svc presents ..

.. grinning ape.

 

following the fine album by feedle, comes a new internet only release, the greatest ape, by the grinning ape. described as a continuation of the detroit sounds of warp old schoolers, b12, fuse and even polygon window.

a.p.e : mp3

richmond avenal : mp3

very bleepy focused ambience and rather special, not surprising that the ape involved declared that this album (10 years in the making !), would become the greatest album ever made.

make your own minds up, it could be a close call.

mark e

ireallylovemusic

mp3 : bush of ghosts : miss kubelik remix

hell.o

david byrnes and brian enos classic, bush of ghosts has been recently reissued with more tracks, lovely remastering and alll manner of online munchies.

subsequently, various components of the original music have been placed online at the official site for people to fcuk around with.

so please get your downloads ready, for a lovely relaxing groove by the mysterious miss kubelik remix of 'help me somebody', renamed 'help me symphony'. available : here (ysi - 256kbps - 9mb)

enjoy

mark e

ireallylovemusic

listen to the new morrissey album - online

folks.

want to hear the new morrissey album, ringleader of the tormentors ?

of course you bloody do.

well, such is the way of these things, i have managed to get all nicely hooked up.

so click the link, fill in some details and rejoice in the listening party : here

and, just to prove that i love a chunk of nu-era commercialism from time to time, there is also a fine-n-funky morrissey sanctioned download shop courtesy of 7digital.

what would the old boy thought of all this back in his dandelion brandishing days i wonder !

such a different world.

get your paypal account out and enjoy the glories of the modern world : here

more fun stuff later.

mark e

ireallylovemusic

 

girls just wanna have fun

hello again.

following on from yesterdays splurge, here a list of albums by girls that are interesting and worthy of checking.

 

the like - are you thinking what i'm thinking

3 waif like young'uns raid the bible of 90's indie rock (the 4ad back catalogue), and forge a solid debut album. with production by wendy m (devoid of her prince sanctioned sidekick lisa for this release, unfortunately), the albums first half rocks along nicely. subtle shoegazing layers, nice bouncy basslines, and some sultry vocals make this album very easy on the ear. of course, several of the songs will become standard soundtrack choices for such teen dramas as the oc. and of course, there is the fact that all 3 of these rock chicks are offspring from various areas of the music industry, but that nagging whisper, along with the fact that there are several songs that are a little too middle of the road sounding, is soon kicked into touch when songs as strong as 'what i say and what i mean', 'under the paving stones', and the wonderfully innocently deceptive acoustics of 'you bring me down' get under your skin. as the website declares : i like the like.

link

c-mone - the butterfly effect

in case you missed the word on this debut release, c-mone was featured on the streets last album, and comes from nottingham. her debut album is straight up, no nonsense hiphop. no garage, no soul, r-n-b crossover, no grime, just solid beats and uk wordplay. c-mone has a definite power and control with her flow, and the production crews match her style in fine form. out on the excellent son records now. good stuff.

candi staton - his hands

you know those old dj shadow and soulsaver mixes in recent years such as brainfreeze, which dig out long forgotten soul classics and revive the love for proper old fashioned sounding music, well that case of 'they just dont make soul music like this any more' can no longer be applied. as this new album by soul legend, candi staton, is exactly as it should be, sympathetically beautiful production recalls those 60's classics perfectly (though of course in stereo as opposed to the mono scratched up discs of old), horns are treated with love and tenderness as opposed to being all digitally enhanced, strings (heart and musical) are pulled, and the central focus on the piano suits. for the mood throughout these 11 songs is downtrodden but not broken, down beat, depth of the night southern soul music, with new songs written by such names as merle haggard and will oldham.

a perfect perfect album for people who cant get enough of those $tateside reissues. out on honest jons records at the end of march.

sol seppy - the bells of 12

strange but utterly beautiful looking cover (b&w moody shot of sol aka sophie), ambient at the start, before sol starts dropping into joy zippers world, fuzzed up guitars and sunkissed studio enhanced harmonies all topped off with a distinct edge of heart stopping beauty. one listen reaction : very interesting. full review to appear later. available on the ever impressive gronland label.

