A new, improved and faster paced WSBS will return in 2009. Or 2010. Maybe.

Excuses 2

I guess having a blog means one should post every so often... I've just been so busy doing other things lately. Like looking for a bigger house (haven't found one yet), maintaining the other blog (which is hell of a lot more popular than this one it seems :-/), rock'n'rolling around Germany for a week or so, releasing records - these two:



both of which are awesome. Not that I haven't been listening to other stuff though, of course I have - I always do. Sonya Cotton, Chris Maher, Yellow Fever all spring to mind, and shortly, given half a moment I will tell you more about these and more. And non-music things too.

Music From The Third Floor

Re. this, a new Bollywood blog in now online. Have fun.

Hits For Kids

It wasn't long after my son Jacob (now 3) started walking that I noticed how he'd suddenly drop everything and begin dancing to stuff I'd be playing on the stereo. So I started taking note of which songs, thus making him his first playlist (in the order in which he danced to them):

1. Cat Power | Living Proof
2. Montt Mardié | Highschool Drama
3. Bobbie Gentry | Greyhound Going Somewhere
4. Grapefruit & Bodybuilding | Introducing The Albatross
5. Kate Bush | Pi
6. Les Garçons | French Boy
7. Juliette Gréco | Accordéon
8. Ronnie Spector | Ode To L.A.
9. The Space Peacocks | Assassination City
10. Smoosh | I Would Go
11. Vanessa Paradis | Joe Le Taxi
12. Dexy's Midnight Runners | My Life In England (Part One)
13. ABC | Poison Arrow
14. Nina Simone | Bye Bye Blackbird
15. Strawberry Switchblade | Let Her Go

Obviously he loves his children's records as well, but he listens more than dances to those. I think he has very good taste. Check it out yourself.

Happy New Year!

All ye faithful

A few of you will already have received a hard copy of this... for any others, here's an annual round up of stuff much played at Gaaak headquarters the past 12 months or so. It pleases me a great deal that several of this years tracks have been made by friends of mine.



Click the cover for a tracklist, then download (short time only) the whole shebang here if you want. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas.

Delia Derbyshire/Electrosonic

I've just bought a t-shirt with this great image on it:



It's been made in conjunction with a recent reissue of 'Electrosonic', the 1972 KPM Library record electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire made with Brian Hodgson and Don Harper while moonlighting from day jobs at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. I have a copy of the original version with it's plain generic sleeve... very dull looking actually when compared to this stunning reissue one. Hmmm...

The new designs are by Iker Spozio, who's online portfolio has me drooling at the moment. Both record and t-shirt can be purchased from Boa Melody Bar. Here's a taster:

Electrosonic | Computermatic

Ga-ga-ga-golly, golly gosh! (Leftovers 4)

The Sound Of Young Scotland ca. 1981: The Delmontes. Who you say? Yeah... amidst all the (due) adulation showered upon Orange Juice, Fire Engines, Scars etc. in recent years, The Delmontes have been all but forgotten. They shouldn't though; their singular brand of catchy organ driven garage-pop was as important a part of that particular pre-C86 indiepop "scene" as that of their more famous contemporaries, and they became a much played favourite of mine after I bought their singles on an early outing to London. ('Gaga' from the first one made it onto every mix tape I compiled the following few years.) Two excellent records, but that unfortunately was it. If ever a case of unfulfilled promise; The Delmontes split up (drummer Bernice Simpson went on to become part of The Pastels for a while) and faded into oblivion.



Luckily, their (almost) complete output, along with a wealth of unreleased material, has recently been collected on 'Carousel' by the very fine LTM label. Finally I get more of The Delmontes than the five tracks from the singles. 25 years on, and they sound as great as ever. None of that initial magic has been lost. Sublime tunes, haunting at times, dreamy singing, European art-pop crossed with the sound of 60s girl-groups which a touch of early Stranglers (sans gloom). Listening to some of the previously unreleased songs... damn, they should have been huge!

One track that didn't make it onto 'Carousel' is the remix of 'So It's Not To Be', from a version of their second single released some months after the original. Without further ado then, as a bonus for those who've bought the compilation and a taster (although there are better Delmontes songs) for those who have yet to:

The Delmontes | So It's Not To Be [remix]

'Carousel' is a wonderful collection. Get it for Christmas.

Right now 3

Anne Bacheley: Can't really sing, can't really play, creates wonderful pop music. Contradictory? Of course not, it makes perfect sense. Anne Bacheley is the living embodiment of DIY indie spirit (in the good sense, because this isn't scene; it's the real, true, pure thing), she's got a guitar, an attitude and a heart full of great great songs. The rest is merely technique.



Six of her songs can be found on the 'Station Life EP', just released on Mimikaki. A numbered limited edition of 133 copies in a cool hand-made sleeve (mine's no. 001, a fact that pleases me much more than it sensibly should) so hurry if you want one. Which you will because it's fab, from the jagged, bouncy 'Good Luck Dear', via the shambling Sonic Youth-isms of 'Drive In The Dark', to the lovely nostalgia-tinged title track. And this, slighty reminiscent of 'Chelsea Girl' era Nico, only with added warmth:

Anne Bacheley | Lost Weekend

While waiting for your copy of the EP to arrive, have a glance at the video she's done for 'Good Luck Dear'. Then go download her previous recordings. Among them you'll find 'Mixtape Babies'; a sunny spring morning of a song, containing the sweetest of guitar solos.

Our Daughters Will Never Be Free (Right now 2)

More than ever, I'm playing The Indelicates again. Now I know I keep going on about them, and I know I'm biased, but the newly made available (via their MySpace) 'Our Daughters Will Never Be Free' is such a great song; a poignant commentary on the (or a) state of contemporary feminism set to catchy-as-hell music... the ease with which they pull it off; sometimes I keep expecting them to stumble because most others would (always the cynic) and yet they never cease to amaze and fill me with awe.

To think that 'Daughters' used to sound like a traditional folk-song, on the surface anyway. Chances are you can still hear that version here. It's great like that as well.

Right now

I can't get enough of Beirut. An emailed newsletter of the type I seldom read but did this time contained a link... which I'm damn happy I clicked. Imagine Jens Lekman backed by a Klezmer Orchestra playing a Parisian cabaret. Drunken melodies, a gorgeous croon, thumping percussion, gypsy trumpets (and Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Barnes guesting); Beirut's 'Gulag Orkestar' is undoubtedly one of the highlights of 2006. Sounding ridiculously (Eastern) European, Beirut is just one bloke, Zach Condon, a 20 year old from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Go figure, listen to this:

Beirut | Postcards From Italy

then head over to his MySpace for further evidence of awsomeness.