MIKE & RICH - EXPERT KNOB TWIDDLERS @ 25

 

Celebrating its 25th anniversary today is the one-off collaboration between Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) and Mike Paradinas (μ-Ziq), Expert Knob Twiddlers, which was released on June 24th, 1996.

The album came about as a result of James sending out a number of invitations to various electronic music producers in 1994 offering the opportunity to collaborate with him. While invitations were sent to the likes of Luke Vibert, Squarepusher and Cylob, it was Paradinas who managed to get it together to actually make the sessions happen. Once in the studio, the two found themselves indulging their mutual senses of humor as well as their penchant for electronic instrumentation. They also found that, stylistically, they were plumbing the depths of the retro-lounge music sensibilities which were just beginning to experience a resurgence at the time.

The roots of this revival actually go back to the late 1970s with Industrial music pioneers, Throbbing Gristle, and their habit of ending their live shows by playing Martin Deny albums and eventually parodying his LP cover style on TG’s Greatest Hits release. But it would take another 15 years for the resurgence to hit its peak in the mid 1990s, propelled by the publication of the ReSearch books, Incredibly Strange Music (Vols. 1 & 2). The album that resulted from James & Paradinas’ collaboration would be a kind of fusion of easy listening with funky electronica.

The humor of the album can be plainly observed in every aspect from the cover graphics, which portray the two producers playing a game of Downfall like the box packaging of a classic 1970s Milton Bradley kid’s game, to the song titles (Giant Deflating Football, Eggy Toast, The Sound of Beady Eyes), to the often crudely funny sound samples used in the songs, which includes things like belching in Upright Kangaroo. It’s clear that they were having a lot of fun in the studio while working on this album, though that irreverence may have left some critics a bit ambivalent and wondering if they were just pissing about or trying to make a serious album. Personally, I’ve always found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience from start to finish and lacks some of the more frustratingly self-indulgent edgy elements that can make their respective solo works often mixed bags when it comes to being able to play the whole album without having to skip that one track that just makes you want to bat the needle off the record.

After 25 years on the shelf, I think it still holds up well, though it probably should have been released earlier than it was. It was in the can as early as 1994 and, had it been issued then, it may have seemed more ahead of the curve in terms of embracing the easy listening revival, which hadn’t quite kicked into high gear like it did by the time Expert Knob Twiddlers was actually released. It would have been seen as more of a trend setting record than a bandwagon jumper. Despite it’s inside-joke indulgences, there’s still a forward looking innovation in terms of integrating the feel of the lounge era with the experimentation of ‘90s electronica.

THE SPECIALS - GHOST TOWN @ 40

 

Celebrating it’s 40th anniversary today is the landmark single by The Specials, Ghost Town, which was released on June 12th, 1981. It would not only capture the zeitgeist of a a crumbling UK in the early years of Thatcherism, but it would end up haunting the 21st century as we came to grips with a deadly pandemic in 2020.

The title song began to take shape in Jerry Dammers’ head while touring through the UK in 1980 during a period of severe economic hardship and social unrest as riots became a frequent event in major cities. With shop keepers boarding up windows as a precaution and pensioners on the sidewalks flogging precious mementos for spare change in order to buy food, the depressing conditions of the times seemed to demand a statement from the band. Dammers came to some very specific conclusions in terms of how he wanted this song to sound and feel, meticulously working out every detail of its arrangements, and some of those concepts were quite alien to the other band members, incorporating unfamiliar chord progressions and unusual arrangements in order to create the mood the song required. But Jerry was insistent on these elements, something which only served to exacerbate the already percolating tensions within the band. These conflicts had begun to boil during the recording of their sophomore LP, More Specials, with some members of the group taking exception to Dammers insisted on expanding the sound palette of the band while diverging into other musical styles. Pushing the strange song structure for Ghost Town during its recording nearly resulted in outright rebellion in some cases.

Yet he persisted and managed to get it all recorded. That process itself was something of a deliberate, self inflicted constraint. While More Specials was recorded in a state of the art 24 track studio, its possibilities only caused confusion for bandleader Dammers as he felt overwhelmed by the possibilities on offer. So, for Ghost Town, the decision was made to record on a modest 8 track system, essentially recording all the major parts in mono and then mixing them with stereo reverb and delay. The results of this process give the record a decidedly well balanced sound though it got a little tricky when, at the last minute, Jerry decided he needed to add some flute to the mix and there were no tracks left. He took a gamble on dropping in the overdub on the same track as the horns. It was a dangerous move given the horn section were no longer available for re-recording during the flute recording. If there were any mistakes on the timing of the drop-in, it could bleed over the horn section and ruin it.

