Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 01:41:37 PM

Login with username, password and session length

An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 3, 2004 -

Started by jamiefairlie, October 25, 2021, 04:39:14 AM

Previous topic - Next topic
2814-遠くの愛好家
2814 were an English-Australian act that were part of the vaporwave scene but claimed that their ambient soundscape material was mostly based on their own original music rather than slowed and distorted samples. This is from their LP 新しい日の誕生 (birth of a new day)

Radiohead-Spectre
Was it always a daft idea to try and make Thom Yorke earnestly croon over animated giant bullets, octopuses and dancing gals? Radiohead were commissioned to write the title song for the James Bond film Spectre, they made exactly what you'd expect them to make and director Sam Mendes rejected it as 'too dark'. For me, the lyric about putting 'your lips to me' is one of those thrilling moments in their songs (Nude being another one) when the icy alienation thing drops and the need for uncomplicated sexual connection breaks through. Released online late 2015.

Maalem Mahmoud Guinia & Floating Points - Mimoun Marhaba

Morrocan guembri player collaborated with UK producer Floating Point on this fun tune, the guembri being a kind of bass lute. There is some pretty sloppy handclapping going on in the first half of this.

#1383
Aphex Twin- Notting Hill Bus
In January 2015 Richard D James aka Aphex Twin released over 200 old unreleased tunes on Soundcloud, initially anonymously but soon making it clear it was him. Any favourites from this lot? My most played was this distinctively Twinny melancholy banger

µ-Ziq - Diesel M - D501
The above Soundcloud dump inspired RDJ's sometime collobarator Mike Paradinas to put up 300 of his old unreleased tunes, of which this was a highlight.


Thundercat-Them Changes
Six-stringed bass hero Thundercat played on lots of other people's R and B and jazz material around this time- his own gear mixes effortless-sounding, almost Stevie Wonder style smooth soul with frequently bleak lyrics. His 2015 EP The Beyond/ Where the Giant's Roam contained this great track that begins "Nobody move, there's blood on the floor", which later appeared again on his moody and intense 2016 album Drunk. You might recognise the opening drums as being nicked from The Isley Brother's "Footsteps in the Dark" (Ice Cubes "It was a Good Day")

dontpaintyourteeth

Quote from: Astronaut Omens on May 24, 2022, 07:05:59 PMAphex Twin- Notting Hill Bus
In January 2015 Richard D James aka Aphex Twin released over 200 old unreleased tunes on Soundcloud, initially anonymously but soon making it clear it was him. Any favourites from this lot? My most played was this distinctively Twinny melancholy banger


big one this

Makaya McCraven- In the Moment
Chicago jazz drummer McCraven's In the Moment, made from samples and loops of live jams he made with a bunch of other folk, including the ace Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker mostly distractadly darts about from one short piece to another- this bit beginning with some moody bowed based is one of the rare bits where they stretch out a bit.

In comparison, everything on Kamasi Washington's The Epic goes above 6 minutes. This enjoyable jam on the standard "Cherokee" is super-mellow.

Quote from: dontpaintyourteeth on May 24, 2022, 08:27:36 PM
big one this
What's the one that sounds kind of a bit like the bassline to Smooth Criminal?

dontpaintyourteeth

Quote from: Astronaut Omens on May 24, 2022, 08:49:24 PMWhat's the one that sounds kind of a bit like the bassline to Smooth Criminal?

cottage3e, I believe



jamiefairlie

Agnes Obel - Golden Green

https://youtu.be/WRLVINLlEVE




Danish singer, songwriter and musician based in Berlin, Germany. Born: October 28, 1980 in Copenhagen

From "Citizen Of Glass"

"Agnes Obel's resulted recordings for Citizen Of Glass are truly awe-inspiring. The music captures all possible unknown rhythmic pleasures – compassionately reaching for a simple and effective sovereignty. This is just one of the moods felt throughout the record"

Butchers Blind

Tuns - Back Among Friends




"TUNS is a Canadian indie rock supergroup, consisting of Mike O'Neill of The Inbreds, Chris Murphy of Sloan and Matt Murphy of The Super Friendz. The band's name is a reference to the Technical University of Nova Scotia. The result is a jangly, upbeat style of power pop with a slight edge that makes for a sound foreign to the band members' past discography, but that perfectly encapsulates the underground energy of TUNS with a newfound sense of optimism"

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

The Monkees - Me & Magdalena




This achingly beautiful song is one of the highlights from Good Times!, the Monkees' surprisingly fantastic 'comeback' album. Written especially for the group by Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie, it resuscitates one of the greatest vocal blends in pop: Michael Nesmith harmonising with Micky Dolenz.

QuoteGood Times! is the twelfth studio album by American pop/rock band the Monkees. Produced mainly by Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne (with some additional bonus tracks produced by Andrew Sandoval), the album was recorded to commemorate the band's 50th anniversary.

It is the first Monkees studio album since Justus (1996), marking the longest gap between Monkees albums to date, and the first since the death of founding member Davy Jones. The album features Monkees Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork, as well as a posthumous contribution from Jones.

The album received generally positive reviews from music critics and reached number 14 on the Billboard 200, becoming the band's highest-charting album in 48 years.

Brundle-Fly

Suddenly - Drugdealer feat. Weyes Blood.  Released on Weird World in 2016.





Talking of The Beach Boys, here's some more sun drenched pop that imagines John Lennon if he was in Steely Dan.