 

that's all for now folks .

mark e

ireallylovemusic

lots of stuff to waste money on - perhaps

hell.o

ok, enough is enough, here's a quick rundown on the current pile, bear in mind i've had a crap weekend - so these opinions may indeed be different when the sun shines:

 

ben harper - both sides of the gun

never having had a real urge to hear any of this guys stuff, when the offer came in i was originally heistant, but in the details provided it became apparant that the doube cd is made up of the mans 2 styles. one cd rocks out, the other cd doesn't. initial listens seems to bear this fact true. still aint sure if it's my kind of thing. honest, earnest classic sounding rock, with lots of heartfelt emotion. while ben is obviously a hugely admired talent and has been doing this for years, i just wonder if in this post-blunt world if people are getting fed up with ''bloke with guitar complaining' type of stuff. oh, hang on, may be that's just me.

archie bronson outfit - derdang derdang

well i never. appearing out of nowehere, this one is a cracker. dirty, grotty swamp filled blues rock that really hits home. the phrase, 'shake ye hips' is proclaimed on the drum, and fuck me, if you dont start feeling the primal groove within the opening riffs of 'cherry lips' then you may as well check in with the undertakers. awesome stuff. proper review to appear when i can be arsed, but if there were one guitar based album in recent times that you should check out - this is easily it.

spank rock - yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo

no idea if thats enough yo's in the title, but hey. this is the new blossoming sound from baltimore. electro booty bass madness, on top of which saucy wordplay lets rip. i must be old, but the constant declarations of pumpin' pussy/ass/tits/ho's etc gets tiresome, which is a real shame as the production is at times inspired. recent single 'rick rubin' stands out from the hormonally charged partners.

morrissey - ringleader of the tormentors

if you have have read any press on this album you will know that this is the album that most people make when in their 20's, ie this is morrisseys sex album. he is in love. and shock, horror. it could be with a different man other than himself. this pleases me immensely, i am so glad that the worlds most misunderstood misery has come to the conclusion that love is not always a passage of hardship and can at times be rather fun. the other factor with the album is the use of tony visconti as producer, and ennio morricone for string arrangements. this has brought in a new found love for epic orchestrations, kid choirs and glam guitars. full review once i have had chance to get into the album a little more, but initial listens reveal that there are couple of classics as well as a few filler tracks, but the album revolves around the amazing finale, in which morrissey declares loud and proud, 'at last i am born'.

welcome to your new world, morrissey. i hope you enjoy your stay.

yeah yeah yeahs - show your bones

first up - never fell for any of the hype around the first ep/album. something about the haircut-centric karen o scared the living daylights out of me, and their minimal drum+guitar sound really made my skin crawl. all that manufactured cool and devotional excess. so why oh why do i actually find myself enjoying the difficult second album? maybe the involvement of  studio craftsman alan moulder has something to do with it, maybe it's the fact that the band have decided to drop all the scenster crap and just write some cracking tunes. of course, this means that fans of the last album will probably hate this as its being hailed as a proper grown up rock album, and in some ways i guess it is. proper song structures, fleshed out instrumentation make the album like some bastard mutation of indie noise, post punk and proper pop music. good stuff.

 

more tomorrow

mark e

ireallylovemusic

gorillaz - danger mouse/jemini - ghostface/doom - live dvd and mp3's

hell.o

i have to be honest, it's rather special to see and hear a set of musicians give damons dark pop masterpiece, demon days, a proper going over in an grand old theatre in the north of england.

i have reviewed the soon to be released dvd of the show in the usual place, but i suspect you'd rather watch a preview : here 

in other news, lex records are coming out of hibernation, so they have released 2 online 'work in progress' tracks from stuff to be released later in 2006.

