Today’s Track: Boards Of Canada – “An Eagle In Your Mind” (1998)

November 3, 2020 — 1 Comment

David Attenborough would be all over this bird of nature! It’s time for a new blog post!

Pictured: Marcus Eoin and Marcus Sandison in a vintage press shot (unknown date) (via Warp Records)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for me to repay my promise of typing up about your daily track on the blog today, as it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! An interesting classic IDM record that I’ve been listening to over the last few weeks is “Music Has The Right To Children”, an ambient record from 1998 which was self-produced by Boards Of Canada, a Scottish electronic music duo, on the Warp Records label. The piece of material went down as a landmark in electronic music work, and it has appeared on many best-ever lists from music publications like Pitchfork and Mojo. While the bulk of electronic music sprawls from Industrial and futuristic technology from urban environments – the intriguing case of Boards Of Canada is that the duo grew up in a very small urban community in Scotland, where they have since remained very reclusive from their fanbase, hardly ever taking part in any press interviews or live performances. For “Music Has The Right To Children”, the brothers of Marcus Eoin and Mike Sandison decided to create experimental sounds from outdated analogue software and samples taken from 1970’s public broadcasting children’s programmes to invoke themes of early childhood, nostalgia and nature. The duo have shrouded themselves in secrecy, and started making music by sending Casettes of their work to their friends and family. Let’s see a fan-made video for “An Eagle In Your Mind” below.

Fan-made videos have played a significant factor in keeping the Boards Of Canada’s fanbase active over the years, with long gaps of years between the subsequent album releases, and the band managed to pull off an elaborate “Easter Egg Hunt” in the highly-anticipated marketing push towards 2013’s “Tomorrow’s Harvest”, but that’s another story for another day. “An Eagle In Your Mind” is the third cut on the track listing for “Music Has The Right To Children”, and it perfectly sums up the basic key elements of the album, for my two cents. As you’ve probably noticed, it’s not really a track that is very accessible from a dancing point-of-view – despite being labelled as an “IDM” release. Instead, we’re given some meditative textures and peculiar sounds that feel rooted in degraded synthesizer hardware and 1970’s-inspired Hip-Hop break-beats. The track begins with a slowly fading synth line that soon washes over the top of a scratching, downtempo turntable beat sample. The sound, although entirely instrumental, manages to feel very rich and fresh because it sounds emotionally mature and hallucinatory, to a degree. Ideas of early childhood memory and adolescent behaviour peek their head in at a midway mark, when the tempo of the Syncopated backing beat increases and a very abrupt vocal sample of “I Love You” cuts into the picture, and it signals for a whistled backing vocal sample and an emerging synth line that comes into full force later on, with a harsh ambience that seems very dense. There may not be very much going on here, melodically – but the lo-fi beats have been layered in a hugely calculated and meticulous manner. The ideas of early childhood memory develops very smoothly, as a result, with cut-off samples and resonating synth work managing to evoke emotions which are ever so slightly strange and peculiar – and – for me – this is what manages to make the record stand out as a truly fascinating and unique project. It feels as if you’re a child, sitting at the TV, watching old advertisements fly by, or like you’re riding a bike with your friends around the countryside as your mind wanders to an imaginative, fantastical place. In a nutshell, it plays out like an adult’s reflection of their nostalgia – as you’re left with fragments of memories at this stage of your life and it’s hard to filter what is real and what is fantasy as a child anyways – and the record is bizarrely accurate in doing so. An album that would take time and perseverance to connect with you, but – depending on your upbringing as I was a strange child myself – it will slowly reward you with a payment of nostalgic, intricate sounds which are unrivalled. Go and listen!

Pictured: Cover Art for "Music Has The Right To Children" (LP) (Released in 1998) (via Warp Records) — Pictured: Cover Art for “Music Has The Right To Children” (LP) (Released in 1998) (via Warp Records)

Thank you for reading my new post! Please feel free to join me tomorrow – where we’ll be making a change of pace with an in-depth look at the latest album from one of the most legendary African-American Hip-Hop groups of all-time, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Fame in 2013, and critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine named them as “The most influential and radical band of their time” for AllMusic in 2017. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Djo – “Keep Your Head Up”

October 21, 2020 — Leave a comment

You may think this release is a bit weird, but I’ve seen Stranger Things. New post time!

