Stereolab - French Disco (Duophonic, 1993)

Spectacular rush of frothing indie/Krautrock pop.

It's funny to think that this track was originally just track 4 on the 'Jenny Ondioline' EP. Yet it ended up on compilations including 'Classics From John Peel's All-Time Festive 50', 'Indie Top 20 Volume 19' and - yes - 'Generation X: The Definitive Sound of 90s Indie'. And onto Friday night TV on The Word.

'French Disco' is certainly a classic of Stereolab's own micro-genre. Splashy Farfisa, metronomic bass, jangling then crushing guitar and aloof vocals.

Sounds as fresh now as it did then

Download Stereolab 'French Disco' (Duophonic, mp3) (Divshare)

Clinic - The Return Of Evil Bill (Domino, 2000)

Compulsive, knockabout Freakbeat magic from the mysterious Clinic.

I haven't really kept up with Clinic since this album even though it's a doozy. I did catch them live last year is an armpit of a venue and they blasted out a mighty set. In scrubs and surgical masks. Quite a sight.

Clinic deal in a hybrid of Freakbeat, indie, Krautrock and, on this occasion, dub-style melodica. It's a heady, potent brew that rides in on the melodica before making off on a lively, one-note riff.

'The Return Of Evil Bill' could be an alternative theme for the sixties version of Batman. A version of Batman where someone has put Harpic and/or Brasso in the water. Time has become elastic and the walls start to bleed as mini-skirted dancers 'cut a rug'. Or something like that.

Well worth a listen as a taster for a great album.

Download Clinic 'The Return Of Evil Bill' (garage, alternative, mp3) (Mediafire)

Th' Faith Healers Peel Session (1991)

Classic Peel Session by Th Faith Healers - frantic, groovy, clanging, lurching Krautrocking genius.

Headfuck Disco fodder of the highest order from a band that emerged during Too Pure's golden period. Moonshake, PJ Harvey, Stereolab, Seefeel and Pram - all on the same label? What the hell was in the water at Too Pure Towers?

'Coffee Commercial Couple' is a driving beast of a tune, seemingly improvised vocal snippets adding to the intrigue. A juggernaut.

'Bobby Kopper' begins spartan and sinister before a snarling vocal is matched by a rolling, almost Stray Cats guitar. The rhythm section keeps it all grooving along nicely.

'Jesus Freak' is a trashy, messy scrawl of guitar with frenzied vocals and strung-out interludes.

Great stuff.

Download Th' Faith Healers 'Coffee Commercial Couple' (Peel Session, 1991)
Download Th' Faith Healers 'Bobby Kopper' (Peel Session, 1991)
Download Th' Faith Healers 'Jesus Freak' (Peel Session, 1991) 

White Hills 'Paradise' (Thrill Jockey, 2011)

Gnarly, locked-groove Krautrock/Space Rock party tune.

Don't know much about White Hills but I'll give most things on Thrill Jockey a spin, given the delights of post-rock and electronic instrumental music they have released over the years.

I'm glad I did as 'Paradise' is a relentless, trippy Krautrock groove with plumes of dirty synth twisting some nice shapes.

It is also very long, clocking in somewhere over 12 minutes. The band are also highly political, though you wouldn't know it from the instrumental music alone, and colloborate with Krautrock-sage Julian Cope on one of the Rough Trade bonus tracks.

Listen to White Hills 'Paradise' (Krautrock, Space Rock) (via ThrillJockey.com)

Stereolab 'Super Falling Star (Moog Mix)' (Volume, 1992)

Delicious, delicate take that exposes a different side to early Stereolab.

Gentle layers of synth interweave, able to breathe and unwind even more without the guitars.

Stereolab were always more of a cerebral band more akin to Seefeel than the gutsier, more instintive music of Too Pure bands like Moonshake and Th' Faith Healers.

This version of the 'Peng!' album track you hear Laetitia's vocal's more clearly, though, of course, you still don't know what she's on about. The waves of melody remind me of Plone or the hauntological sounds of the Ghost Box label and BBC Radiophonic Workshop experiments.

Lovely.

Download Stereolab 'Super Falling Star (Moog Mix)' (indie mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Hatchback 'Everything Is Neu' (Lo Recordings, 2008)

Burbling, electronic version of the motorik eternal groove.

Discovered this gem of krautrock-ing wonder on the recent Advisory Circle mixtape and have listened to it loads since.

It's a blend of kosmische groove, burbling Belbury Poly sequencer lines and expansive electronic joy, building into waves of warm squiggly energy.

"Kommen Sie aus Milton Keynes" it seems to be saying in that 1970s public information type way.

Spectacularly good.

