random tunes on thursday

With the iPod on shuffle, this is what I've heard today...

 

Some moody Doctor Who music from Tom Baker's second story The Ark In Space. Lovely stuff from Who's regular composer Dudley Simpson. This guy worked wonders, creating compelling atmospheres from a small group of, mainly, woodwind players.

Iggy Pop - "Five Foot One" live in 1979. A really strong performance - the band featured the cream of UK punk - Glen Matlock from the Pistols and Brian James from the Damned, and they were a superb foil for some of Iggy's most impassioned stage shows.

Giles Giles and Fripp - "The Crukster" - a weird spoken word thing with some impossible, frantic guitar runs underneath the narration. Bonkers. And almost unbelievable that within a year, these guys would have effectively morphed into King Crimson.

Zappa Plays Zappa - a live, note perfect rendition of the fiendishly difficult "RDNZL". Breathtaking stuff. You'd think the percussion alone would take years to master!

Tim Bowness / Peter Chilvers - "Winter With You" - the sparser version from Overstrand and quite possibly one of the best songs in the world. Really. Absolutely stunning. Brings me to tears almost every time.  

Lou Reed / John Cale - "Open House" - I'd forgotten how good the Songs For Drella album can be. When Lou was on form there was almost no-one to beat him, and this is cracking. Superbly arranged too, thanks to John Cale, and with beautifully pitched vocals. 

Harold Budd / Robin Guthrie - something with impossibly pretty piano and shimmery guitars, you know how it sounds...  

Daniel Lanois / Emmylou Harris - "May This Be Love" live in 1995 on the Wrecking Ball tour. Gorgeous. These two should work together some more - they bring out the absolute best in each other. Emmylou's voice is so lovely on this Hendrix song and Dan and the band kick up a firestorm of noise behind her.

Iggy again - "Dog Food" also live in 1979 but a really shambolic performance. Iggy's obviously somewhat, er, distracted and whereas he's usually spot on with his vocals (even when he's ingested enough stimulants to send him to another planet), here he's missing cues and just splurging the vocals out wherever he wants, regardless of the structure of the song. A right mess.

David Bowie - "And I Say To Myself". I love his 1960s songs; this one is real delight as his backing band the Buzz chant the backing vocals offhandedly back at Dave. Although none of his songs became hits in the 1960s (not until "Space Oddity" at the very end of the decade) it's sometimes hard to fathom why, as most of his songs were catchy and delightful, frequently with a welcome sense of gentle self mockery.

The Pineapple Thief - "Magnolia" - the title song from their 2014 album. It's a really solid record. 12 short snappy grown up rock songs in 45 minutes, which gives the sense that TPT were doing their level best to avoid the Prog Rock tag that frequently follows them). There's a surprising tenderness on this album which was somewhat missing from the more muscular vaguely Radiohead / Muse-ish sound of the previous couple of albums.

And finally...

 

Yet more Iggy! - "Nightclubbing" from The Idiot. In an interview conducted in late 1976 Iggy described the sound of his forthcoming debut solo album as "James Brown meets Kraftwerk". I'd argue that most of The Idiot sounds nothing like that description, except for just one track - "Nightclubbing". Harsh drum machines, big fat synths, but it's also, oddly, impossibly, rather funky. I love the two tiered vocal on the second verse, I love the wailing wah-wahed guitar at the end, it's just a superb track. And a brilliant production too - it sounds like nothing else on Earth.