Pictured: Cover Art for “Keep Your Head Up” (Single) (Released: September 9, 2020) (via Self-Released)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and I’m here to fulfill my daily duties of writing up about your daily track on the blog, because it’s routinely always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! A track that prickled my ears a little on a recent episode of 6Music Recommends, curated by Lauren Laverne, is the funky jam “Keep Your Head Up”, and what prickled my ears even more was her introduction of the new track, as it was produced and recorded by Joe Keery, who is best known for playing the role of Steve Harrington in the Netflix flagship series, “Stranger Things”, which I also really like. He records his own music under the side-project of Djo, and it turns out that he even put out a debut album, “Twenty Two”, last year, which was a success, despite releasing with hardly any promotion or fanfare beforehand. If you’re anything like the cynic that is me, the whole endeavor probably sounds rather random to you. However, Keery has actually been pursuing music for a long time, and, he is a former touring member, and a current contributing musician, of the Chicago-based Psychedelic Surf-Rock group, Post Animal. He debuted “Keep Your Head Up”, his first music material since last year, in a conversation with Wayne Coyne, of The Flaming Lips, on Talkhouse’s Instagram, and Keery later promoted it as part of a Reddit AMA on the r/indieheads subreddit. It is expected that more music will follow up soon. Let’s have a listen to the track below.

Keery was planning to embark on a solo tour as Djo throughout 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic obviously hit, and here we are now. But, in his press release, he commented that his new single represents “a much-needed bolt of positivity in an otherwise dark time”, and he has been enlisting the aid of producer Adam Thein as a collaborator on his new music. “Keep Your Head Up” represents an output from Keery that goes back to 80’s Soul, with a hint of Prince stemming from the glossy production and the sensual elements of Glam-Pop, with lyrics that feel suggestive and provocative, as Keery pleads: “Got to love yourself/Go ahead, touch yourself” to bring a feel of irreverent humour into the fold. The beat gradually becomes heavier and more synth-oriented as the first verse rolls along to “Take that time alone, before your heart belongs to someone else”, before the chorus introduces some robotic backing vocals to the scene, and Keery throws in a George Clinton-inspired Funk sensibility for the chorus, with a joyous set of percussion and a vivid series of piano notes that mix with the jaunting electronics to craft a well-rounded percussion section. The breakdown at the end feels chaotic, with a glitzy set of Funk-laden instrumentals and a heavy use of synthesized vocal effects, before a brief and swinging Horn section enters the picture and the Saxophone solo gives the overly electronic vocals a rest. The production is a flashy and polished affair, while the overall sound is blending elements of 70’s Psych-Funk and 80’s Synth-Pop together with a current EDM undertone, similarly to his contempories like Jacob Collier. I feel there is perhaps a bit of an over-use of the auto-tune effects here, but that’s probably down to my personal preference because it also works well as a stylistic choice with the drowning synth sequences and the experimental layout of the sequencing, but there is a clear love for Nu-Jazz in here, and it feels sophisticated in it’s approach, so it turns out to be a pleasant surprise overall, although I think my heart is set on Natalia Dyer always being my favourite from Djo’s Netflix series – I think she is just wonderful!

Pictured: Djo (Joe Keery) visiting the AOL Build series studio in New York (2019) (via J.Kempin/Getty)

Thank you very much for reading my new post! As usual, please feel free to join me again tomorrow. I will be taking an in-depth listen to a recent single from a British Dream-Pop trio, who nobody seems to really know anything at all about, and they’ve been building up their following with a big sense of mystery, following their delightfully warm singles “Empty Beach” and “One Time Villain”. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Confidence Man – “First Class B***h”

October 20, 2020 — Leave a comment

You’d think this single is all about my Bachelor Of Arts degree. It’s time for a new post!

Pictured: Cover Art for “First Class B***h” (Released on October 16th, 2020) (via Heavenly Recordings)

Good Afternoon to you, my name is Jacob Braybrooke and I’m here to fulfill my daily duties of typing up your daily track on the blog, as per usual, since it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! Confidence Man are an Australian Indie Electronic dance group from Brisbane, Australia who I’ve been following closely since my regional college years at Cambridge. Made up of Sugar Bones, Janet Planet, Clarence McGuffie and Reggie Goodchild, the band have never been afraid of taking a quirky and comedic route in their career to inject some vibrancy into the European and American club music scenes, and they’ve just released a new, one-off single “First Class B***h” on the Heavenly Recordings indie label. It’s also a possibility of a tease for a full-length follow-up LP to their 2018 debut, “Confident Music For Confident People”, which won the AIR award for “Best Independant Dance/Electronica Album” that year. Confidence Man have also performed at several popular Australian music festivals, including Falls Festival and Splendour In The Grass Festival. Their debut album really was a ton of fun, but their last single “Does It Make You Feel Good?” left me quite underwhelmed due to it’s more commercial, chart-oriented sound. You may say I’m more “Confident” about the results this time around, with the track receiving airplay from Jack Saunders’ Indie Show on BBC Radio 1, X-Posure with John Kennedy on Radio X, and a recent episode of BBC Radio 6Music Recommends, curated by Lauren Laverne. Give it a listen below!

