Photo Of The Day

Sven shooting some super 8 with Amelia for my grad. film,
"The Night The Disco Burnt Down"

Neil Young - On The Beach (1974)

(Photo By Thurston Moore)
"On The Beach" was Young's 1st album after the album that made him ubber successful world wide "Harvest". It was only released on cd for the 1st time in the summer of 2003 and is the 1st part of his supposed "Doom Trilogy". I would say it's my favourite of his along side the "Unplugged" album. When it came out I never realized that it's quite downbeat, but then again I was smoking alot of good grass that summer in Galway.
Highly Recommended.

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Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home (2005)

He was the first person I saw on the Saturday of Primavera Sounds 2006. We came in half way during a song and it was just Owen Pallet (The man who provided the string arrangements to Arcade Fire's 1st album) on his own on stage with a violin with it's sounds swooping around the auditorium. We sat down, the song ended and I thought it was really good, but it was a pity he didn't have Orchestra with him instead of using a backing track. Then he started the next song and he began to slowly build up the song layer by layer using loop pedals. What I thought was a orchestra backing track was all him.
Mesmerising and epic in tone, his 1st album is more than well worth a listen. He even wrote a song around music from Super Mario Land 2 'Six Golden Coins' on the gameboy for christ sakes. The album really got me when i first got it and only has one song i still haven't warm too. I put in the Ep version of "This Is The Dream Of Win And Regine" as a bonus song, which is how i got into Final Fantasy. Enjoy.

Here is a cover version of Joanna Newsom's "Peach,Plum,Pear".

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Dixie Dirt - Springtime Is For The Hopeless And Other Ideas

Back in 2002 I went to see Irish instrumentalist Martha Washington in Eamon Dorans. After the gig a young American came up to a friend of mine; who was in the band and gave him a list of bands he thought he might like. On the list was Can who I just got into. Anyway to cut a short story shorter the traveling American and I got talking and we exchanged cds we had on us. I gave him a dEUS mix I made and he gave me this; An 7 Track mini album of slowburning Americana. Akin to Sonic Youth doing Neil Young songs with Cat Power on vocals, nice indeed.
You can download this album for free at their website, which is also nice to see bands doing.
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The Jimmy Cake - Brains (2001)

Live, this 9 piece Irish Instrumental band "The Jimmy Cake" always rode the crest of a wave, brilliant, epic, euphoric but you never knew if each song would collapse into an noisy messy abrupt end. But that was always part of charm of a the Jimmy Cake gig. The ramshackle affair of having 9 musicians on the same surf board on a 60 foot wave.
Their debut is a bona fide classic in my eyes, up there with Godspeed's f♯a♯∞ and after a 2year hiatus they are back and i was luck to see them play a secret(ish) gig last November, where they unleash two new songs to the world. So here's hoping for the future and enjoy their 1st and best album so far.

Myspace
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Camera Obscura - Let's get out of this Country (2006)

Glasgows finest Camera Obscura have made a breezey bubblegum
pop record that harks back to the days when Cliff Richard was a cool
cat , Butlins was the place to go on summer holidays and nothing say
"Hip" better than a Beehive hairdo. Nerve tingling vocals and gloriously
pop hooks are a plenty on an album where every song could be a single.

They are bring their hits to your shore where the hit,
McGarrigles, Co. Sligo on the 4th of May,
Roisin Dubh, Co. Galway on the 5th of May
and The Village, Co. Dublin on the 6th of May.
If in any doubt watch the videos.

Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken is best pop song i've heard recently
since Space Age Love Song By A Flock of Seagulls



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"8 Bit Bliss" Mixtape

This mix started out as a krautrock mix but ended up mostly full of blissed out electronica and 8bit casio tracks, hence the name.

01 Cherubs - Arab Strap


02 Xtal - Aphex Twin
This is of Ambient Works Vol.1. As blissed out and euphoric as Aphex Twin gets.

03 This Is Now - The Knife
My favourite Knife song. The soundtrack to "Getting the hell out of the city", late night driving.

