Can – Future Days/Landed/Soon Over Babaluma/Unlimited Edition (Mute)

For many readers who have never explored Can before, myself included, listening to these new remastered editions will be like meeting a long-lost relative. Someone from generations back who you’ve heard so much about but never actually met.

Their influence is massive. In Can’s case they represent the exact moment that the avant-garde and classical experimentalism head-butted the rock world. They formed in 1968 as a five piece, the most recognisable names being Holger Czukay and Jaki Leibzit. The two musical styles they brought with them – one a former student of Karlheinz Stockhaisen, the other an exponent of freeform jazz – set the tone for the band.

It’s a tone that has resonated for almost forty years. Mutant industrial, pop-progressive and electronic glitch-tech have all emerged from their ever-curious sound-lab. Which makes meeting these oddball relatives on CD for the first time all the more intriguing…

Future Days, the band’s fifth album, originally appeared in 1973 and came at moment of change. Vocalist Damo Suzuki was about to leave to become a Jehovah’s Witness and it was the start of the end for Can’s trademark two-track approach to recording. That’s one track for a live performance and one for overdubs, which gives this whole album an energy and vitality that’s lacking on their later work.

But then on the later work in question, their multi-track approach lead them for the first time into true ambient territory. Eno may have coined the term, but Can were recorded the first ever excursions into ambient music with Quantum Physics from Soon Over Babaluma (1974).

It doesn’t seem to have dated at all, which is more than can be said for the Bowie-like glam rock of Landed (1975). It has its moments, like the 13-minute rock-out and the sequel to Quantum Physics, Red Hot Indians, both of which sound delightfully alien, but the rest of it has aged terribly.

With Unlimited Edition (1976), Can were anything but glam. Here they started on a new path of prog-leaning, dark and dangerous avant-garde noodling. Back to their freeform roots and at its best on the funky shuffling of LH 7o2 and EFS No. 27 and EFS No. 7 which sound like the band are attempting to recreate Brion Gysin’s 1950’s Moroccan field recordings (Can did say EFS stood for Ethnological Forgery Series, after all).

These albums only scratch the surface of Can – there are scores of others in the catalogue and hundreds of hours of unreleased recordings. But they are still exactly like meeting long, lost that distant relative. At times inspiring, at others embarrassing. Some moments are bang up to date and timeless, then others make you realise just how geriatric they are. But for all their failings, they help you join up the dots and find out how you got to where you are today…

Ray Charles - Ray Charles in Concert (BMG)

This DVD Video was recorded back in 1999 at a benefit concert in Florida for the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind. While there are no extras, the first number is the background to some intriguing black and white warm-up and rehearsal footage and jamming. From there it’s straight into a great colour TV-shot concert with full big band.

There are some prime examples of the man and his magic here – and strong evidence that even at the end of the 90s he was still capable of delivering. I Got A Woman is the classic gospel opener. I Hurts To Be Loved draws emotion from the assembled orchestra and songs like Georgia On My Mind and Your Cheatin’ Heart (which gets a special ripple from an audience that adds little atmosphere to proceedings) are even more compelling, in light of Jamie Foxx’s Academy Award-hoovering portrayal of the man and his life.

The best moments of jazziness come when Ray leaves the keyboards to deliver a sax solo on Al I Ever Need Is You, and a couple of duets (including the I Had To Be You) with Diane Schuur, who gets a classic Ray Charles intro in “I’m going to introduce a little femininity to the stage. Hallelujah. Can I get an Amen on that?” Amen!

Jimmy Ramsay - Tower Blocks & Top Tens (Independent Music Press)

Any book that's 100% unofficial and with a low, 123-pages-to-£8.99 price ratio is never going to go in anything other than the cash-in category. Which is a shame because the story of Mike Skinner and The Streets is one that's well worth telling. In fact it was worth telling right from the moment Skinner started coming out with lyrics like “You say that everything sounds the same, then you go buy them. There's no excuses my friend, lets push things forward…”

Whether or not lines like that make him “the new Alan Bennett” (a claim dissected in this book) is another matter. But author Jimmy Ramsay tells Skinner’s story well, right from the moment he couldn’t believe his mum was singing along to Dry Your Eyes Mate via comparisons with Ken Loach and, really, Yes’ Tales From Topographic Oceans.

