Chairman instead. Although he had taken a number of leaves of absence from the company in recent years, usually prompting wobbles in Apple’s share price, he being so tied to its vision and ethos, he’d always returned (most recently against doctor’s orders to launch the iPad 2) seemingly with as much drive as ever.

However, two months ago he wrote in his resignation letter: “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come”.

I think most of us knew what that meant. Any man who can brush off pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant is going to have to be very ill indeed to admit that they can’t carry on. But still, I’m not sure any of us quite expected Jobs’ death to come so quickly and it is incredibly sad that a man with such a talent and flair for business died aged just 56.

As the news spread, tributes began to pour in, and such a respected figure was he that even the protesters occupying Wall Street, campaigning against the capitalist system of which Apple is part, felt the need to mark the sadness of his passing.

What this means for Apple as a company isn’t yet clear. Those wobbles in share price have become less pronounced more recently, and as Tim Cook (who had been established by standing in for Jobs whenever he was away) is generally seen as a suitable new leader, the company itself seems perfectly stable in business terms. Also, Apple’s long lead times on new products means that we’ll be seeing new devices that Jobs had a hand in producing for some time yet.

And so influential was he for many new entrepreneurs now rising up the ranks, such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify’s Daniel Ek, his outlook will likely continue to resonate for many years to come.

Just the fact that I’m writing about him here, and assuming that you’re not wondering why I’m talking about some tech guy in a music publication, shows what influence Jobs had. Because, of course, he did do hugely important things for the music industry too. Whatever you think about it, this business would be a very different place without iTunes. By adding a music store to Apple’s music software in 2003 as a means of feeding the already dominant iPod MP3 player, digital music was gradually brought to the masses.

The iTunes Store still has around 75% market share in the digital music space despite facing competition from countless rivals over the years, including all the traditional players in music retail. That’s a huge achievement, and it seems unlikely any of its competitors over the years could have achieved something similar had the Apple platform never existed – either because they are targeting a niche audience, or because their technology is a turn off to many. Apple have always approached digital music with a mainstream agenda, and with a technology the masses can use.

And, of course, all this was just a tiny part of Jobs’ overall achievements. Earlier this year, Wired published this great piece on Steve Jobs’ life in business, how he thought and how he worked. Reading it, it’s hard not to be impressed and inspired by him.

This is taken from my editorial for CMU, which you can read in full here.

As you’ll probably have seen, Prime Minister David Cameron sparked controversy when he suggested that everyone should help out the economy by just paying off their debts. Aside from the fact that he apparently thinks we’re all just in debt for the fun of it, we’ve previously been told to help the economy by spending more money, so I don’t know what to believe any more. I guess I’ll just pay off all my debts using a credit card. That should do it.

Next up, Home Secretary Theresa May suggested that the Human Rights Act should be repealed because the legislation, introduced by Tony Blair’s government to bring the European Declaration Of Human Rights into British law, had enabled an illegal immigrant to stay in the UK on the grounds that he had a pet cat. The judiciary quickly pointed out that this isn’t actually true, and then Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, a member of her own party, told the Nottingham Post that her claim was “laughable [and] childlike”.

But it was something else May did that got tongues wagging in the music world. Her choice of music to play her off stage has come in for much criticism.

It’s quite common for musicians to complain when right wing political parties use their music at public events without permission, most musicians having more left-wing leanings. In some cases this has led to copyright infringement claims, although in most countries playing music at public events is covered by blanket licences, so providing the venue owner or event organiser has general licences from the likes of PPL and PRS For Music no specific permission is needed from those who made or own specific songs.

As May left the stage, reports came in that she had walked off to ‘Rocks’ by Primal Scream. This seemed somewhat bizarre, it being quite openly about drug taking and prostitution. Still, that’s what people, mainly The Huffington Post, were saying, and as a result the band felt moved to issue a statement distancing themselves from the Conservative Party.

They said: “Primal Scream are totally disgusted that the Home Secretary Theresa May ended her speech at the Tory party conference with our song ‘Rocks’. How inappropriate. Didn’t they research the political history of our band? Hasn’t she listened to the words? Does she even know what getting your rocks off means? No. She is a Tory; how could she?”

They continued: “Primal Scream are totally opposed to the coalition government, Cameron, Osborne, Gove, Howard, Clegg etc. They are legalised bullies passing new laws to ensure the wealthy stay wealthy, taking the side of big business while eradicating workers’ rights and continuing their attacks on young people, single parents and OAPs by slashing education and social security budgets, and persecuting the poor for being poor. We would like to distance ourselves from this sick association”.

Finally, to really drive the point home, they said: “The Tories are waging a war on the disenfranchised, They are the enemy”.

To answer part of Primal Scream’s statement: No, May didn’t listen to the lyrics of their song before she made her speech. But that’s wasn’t because of any sort of arrogance or ignorance on her part, it’s just because she didn’t actually walk off stage to ‘Rocks’. When she left the stage it was ‘Bohemian Like You’ by The Dandy Warhols that was playing. Still something of an odd song choice, granted. But not ‘Rocks’ by Primal Scream.

This update to the story did not take long to make its way across the Atlantic and to The Dandy Warhols. Frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor was quick to respond, writing on the band’s official website: “Where do I bitch about this? I’ll tear their fuggin heads off. Well maybe not, but this happened to us in an Arkansas gubernatorial race and it makes me super angry. And then I wanna puke. Why don’t these assholes have right-wing bands make them some right-wing music for their right-wing jerk-off politics? Oh, because right wing people aren’t creative, visionary or any fun to be around. Nor are they productive or even introspective about it”.

He added: “Wait … neither are left-wingers [any of those things] come to think of it. Jesus, I tend to really dislike ANY people who take sides in politics. It is the single greatest contributor to getting nothing done. Fuck ‘politics’. What a joke. I give my charitable donations to people who get on a plane themselves and go to Haiti or Africa and help other people. Do you? NEVER to a political machine. I like to get shit done. You do too. Fuck, now I’m pissed off”.

So, there you go, they only had to play one song and the Tories pissed off two bands. Good work there. However, there was another story about a politician playing a song without permission this week, and this one wasn’t in the UK or the US. For this one we have to go all the way to Nicaragua.

Sony’s publishing company Sony/ATV has threatened to sue Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega if he refuses to stop using a reworked version of Ben E King’s R&B classic ‘Stand By Me’ in campaign videos. Re-titled ‘Nicaragua Triunfará’ (or ‘Nicaragua Will Triumph’), the new version of the song features lyrics in Spanish written by Ortega’s wife Rosario Murillo, and was produced by their son Maurice Ortega Murillo.

In a letter to Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front, sent in July but published this week by Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, Sony/ATV said: “This constitutes a serious infringement of Sony/ATV’s copyrights”.

As yet the party has not responded and is apparently still using the song in Ortega’s political campaign to be re-elected.

Here’s the offending video:

This article was originally published in CMU’s Beef Of The Week column. I also covered the Primal Scream/Dandy Warhols story in a separate article earlier in the week.

I wonder if the guy with the sign around his neck managed to lose his virginity. Hopefully he stopped proclaiming a penchant for stabbing people. And wearing the sign.