Janet Planet, the first class b***h herself, found her inspiration for the tune when travelling to London: “I’d been thinking about this for a while now… It all started in London, when I saw a pair of socks with the words “first class b***h” embroidered on them, hanging in a shop front window. I suddenly realized, I too was a first class b***h. I rushed back to the penthouse and penned this hit. Ever wondered what you hear when you die? This is it.”, via press release from Heavenly Recordings. I feel releasing a tongue-in-cheek and feel-good, “dorky” dance single at a time like this is a nice idea, even though nobody can dance to it in clubs right now. But, it’s up to the talents of Janet that she still manages to sell it pretty well. Her vocals are dripping in narcissism and enthusiasm as she inhabits the character of Janet Planet, along to the beat of unashamedly pop-driven EDM production and bouncy drum beats. Her delivery is rhythmic, as she quips: “I’ve got the looks, I’ve got the brains, I’m in the spotlight” and “Yeah, I’m the best and all my friends say I’m sexy/I told you once, I told you twice, you won’t forget me” before claiming: “I’m on a boat with Leonardo DiCaprio” and leading us into a more involving, chant-driven breakdown as she claps along to “I get what I want, I don’t care”, before we’re led to a gentle tempo increase of the upbeat synth melodies and the percussive hip-hop-inspired backing beats. It feels like more-or-less a return to form for the Aussie favourites to me, with a fun and eclectic variety of pop-driven hip-hop elements and entertaining lyricism to boot. The male vocals are drowned in reverb, and Planet’s vocal performance makes the track work nicely due to her humour and energy. It doesn’t quite have the same smart humour that made their debut album an exceptional listen for me, and I think that a little bit more could have been done with Planet’s male counterparts of the band, but this is just a minor constructive criticism in regards to hearing the band make semi-interesting dance music again. Oh, and yeah, Janet Planet really is dead cool actually.

Pictured: Janet Planet (Vocals/Producer), Sugar Bones (Vocals/Guitar), Reggie Goodchild (Synths) and Clarence McGuffie (Drums) at Rock En Seine, Paris (in 2018) (Photo via Kitty Callaghan/RUSSH.com)

If you’re in the mood for checking out some of the band’s other work, you’re in a good place. You can check out their groovy festive tune “Santa’s Comin’ Down The Chimney” here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/12/04/todays-track-confidence-man-santas-comin-down-the-chimney/. You can also peruse the link to my post about their single “Does It Make You Feel Good?” here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/02/26/todays-track-confidence-man-does-it-make-you-feel-good/

Pictured: Janet Planet and Sugar Bones in a promotional photoshoot (in 2019) (Photo Credit: Zac Bayly)

Thank you for reading my new post! I hope that you’re still in the mood for a spot of new indie electronic dance releases tomorrow, because I will be listening to the very surprising new release from the electronic dance alias of an American movie and television actor who is most famous for playing the role of Steve Harrington in the Netflix original hit streaming TV series “Stranger Things”. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Sneaks – “Do You Want To Go Out Tonight?”

October 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

I’m glad that I have finally found the time to Sneak this one in. It’s time for a new post!

Pictured: Sneaks (Eva Moolchan) in a promotional photoshoot (in 2020) (via Sneaks’ official website)

Good Afternoon to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke and, as per usual, I’m here to get typing up about your daily track on the blog, because it is always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! “Happy Birthday” is a recent album release that has been gaining popularity on the underground Electronic music scene. The record comes from Sneaks, the alias of Eva Moolchan, who is an emerging Post-Punk and Spoken-Word musician based in Washington, DC. The album was dropped on August 21st, and it marks Moolchan’s third full-length album release for Merge Records. It also follows “Highway Hypnosis”, which only came out a year ago, and so this does mark a quick turn-around period coming from the back of her previous LP effort, although she has previously released her early output via Danger Records, including her 2015 debut LP, “Gymnastics”. To spice proceedings up for her latest album release, she has confidently turned to Carlos Hernandez as her mixing engineer. She’s also been in the studio with the Grammy-winning producer Jacknife Lee (Taylor Swift, REM, U2, Editors). Let’s sample “Do You Want To Go Tonight” below.

Jordan Bassett, a journalist for NME, praised Woolchan: “She favours short, sharp, effortlessly cool compositions that worm their way into your conciousness without breaking a sweat”, and there’s an incredible sense of bold ambition that comes with Woolchan’s work on the syncopated staccato beats and her ambiguous songwriting style on “Do You Want To Go Out Tonight?”, the opening track of the new album. Sneaks’ lyrics are noticeably minimal, apart from the use of the track’s oft-repeated title line of “Do You Want To Go Out Tonight/”, which she delivers with a smoky and direct mode of delivery. After a few repeats of the line, the jittering electronic bassline is juxtaposed by a rolling set of percussive Drum Machine sequences, which begin to favour rolling Bell melodies and No-Wave elements of light riffs. It forms a textual outlier for an incredibly 80’s-influenced sound, with a few comparisons to Liquid Liquid and Shirley Manson coming to my mind. The track poses the risk of the continuous chorus line getting stale by the end of the track with it’s repeated nature… but, for me, it really doesn’t. This seems to be because the variation of the electronic sounds are diversified enough to incorporate light elements of Post-Punk and Math-Rock to the palette at a consistent pace, and the track unexpectedly closes off to the swelling sound of an Orchestral pattern of laidback Violin sounds and intense Cello strings, which also manage to give off a rather cinematic and soundtrack feel to the light grooves of the glitched Synthpop sounds and the clear 80’s influences, all delivered within the setting of an IDM-like production method. Overall, the large emphasis on the towering Synthesizer instrumentation, building to an escalating set of String parts, manages to keep the only line of lyrics interesting enough to suffice the, rather short, however, length of the track, and I think that’s a feat certainly above the average level of musicians who create their music under this 80’s-reminiscent Synthpunk banner. After all of that – I think I would fancy a night out.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Happy Birthday” (Released on August 21st, 2020) (via Merge Records)

