Jedan od albuma za bezbedniji prelazak iz leta u jesen jeste
kolaboracija dve jake ličnosti u svojim feudima na terenu gde je jedan ipak
domaćin. To je Laraaji. Ako vam se njegovo ime vrti u glavi, najverovatnije je
to zato što ga je Brian Eno uključio u svoj Ambient serijal kao treći deo -
pod imenom Day of Radiance. Podjednako je dobar kao i svi ostali. I služi onome
čemu je bio namenjen i dan danas…Ovaj Američki ambijentalni pionir je svojom
muzikom naterao dežurne hroničare da ga nazivaju i kao autora instrumentalne
muzike, kreatora atmosferične muzike, new age aktivistu. Istina je negde
izmedju, ali je i istina da njegove ploče umeju opasno da omame i okupiraju
vreme posvećenom konzumentu. Pri tom, on izdaje toliko albuma da ih je teško i prebrojati. I uporno izdržava taj tempo.
Elem, čovek koji je osetio potrebu da se približi ovoj vrsti
muzike pa i Laraajiju je Krammer, legenda muzike koja je bila sve suprotno od
toga preko svog angažmana u bendovima Bongwater, Half Japanese, B.A.L.L., etc,
etc. Pri tom je bio sinonim za njegovu etiketu Shimmy Disc koja jeste u vreme
invazije Americkih bučnih bendova bila
jedna od vidjenijih. Uz to nije sedeo skrštenih ruku u vreme dokolice pa
se bavio produkcijom i tu se ističu barem za mene njegovi zahvati na albumima
Galaxie 500 i u zadnje vreme fantastični tretmani britanaca Breathless koji su
na razne načine povezivani za 4AD etiketom. (Trivia je da je Kramer producirao
planaterni hit Urge Overkill – Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon koji znamo iz Pulp
Fiction filma ) Očito da je Krammer i sam duboko zagazio u ove vode, pa
je prosle godine već izdao za Shimmy Disc sopstvenu ambijentalu 'Music For
Films Edited by Moths' koji isto tako preporučujem. Shimmy Disc je inace i izdao
ovu pilulu za privremeni eskapizam.
Na albumu Baptismal, u 4 komada Laraaji I Krammer uspevaju da
stvore hemiju koja pomaže u utopijskom izopštavanju od svih nelagodnosti koji
svet donosi. Laraaji očito krajičkom oka drži Krammera da mu ne padne tonus, a
sve da bi naš tonus počeo da se otključava i počne najbolji nacin da se razliva.
Pozeljno je sto duže zadržati se u takvom stanju.
Berlinski new wave/post punk mešoviti trio ( dve devojke I
jedan mladić) voze u rikverc do one tačke gde je bavljenje punkom, new waveom
počelo da biva uzbudljiva opsesija koja nikada nije prestajala. Lobsterbombs
vraćaju u sećanja ne samo neke rane britanske DIY uzore, već i neka imena naše
scene, sto (do)daje jos veće zadovoljstvo. A na nemački new wave jesam slab, to
nije tajna.I uvek nešto novo iskoči!!!
Nastali kao još jedan bend, koji se kreacijom borio protiv
pandemije, ovi entuzijasti su to
nadziveli, došli do albuma, a sta će dalje biti videćemo. Meni su ovakvi
bendovi uvek bili ono čvrsto jezgro rokenrola, lako je uhvatiti se velikih,
etabliranih I ishajpovanih. Svakome treba jedno mesto, u koje se zavučeš u nekim trenucima. Ne moraju
da budu posebni, samo da su tvoji. Onda kada utopija nadvlada.
I’d heard Talk Talk’s previous album ’Spirit of Eden’ when
my dad bought it on release. It sat on the lounge stereo one night while my mum
was watching ‘Howard’s Way’ and I decided to take a listen. I didn’t understand
what was happening (it seemed like sorta….nothing) but what I heard i liked and
I thought
(even then at a young age) that between the ambience their
pop nous of before remained intact. Their follow-up ’Laughing Stock’ though was
a different entity indeed in that I couldn’t even hear songs. I’d borrowed it
from Newcastle City Library back in the day when you could borrow tapes for
something like a pound a week
as long as you promised to return them. I took it out twice
as I couldn’t make head nor tail of it the first time. Anyway after about a
thousand listens I loved it but I still wasn’t sure why. It was so fractured
and ‘New Grass’ with its prettiness was my favourite track and still is.
REM‘Murmur’
My dad used to play lots of Bruce Springsteen and Van
Morrison while I was ensconced in my room listening to Depeche Mode. The first
time our musical minds met was with REM.I knew something good was going on when I heard the chorus of ‘Laughing’
one bleak Sunday and it sprang out of the stereo
with the kind of haze that was beyond dad’s other bands
(e.g. Cactus World News, Hambi and the Dance). Anyway when I got to 16 I
rediscovered it and thought it was the best album I’d ever heard (probably
still do). All my favourite tracks are the ones that may never get mentioned
such as‘Pilgrimage’ ‘9-9’ or ‘West of
the Fields’. There was something so mysterious about it- I was at that point equally obsessed with
the Yorkshire Dales and Moors and the two went hand in hand somehow.