The single features two tracks on the B-side. The first, Why?, is an emotional plea for tolerance written by Lynval Golding in the aftermath of a brutal, racially motivated attack that sent him to hospital with broken ribs in 1980. Friday Night, Saturday Morning was written by Terry Hall and offers up a recounting of a mundane night out in Coventry.

The reception of the single upon its release was somewhat mixed in terms of critical response, but any doubts about the song were soon swept aside as, by year’s end, the single was ranked number one on the “best single of the year” lists in all three of the major UK music rags: Sounds, NME and Melody Maker. It became the theme of the times in the UK with its ghostly atmosphere and dire depiction of a decaying urban landscape. As civil unrest and rioting continued after its release, it couldn’t help but be considered the soundtrack to the times. In terms of charting, it held onto the #1 slot for 3 weeks and lingered in the top 40 for ten weeks. It became the crowning achievement of The Specials in their original incarnation, but also their farewell as the band fractured and fragmented soon after its release, with Terry Hall, Lynval Golding & Neville Staple peeling off to form Fun Boy Three before the end of the year.

As brilliant as the title song is, it’s hard to imagine anyone predicting how poignantly appropriate it would become again nearly 40 years after it’s release in the spring of 2020 as the world sunk into the misery of a global pandemic. As COVID-19 sent the population into hiding, closing shops and emptying streets, the refrain, “This town is coming like a ghost town”, became all too much a reality for communities around the world. It’s no wonder the song found itself experiencing a surge of new appreciation and popularity. Its message of loss and suffering echoed across the decades to find a new and even more horrifying reflection than the unrest and fear which had inspired it in the first place.

KRAFTWEKR - THE MIX @ 40

 

June 11th marks the 30th anniversary of Kraftwerk’s 10th studio album, The Mix, which was issued on this day in 1991. While chronologically the group’s 10th album, the group has, for some time now, dissociated themselves from their first three releases and now counts this as their 7th proper album in what they now identify as their official canon of 8 releases (1 Autobahn, 2 Radio activity, 3 Trans Europe Express, 4 Man Machine, 5 Computer World, 6 Electric Cafe, 7 The Mix, 8 Tour De France).

Like Computer World a decade before it, The Mix came about at a time of restructuring for the group as they sought to embrace the digital age as it began to become ubiquitous throughout the creative technologies. The last time they’d undertaken this, it was with the objective of modularizing their performance configuration to allow for easier touring. This was again the driving factor in terms of further consolidating and condensing their gear into what we see today as the sleek 4 person workstation arrangement that has come to exemplify their stage presence. The group hadn’t toured since 1982 in support of Computer World with no tours being undertaken to support Electric Cafe in 1986.

By 1991, the personnel for the group had undergone some changes from the classic lineup which had persisted from Radio Activity through Electric Cafe. Both Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos were gone by 1991, replaced by long time Kling Klang engineer Fritz Hilpert and then Fernando Abrantes filling out the quartet. After a five year gap since Electric Cafe, Ralf Hütter was concerned that people would assume the group were defunct and no longer a going concern. Rather than attempt a collection of new material or a “Best Of” collection, what with the group working towards reinventing their back catalogue for the stage, they hit on the idea of releasing a collection of updated versions of their classics, utilizing the new equipment and improvisational performance techniques they’d been developing.

Confusingly titled, The Mix, the album is not a “remix” album of any kind. It features brand new recordings of their songs with new instrumentation and new arrangements. It is, in effect, a “live in studio” album as they put into practice the methodologies they would subsequently use on stage for what would become the remainder of their career. The album is their first fully digital recording and, as such, was somewhat controversial for analogue purists who found its sound too cold and sterile compared to the group’s original versions of the songs. They were also criticized for not offering any new songs nor really breaking any new ground. The naysayers, however, turned out to be a minority in the end as the album soon gained traction with a whole new audience being introduced to the band through their revitalized and updated sound. The album even landed the #1 spot on The Wire’s year end album pole, this being the first time the magazine had opened it up to any genre rather than only jazz recordings.