Thank you very much for reading my new blog post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as per usual, with an in-depth look at another recent album release, and we are deviating in style as we look towards the Hip-Hop genre. The single will come from a pioneering American rapper and singer-songwriter who was certainly a part of “The Golden Age” of Hip-Hop between the 1970’s and 90’s and he’s released twelve full-length albums, seven of which were certified Platinum and Multi-Platinum in the US. He is the co-founder of Mass Appeal Records, just to give you another clue. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Bonobo & Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – “Heartbreak”

October 6, 2020 — Leave a comment

You’d better not break my heart – My achey, breaky heart! It is time for your new post!

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Heartbreak” (Single) (Released on September 23rd, 2020) (via OUTLIER)

Good Morning! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and I’ve just arrived to write up about your daily track on the blog since, in case you hadn’t figured it out by now, it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to get typing up about a different piece of music every day! “Heartbreak” is a new collaborative single created by two exceptional talents within the International EDM club scene. In one corner, we have Bonobo – aka Brighton-born but Los Angeles-based dance music composer Simon Green – who has attained a cult following, with his material being performed by a full-scale touring band during his live DJ sets. In the second corner, we have Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – a London-born dance music producer best known for his UK Top 40-charting album “Trouble” from 2012, and we covered his work on the blog just recently due to the release of his incredible “I Can Hear The Birds” EP during Lockdown. Although the single is available to download or stream digitally right now, it is also set to come out on a physical 12″ vinyl format, come November 13th. The release of “Heartbreak” is also very notable because it marks Bonobo’s first material to be released on Bonobo’s new independent label, OUTLIER. These two producers have been friends since 2015, collaborating both behind-the-scenes and by regularly supporting each other on-tour. Bonobo elaborated on their work together, via press release, saying: “Orlando (Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs) was playing me a fairly stripped back idea he had for something last year,” later adding, “We spent a few afternoons in his studio trying ideas out and eventually, ‘Heartbreak’ was the end result.”. Their new single comes accompanied by an official visualizer music video – and it includes a heavy STROBE warning. You have been warned! Let’s take a listen to their collaborative single below.

“Heartbreak” mainly plays out as a tribute to the heavy disco scene in New York City during the 1970’s and the 1980’s, with the main sample being used from “Weekend”, a track by Class Action. The liner notes that will come with the 12″ physical single will feature an essay by author Tim Lawrence on the lasting impact of the original track. You’re getting some more bang for your buck, then. “Heartbreak” was reportedly also the catalyst for Bonobo’s indie label, as he explained: “[It] seemed like a good starting point and was the track that became the catalyst to start the label. One for the dance floors in a time when they’re dearly missed”, via a press statement. A light New-Rave element proves to be the modern twist to bring the old sample up to a bit of a contemporary speed. It also sounds quite breakbeat-driven, with a heavy acid strobe line that wraps around Christine Wiltshire’s original vocal hook of “I can’t take the heartbreak” from the sampled 1983 dance anthem. The introspective, but rumbling, synth melodies feel noticeably Higginbottom, a comforting element that sounds a lot like his previous work, but they never feel simplistic, as Higginbottom takes inspiration from the 90’s street rave scene in the UK to create some rolling percussion beats and some fluttering synthesizers that feel vibrant and emotionally-driven, if a little bit safe. The other side of the sonic palette sees Bonobo experimenting with a decadent, spiraling bass melody that permeates through the duration of the track with a solid cohesion and weaving the drum parts throughout the interchanging textures of Higginbottom’s Nu-Disco synth work. Together, they make up for a very fluid listening experience overall. I think that just a little bit more variety in the vocal sample could have taken things up to a slightly higher level, but those are just my two cents. You’ve got to remember that, at the time of the NYC dance scene of the 70’s and 80’s that the sound is harkening back to, no-one had mobile phones and people were truly on the dancefloor, in a club, to connect, socially and without much technology, with inclusivity and fun. So, I feel that Green and Higginbottom have done a fantastic job in pulling this track together with the resources that they had. A great throwback.