1. danger mouse and jemini - fast on the heels of his gorillaz fun, comes this reunion of the world class producer and his hip hop sidekick, jemini.

'knuckle sandwich' is available : here

2. ghostface and doom : this long rumoured union of these 2 underground hip hop stars at last seems to be becoming a reality. 'angeles' : here

thats enough action for now, surely ?

mark e

ireallylovemusic

akira the goth - new mp3

been a while since i mentioned the blond avenger, akira the don, but it seems the bugger has gone goth ! which, for someone that survived leeds in the 80's, is a strange direction for the nu-world wordsmith, but i have to say the pounding electro, and necessary military drum beat makes this throwback to my uncomfortable teens rather fun, of course his vocals dont have the same pompous theatricals of the original dark lord, but hey, it's freeeeee.

 so without further ado can i point you in the direction of his cover version of sisters of mercy's lucretia my reflection : here

next up : skinnyman vs all about eve. maybe.

mark e

ireallylovemusic

 

raiding the 20th century - revisited.

a story :

2 years ago, strictly kev (aka dj food part of the ninja tune empire) broadcast a 45 minute mix that gave a rundown on the world of cut-n-paste, and it's more mutant bastard offspring, mash-ups. the mix, naturally found its way onto the wire and eventually to my ears. 'twas a glorious experiment, and proved that the art of cut-up was indeed worthy of such a document.

however, there was one glaring (for me anyways !) omission, kisspower by my beloved age of chance. subsequently, i tracked down kev, and explained that there was indeed one uk track from 1986 missing from the mess of noise he has released. to which kev advised that the 45 minute mix was a precursor to the full deal that he was in the process of making. this was too good an opportunity to miss. i sent kev a cd-r of the kisspower track and followed this up with a few easy q's for the ireallylovemusic site.

a year later, i received confirmation from kev that the monster, now known as 'raiding the 20th century', was ready to release to the world, such was the recognition of this aural document even paul morley had agreed to appear as a master of ceremonies throughout the hour long document, reading passages from his own 'words & music'.

word had spread since the original version, and the anticipation was rather frenzied amongst certain areas of the net. once the mix was online (no real world copies were ever pressed - this was a free internet only mix), demand hammered the ninja tune webserver into submission taking various chunks of ninjatune offline while chaos ensued.

ireallylovemusic once again assisted by hosting details of the mix and original artwork, as hidden away in the final tracklisting was a certain kisspower track. fame at last!

the internet community was brought into the funk as direct requests were put out to spread the mix far and wide for fear of a kickback from various big brother institutes (the memories of danger mouse vs emi were still fresh).

a few weeks later, the party had fizzled out, everyone who wanted the manipulated noise, had it, and all seemed to go back to normal.

that is, until this weekend.

ireallylovemusic has been requested by kev to drop the artwork associated with the mix, links to dj food's website and any references as to where the mix may be available. apparently, as a result of the interview he did with ireallylovemusic, he has received a strongly worded letter from emi.

over a year after the event things have come back to kick us into touch, to quote kev :"This has served it's purpose and it's amazing I got away with it for so long but I have to make it unavailable as of NOW otherwise I am getting to get the danger mouse treatment over it"

i have to be honest, the fact that a largely imageless, low profile website like ireallylovemusic has been noticed, gives me a tingle of excitement, but there is no way i would want to get kev into trouble, so of course i did as requested.

i do think, however, that maybe the horse has bolted and the actions by emi will result in little, the mix should be celebrated as a work of art, a statement of the modern world of music, and in a just world, be broadcast in complete on bbc3's excellent radio show mixing it. i am sure that if there is anyone who still wants to track the mix down, then it shouldn't be too difficult, just dont ask me for any clues. more details on the mix, the interview and full track listing : here

thank you.

mark e

ireallylovemusic

bring on the sunshine

will this winter never end.