A veteran of the L.A. psychedelic scene, Michael Collins turned the trippiness down to a slow boil for his Drugdealer project. Built around his smooth keyboard playing and plangent soft rock melodies, the band sought to re-create the laid-back sound and vibe of Laurel Canyon of the '70s, while also sounding as technically pure as a studio full of session players. Two albums recorded in the late 2010s (The End of Comedy and Raw Honey) paired Collins' songwriting and producing skills with his knack for rounding up interesting collaborators like Ariel Pink and Weyes Blood, a solo project of songwriter Natalie Mering grew from roots in the noise scene to more polished folk and rock productions.


Metronomy (ft. Robyn) - Hang Me Out to Dry


I think this is a fine example what has come to be known as a 'sad banger'.

Swedish singer Robyn guests on a track from Metronomy's Summer 08 album.

William Tyler - Highway Anxiety


William Tyler is a musician - primarily a guitarist - and producer from Tennessee who has worked with an eclectic selection of artists ranging from Lambchop and the Silver Jews to Mary J Blige and Snoop Dogg. This is the opening track from his third solo album Modern Country - it's not country music in the traditional sense but a kind of widescreen ambient guitar-based music layered with reverb and other instruments such as bells and synths.

Miranda Lee Richards - First Light of Winter


From Echoes of the Dreamtime, the third album by Californian folk/folk rock musician Miranda Richards.

jamiefairlie

Black Marble - Woods

https://youtu.be/it5v75DldNQ




From "It's Immaterial"

"The record captures and remains stuck in a moment, circulating a narrative where memory serves and is replaced over and over again, like an acid flashback with a locked groove."

jamiefairlie

Carla Dal Forno - What You Gonna Do Now

https://youtu.be/7_v26Q6Ohtg



an Australian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, currently based in London. She is a member of the groups F ingers and Tarcar, and formerly cult Melbourne outfit Mole House.


From "You Know What It's Like"

"Dal Forno's voice is fragile but poised and confident with it; representing an unshowy resolve which, despite a gothic chic, feels fresh and necessary - operating counter to contemporary glitz and glamour with clear allusions to her heroes, Nico or Anna Domino."

jamiefairlie

Emily Jane White - Frozen Garden

https://youtu.be/yt_IftvC5ng



American singer and songwriter from Oakland, California

From "They Moved In Shadow All Together"

"It's beautifully put together, beautiful harmonies and slowly trudging instrumentals making the music resonate through your core. The albums also flow gently like a calm sea"

Butchers Blind

Cotton Mather - The Book Of Too Late Changes




Cotton Mather returned for their first album since 2003 with a new record part of a project of 64 songs based on each of the I Ching's 64 hexagrams.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

#1403
Lia Pamina - The Boy I Used to Know




[TAG]Ballad nominates some winsome '60s retro pop[TAG]

Lia Pamina is a singer/songwriter from Spain. This is taken from her first, and to date only, album, Love Is Enough, which is very much in the vein of artists such as Astrud Gilberto and Margo Guryan.

Brundle-Fly

Time Moves Slow - BadBadBadNotGood feat. Samuel.T.Herring. Released on Innovative Leisure in 2016





Beautiful blue eyed soul number.

BadBadNotGood is a Canadian instrumental band and production team from Toronto, Canada. The group was founded in 2010 by bassist Chester Hansen, keyboardist Matthew Tavares, and drummer Alexander Sowinski. In 2016, they were joined by frequent collaborator Leland Whitty. Among other projects, the group has released five solo studio albums, with the latest, Talk Memory, released in October 2021. They have had critical and crossover success, finding audiences in the hip hop, jazz, and alternative music communities.

Samuel T. Herring (born April 13, 1984), also known as Hemlock Ernst, is an American singer and rapper from Baltimore, Maryland, best known for being the frontman of the synth-pop band Future Islands.


jamiefairlie

Itasca - Angel

https://youtu.be/DcdiXhOwt1A



Kayla Cohen is a folk/rock musician

From "Open to Chance"

"Hers is a sound that would not sound out of place in the company of some of the best of the Laurel Canyon scene of the early 1970s. Rooted in folk, there's a strong thread of country running through her latest release"

jamiefairlie

Julianna Barwick - Someway

https://youtu.be/hjgnlaqydWs



an American musician who composes using electronic loops

From "Will"

" Barwick's songs are musical inkblot tests: The voices trickle in and out, but never quite materialize into lyrical coherency. So it's up to the listener to interpret them and ascribe personal meaning"

jamiefairlie

King Creosote - Melin Wynt

https://youtu.be/kPgbpn5CM1M




From "Astronaut Meets Appleman"

"It is at once ethereal and contemplative, grounded and matter-of-fact. Moments of star-like wonder sit alongside earthy mystery and misery as it simultaneously creates and resolves conflicts in the self, the landscape and the universe"

Skiffle Players - Always


You might be pleased (or possibly disappointed?) that The Skiffle Players feature no washboards, tea chests or comb-and-paper kazoos. They are in fact a 'supergroup' that initially formed for a one-off gig, featuring Cass McCombs and assorted members of Beachwood Sparks and Circles Around the Sun, and this is a lilting psychedelic ballad from their debut album Skifflin'.

Quote from: Butchers Blind on May 26, 2022, 10:38:23 AMCotton Mather - The Book Of Too Late Changes

Beat me to a choice from this album!

Having had the first track, may as well bookend it with the final track, 'The End of Dewitt Finley'.