BLT twitpic

Chav's revenge

..and by some coincidence, My Sylvian's ex-wife Ingrid Chavez will also be releasing her new solo album A Flutter and Some Words in September.
Chavez began working with Sylvian on Ryuichi Sakamoto's 'Heartbeat' single. Soon after, Ingrid married David and over the years contributed her trademark whispered-stylevocals to a number of her husband's releases. During the mid-1990s, Chavez worked with Sylvian on a second solo album entitled, 'Little Girls with 99 lives' which was never released.
On her facebook profile Chavez cites her influences as "..thunderclouds, tangerine skies, venus over temple mountain, power lines, silhouettes, moonlight and shadows, back roads."
Her current partner, Lorenzo Scopellito, has also colloborated on "Flutter". Follow Ms Chavez on twitter if you will..

Sylvian/Sakamoto - Heartbeat




Ingrid Chavez and some snow; cheer up Ing, might never happen..

September is..

..the title of a song by David Sylvian and also the month of the release of his new album... Manafon is set for release on September 14th 2008 and will be available as a regular CD/digipak edition and a twin volume deluxe edition with CD and DVD featuring the film 'Amplified Gesture'. Details and new website to follow soon.
Watch this space..or this one.

David Sylvian - Small Metal Gods

Cargo plaque for Joy Division

Joy Division are to be honoured by Rochdale Council with a commemorative "blue plaque" at the Kenion Street Music Building, formerely Cargo Studios where the band among others recorded many of their songs. The building was also home to Peter Hook's Suite 16 Studios until closure in 2001. The blue plaque on the building has been the subject of a campaign by Chris Hewitt who has also managed to get a blue plaque for the Tractor Sound Studios in Heywood in memory of John Peel who financed the studios.
Says Hook of Cargo Studios "the effect it had on Rochdale and the North West music scene is immeasurable, much the same that Ian Curtis had on Macclesfield".
Both plaques will be unveiled on September 23rd with Hook and other northern musical celebs, such as OMD's Andy McCluskey, attending.




a fine example of a "blue plaque", pictured earlier.

Sink or swim for Barney and pals

Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris's new project Bad Lieutenant will release its first single 'Sink Or Swim' on September 21st with an album, 'Never Cry Another Tear' to follow on October 5th.
Typically there would seem to be some confusion about the band members with some sources citing Sumner and fellow New Order member Phil Cunningham as mainmen together with new vocalist/guitarist/Jake Evans of Rambo and Leroy, with Stephen Morris and Blur bassist Alex James not being "official members".
In a statement, Sumner praised his band-mates, saying, “We've worked hard on it [the album] and I'm proud of it.” A tour is also expected to be announced, with Morris and bassist Tom Chapman joining Bad Lieutenant’s live line-up.




Bernard Sumner: he's bad.

Party like it's 1979

Continuing our belated '30 years of..' 1979-2009 celebrations, LIM picks this week's weird and wonderful compilation of the week, thanks to Compo Culture: CD & record compilations from the 70s and 80s.
The marvellous Rock n Roller Disco on the Ronco label delightfully highlights what a weird year 1979 was, fluctuating between MOR pop, disco and much watered-down reggae but with some 'new wave' and post punk creeping in there too.
So we therefore find The Boomtown Rats rubbing shoulders with the likes of Dollar (two hits featured here), and The Real Thing with Public Image Ltd. Jimmy Lindsay's Ain't No Sunshine blends almost seamlessly with Sparks' G Moroder produced Beat the Clock (which anticipated synth pop by a good couple of years) and the wonderfully whacky Flying Lizards come crashing in with Money after Bill Lovelady's crashingly boring Reggae For It Now. The Buggles 'Video Killed..' oft misquoted as the quintissential "80s" record takes it's rightful place in 1979 alongside B A Robertson (only one of his two hits featured here, sadly) and The Jolly Brothers...who?
Enjoy and party like it's 1979...
link
1979 music on wiki

B A Robertson - Bang Bang
Sparks - Beat The Clock.mp3




B A Robertson: 1979 incarnate

30 years of Pleasures pt 2

Gary Numan has announced a tour, a book and a brand new CD issue to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his seminal electronic album The Pleasure Principle, first issued in September 1979.
Although initially planned as one-off show at the Manchester Academy on 21st November, the tour will now take in more dates, despite Numan's dislike of 'nostalgia' tours. Full details to be announced shortly.
Meanwhile the book Backstage written by über-fan Steve Roper is also due for issue in November. Steve runs The Touring Principle site "dedicated to the most prolific and entertaining period of Gary Numan's career, 1979 to 1981" and was a driving force behind the issues of Numan's classic 'lost' live performances on CD, Living Ornaments 1980 (2005) and Engineers (2008).
Backstage's myspace also announces an official release date of September 21, 2009 for The Pleasure Principle 30th Anniversary edition. According to the site's blog "the CD will be a double CD with extra demo tracks, plus there will also be a limited edition 3rd CD available, from NuWorld only."