Download Hatchback 'Everything Is Neu' (electronica, krautrock mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Advisory Circle Mixtape (November 2011)

Expansive mix from the man behind The Advisory Circle's haunted electronica. 

Taking in library sounds, classic Techno, Radiophonic experiments and more besides, this is an intriguing mix that takes in Carl Craig (in his 69 guise), Jim O'Rourke, library guy Keith Mansfield, the timeshifted dubstep bleep of Holy Other and a host of other things I've never heard of.

'Everything is Neu' by Hatchback is a particular favourite, a rumbling synthetic hymn to the motorik beat. It builds beautifully to a euphoric splendour.

The mix opens with a track from the latest release in Ghost Box's Study Series. Entitled 'Autumnal Activities', it's Number 7 in the series of desirable 7"s and sees Pye Corner Audio in collaboration with The Advisory Circle. It's a sombre, gentle piece of public information film soundtracking, riven by the sounds of wind and the sound of a haunted oboe.

Available from the Ghost Box shop of course.

The Advisory Circle present 'Autumn Cycles' by Cafekaput on Mixcloud

Can 'Halleluwah (Re-Edit)' (Spoon, 1971/1989)

Toughed-up re-edit of the 'Tago Mago' classic.

This version of 'Halleluwah' (originally from 1971's 'Tago Mago' album) was re-edited for 1989 compilation 'Cannibalism'. It dispenses with pre-amble and formality and gets down to the business of grinding out an intense tribal 'krautrock' groove.

To say Can are influential sounds trite now but back in the 1980s music as singular as this wasn't widely available - certainly not in the way that mp3s and downloading make it accessible now. (And, to be honest, I wasn't listening to Can back in 1989.)

Can had a massive influence of indie-alternative music, especially that which sought to move more than educate. Public Image Limited's angsty dub-heavy grooves like 'Poptones' (mp3) owe a massive debt and a quick listen to early, pre-Madchester Happy Mondays tracks like 'Wrote For Luck' (mp3) reveals an extensive lyrical and rhythmic debt.

Can's process of editing hours of savage improvisation down to fit the twenty-minute sides of an LP was at odds with the likes of Kraftwerk (mp3) who built lengthy pieces by refracting and reflecting simple, glacial melodies.

I've also always been fascinated by the parallel development of Miles Davis' fusion period and the work of Can. Can certainly took inspiration from Teo Macero's technique of editing finished pieces from hours of taped improvisation, a method which came to the fore during Miles' fusion period from 'Bitches Brew' to the mid-1970s.

Peerless.

Download Can 'Halleluwah (Re-Edit)' (krautrock, progressive rock, indie alternative mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Can 'Vitamin C (UNKLE Remix)' (Spoon/Mute, 1997) (mp3)

James Lavelle dubs and re-rubs the 'Ege Bamyasi' classic into an eight-minute, beat-led krautrock monster.

This UNKLE mix from 1997 gentle massages and echoes up the dub-quotient until the beat is monstrous and the momentum undeniable. More angular and less conventional than Can's 'I Want More' which I posted about last week.

James Lavelle does enough to make the remix interesting, taking the track somewhere different without detracting from what was great about the original. Pretty clever that.

Download Can 'Vitamin C (UNKLE Remix)' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Can '...And More' (Virgin, 1976)

As the sleeve says - Top Hit In England.

Viewed from today it's hard to imagine how Can wound up on Top Of The Pops. Catchy as 'I Want More' is, it makes your brain bleed the more you think of a contemporary parallel. I'm a little envious of a time where progressive, German improvisers could find themselves introduced by Dave Lee Travis.

I would, for example, pay decent money to have seen Scouse sonic explorers Super Numeri perform 'The First League of Angels' on a revitalised Top Of The Pops in 2005. Especially if they were introduced by Reggie Yates and Fearne Cotton doing their 'piece to camera' while supping from a giant mug of mushroom tea, tears rolling down their faces.

It somehow seems about as likely as the idea of Krautrock titans Can being on Top Of The Pops in any era.

'...And More' is the extrapolated coda that formed the b-side to Can's 1976 smash hit. It's about three minutes long and surely deserves to be mashed into a twelve minute sweatbox-rocking masterpiece by Erol Alkan.

Download Can '...And More' (mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Kraftwerk 'Ruckzuck' (Philips, 1970) (mp3)

A lot has been written about the genius of Kraftwerk and the clean lines, hydraulic motion and pure melody of their music. For a long time I thought it remarkable that they hit straight upon their own brand of machine-tooled perfection with 1974's 'Autobahn' album and maintained a run of perfect albums for the next ten years or so. Little did I know...