The Smiths ‘The Smiths’
Another one discovered via my dad. I liked American guitar
music (The Byrds, REM etc) but the British bands kind of left me cold at this
stage. The only album that really cut through was The Smiths debut throughout
which Johnny Marr played guitar parts that seemed the reflect in a kind of
rainy way the glistening summery guitar I was hearing from across the pond. The
fact that Morrissey now all but disowns this album shows that he really is now
completely off the wavelength in terms of what is good and what is not. The
album survives because it retains the same mood throughout and so long as you
are ok with windswept and rainy English moors,brick-built suburban Manchester terraced houses and the alcohol-fuelled
world you’d need to inhabit in order to live in them means that this is the
soundtrack to the most romantic of times we all probably never had.
Burial ‘Untrue’
When this first came out I was the first to mock it. Could
he… y’know… leave at least 1 second before adding in yet another ‘soulful’
sample? I thought it was overdone, over cluttered and overworked. The happy
news is that not for the first time in my life I was completely and utterly
wrong. ‘Untrue’ is a masterpiece- a
perfect blend of late night rainy atmospherics and haunting vocal samples and
the sort of record you only want to hear on the night bus. This doesn’t have to
be an inner city London night bus … instead imagine the X58 ‘Amazon’ bus
serving Shiney Row and Fencey Houses and the massive Amazon depot in County Durham.
Imagine finishing your 24 shift packing things up for lazy people, getting the
bus back to Felling, rain lashing against the windows and hearing this?
Rolling Blackouts, Coastal Fever‘Hope Downs’
Its hard I suppose for more recent albums to compete with
the records you’ve grown up with. All those old ones have the benefit of
childhood or adolescent memories that somehow remain stronger than whatever you
were doing in your forties.Yet the
fairly recent ‘Hopes Down’ is an album where I remember exactly what I was
doing the first time I heard it, what I was doing that summer and what I was
doing in the times I later reminisced about that being a particularly great
part of my latter day life. I once drove with all the windows of the Honda
Civic from having played football at Headingley in Leeds back to my home in
Saltaire. The sound of ‘An Air Conditioned Man‘ filled my ears, the air and
everything around it. The album didn’t give up. It was all good. I was happy
that summer. I’d reacquainted with an old romantic partner who, when i played
that particular opening track,was not
impressed. Dear reader… I sided with Rolling Blackouts.
Prefab Sprout ‘Steve McQueen’
So my grandparents lived in Sunniside, a small village at
the upper end of Tyne and Wear, UK. If you know your Prefab Sprout trivia then
you’ll know that Prefab Sprout leader Paddy McAloon’s bus passes through
Sunniside on its way into Newcastle for his weekly trip to Marks and Spencer
and HMV. Therefore, a lot of Prefab Sorout’s music is very dear to me. Its
sound seems to come from the same countryside in which my grandparents lived.
When I hear ‘Steve McQueen’ i hear Newcastle’s Eldon Square Bus station and the
X30 bus that sails its way out of the city, firstly to the suburbs of Sunniside
(via Lobley Hill of course) then out to the wilds of County Durham where Prefab
Sprout first made their name. It is magnificent music but for me, never has a
particular sound been so caught up in a geographical area and childhood
memories.
01. Slowdive - The Slab
02. Sigur Rós – Ylur 03. The
Cramps - Sheena's in A Goth Gang 04. Pet
Shop Boys - The Lost Room 05. The Fall -
Bury! PTS 2 + 4 06. Treeboy & Arc –
Retirement 07. A Certain Ratio - Houses
In Motion 08. Hawksmoor -Nuclear
Kites 09. The Fall - What About Us 10. The Mekons - Where Were You? 11. Siouxsie And The Banshees - Hong Kong
Garden 12. Xmal Deutschland – Augenblick 13. The Monochrome Set - Jet Set Junta 14. Marine Girls - A Place in the Sun 15. Spherical Objects – Comedians 16. Blancmange - Blind Vision 17. Japan- Life in Tokyo 18. Generation X-King rocker 19. The Ruts – Babylons Burning
20. Cardiacs - Is This The Life
21. Pale Saints - Throwing Back the Apple 22. The Boo Radleys – Lazarus 23. Public Image Limited - Public Image 24. The Undertones - Teenage Kicks 25. Stiff Little Fingers - Gotta Getaway
Jednom je rečeno za The Fall da su u bendu samo MES i dve
babe na bongosima to bi uvek bio The Fall. Ne bih da grešim dusu, ali verujem
da Nikola nije spiritus movens The Cyclist Conspiracy mnogo toga bi bilo drugačije.
Ne sumnjam u sinergiju benda, ali mislim da je čovek pozvan da istera (iz sebe)
ovo!
Dosta sam dobrih stvari napisao o bendu, ali ovaj teaser
Simorgh me je raspametio. Morikone u distopijskom fimu Alejandra Jodorowskog,
bizantijska psihodelija u ekstremno polako rastućem stanju, hauntologija na paganski
nacin, bez bleepova, šumova i tikova-sve to izmiče kategorijama, koje na kraju i gube smisao i sto je najvažnije, pesma traje i traje i kada utihne. ženski vokali su neopisivi. Nema tu glamura,
sem onog primalnog sto I jeste srž.
Raduje me činjenica da polako narasta njihov legat, ali
bih voleo da budu malo priznatiji I poznatiji. Ili možda bolje NE!