04 My Sex - Sir Drew
Minimal Techno with Kraftwerk undertones and a chorus of sex groans. Got it of the rather dull "The Trip" compiled by Snow Patrol. This and "By Your Side" By Cocorosie are the only good things on it.

05 Naked Rain - Ellen Allien
Another great minimal techno track. This time from Berlin's finist Ellen Allien. Also in keeping with the "running away from city at night" vibe.

06 Portrait Of The Artist As A Fountain - Simon Bookish
Gay cowboy music. It's all Joyce, spurs and casios. Great Stuff by Londoner
artist Leo Chadburnwritten about American Artist Bruce Naumann.

07 Electronic Renaissance - Belle And Sebastian
The droney casio electro "...Drop a pill and sing along" song from their 1st album

08 Sound And Vision - David Bowie


09 Hallogallo (edit) - NEU!
The start of the Krautrock section of the mix. Beginning with a great track from NEU!, who are two ex-members of Kraftwerk.It's the 1st track off their 1st record from 1972 and in my book it's the start of techno but with guitars.

10 Conductor 71 - Fujiya & Miyagi
Its basically a NEU! track but it's still really really good. Great even.

11 Spoon - Can


12 The Room Got Heavy - Yo La Tengo
Oh that organ sound.

13 Metal Fingers in My Body - Add N To X




14 Mr. B's Ballroom - Devo
I can't believe this was never a single.

15 Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long - The Magnetic Fields
"You’ve been digging in the rubble, Gettin’ bitches in trouble"

16 Exterminata Beat (edit)- Emperor X
A gem of a song and the only song i know that references concrete shuttering frames. Which is nice.

17 The Disco Song - Au Revoir Simone
Great song of a great album (See below to download).

18 Scenic World - Beirut
The Casio track of Beirut's wonderful debut album.

19 Come and Play in the Milky Night - Stereolab
I ended the mix with the last song of "Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night". Good floating in space music.

Enjoy and Good Luck.

Download 8Bit Bliss

The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike & "Are You Ready For More?" (Australian Tour EP)

If Big Bird, Animal and the rest of the Sesame Street gang formed a band, they would sound like this lot. Ramshackled production full of 70s Double Dutch chants,charlie brown piano,car chase horns and Sonic Youth Guitars.
My only problem with the record is that it's a wee bit to good for it's own good. If that makes any sense.

Buy "Are You Ready For More?" (Australian Tour EP)
Buy Thunder Lightning Strike
Check out their Myspace for their cover of Sonic Youth's "Bull In The Heather"
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Sonic Youth - TV Shit (1993)

A re- up of a Ep which is a collabration by Sonic Youth with Japanese vocalist Yamatsuka Eye from Boredoms. It is referred to as a cover version of the Youth Brigade song "No II", the original version of which was a one-second song consisting of the yelled word "No".
Buy Tv Shit
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The American Analog Set - Promise Of Love (2003)

A fine indierock record and my favourite of theirs so far. The first song, Continuous Hit Music is one the best krautrock song product by an American band that I've heard since Windsor For The Derby -The Melody Of A Fallen Tree.
Great Stuff.

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V/VM - Lady In Red

Chris De Burger on Ketamine.

The Drones - Gala Mill (2006)

The Drones play "The Ballroom of Romance" on Portello, Dublin this Saturday.
The apocalyptic "Jezebel" (see Video) alone is worth the admission fee. With it's Blix-esque stabbing guitar, and raving preacherman vocals sounds quite renascent to fellow Australians; Nice Cave and the Bad Seeds.
The drones 6 foot plus frontman sounds like he's be out in the bush too long and the album come across as their answer to Neil Young's "On The Beach".Maybe they should have called it "On The Bush" instead of naming it after the barn in Tazmania where they recorded the album in.