Personally, when this album came along, it was something of a bolt from the blue. As much as I loved Kraftwerk, I’d consigned them to the history bin for the most part as the cutting edge of electronic music had been overtaken by the likes of Acid House and Techno in the prior few years, though the presence of Kraftwerk indeed informed these trends on the most fundamental level. Hearing The Mix was a bit of a revelation to me. Though I was initially skeptical thanks to its lack of new songs, the dramatic reinventions that came forth when I played it immediately won me over to its charms and I was thrilled to hear them update their sound for the final decade of the 20th century.

Since its release, Kraftwerk haven’t been overtly prolific in terms of offering new material. In 1999, they released the Expo 2000 EP and then they expanded on their Tour De France single from 1983 by releasing a full album of new material build upon its foundations in 2003. Otherwise, the group has principally focused on periodic live tours and performances. These continue to represent the same basic approach and sound as was put forth by The Mix. While the group continually refine their tools and presentation, incorporating 3D visual accompaniment in recent years, they have essentially settled on their laurels and that’s okay.

I got to see them perform in Vancouver in 2014 and it immediately jumped to the top of my list of all-time most impressive gigs. I never thought that 4 guys standing at podiums for 2 hours could be so mesmerizing, but the combination of those iconic songs and the integration of the 3D visuals to perfectly illustrate them was thoroughly engaging from the first note to the last. Who knows how long they can continue to offer these experiences to audiences, especially with the world of live music in such shambles after being devastated by the COVID pandemic. If they can ever do this again, you’d be lucky to see it. That mastery of performance began with The Mix and it remains a pivotal component of their catalogue.

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES - JUJU @ 40

June 6th marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Siouxsie & The Banshees’ Juju LP, issued on this day in 1981. It was their fourth studio album, overall, and their second of a trilogy of albums they’d release while constituted in their “MK II” configuration of Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, Budgie & John McGeoch. It is perhaps the best of this trio of brilliant albums.

While the prior album, Kaleidoscope, deliberately worked towards differentiating each song from the others with no consideration for how they’d be performed live, and the subsequent album, A Kiss in the Dreamhouse, delved into psychedelic, orchestrated arrangements, Juju was conceived primarily through live performance. A result of this process was that the record organically manifested as a sort of concept album, delving into themes of darkness and subversion that created a common thread through each of its nine compositions.

Musically, Juju represents guitarist John McGeoch at his most inspired and experimental. After his somewhat tentative participation in Kaleidoscope, due to his still being a member of Magazine, Juju found him now fully ensconced in The Banshees where his presence infused and informed the album. As a post punk manifesto, his guitar work rivals that of Keith Levene in PiL in terms of innovation while offering up a much more melodically driven wall of sound. It’s no surprise that John Lydon would eventually recruit him to fill Keith’s shoes after his ouster. Vocally, Siouxsie achieved a warmth and depth to her voice that were a step above anything she’d accomplished before and her tone was duly enriched by the lyrical intensity she brought to each song. The album jars and stuns with striking imagery in song after song. “Ripped out sheep’s eyes. No forks or knives” or “Don’t forget when your elders forget to say their prayers, take them by the legs and throw them down the stairs” are just a couple of examples of verses that reach out of the density of the music and wrench the listener into the darkness of the album’s concepts. This is real “shock and awe” song craft.

But don’t undervalue the contributions of the powerhouse rhythm section provided by Budgie and Severin. They deliver a churning tribal shudder that provides a whirling yet unshakable foundation upon which McGeoch can embellish with his guitars and Sioux can swoop and dive through with her voice. Indeed, the interplay of the quartet is entirely seamless through every song and I’m certain this is largely the result of the compositional process and their being worked out in live settings before being brought into the studio for their commitment to recording tape. The resulting tapestries of sounds are so tightly woven that there’s really no separating them out into discrete components.

This era of Siouxsie & The Banshees was arguably the peak of the band’s prowess while this lineup persisted. Sadly, McGeoch’s struggles with alcoholism would result in him being fired from the band after touring for Dreamhouse and the group was never quite as influential again. The music they made during their first two incarnations (1978-1979, 1980-1982) would offer up sounds and styles that would influence generations to come in terms of post-punk, Goth and a variety of other branches of the alternative music tree. Personally, Juju and the other two albums made by this lineup represent the definitive set of essential recordings by a band that came out of the original London Punk scene and then were one of the first to go beyond its simplistic nihilism and shine a light through the darkness into places where new sounds could be found.