Pictured: Bonobo (a.k.a. Simon Green) in a live set (2017) (Photo Credit: Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

As I’ve mentioned just now, I have also covered a track (“Los Angeles”) taken from Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs’ recent EP, “I Can Hear The Birds”, which he pulled together using collaged field recordings of birdsong sounds that was gathered, and sent, to him by some of his friends across the world. Make sure that you take a listen to the track here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/08/05/todays-track-totally-enormous-extinct-dinosaurs-los-angeles/

Pictured: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs in an official photoshoot (in 2020) (Photo by Pia Riverola)

Thank you very much for reading my new post! Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to a new track from a North London-born experimental electronic producer who was recently featured on KEXP’s Song Of The Day podcast, and played on a recent episode of 6Music Recommends by John Ravenscroft. The artist has just released a new EP on the innovative Hyperdub music label, and she has previously released her music on the New York Haunted record label. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Andy C & Shimon – “Body Rock” (2001)

September 24, 2020 — Leave a comment

Right. That is it. It’s time for us to quit the ‘Clowning’ around! It’s time for a new post!

Pictured: Andy Clarke performing with MC TONN PIPER at Rampage Festival (2019) (via YouTube.com)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke and I am writing up about your daily track on the blog, as always, because it is routinely my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! 2001, in September to be exact, saw the release of a polarizing little club track of the title “Body Rock”, which was a collaboration between Andy Clarke, the co-founder of RAM Records, and his RAM Records signee Shimon. Clarke, best known as Andy C, is a Wasall-based English DJ and electronic producer who was a pioneering staple of the Drum-and-Bass genre of EDM music. He was a part of the RAM three, a circle of artists who raised prestige for the Drum-and-Bass genre through this specialist record label, which also includes Shimon and co-founder Ant Miles. Most popularly, the likes of Chase & Status, Sub Focus and Wilkinson have found chart success through releases on the RAM Records label. “Body Rock” reached #28 on the UK Singles Chart, and it was divisive because of it’s unusual sound, which we’ll get to in a bit. For now, let’s have a listen to it below.

Just in case you hadn’t realized, “Body Rock” divided most of Andy C’s more hardcore fanbase because of the “Clown-ish” sequencing effects used as the sampled hooks, which combines with a swinging pendulum rhythm to form an oddly patterned loop of synthesized melodies. As a matter of fact, some listeners even went so far as to give it a derogatory term of “Clown-Step” as a phrase to describe similar tracks that arrived soon after “Body Rock”, as it was obviously a huge commercial success, so other producers who were just looking for hits were started to follow the sound as a commercial trend. One fun theory that has circulated around the internet is that Andy C and Sub Focus used a sample of Rocky Horror’s “Timewarp” to fit the tune when mixing the track live to form the beat, but it’s unclear whether there is any evidence to prove this to be the truth. In whichever case, “Body Rock” starts off with a swinging triplet rhythm that precedes a few strange vocal parts. It gets more off-kilter and bizzare when the Snare Drum kicks in, and hits on the recurring Synth loops. This is followed up by the introduction of a really Staccato-heavyweight bassline that calls upon Acid Techno and Alternative Jungle influences to create a fluid, fluctuating synth beat which feels acidic and meandering in it’s continous, skittering nature. A brief interlude of odd, slowed ambient wind samples follows up on the main bassline drop, before an eclectic Kick Drum beat and Hi-Hat snare drops make the proceedings a little more percussive and progressive in it’s textures. Overall, it’s certainly rather unusual for an experimentally layered Drum-and-Bass track such as this to reach the mainstream – with single CD/Vinyl sales of 38,000 copies in shops (Yes… Physical Shops!) to boot. However, I believe the most important point to take away from this is that whether different groups of music lovers loved it or not… It gained a strong reaction. For me personally, although I can see where most angles of the nitpicks of criticism were coming from, I think that it’s innovative and a lot of fun. It was something very different at the time, and it still retains a unique ring to it today.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Body Rock” (Single) (Released on 3rd September, 2001) (via RAM Records)

Thank you very much for reading my daily blog post! I’ll be back tomorrow with a switch of gears, as we move from Experimental Drum-and-Bass to a more Alternative form of Post-Punk and Industrial-Rock. Tomorrow’s track comes from a Japanese 4-piece Math-Rock and Noise-Rock group formed in London, England who have performed collaboratively with Savages, Damo Suzuki and Faust. They are currently signed to Stolen Recordings and they are licensed to Sony Music Associated Records. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Erasure – “Nerves Of Steel”

September 21, 2020 — Leave a comment

The 80’s duo who seemingly never want to Erase their sound. It’s time for a new post!

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “The Neon” (Released on August 21st, 2020) (via Mute Artists Ltd.)

