unpopular

I remember you

It’s Juneageddon here at the moment weatherwise. I swear it’s just like living on the West Coast of Scotland in the 1980s. So what better way to shelter from the gales than a nice new mix of tunes. Download link will be live for a day. Or two. Or until I remember to take it off.

Popular - Saint Etienne (from 'Words And Music'. On YouTube)
Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me - Slade (YouTube)
Top Of The Pops - The Rezillos (YouTube)
I Remember You - Black Tambourine (from 'OneTwoThreeFour' on Slumberland)
Tour De Force - Town Bike (from 'It's The Taking Part That Counts'. On Bandcamp)
Looks Like We're Shy One Horse (7" Version) - Colourbox (from 'Colourbox Box Set'. On Spotify)
Bounty Killers - Depth Charge (YouTube)
Investigative Reports - GZA (YouTube)
Midwinter (Air) - Miniatures (Bandcamp)
Feathers-Oar-Blades - Cocteau Twins (from 'Lullabies To Violaine, Volume 1'. On Spotify)
Gobbler - Manorlady (from 'Ego Oppressor', out June 18th. On Bandcamp)
Cakewalk - Aggi Doom (Soundcloud)
I Remember You - Paul Buchanan (from 'Mid Air'. On YouTube)
Fertile Ground - The Contortionist (Bandcamp)
Coffee and Cigarette - Sex Sux (split CD with Andy B on Dufflecoat)
Television Girl - Andy B (split CD with Sex Sux on Dufflecoat)
Everyone Knows - Vacationer (live session on Daytrotter)
Lime Chordial - Gwenno (Soundcloud)

Sand in our sandwiches

Songs of Innocence

There are so many groups that I have lost track of over the years. It is just the way of my world. So many things to hear. So many holes in my memory though which to slip. So it goes.

It would be fallacious to suggest that I had forgotten about Paris Motel entirely however. ‘071’ from their debut EP has occasionally surfaced in my head in the years since it turned up on my doorstep unannounced back in 2005. I said then, and many times since, that it sounded like the whispers of Whistler. Whatever happened to Whistler?

As for what happened to Paris Motel, well, it seems there was an album in 2007 (‘In The Salpêtrière’) which I missed. I’m looking forward to catching up with that. And now? Well, yesterday saw the release of the ‘Songs Of Innocence’ set. A collection of covers of songs from singer Amy May’s childhood. Backed by a 23 piece chamber orchestra playing alongside the rest of the Paris Motel band. Oh yes.

And a rather ravishing collection it is too, helped no doubt in my eyes by being a choice selection of songs. Highlights? Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s ‘Oscar Tango’ perhaps most naturally lends itself to this treatment and is charmingly played. Similarly the bleak spaciousness of Ann Peebles’ ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’ suits May’s voice and the cathedral like arrangement on offer, whilst Talking Heads’ ‘And She Was’ reminds me of just how effortlessly Mr Byrne and his gang could reach the highest peaks of Pop perfection (here chased to the heavens by stirring strings). Best for me though would be the takes on Laurie Anderson’s ‘From The Air’ and Captain Beefheart’s ‘Big Eyed Beans From Venus’: ‘From The Air’ for being mesmerically faithful to the original yet simultaneously gorgeously invested with May’s beautifully accented English and ‘Big Eyed Beans...’ for being so unexpectedly against the grain yet simultaneously so obviously perfectly executed.

As collections of covers ‘Songs Of Innocence’ is a step apart from the usual fare; is more accurately an album of re-imagined possibilities. That it can stand so impressively alongside the collected brightness of the originals is proof enough of its success.