THROBBING GRISTLE - LIVE AT KEZAR PAVILION, SAN FRANCISCO @ 40

 

It's the 40th anniversary of the terminal performance of Throbbing Gristle, which occurred on May 29th, 1981, in San Francisco at the Kezar Pavilion. Commemorated on the LP release, Mission of Dead Souls, it was the last time TG would take to the stage until their eventual reunion, 23 years later in 2004.

At the time TG were struggling under the intense pressure of strained and fractured personal relationships which centered on Cosey's relationships with Chris and Gen. This had been a source of friction for some time, but Chris had reached a point of no longer being able to tolerate Gen's hostility and manipulations and has recently assumed responsibility for being the instigator in terminating their mission.

Though the personal relationships in the band were percolating in the toxic zone, they still managed to channel that antagonism into one of their most intense and harrowing performances. Also captured on video and released on VHS by Target Video, the live footage clearly shows the effect on the audience as evidenced during the finale of Discipline where one audience member can be seen undergoing some kind of transcendent freakout.

As a parting gift to their audience, TG's last exit from their inaugural era remained a stark reminder of their influence and power for over two decades as the ripple effect of their existence spread out into the underground of alternative music. Their eventual reformation in the 21st century's premier decade was a critical reminder of what was possible when you put four such intense personalities together and give them the keys to unlock another dimension of sound.

THROBBING GRISTLE - DISCIPLINE @ 40

 

Marking 40 years since its release in June of 1981, Throbbing Gristle’s Discipline 12” was the last official TG single released before the group disbanded after their final performance in San Francisco in May of that year. The dissolution of the project was officially announced via the mailing of the infamous “Mission is Terminated” postcard on the 23rd of June, 1981. The single was issued by Fetish Records and was their first TG release that wasn’t a reissue of material previously published by Industrial Records.

The single contains two separate recordings of Discipline, a track which was never captured in a studio recording. The A side is the debut performance of the song, which was essentially composed on the spot with Genesis inventing the lyrics based on Cosey’s suggesting the concept before the song started. It was recorded at the SO 36 Club in Berlin on the 7th of November, 1980 and is a Digital recording. The B-side was recorded live at the Illuminated 666 Club in Manchester on 4th December, 1980 and is a binaural recording.

The front cover photo is by Stan Bingo and shows TG standing outside the ex-Nazi Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin. It uses a double exposure effect to make the group look like ghosts in front of the building. The rear cover features a photo by Peter Christopherson of a shirtless Val Denham holding a Hitler Youth dagger. The text around the photo reads “Marching Music for Psychic Youth” and is a hint of where Genesis was moving with his idea of forming a cult-like organization which would eventually manifest as Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth. This organization would form the core support system for Psychic TV, Gen & Sleazy’s post TG regrouping along with Alternative TV guitarist, Alex Fergusson. The runoff groove of the B-side also features the phrase “Psykick Youth Squad”. The A-side runoff groove has the phrase, “Techno Primitive”, scratched into the surface, which would reappear as the title of a Chris & Cosey LP in 1985.

The first time I ever listened to this single was in December of 1984, one evening when a friend and I dropped some blotter LSD called “Flash”, which appropriately featured a lightning bolt print on the tab. We listened to a lot of TG that night and Discipline stood out in particular as it sounded like we were being swept up in some kind of manic cyclone that eventually turned into a human blender with nothing but the screech of spent whirling blades as the song ended and the last remains of human flesh were ground out of the metal.

The single was never re-pressed after it’s initial limited edition run of 10,000 copies was sold out. It was eventually included as bonus tracks on the Mute CD edition of 20 Jazz Funk Greats in 1991. After it’s inception in Berlin, it became a staple of TG live performances, both during the final days of their initial active period in 1980/81 and during their reunion from 2004 to 2010. Though it was never recorded in studio, it has become one of the most iconic representations of TG at their most fierce and confrontational. It’s not uncommon to see it propel audience members to transcendent states of ecstasy, as can clearly be seen in the final minutes of its performance at TG’s San Francisco show in 1981 and during the Astoria reunion show in 2004 where Jhon Balance can be seen undergoing some sort of altered state during its performance. It captures their raw intensity like nearly no other song in their repertoire.