to bring on the sunshine i have decided to spread the funky old school loops and humour of 2 crews that should bring a smile to your face and make your vibe a little more loose.

first there is the excellent dj format.

as you should know, he has released 2 albums proper, one mixtape, and a couple of bits and pieces that are available from shows, but you may not have this goodie for your i-slob.

music for the mature b-boy - album sampler - 15 minute mix by psycho pab - 160Kbps mp3 available : here

then yesterday i delved into the world that is ugly duckling. picked up the double cd set of 'taste the secret', and the leftovers ep. lots of lovely two turntables and a microphone styled scratch funk loops, horn riffs, and a story arc re the mystery that is meat shakes. totally recommended when you get tired of all that hi-tech electro studio polish that most hip hop seems to be made of. subsequently, i gotta point you to the website : here

hidden away in the download section is a 50 minute mix by the bands dj, young einstein. more soul-n-funk grooves to fill your boots and get the rays beeming down.

bring it on.

mark e

ireallylovemusic

 

 

free music from lenny kravitz

i don't normally do this kind of thing, but i have to say that some of these tracks are actually well worth the download.

basically lenny kravitz has got all chummy with some folks who make vodka, and created a rather nice trance-rock track called breathe. you may have heard it.

well to go one step further, they have now enlisted lots of dancefloor friendly people and got the track remixed - lots.

so surf around the very flashy website here and find the relevant download - it's about 58M, with the mp3 files being encoded @ 160KBps.

remixers include : chromeo, ashley beedle, the presets, little louie vega, jazzanova, as well as by others.

the form is mainly of the electro-dance style, and some are really rather cool.

guess i should drink more vodka then ?

mark e

ireallylovemusic

 

shooting from the hip for once

today brought about a change in direction.

out of nowhere i had the urge to delve into the archive and source all my 'arena rock recordings' albums.

back in 2003 arrco got themselves a distribution deal with rykodisc and by some strange twist in fate they became top of my list of 'gotta catch'em all for the next 12 months.

the starting point was when i found out that they were releasing a new album by grand mal ('bad timing'), have i not mentioned them before? surely i have - i like'em a lot dontcha know. anyway, this lead me to doing the google thing (was that live in 2003 as life before google is eradicated from my grey cells) only to find out that they had also been putting out records by my other fave fuzzed up heroes - superdrag.

so with a 100% hitrate i started tracking down other stuff. firstly, there were the weird and twisted, but rather compelling, by the 14th listen anyway, 'the mink lungs'. a band who could play perfectly formed indie pop one minute and the most fucked up psyched freak out the next. hmm .

but this was nothing in comparison to my next acquisition on the journey, the brilliantly named, 'pilot to gunner'. when their debut album, 'games at high speeds' hit the decks i was blown apart by the sheer forcefulness of the music. it rocked. large. but there was something else in the passion, there was an urge and insistency missing in most alt.indie.rock. the album flew by at breakneck pace, and didn't take any prisoners. the thing was a hard fucker to love, like a bad tempered teenager you had to gain the trust, take it out, pamper its needs, and only then did the excellence within reveal itself.

thankfully, by the time the follow-up album came out, 'get saved', i was ready and prepared, as were a lot of the music press. the band were going to take on the mainstream. the coverart was sharp, provocative, and beautifully executed, the band looked and sounded ready for total domination.

so what the fuck went wrong ? well i guess from a uk side - nothing. they never seemed to happen. maybe they never toured enough, maybe they pissed off the wrong journos. i dunno. but what i do know is that 3 years later the album still sends sparks flying when the title track is blasted out.

so, following my rediscovery of the band today i decided to see if they had continued with arena rock, whose distribution deal with ryko seems to have fallen by the wayside a long time ago. that revealed nothing. thankfully, a chance surf/messageboard question revealed that they have recently come out of hiding and are interacting via the ubiquitous myspace. so without further ado i ask you all to nip over there and send the guys some love, read the blog, it sounds like they've had tough times (the usual story i suspect - all that gorgeous packaging/recording costs have been put at the feet of a band well out of their financial depth), but recently things appear to be back in action - gigs, live recordings surfacing on the wire somewhere, etc etc.