One Friday, whilst enthralled by BBC4's superlative Krautrock documentary, some live footage of Kraftwerk appeared - and one of them was playing the flute! This wasn't the hermetically perfect, proto-trance, played-by-robots Kraftwerk that I was used to. It was a more Krautrock-styled, organic version of their motorik groove. And it was played on old-fashioned instruments - not via electrodes on the end of car aerials and hidden triggers in the lapels of their cold, grey suits.

A bit of research showed up three whole other albums from Kraftwerk which I'd never heard because, well, they weren't available. But one day I parted with a pretty ridiculous amount of money to pick up what I have to assume are bootlegs of these three rare albums.

'Ruckzuck' is the opening track of 'Kraftwerk I' and, lo, it's the track with the crazy, hyperventilating flute on it from the BBC4 documentary. Its organic delivery and peaks and troughs give it kinship with Can and Neu, a more improvised feel that the carefully architected soundscapes of 'Autobahn', 'Radioactivity' or 'Trans Europe Express'.

'Ruckzuck' somehow manages to communicate the same sensations as 'Autobahn' - unrelenting motion along a chrome-plated future-highway - but it's created not from electronics but from drums, bass, organ, flute and, I think, a piccolo.

It is a staggering, irresistable track and it's hard to see why they've kept it unavailable all these years. Maybe the pension pot will need topping up some time soon and they'll release them properly.

Download Kraftwerk 'Ruckzuck' (krautrock mp3) (Mediafire)

Connan Mockasin 'Forever Dolphin Love' (Because, 2010) (mp3)

Very much the mysterious Mr. Mockasin's Krautrock-tinged Jazz Oddyssey.

'Forever Dolphin Love' starts with a gently oscillating pulse-groove - a la Miles Davis circa 'Bitches Brew' - before drifting into a more song-based section that rides on deft bass and guitar interplay, tides of dolphin sonar rising as the track progresses into a locked-groove Can-athon.

His recently reissued album includes a spellbinding live version of the track that extemporises on the theme, busting out to over twelve-minutes of madness.

It opens straight into a Can-at-Der-Schloss-in-1969 late-night groove lock-in before receding in intensity to usher in the song section and those vaguely disturbing (presumably treated) vocals.

By the eight minute mark, it's mutated further into a dubby monster, each rotation increasing the tempo until it's as giddy as a village idiot chasing a cheese down a hillside. Having just huffed a load of lighter fuel.

By the time the track collapses in an exhausted heap, only able to loop through its vinegar strokes in half-time, it's created staggering momentum - the guitars spinning out shards of skronk, the bassist pounding away and the drummer flinging his cymbals round your ears.

Astounding.

Download Connan Mockasin 'Forever Dolphin Love (Live)' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Available on the Forever Dolphin Love (Double CD reissue) of Connan Mockasin's album.

Klang 'No Sound Is Heard' / 'Waiting' (Blast First Petite, 2004) (mp3)

Two tracks from a very good album that seemed to slip out unnoticed a few years ago. Klang was formed around the songwriting of ex-Elastica guitarist Donna Matthews and these are a couple of tasty mp3s.

'No Sound Is Heard' features intricate weaving of bass and two guitars, creating an enticing pattern for Donna Matthews to sit a short and simple vocal onto. The bass pulses and drums enter half way through creating a gentle momentum. Short and sweet at just 85 seconds but a great starter for the sole album Klang released.

Next up is 'Waiting' which is more muscular, a gently motorik groove is augmented by guitars that are by turns chirruping and klanking. The vocal is crystalline and the track worms its way into your brain with a combination of sweet melody and krautrock stylings.

Download Klang 'No Sound Is Heard' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Download Klang 'Waiting' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Super Numeri 'The First League Of Angels' (Ninja Tune, 2005) (mp3)

Twenty-four minutes - yes, twenty-four minutes - of staggering psychedelic/progressive/post-rock madness from this now defunct Liverpool outfit.

Hard to describe but I like a challenge - so it's like Tortoise on cheap speed, Moonshake jamming on laughing gas or Can on a trampolene.

Ambience and harp give way to a steady, cuboid drum pattern while twin basses surround your already-addled head with a widdly-diddly, incessant attack. It's a simply awesome intro that evolves through layers of bendy guitar feedback, the volume and intensity rising as rifling percussion adds to the maelstrom.

At the ten-minute mark it breaks down to a freak-out as an octopus takes the drum stool and the track then flies off the edge of sensibility before breaking down into an oasis of calm. The main riff builds again from scratch with trebly guitar shards arc-ing around it and the drums return with serious intent. We're off into motorik jam, hitting upon a frictionless plateau of mental rhythm and playfulness.

Staggering stuff.