Good Morning to you! I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I’m typing up your first post of the new week because, as per usual, it’s still my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Of all of the groups from the New Wave of British Synth-Pop to emerge during the 80’s, Erasure are one of the few still active. The duo have written over 200 songs in their library, and they have sold an estimation of over 28 million albums globally, according to Official Charts Company’s data. Some of their biggest chart hits include “A Little Respect”, “Chains Of Love” and “Always”, and the duo have remained to be a fixture of the LGBT Community, particularly in European territories, with lead vocalist Andy Bell having an androgynous look as part of his openly gay sexuality. Recently, I saw Erasure perform a half-hour set for BBC Radio 2’s Live At Home virtual festival. This comes accompanied by their eighteenth studio album “The Neon”, which was released on August 21 by Mute Records. The new album is Erasure’s most commercially successful album in a while, as it debuted at #4 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 8,394 copies in the country, making “The Neon” the duo’s highest-charting album since 1994’s “I Say I Say I Say”. Bell described the sound of the new album as “going back to the beginning” with older synth use and it was self-produced. Let’s hear the new single “Nerves Of Steel” below.

Fitting of the current Covid-dominated times, the duo aim for “The Neon” to be “a place that lives in the imagination”, according to their press release. It becomes clear that Erasure wanted to bring back their feel-good New Wave sounds of the 80’s to fit our problematic current affairs on “Nerves Of Steel”, the lead single of their most recent project. Bell opens, layered above a very buoyant Synth riff, “Are you gonna make your way back here?, Who rattled your cage?”, with the analogue synth work reading between the lines of a Glam Rock-infliction that lurks in the corner from the LGBT themes and the echoing syncopated keyboard riffs that provide a flamboyant, 1980’s visual. The second verse is more based around rhythm, with a slightly rougher 80’s synth riff intertwining with the familiar keyboard instrumental backing. It opens the window of opportunity up for an energetic and more Power-Pop based chorus, as Bell repeats: “You’re the object who owns my affection/Nerves Of Steel, turn in my direction” over a bustling synth riff and a glossy Drum Machine riff sequence that blips along to the continuous keyboard backing track. The vocals feel lustful and romantic, if without an explicit intimacy, as Bell recites: “Come and find me in the Motor hotel”, as a subtle keyboard riff twinkles in the background. Overall, I think that it’s perfectly fine. It’s probably not going to be the best track that you’re going to hear all week, or even all day truly, from a technical standpoint at least, but it does have a growing effect on you with repeated listens and it has it’s loyal audience. So, as long as they continue to develop a semblance of culture within music, I’m happy with it. It simply sees this duo stick to what they know – with a Catwalk-like strut of confidence.

Pictured: Andy Bell (Vocals/Writer) & Vince Clarke (Keyboard/Synths) (2020) (via SynthpopFanatic.com)

Thank you very much for reading my new post! As per usual, I will be back at it again tomorrow. We’re going to take an in-depth look at a recent single from a Swedish singer-songwriter and producer of French origin. She was nominated for “Best Newcomer” at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012 following the release of her debut EP, “The Flower’s Bed”, in that year. She has since collaborated with artists including The Bear Quartet, Camera Obscura, David Lindh and Jonathan Johansson. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: PlanningToRock – “Jam Fam”

September 7, 2020 — Leave a comment

Strawberry, Blackcurrant, Apricot… Oh, not that kind of ‘Jam! It’s time for a new post!

Pictured: Jam Roston (a.k.a. PlanningToRock) in an official publicity shoot for her official website (2018) (via PR)

Good Morning! I am Jacob Braybrooke and, as per usual, I’m writing about your daily track on the blog, because it is always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Kicking off the new week’s worth of posts is Planningtorock, a Bolton-raised electronic music producer who is currently now based in Berlin, who first made her mark on the club circuit over Europe as part of the electronic ensemble Chicks On Speed, who had a hit in 2006 with “Have It All”. Roston has since remixed tracks for the likes of The Knife, Peaches, Robyn, Telepathe and AUSTRA. Roston now has three critically acclaimed studio albums to her name, and she continues to build up a dedicated following with every album release on DFA Records. It has since been bought to my attention, courtesy of BBC Radio 6Music’s Daytime Playlist, that Roston has unveiled her latest project, “PlanningtoChanel”, an EP full of compositions produced entirely for Chanel’s Autumn-Winter 2020 Fashion show. The EP contains five tracks created by Roston in conjunction with Michael Gaubert, the Fashion label’s sound director. Gaubert told the media: “I always felt that Jam incorporates operatic and cinematic elements into their unique sound”, later continuing, “The Chanel show was inspired by French cinema from the 70s and 80s and Planningtorock blessed the show with their sound and gave birth to ‘PlanningtoChanel’”. Without any more ado, let’s stream the single “Jam Fam” below.

