Les hommes lapins

Box set find of the day : Echo & The Bunnymen's Crystal Days.

Thanks to biblioteca ; E&TB complete discography also available.

Foxy

Foxy songstress of the day award goes to Ms. Shelby Lynne. I saw her on a blog and immediately fell in love without even hearing the music ... which I'm sure must be good. Will give her a proper listen on my way home. Is she British? American? Who cares! An amazing choice of songs. What? Oh she's a country singer .. oh well never mind, I can handle that.

Check out (sic.) her album at nitrofiles

Republic Techniques

Bootleg album find of the day award goes to New Order's Electronic Ecstasy : corny title and ghastly sleeve (not shown) disguise a fantastic recording of a very tight performance from Reading festival summer 1993. The Republic album was not everyone's favourite (their first after the Factory 'split') but many songs are performed well here - Regret, Ruined in a Day, Everyone Everywhere - as well as a few 'favourites' such as True Faith and Perfect Kiss to please the crowd. Others such as the ravey 'Fine Time' or even 'Perfect Kiss' should have been left in the studio as the live performance does nothing to enhance them; Blue Monday was and remains almost compulsory, although again this performance is a little shoddy mostly due to Hooky's rather brash anarchic bass line.

No-one is perfect but this bootleg is a real gem capturing New Order magnificently in those early pre-internet 90s.

.

available through nitrofiles

We Have a Download

Download folder of the day.


Thanks to Pacman for pointing me in the right direction and to all those involved.

Ghost

Best new single of the week
Marsheaux - Ghost






Listen to it here

Apparently on 7" only....

Thanks to Electronically Yours esp for the lovely pic.

Fabulous Fifties

Seems as if there's loads of fiftieth birthdays going around in the musics world of late, so here's a bit of a homage to each of the 50th-birthday boys I'v read about so far this year..
A bit of a mixed bunch I'm sure you will agree, yet all have their merits...

Mr. David Sylvian


Mr. Gary Numan


Mr. Martin Fry


new ABC compilation also available, and new single and album later in the month..

Pop / Art

Music news of the day:

The Pet Shop Boys' official site has news that the duo have covered the The Passions' hit from 1981, "I'm In Love With A German Film Star," with world famous photographer and arty friend Sam Taylor-Wood providing vocals.
I just hope they don't make a balls-up of it as it is one of my favourite songs from the era.

See also: Raiding the Vinyl Archive's post on The Passions.

Crisis? What Crisis?

music blog find of the day:
All you ever wanted about the China Crisis

Engineers

A wonderful Virgin compilation which I didn't get in 1980 but waited 28 years instead to be able to enjoy the thrill of downloading and finally listening to the damn thing. A mish-mash of electronic-based rock/pop music that was going round at the time all with a Virgin label connection. OMD's opening Messages is still a blinder to this day (perhaps former bedfellows Dalek-I could have done with a decent producer too to whip them into shape), and Numan / Tubeway Army shows us here how far ahead of his time he was. Be blown away with The Human League's massively sexed-up version of Being Boiled (see also Travelogue and Holiday 80), and of course Foxx's seminal Underpass from decade opening and massively influential Metamatic album. The rest is pretty much 'no-wonder-they-never-became-that famous' territory (Leer / Badowski et al where are you now), save perhaps Fad Gadget and Silicon Teens' cult classics. XTC's contribution is a bizzarre closing track but shows us how versatile and creative Partridge and co. were at the time.
A must. Don't wait 28 years chaps like I did....
Get it here newromantic rules

New (Romantic) Europeans

Sort of signalled the start of the New Romantic movement (equally applauded and derised then as now) and I bought the cassette in February 1981, a few months after it's 1980 release.
It's 'stylish' approach was also marked by hair / make-up / clothes also being credited on the sleevenotes. While the first single Tar went fairly unnoticed (in re-recorded form here), the side one closer Fade to Grey became a classic with it's sparse synth-sounds, strong dance beat and dreamy bi-lingual vocals ('devenir en gris'). Mind of a Toy was worthy follow-up but Steve Strange soon ran out of steam without many of his muso-pals around him. (M Ure and B Currie et al).

Get it here (new romantic rules)

Brand new blog

I've just recently discovered (am I late?) that the net is absoloutly full of a new kind of music blog where fanatics, especially of long lost bands or recordings, post their pictures, info and even the music files themselves (through Rapidshare and the like) for others to appreciate (download) too. And whay a jolly good idea. In the last 10 days or so I must have downloaded about 50 different albums from various blogs, and I'm pretty sure I'm still (spiral) scratching the surface... Sort of like walking into a second hand record shop and just helping yourself to what you want...

So here is mine own music(s) blog where I don't intend to put direct share links but rather links to other blogs / posting I've chosen for you .. at least for now.

Enjoy.