Independent Music Podcast

Mar 28

Independent Music Podcast #35 28/03/11

Independent Music Podcast #35 28/03/11 by Independent Music Podcast on Mixcloud

Mar 07

Independent Music Podcast #34 07/03/11

We’re back!

After a month away, we’re back with a bumper podcast for your earholes, 16 tracks, nearly two hours worth of alternative music goodness. Sit back and enjoy…

Independent Music Podcast #34 07/03/11 by Independent Music Podcast on Mixcloud

Feb 07

Independent Music Podcast #33 07/02/11

We seem to be on a two week cycle at the moment… it makes hearing a member of the Hitler Youth sing for us even better…

Independent Music Podcast #33 07/02/11 by Independent Music Podcast on Mixcloud

Jan 24

Independent Music Podcast #32 24/01/11

Independent Music Podcast #32 24/01/11 by Independent Music Podcast on Mixcloud

Jan 10

Independent Music Podcast #31 10/01/11

Welcome back to the Independent Music Podcast. Normal service is slowly being resumed…

Independent Music Podcast #31 10/01/11 by Independent Music Podcast on Mixcloud

Dec 25

50 for 2010 - Gareth #1

Well, after 24 records I’ve pulled out to celebrate for 2010, here’s the final one.

Pierre Raph - Jeunes Filles Impudiques (Finders Keepers)

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Out of all the incredible releases of 2010, it’s little surprise that my favourite comes from the ever incredible Finders Keepers Records.

Jeunes Filles Impudiques is the soundtrack to the long-lost Parisian skin flick and this sexy 7” gives more pleasure than most erotic films. From the incessant tribal drumming of ‘Gilda & Gunshots’ to the swinging brass finale five tracks later of ‘Schoolgirl Hitchhikers’, this EP is, for me, the most enjoyable release of the year. I hope you enjoy it too.

LISTEN TO PIERRE RAPH - JEUNES FILLES IMPUDIQUES ON SPOTIFY

Gareth’s favourite records of 2010:

Various Artists - Thai Beat a Go Go (Subliminal Sounds)
Young Prisms - Young Prisms EP (Mexican Summer)
Thus:Owls - Cardiac Malformations (Almost Musique)
Konono No.1 - Assume Crash Position (Crammed Discs)
The Jellies - Jive Baby on a Saturday Night (Trunk)
Maria & the Mirrors - Omar (Parlour)
Various Artists – Soundway Records Presents The World Ends Afro Rock and Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria
Starkey - OK Luv (Planet Mu)
Kenny Graham and His Satellites – Moondog And Suncat Suites (Trunk)
Leona Anderson - Music to Suffer By (Trunk)
Jacky Chalard - Superman, Supercool (Cache Cache)
Thee Oh Sees - Warm Slime (In the Red)
The Budos Band - The Budos Band III (Daptone)
Various Artists - Pomegranates (Finders Keepers)
Pretty Lights - High School Art Class (self-release)
Gold Panda - Snow & Taxis (Throwing Snow Remix) (Ghostly International)
Basil Kirchin - Primitive London (Trunk)
Tobacco - Maniac Meat (Anticon)
Various Artists - Study Series (Ghost Box)
Drum Eyes - Gira Gira (Upset the Rhythm)
Sam Spence - Sam Spence Sounds (Finders Keepers)
The Fall - Your Future Our Clutter (Domino)
Master Musicians of Bukkake - Theme From The Science Fiction Television Show “Ban Be Cua Anh Ay” (Conspiracy)
Soft Healer - Movie Light (Captured Tracks)
Pierre Raph - Jeunes Filles Impudiques (Finders Keepers)

Dec 24

50 for 2010 - Gareth #2

Soft Healer - Movie Light (Captured Tracks)

My favourite discovery of the year, I found Austin band Soft Healer in a car park at SXSW and have shouted about them ever since. Their debut 7” came out in the summer on renowned New York label Captured Tracks. The A side ‘Gentle One’ is sublime but, like the Master Musicians of Bukkake 7” I highlighted yesterday, it is the B side that gives the most pleasure.

Listen to it below.

Soft Healer - Movie Light

Gareth’s 25 of 2010 so far

Dec 23

50 for 2010 - Gareth #3

I just realised that, in my prep, I managed to put 26 things in my 25 things for 2010, oh well, I’ll just throw in a bonus sometime before the end of the year. Anyway, we’re at the top three…

Master Musicians of Bukkake - Theme From The Science Fiction Television Show “Ban Be Cua Anh Ay” (Conspiracy)

One of my favourite bands threw a curveball late this year with the release of a self-titled 7” than coincided with their phenomenal show at Supersonic in October. The A side, titled ‘Man With The Green Gloves On,’ was standard fare - obtuse ritualistic weirdness - but the B side is where the real gold lies.

Completely opposite to their usual material, ‘Theme From The Science Fiction Television Show “Ban Be Cua Anh Ay”’ is a real treat. Reminiscent of some Eastern 60s/70s pop, it grooves along with some borderline stereotyping chanting, it’s absolutely incredible, and nothing like their usual ambient noise. Listen and love:

Master Musicians Of Bukkake - Theme From The Science Fiction Television Show “Ban Be Cua Anh Ay”

Gareth’s 25 of 2010 so far

Dec 22

50 for 2010 - Gareth #4

Today is the day I travel home for Christmas, so I’m writing all the final posts in this series today. They’ll go online day-by-day. Well they should, but given Tumblr’s questionable reliability in this area, they might all go online today. Stay tuned anyway…

The Fall - Your Future Our Clutter (Domino)

The best Fall album ever? Quite possibly. As a Fall obsessive for more years than I can actually remember, and one whose two favourite Fall albums were released before I was born, the release of Your Future Our Clutter was a huge pleasure. Their best album for a long time, and much better than the brilliant Fall Heads Roll - the previous best Fall record of the 21st Century.