Roston said: “With ‘Jam Fam’ I wanted to create an authentic 1980s sound, so no big kick or bass and plenty of high swimming synths. I recorded my voice and sung lots of ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’ and then pitched them each individually to create a vocal melody. I wanted the track to be super up in feeling and fun and classic sounding”, before announcing that a portion of proceeds from all future Planningtorock releases will be donated to anti-racist organisations. Revenues from “PlanningtoChanel” will specifically be donated to the Marsha P Johnson Institute, which advocates on behalf of black transgender people in the US. It’s nice to see Roston making a lovely contribution to society through her work and it’s just as well that “Jam Fam” is a nice piece of work too. There are no vocals to be heard whatsoever, but there is the odd “oooh’s” or “ahhh’s” thrown in to add solid variation to the 80’s-leaning disco sound. The core melody reminds me a little of Lipps Inc. “Funky Town” hit from the 70’s, with a few Violin string sections to intersect a feel-good, joyous feeling to the two-step drum beat and the recurring loops of bouncy, upbeat Synths and natural, organic instrumentation. There’s some shaking Maraca’s in play through the duration of the track, and a glistening Synth rhythm which adds a lustrous shine to the cohesion, giving across a quality that feels cinematic and grand. Although the melodies are repetitous and continous, they never seem tiresome or monotonous due to the core beat forming an entertaining, recursive funk groove that adds rich infusions of Disco, Ambient House and Euro-Dance. The results feel very dense and, overall, it nails the visual connotations of Fashion and Glamour through it’s old-school New-Wave Pop sensibilities. This is a (mostly) instrumental treat, with a well-developed retro flavour.

Pictured: Jam Roston with Nemone for “The 6 Mix” in the BBC Radio 6Music studio (in Feb. 2019) (via BBC.co.uk)

As I mentioned in yesterday’s clues, as to who the identity of today’s artist is, I mentioned that I have previously covered another track from Roston on the blog before. That post is still alive and kicking, and you can still read up on my thoughts of “Beulah Loves Dancing” here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/02/05/todays-track-planningtorock-beulah-loves-dancing/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Beulah Loves Dancing” (12″ Single) (Released on October 30th, 2018) (via DFA Records)

Thank you very much for reading this post! Don’t forget that I will be back tomorrow, as promised, with an in-depth look at an emerging singer-songwriter who recorded her debut album with Portishead’s Geoff Barrow in Bristol and supported The Sleaford Mods at a live gig on their recent tour. She told NME in a recent interview: “In a world of Yes Men, I’ll be a No Woman, thanks”. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Severed Heads – “All Saints Day (2015 USA Tour)”

August 29, 2020 — Leave a comment

Basement Jazz would ask: Where’s Your (Severed) Head At? It’s time for a new post…

Pictured: Tom Ellard (Lead Vocals/Bass Guitar/Electronic Percussion) and Stewart Lawler (Synths/Keyboard/Engineer) (Current band lineup) at Unsound Festival 2016 (Photo Credit: Paulius Illius/www.SecretThirteen.org)

Good Morning, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I am writing about your daily track on the blog because, as like always, it is my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! “All Saints Day” has always gone down as a cult classic, from what I gather. It’s probably because of my age, but I just saw this track listed on the KEXP schedule, and I thought the artwork looked really amusing, but I’ve never actually listened to this record. So, it’s going to be as much as a new experience for you as it will be for me, for today. According to my research, this is one of the most popular tracks to ever be performed by Severed Heads, a cult favourite Australian Experimental Electronic Prog-House group, which has seen several line-up changes throughout the years. This track was taken from their eighth LP record, “Rotund For Success”, released in 1989. As with the bulk of the group’s discography, the album has been reissued several times over the years by different labels, in different formats and versions. This late-80’s iteration of the duo saw Tom Ellard work with Stephen Jones on Synths and Production, but the current line-up sees Jones getting replaced by Stewart Lawler on Engineering and Percussion. In any case, Severed Heads has become known for their off-kilter style of production, experimental pop-driven hooks, and twisted splicing effects. Let’s listen to their 2015 USA Tour dub of the track below.

With the history of Severed Heads in their career seeming almost as strange as the highly experimental, IDM-driven style of their music, “All Saints Day” incorporates a House-laden melodicism into a harsh, although not abrasive, electronic synth bassline and a groovy, but slightly distorted, snare effect. It often feels like some kind of “Wrong” or “Broken” auto-tune machine, with Cymbal samples being looped backwards and delayed pedal effects making the club-rolling dancefloor House beats sounding a little bit sideways. There is enough of a melodic Synthpop element to the track though, with a trendy late-80’s synth-oriented club sound and spoken word vocals that often feel comparable to Pet Shop Boys or Bernard Summer. The smooth synth-rock development replaces a grating percussion sample, sounding like a door loudly creaking, from the opening. The vocals flutter above a Disco-Rock layering, going: “For I am willing to believe/Wishing to be strong, Fighting on your side”, over the top of curiously appealing, monstrous vocal samples and the brassy, prominent Synth-Strobe stabs. An unintelligible female vocal loop, a manipulated jumble of celestial Drum blips, and an ethnological, almost tribal, backing vocal loop compete against each other in the bizzare cloud of experimentation. It’s very off-kilter, but it’s well-paced throughout and feels fairly cohesive, but it’s wonky enough to add a touch of charm and warmth. It somewhat feels like a product of it’s time, with innovative 80’s synth stabs and hefty use of the Analogue synth hardware that was new and exciting in it’s heyday, but it also feels very intentionally off-kilter and appealingly unstable enough to have a timeless effect. If it came out tomorrow, I don’t think that anybody would question it much, but you could point directly to its influence. To conclude, it does have “me” written all over it judging by my own personal tastes, and I think this is a really cool tune. I would love to see a revival of this niche dance scene.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Rotund For Success” (Released on 31st October, 1989) (via Volition Records/Nettwerk)