let's hope they find some love this time around. they're certainly gonna get it from ireallylovemusic if they make more music as good as the 2 albums that are on my desk right now that's for sure.

pilot to gunner : myspace

record label : arena rock recording co

g'night.

mark e

ireallylovemusic

grand mal : an update

hello.

i am rather glad to find out that the latest album by grand mal has at last found a proper outlet.

details : here

as we all know, the internet makes the distance a non-issue. so i urge you all to contact label and pay/hassle for a copy. the album is a perfect 40 minutes of old fashioned rock-n-roll, no more no less.

if you want to know more, then there is, of course, an interview with bill whitten (he is basically grand mal) online in the usual place : here

g'day to you.

mark e

ireallylovemusic

Morrissey - You Have Killed Me - Video

people.

as you may know, Morrissey is to release a new album soon. so to get in the mood, here's the video for the single, 'you have killed me'

its a fairly straightorward performance video, but hey. its Morrissey, and i reckon he looks and sounds great these days, after all, have you seen the live dvd 'who put the m in manchester' ? it's fantastic, and well worth tracking down.

video : here

thanks

mark e

ireallylovemusic

nostalgic trip part 43 : sandals - rite to silence

hell.o

going retro today. my head demanded something familiar and welcome, something mellow, with dashings of spaced out dub, and woofer threatening skunk funk grooves by a rock band that like to stretch out a little.

so off i went to the archive and retrieved this 1994 lost classic by sandals, 'rites to silence'.
 
yes you may call it proto trip hop. but bloody good proto hip hop it is too.

leftfield and luke gordon assist the drugged up hipsters (i mean just look at that cover .. how fucking nonchalant can a band look !) to create a genuinely gorgeous laid back listen, aparently there is a lost album hidden in the record label vaults .. but too much red tape makes it impractical to get it onto the release schedule. arse.

if you see this in the bins for a couple of quid, then just give it a go instead of something a lot less interesting.
the album along with the 'cracked ep' are still within easy reach @ ireallylovemusic hq.
original review :
http://www.ireallylovemusic.co.uk/dance/sandals.html
ta
m.e/ireallylovemusic

return of the tits.

folks.

careful watchers will have noticed that i have mentioned this bunch of mascara'd vamps before, but the scary/wonderful/sexy/funny/playful/noisy (delete as applicable) tits of death have recently relaunched their website. and tis my preordained duty that you should be advised of such an event.

of course,, there are still images that will make you gran cry, and your man put away the viagra for a few weeks, but the real deal is in their funky music player.

having hammered the demos over the last few months its great to actually have some new music available. in the hi-techno stream machine are 6 songs, a couple of superb newbies, 'succubus' and 'transitional man', alongside the classic demos (as well a new version of 'this is a bust') giving you almost too much fun to handle all in one go perhaps.

the new recoirdings show that the band are really beginning to find their sound methinks. here's a quick tagline : "2006 sanctioned grotty electro rock with hooks aplenty". several of the songs will make goths of a certain age grin like rotting cheshire cats, but hey, we dont have to be shiny happy people in 2006 do we?

i love'em me, i reckon this lot could become a very interesting gang to watch.

and look - not one breast related pun. how fucking good am i ?

website : here

mark e

ireallylovemusic

feedle - exclusive download

hell.o

want to hear more lovely freaky noises with laptops, guitars and pianos ?

then head on over to svc records and stump up the extras for the new feedle album, 'leave now for adventure'. played at the required volume, this will caress and damage stereos, but in case you need some incentive, here's a little treat that never made it onto the album.

feedle : wooden hill : here

svc records : here

thanks

mark e

ireallylovemusic