listening2… is a series of regular posts on what I’ve been listening to. Tracks from my travels. New songs and music to explore further. Half forgotten tracks from my collection. Roadtrip gems. If you like this post, let me know or, even better, let someone else know!
June 9th 2024: I’ve been listening to… #04
In this week’s listening2… punk-funk (!!!) from ‘down by the school yard’; Carnage from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis; a bit of Taylor to whet your appetite for Eras; Teardrop, possibly the best song ever written (someone said); a brilliant collaboration featuring the brilliant John Wardle (AKA…) and a Drum & Bass banger from Nia Archives… Plus a bonus track that continues the D & B theme with a legendary remix of Adele… (yes, Adele!)
1. !!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Me and Guiliani Down by the School Yard - A True Story
I’ve got a vinyl copy of !!!’s (pronounced Chk Chk Chk) album from 2004, Louden Up Now sitting in my collection upstairs. They emerged as part of the so-called dance-punk (or punk funk) wave in the 2000s (which also include LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture and Radio 4 among others). !!! are still going and still recording; their latest record Let It Be Blue was released in 2022. This track from Louden Up Now is a classic. Me and Giuliani…. was the first single from the album.
2. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – Carnage
Nick Cave’s album Ghosteen was a harrowing, haunting tribute to his son, Arthur, who died tragically in 2016. The follow up album, Carnage, is a very different beast – it feels like a kind of profane stairway to heaven (if you’ll forgive the cliché). The songwriting and vocals are unmistakably Nick Cave, but the electronic swirl that Warren Ellis creates gives it a very different feel. I listen to this album a lot at the moment. Current favourite track: Carnage…
3. Taylor Swift - Evermore
As I write, you’d better watch out, Taylor Swift is coming to town. Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and Wembley Stadium over the next couple of weeks. If you’ve got tickets for Eras, well, enjoy… it looks like an amazing show.
In the meantime I’ve been listening again to her lockdown albums Folklore and Evermore. Both are beautifully written and performed pieces. Deep respect from a late-discovering, ageing Swiftie. This title track with Bon Iver from the second album, Evermore, is simply gorgeous…
4. Massive Attack – Teardrop
I recently read someone describe Teardrop as one of the best songs ever. It’s hard to disagree. I’ve come across it again as it’s one of the songs that Sophie, my yoga teacher, has on her playlist. When that tick, tick, tick beat comes in, sounding like a metronome, it’s unmistakeable. And it also turns to be perfect for yoga! Having written about Beth Gibbons in the last couple of issues, this one seems like a perfection companion piece. I ALWAYS love this song…. 1
5. Jah Wobble & Marconi Union - Anomic
I’m listening to Jah Wobble’s updated autobiography, Dark Luminosity (The Expanded Edition): Memoirs of a Geezer, at the moment. Like most musical memoirs it reminds you that there’s not a lot of glamour in the music world – or at least the post-punk part of it that Wobble and others inhabited! If the man previously known as John Wardle (until Sid Vicious drunkenly slurred his name wrong one night) is right, it’s chock full of tossers, narcissists and junkies. Still, the maestro bassist that is Jah Wobble has come up with some amazing music over the years. I discovered his collaboration with Marconi Union, Anomic, on deep red vinyl as a RCD reissue a few years back. Listen to it on headphones if you can, to get the full effect of Wobble’s booming bass-lines.
6. Nia Archives - Baianá
I came across Nia Archives a couple of years back. She’s a singer and producer inspired by old-skool Jungle and Drum & Bass from the 1990s: Metalheadz, Kemistry & Storm, DJ Flight, LTJ Bukem and others. All favourites of mine from back then.2
Her 2022 EP Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall is a beautiful thing. There’s not a bad track on it and I could have chosen any of them to post here. I chose Baianá because it makes me dance – and I love the video. No Need 2 Be Sorry, Call Me? with Maverick Sabre is also great if you’re in more of a romantic mood. Her first full album Silence Is Loud, came out this year and sounds great too.
Fun fact: Teardrop (in an instrumental version) was the opening music for the long running House M.D. series that Mary and I watched over the full eight series and 176 episodes. I hadn’t even realised it until Mary heard the first bars and said, “that was House!’ And she was right…
Bonus track: If Nia Archives is one the artists at the forefront of the new wave of Drum & Bass, the last one had High Contrast (aka Welsh born producer, Lincoln Barrett, on the excellent Hospital Records label). He even got me briefly into Adele with his remix of her track Hometown Glory which was on the bonus CD of his 2009 album, Confidential. Turns out it’s a pretty good song! So that’s yer bonus track for this edition of Listening2 - enjoy, as they always seem to say…