Thank you very much for reading my daily music blog post! As per usual, I will be back tomorrow with your new weekly edition of Scuzz Sundays, the feature where I pick an Emo-Rock or a Pop-Punk relic from between the late-90’s and the mid-00’s to see if it can hold a candle to modern standards! If you are a fan of Burnout Paradise, the classic racer video game from 2008, you’ll be in for a blast from the past tomorrow, so make sure you don’t miss out on it! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Disclosure – “ENERGY”

August 28, 2020 — Leave a comment

If you thought The Chemical Brothers were the space and time of British electronic dance music – these two are actually brothers. It’s all relative! It’s time for a new post!

Pictured: Guy Lawrence (Programming/Engineer) and Howard Lawrence (Turntables/Effects) being interviewed backstage at the Roskilde Festival, Denmark (in June 2015) (Photo Credit: Marv Watson/Redbull.com)

Good Morning! I am Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing up about your daily track on the blog, as per usual, since it is always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Fittingly releasing on a Friday, which is today, in time for the underground raves you can’t go to, is “ENERGY”, the third studio album from the Surrey-raised real-life Brother DJ duo of Howard and Guy Lawrence, as Disclosure. It marks the end of a very long and grueling wait for their fans (Including my friend Grace, in particular), since this is their first proper album release in half a decade. They have kept their fans busy in the gap with a recent string of live mixes, new EP’s and the odd collaboration or two, along with mixtapes and regular live-streamed sessions, of which many of the obscure tracks appear on the deluxe version of their new album. It has a promising guest line-up, with the likes of Kelis, Slowthai, Fatoumata Diawara, Mick Jenkins, and several more involved. Disclosure have some mainstream hits under their belt with the likes of Sam Smith and Khalid, along with two Grammy Award nominations for Best Dance/Electronica Album for 2013’s debut “Settle” and for 2015’s follow-up LP “Caracal” too. Let’s stream the titular track below.

If I’m completely truthful with you, I’m not quite as familiar with Disclosure as more alternative British EDM acts like The Prodigy or Aphex Twin, because I’ve usually dismissed them a little bit as “Just Pop DJ’s”, seeing as they have worked with my current least-favourite Sam Smith for goodness sake. But, I’m now going to give up the cynicism and openly admit it. I LOVE ENERGY! I think this is a really, really, REALLY good track, and I’ve been streaming it on repeat a few times. Let’s start off with the opening, as a nice element of Deep House gets immediately established through the heavy West African drum melodies which the brothers borrowed from some samples they took from an album of Brazillian library music. These get layered out to the beat of a strong vocal performance that preaches mottos like “Right now, you should feel invincible, powerful, strong” and “If you are alive, I know you ain’t reached your best yet” with Acid synth sections and grooving Conga drum patterns. These vocals were recorded by Eric Thomas, who provided vocals for Disclosure’s early track “When The Fire Starts To Burn”. Thomas signals that “Now, we gon’ take it to another level” as the brothers unleash a cooled sequence of flickering Synth rhythms and light stabs of Acid Techno beats. They feel upbeat and moving, but they also have a calming effect. It leads up nicely to a startling finale of diverse, world-based instrumentation and Preacher-esque lead vocal sections from Eric Thomas, whilst the drum beats keep repeating and the Synth sections keep pushing-and-pulling the pacing up, with a polished sheen that stitches everything together with excellent flow and a faultless cohesion. The results make “ENERGY” feel vibrant and fresh, with a very exciting sound and a diverse sonic pallete that takes influence from a surprising range of Earthly sources. Based on what I have heard from Disclosure before, this is absolutely one of their best, and I cannot recommend it highly enough, and I’m glad it sounds as though Island Records, the major label of which they’re signed up to, hasn’t seemed to get their hands on the creative direction very much, at all. It just rocks my socks off.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “ENERGY” (Released on 28th August, 2020) (Album/LP) (via Island Records)

Thank you very much for reading this post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, with an in-depth look at a recent rework of a cult classic single recorded by an Australian Experimental Electronic Dance duo who have seen countless lineup changes throughout the years, and have performed many comeback gigs in recent years, including a gig at The State Library Of Victoria as part of Melbourne Music Week in 2016, and a one-off double gig with Snog at the Corner Hotel in Richmond, Victoria during 2017. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

One Track At A Time

Alt-Dance