The Pleasure Principle: 30 years on and the pyramid still hasn't budged.


Gary Numan - Conversation (Early Version 2)

Jacko dead

Michael Jackson is dead. He never was LIM's musical cup of tea. I hated Thriller when it came out: after all the years of post-punk and 'new wave' American mass-produced pop-pap was obviously back in a big way, firstly with Jackson then with Madonna etc etc. He played in big part in the "MTV revolution" especially with the Thriller video, which again was Reagan- driven US music for the masses being exported with ease to Thatcher's UK, Europe and the rest of the world.
Jackson's eccentric behavio(u)r, Neverland home built especially with children in mind (ahem) and last but not least his desire to look like Diana Ross, but whiter, were all part of the Whacko-Jacko package, and after all he was finally proved 'innocent' of certain crimes.
But when all's said and done you have to hand it to him - he did some cracking pop songs and yes I secretly did like Don't Stop Til You Get Enough, Billie Jean and later Black or White and a few others.
In the year of Obama's "black revolution" the black man who wanted to become white passed away. RIP Michael Jackson.

The quiet man speaks

Official sites The Quiet Man and Metamatic have given details of the new John Foxx CD The Quiet Man which features some of the surreal, dream-like stories from the musician's on-going novel about London of the same name.
‘The origins of the novel are firmly cinematic,’ says Foxx. ‘I found an old grey suit in a charity shop in the 1970s. Over the years, I got some friends to wear the suit in various locations in London. I filmed them just walking or sitting in cafes or apartments. As I did this, The Quiet Man story began to emerge. It’s about London becoming overgrown, about the suit being alive somehow, and the way cities can alter us - and our memories. ‘It’s also about film’, he adds. ‘In the novel, The Quiet Man walks into the screen at one point. I think we all do this when we view a film, we enter into it. Participate. Travelling without moving. If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.’
The Quiet Man CD will be issued on Monday 27th July and will be exclusive to the Foxx Official Shop at Townsend Records. This will be Foxx's 4th CD release this year.

The issue of the CD coincides with a new exhibition, DNA,which features images and narratives from the book alongside work by visual artists, film-makers, illustrators, Manga artists, graphic designers and musicians who have been inspired by the character and different aspects of Foxx's thirty-year career.



John Foxx: keeping it Quiet

Phil in Boots

The Human League's Philip Oakey has made a guest appearance on a track on Little Boots' new album Hands. The track, entitled Symmetry, was also performed live by the not-entirely-unlikely duo at a recent LB gig. It's a stomping track which fits in seamlessly with all the other frankly amazing songs in Blackpool-born Victoria Hesketh's debut. Close your eys and you can imagine a 1981-style Oakey singing it on TOTP.
"I'm a huge Human League fan and I just didn't think it would happen. When [singer] Phil Oakey said he would do it, I was like, 'Wow, incredible', because I'm just a massive fan".

Little Boots' electro-driven debut bears all the influences of greats such as The Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Heaven 17 et al yet the numerous references to Kylie by some critics are a little shallow and ill-founded. Hesketh writes all our own material and is a keyboard and techno wiz (witness her deftly using the Yamaha Tenori-on). A child of her time, and a very talented one at that. LIM says: Real new talent..at last!




Little Boots with Phil Oakey: together in electric dreams.






sources: BBC, Electronically Yours


Little Boots official

30 years of Pleasures

NME special this week:

K-Punk article on FACT magazine

New Nouvelle news

Well love em or hate em Nouvelle Vague are back with a new album of their off-beat versions of various punk and new wave songs, making this their third so far. The new album - appropriately entitled '3' - differs from the band's previous albums however in that it actually features the original singers on some of the songs - Ian McCulloch on the Bunnymen's All My Colours, Terry Hall on Our Lips Are Sealed and Martin Gore on Master & Servant among them.
Other songs covered include laid back versions of Gary Numan's Metal, Psychedelic Furs' Heaven, The Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen and Simple Minds' The American.
Nouvelle Vague, led by producer/arrangers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux and a revolving cast of chanteuses, embark on an extensive world tour this weeks rating in New York taking in much of Europe up until December.

NV on my space
NV offical site


Nouvelle Vague: il sont fous ces francais . .mais très aimables.