For more info about the gig go Here
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Au Revoir Simone - Verses of Comfort, Assurance & Salvation (2005)

Three New York Ladies on Casio Keyboards making honest,
sweet tunes about lost love, missed chances, and "waiting,
waiting". For some reason it took my friends a while to get
in to it. But at their recent gig everyone and their dog came
away with t-shirts and smiles. They are still touring so not
too late if you aint seen them already.
Essential Stuff.

Buy It for a 5er
Myspace
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Beach House - Beach House (2006)

I'm always a sucker for a steel guitar and unusual sounds
and two piece Beach House have both in spades. They
have made a lush, ethereal and hypnotising album.

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Fujiya And Miyagi - Transparent Things (2006)

Took me a while to get into this British band with a Japanese moniker. I thought sometimes their influences were a bit too obvious. "Conductor 71" could be a NEU! song and the vocal on "Collorbone" sounds like "Dizzy Dizzy" by Can. But with further listens Fujiya And Miyagi's own sound becomes more apparent. "Transparent Things" is now one of my favourite albums that i have heard so far this year . They are playing Electric Picnic (Ireland's answer to Glastonbury) this year along with fellow Kraut rockers "Electrelane" (see Below), Bjork and Sonic Youth amongst others. Well worth a look as last years picnic was the best festival i ever been too. (Primavera Sounds is full of "Too Cool To Dance" crowd. Reading and Oxygen are full of riotous 16 year olds).

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Electric Picnic
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Electrelane - Axes (2005)

Bought this album after reading a review to a B-side and rarities album they released last year. The review said Electrelane sounded like "Broadcast". They don't but these four ladies doing krautrock have made a great album. If it wasn't for the utterless pointless "Business Or Otherwise" this would almost be perfect.
Buy It
Myspace
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Loose Fur - Loose Fur (2003)

Krautrock from super group comprising of Wilco's frontman Jeff Tweedy, drummer Glenn Kotche, and musician /producer (Joanna Newsom, Wilco, Sonic Youth, Stereolab etc) Jim O' Rourke. Whatever O' Rourke touches always has a Can/NEU! feel about it and this record is no different. A great, great album.



Buy It

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Apologies for the Low Bit rate, i will see if i can fix that.

PRODUCTOFTHEEIGHTIES

This product contains:
Corrosive Post Punk (1-4),
Sax Girl Party Bop (5-7),
Synth Paranoia (8-10),
Tuneful Cheese(11-13),
3/4 American, 1/4 Scotish Indie (14-17)
and Big Bootie Rhythms (18-20).

01 Sonic Youth - Burning Spear


02 Return The Gift - Gang Of Four

03 Asbestos Lead Asbestos - World Domination Enterprises

04 The Fish Needs A Bike - Blurt

05 Aerasol Burns - Essential Logic

06 Debbie Harry - Family Fodder

07 Never Say Never - Romeo Void


08 Underpass - John Foxx


09 Isolation - Joy Division

10 Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beat


11 Sunglasses At Night - Corey Hart


12 Out of Touch - Hall And Oates


13 Addicted to Love - Ciccone Youth


14 Fourh Of July - Galaxie 500


15 Moscow nights - The Feelies

16 I Ran - Flock Of Seagulls


17 I Could Be Happy - Altered Images


18 All Night Long - Mary Jane Girls


19 Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' - Michael Jackson


20 It's Alright - ESG

Good Luck and Enjoy

h**p://link-protector.com/435002/

Arab Strap - Mad For Sadness (1999)

A live album from Scotland's finest. Recorded in London in
1998, 'Mad For Sadness' is culled primarily from songs of
their 2nd album 'Philophobia',as well as material from
singles/eps and one track of 1996's 'The Week Never Starts
Round Here'. This album can unite a room full of music
partisans, intoxicating them with it's lush hypnotic soundscapes
and staggeringly honest and beautiful lyrics. I neverely
always hate 'Live' albums but this is Essential Stuff and from
a band named after a sexual device that props up problematic
erections. Great.

Buy Mad For Sadness
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