Download Super Numeri 'The First League Of Angels' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Silver Apples 'Oscillations' (MCA, 1968)

If you've ever stood at a gig or, more likely, a festival, watching Fuck Buttons manipulating what looks like a wallpapering table covered in small boxes and kettle leads and wondering where this ground-breaking new way of making music came from then Silver Apples are the source to which you must travel.

Dating back to 1968, 'Oscillations' is the opening track from their debut album and it's a hypnotic marriage of inventive drumming, bleeps, hums, skronks, screeches and spooky incantations. Silver Apples actually formed in New York in 1867 and were apparently jamming with Hendrix back in the day.

The picture in the album shows their recording set-up to be a room covered in what appears to be small boxes and kettle leads. So eerily reminiscent of Fuck Buttons then. Except you can understand the words.

Download Silver Apples 'Oscillations' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Read a great article from Sound On Sound about Silver Apples.

My Disco 'Closer' (Temporary Residence, 2011)

My Disco are an Australian band who have just signed with US indie stalwarts Temporary Residence to release their third album 'Little Joy'.

'Closer' is the first track of the album, opening with a nicely serrated clanging guitar line and building into a rolling groove with muttered chant vocals. The drums are assertive without being pummeling and are augmented with some nice metallic tom/kettle drums fills.

It's like a gleaming update of stuff like Th' Faith Healers or the anodised grooviness of Ganger. Or maybe Can with a lovely, metallic post-rock-y edge and a bit of Shellac in the guitar sound.

Well worth a listen.

Download My Disco 'Closer' (mp3) (Temporary Residence)

Ganger 'Geocities' (Wurlitzer Jukebox, 1997)

Unsung godparents of post-rock, Ganger dug a particularly lovely, bass-led furrow in the late 90s. It's fair to say that Mogwai were taking notes and there is a particular round, metallic, twin-bass sound that Ganger should have trademarked but I suppose they themselves owe a bit to 'Djed'-era Tortoise.

I'll admit came to them late and have, once the 'Fore' and 'Hammock Style' albums and have been keeping an eye out for other EPs and 7s over the last few years.

This track - 'Geocities' - is a coiled, poised little beauty that comes in on a delicate, interlocking bass figure, before mathematical but clattering drum set out a spacious beat. It builds and the second bass adds ballast to the track, adding momentum and groove. It resolves into a sweeter expressive passage, the drums loosening up and creating a panorama of sound before the tracks resolves to a close.

And it doesn't go, quiet-loud-quiet-scree neither. Dead restrained.

Download Ganger 'Geocities' (mp3, Rapidshare)

Visit the Ganger website.

Th' Faith Healers 'S.O.S.' (Clawfist Singles Club, 1994)

Another Clawfist Singles Club goodie. This time a split between Th' Faith Healers and Mambo Taxi called 'Th' Faith Healers & Mambo Taxi Go Abba'.

Mambo Taxi's contribution is an acquired taste from the sometimes good, sometimes bad shamblers. Their take on 'Super Trouper' sounds like Courtney Love has just woken up in rehab after a particularly arduous world tour and someone thrust a microphone into her bleary face. Or maybe it's Phoebe Buffet after six years of homelessness and crystal meth abuse. I can't decide.

Anyway, that all just serves to make Th' Faith Healers' searing take on 'S.O.S.' sound all the more vital and incisive.

Th' Faith Healers were peers of the awesome Moonshake on the mighty Too Pure label and their track opens with a bass-heavy rotation, Roxanne's controlled but yearning vocals setting the tone before the rolling, monster truck of dirge sound is applied to the Abba classic. It works surprisingly well with a lovely, counter melody being picked out on the second guitar and some nice bits of what sounds like mobile phone interference (in 1994?).

It clatters, rumbles and shakes its way through to a climax, fading away in a shronk of guitar.

Download Th' Faith Healers 'S.O.S.' (mp3, Rapidshare)

Moonshake - Beautiful Pigeon (Too Pure, 1992)

Simply one of those records that is so good - and such a discontinuity with what you've heard before - that it sounds wrong the first time you hear it.

A cacophany of guitars and scree gives way to a monumental, Bonham of a drum break. Margaret Fiedler's coo-ing vocals entice you in and the most sumptuous dub of bass weaves its way into your brain.

The chorus is an awesome release of noise and melody and track has a sumptuous ebb and flow to it.

I remember listening in awe to the drummer and bassist sound-checking when they supported The Wedding Present around the time this came out. A most beautiful, powerful noise.

Stunning stuff. The whole Eva Luna LP is amazing too, as is the 1992 Moonshake Peel Session that featured a number of the tracks in development mode (full Peel Session available below).



Moonshake 1992 Peel Session (mp3 download)

Moonshake Wikipedia page