John Peel once remarked that The Fall were “always different, always the same” and YFOC does a wonderful job of living up to that billing. Retaining the same line-up as the rather poor Imperial Wax Solvent, the rarely steady ship of a Fall line-up pays dividends as the record flows seamlessly along, tied together by Mark E Smith’s trademark growl.

The liner notes also educated me that there’s a recording studio in my hometown of Castleford. Apparantly N-Dubz have recorded there…

LISTEN TO THE FALL - YOUR FUTURE OUR CLUTTER ON SPOTIFY

The album track Bury Pts 1+3 are different from the single Bury Pts 2+4. You can view the single’s video below:

Gareth’s 25 of 2010 so far

Dec 21

50 for 2010 - Gareth #5

So we’re at the top five. Are you excited? No, me neither, but there is goodness included…

Sam Spence - Sam Spence Sounds (Finders Keepers)

This record wasn’t going to make my list. This slot was going to be taken by the fantastic Cloud Cuckooland comp from Finders Keepers but a few things have changed my mind. First, the fact that we opened this week’s podcast with ‘Wie Ein Blitz’ from this album and second, that Anthony was guaranteed to have it in his list, and has been poor at keeping up with the ‘daily shoutout’ format of the blog.

Needless to say, this is an incredible record. Described by the label as ‘a peculiar piece in the komplicated [sic] krautrock puzzle’, Sam Spence is an American from Berlin, or perhaps a German from San Francisco. Either way, he is an American ex pat who was studying music in Berlin in the 1970s and has a story that I could crudely edit, but would prefer you to read in the liner notes form:

Born in San Francisco in 1927 Samuel Lloyd Spence is a peculiar piece in the komplicated krautrock puzzle.

As an American expat working in a community of German rock musicians in the early 70s Spence shared his alien status with the likes of David Johnson and Malcolm Mooney (Can), Carole Muriel (Brainticket), Maria Archer (Embryo), Bill Barone (Wallenstein) and the band Sweet Smoke, but in Spence’s case it wasn’t the free-love and communal living that attracted him to Germanic pastures - Spence’s European travel plan was academic.

Over a decade earlier Spence had travelled from California to Paris to study “serious music” composition at the Ecole Normale de Musique with the great composers Arthur Honegger and Francis Poulenc where he conducted alongside Jean Fournier. After settling in Europe he would later make his way to Austria and later Germany in search of a supportive community of symphony orchestras to help him develop music for film and television. Due to Communism it became difficult for Spence to enter the classical epicentre of Eastern Berlin so he settled for Munich.

Throughout the mid 60s Spence kept his hand in popular music via his US connections. His original roots playing clarinet and sax in Californian swing bands had lead to paid work sending compositions to commercial Hollywood groups which lead to a part time interest in electronic instruments and the development of the synthesiser. To balance his classical composition Spence was able to use his Hollywood credentials to score German TV commissions making dozens of groovy symphonic scores with electronic flourishes and towards the end of the decade, with the help of a long term contract composing motivational music for the National Football League, Spence had raised enough capital to bring one of the very first Moog sythesisers to Germany.

While in Munich Spence met an American disc jockey called Mal Sondock who had recently struck a production deal with a new German pop music label called Kuckuck. Sondock introduced Spence to a 24 year old Eckart Rahn who owned the record company and after an initial agreement to release a single of Spence’s soundtrack to the Francis Durbridge thriller series entitled ‘WIE EIN BLITZ’ (‘Like Lightning’) the pair discussed the idea of recording an LP of electronic music which would appeal to ambient and experimental enthusiasts who were searching for cosmic sounds after the rise of krautrock bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. After the release of two moog-fuelled singles including a cover version of Focus’ 1972 hit single ‘Sylvia’ Rahn agreed to release Spence’s debut LP of synthesiser based pop music which would sit amongst his eclectic Kuckuck roster including the minimal electronic pulses of Deuter, the experimental field recordings of Ernst Schultz and the avant-garde releases of Peter Michael Hamel and Terry Riley.

Signed exclusively to Kuckuck in Germany Rahn recognised the potential in Spence’s synthesiser music amongst production music circles and television advertising companies so he struck up deals throughout Europe with library labels such as Brull and Dewolfe who would distribute Spence’s LPs and sublicense new Sam Spence recordings from Kuckuck for potential commercial usage. This included a whole LP of entirely electronic tracks entitled ‘The Art Of The Sythesiser’ on which he used a Moog 55 to stunning effect creating melodic pastoral pop music, freakish suspense themes and a selection of short bursts of bubbling ‘Moog Shots’ which would soon find their way into crime thrillers and action films (such as Taylor Wong’s Kung Fu fantasy film “Ru Lai Shen Zhang”)

Having continued to expand his successful career in symphonic music Sam would, by the end of the 1970s, return to orchestral film music seizing further opportunities to work as a composer recording over 500 cues for films made by the NFL back in his native USA. For vinyl junkies Spence’s American Football music existed on a series Library records manufactured by NFL until it was finally commercially released in the mid-90s. Still residing in Germany, the country where he can find the best orchestras, Spence continues to make theme music. In recent years he has been heard on shows like The Simpsons, Everybody Loves Raymond, King Of Queens, Saturday Night Live, FBI’s Most Wanted, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Sponge Bob and several TV and radio commercials.

LISTEN TO SAM SPENCE - SAM SPENCE SOUNDS ON SPOTIFY

Gareth’s 25 of 2010 so far