QUEEN - A KIND OF MAGIC @ 35

 

June 2nd marks the 35th anniversary of the release of Queen’s 12th studio album, A Kind of Magic, which was issued on this day in 1986. It was the first album to be released after Queen’s groundbreaking performance at Live Aid in 1985 and the last album the band would promote with a world tour before Freddie Mercury’s health issues would make it impossible for him to perform live anymore. The album began as the soundtrack to the Highlander feature film, though it evolved beyond that constraint as it began to take shape and eventually grew into a proper album with additional material not used in the film and even the pieces that were used ended up being remixed and slightly reworked from their original cinematic versions.

With the recognition from Live Aid putting fresh wind in Queen’s sails, the album became a major hit for the band, especially in the UK where it reached the number one album slot and lingered in the charts for a whopping 63 weeks, racking up 600,000+ unit sales there alone. Though it was a commercial success, critically, it received mixed reviews. Critics found it lacking in focus and direction, though there are a number of songs on the album which have come to be viewed as essential in Queen’s canon of greatest hits. This includes songs like One Vision, which was directly inspired by Queen’s Live Aid experience, at least as far as Freddie’s interpretation of the track. While it began as a Roger Taylor composition referencing Martin Luther King, Freddie reworked a lot of the lyrics and brought in a bit of camp humor with lyrics like "one shrimp, one prawn, one clam, one chicken”. Who Wants to Live Forever would eventually take on a far more poignant tone in light of Freddie’s struggles with HIV, which would eventually take his life in 1991.

Personally, it’s an album that came along at a time when I was very far away from following the band. While they were a favorite in my teens in the late 1970s, by the mid 1980s, I was deep into some very experimental, obscure musical territory and Queen were pretty well off my radar. As such, I’ve only given this album a glancing blow in terms of paying it much attention. What better time then to give it another listen?

THE RAINCOATS - ODYSHAPE @ 40

 

Released on June 1st, 1981, The Raincoats sophomore album, Odyshape, is celebrating 40 years since its release. Though the Raincoats had already set themselves in a league of their own with their debut album, they somehow managed to step outside their own self-delineated sphere with this followup.

Just about every aspect of the record sets it outside the colouring lines of punk, post-punk, alternative or folk music, though it touches on all of these genres and more. The instrumentation, performances, compositions and arrangements all defy classification and refuse to adhere to any kind of established norms. Like The Shaggs before them, The Raincoats managed to reinvent music for their own purposes, though in this case they actually had some formal skills to build upon, albeit they pushed each and every technique to the brink of being unrecognizable.

The band were flying somewhat “without a net” when conceiving this album as original drummer, Palmolive, had departed and her replacement, Ingrid Weiss, bailed just as they began working on the album. As such, they began the compositional process mostly without a drummer and it seems that what might have been a constraint actually turned into a source of liberation as the resulting songs all manage to find their way in the most fluid manner, unhindered by concerns for strict tempos and consistent beats. Once they had their landscape somewhat laid out, they brought in a number of drummers and percussionists to ride along their roads and find their way through the organic musical countryside they’d cultivated. These included Richard Dudanski, who had played with Joe Strummer’s 101ers and contributed to PiL’s Metal Box on a few tracks, Charles Hayward (This Heat) and Robert Wyatt (Soft Machine).

The results of these unfettered efforts also opened the floodgates for the girls to express themselves vocally in a manner that exposed their fragility and intimacy in ways rarely heard on record. The honesty and vulnerability that was laid bare in these songs made them feel like listening to them was an invasion of privacy. There’s simply no holding back the emotions here and they took full advantage of their position to explore subjects and attitudes that were distinctly female, yet universally comprehensible.

The fact that the girls all swapped roles and instruments also helped to bring out the unexpected and the intangibly spontaneous in each piece. You never know where a song is going to go from one moment to another. There’s no sense of “verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus” structure here. No “beginning” or “end”. Songs and sounds manifest like a wild garden, growing up from the soil and then receding into the distance as the listener moves along in their journey.

I remember being drawn to The Raincoats after reading somewhere that they were the only band John Lydon would admit to liking. After hearing their first album with it’s raw primitiveness, I was intrigued, but when this second came along, I remember being completely blown away by it. It was an album that stood its own ground, separate from every other genre and trend happening then or since. It remains self-contained and inviolable in its uniqueness and singularity. It still has the power to fascinate and inspire on the deepest emotional levels. It refuses to be subsumed by any categorization and that is why it will remain timeless for the foreseeable future.