Of course it's never going to be the longest book because Skinner has only released two albums so far, 2002’s Original Pirate Material and last year’s A Grand Don’t Come For Free. But this is a world where Geri Halliwell and Robbie Williams are both on their second autobiographies, despite making about as much creative impact in their entire careers as Mike Skinner utters in a single outro.

Jennifer McKnight-Trontz - This Ain’t No Disco (Thames & Hudson)

Perfect coffee-table browsing, this 255-page encyclopaedia of sleeves from the post-punk era harks back to those classic The Album Cover Album books from that very period. If you’ve been reading Simon Reynold’s much talked about biog of the era, Rip It Up And Start Again lately then this is the perfect accompaniment, depicting the sleeves of most all of the records he examines.

It does have a slight US-bent, though but that’s not my only criticisms. My main gripe is the captions that accompany some of the sleeves. Firstly, only a small minority get captioned. If you’re going to tell a story why not tell it? Why the fragments? Also, the captions that are there offer little narrative, only recycling facts you’d probably already know.

So in a book celebrating the last great, golden era of the record sleeve, you don’t come away knowing anything about the people that made it happen –Peter Saville, XL, Accident, Keith Breeden, Town & Country Planning and the like all remain queuing up for good books to be written about them.

But you do come away with an instant coffee-table conversation piece. And an unputdownlable trip down memory lane.

Hazel O’Connor - Hidden Heart (Invisible Hands)

Anyone that spots this album in light of Hazel O’Connor’s recent ITV appearance on the 80s throwback-a-thon Hit Me Baby One More Time will be sorely disappointed. Disappointed because there’s nothing remotely cheesy or Saturday night about it.

In fact there’s nothing particularly retro about Hidden Heart either. It begins as a fresh, understated combination of electro beats and Celtic atmospheres which – combined with Hazel’s voice that has aged well – makes for an almost psychedelic/acid folk vibe. It then moves onto a lilting if perfunctionary set of blues originals.

This is an album that takes its time - it doesn’t rush to impress, and is clearly a labour of love both for the singer, her producer Martin Rushent, long term collaborator Cormac De Barra and his “trusty harp Matilda”. There are also some new collaborators, like Clannad’s Moya Brennan and Tony Dangerfield whose Subterraneans played with Hazel at Glastonbury last year.

Aside from the collab with Moya Brennan, standout songs include I’ll See You Again, Strong and Lovable, the latter of which explore this blues territory, where Hazel is now digging a real niche. All of which throws Hit Me Baby One More Time to the wayside. Forget the ITV cheese and give it a try.

The Beach Boys – The Platinum Collection

The Beach Boys had a precarious time throughout the 80s. But it’s testament to their longevity that they even existed in that decade. They had written one of the soundtracks to the 60s. Blasted and blown their way through the 70s. So what could happen for them in 80s?

The decade started impressively enough. The Beach Boys played mammoth shows in the UK (Knebworth) and the US (The Mall in Washington DC). And they were awarded a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. But at the same time as these great heights, drummer Dennis Wilson was beginning to go AWOL through continued drug abuse and their 26th album, Keeping The Summer Alive, limped out…

In ’81, the drugs were visibly taking their toll. Of the three founding brothers, Dennis and Brian are were most inept at what is considered to be the bands worst ever gig (the nationally televised Long Beach concert) while Carl Wilson split from the group and released an eponymous debut, telling press that he wouldn’t rejoin the band until “1981 means as much as 1961”…

Things just got silly in 1982. Dennis had a baby by Shawn Love, band-mate Mike Love’s (alleged) illegitimate daughter. And later that year the band ‘fired’ Brian Wilson in the hope of straightening him out. Having just turned 39, Dennis tragically drowned the next year. His lasting memory is the classic – and criminally overlooked – Pacific Ocean Blue solo album.

By the mid-80s, things were picking up. Brian Wilson appeared to be winning his long battles with drugs, the band delivered a very well received Live Aid performance in ’85 and released The Beach Boys album, with Ringo Starr and Stevie Winder guesting. The next year Brian took his first tentative steps back into a recording studio, and the band hit their 25th anniversary.

It took until 1987 for The Beach Boys to get to grips with the 80s. But that’s when - musically speaking – it all started to go wrong. From ethereal beach classics and hippy experimentation, The Beach Boys (presumably with Brian Wilson safely under lock and key) released Wipe Out, with comedy rap act The Fat Boys. As if that wasn’t enough, in ’88 the band – again without Brian (who was busy releasing his critically acclaimed solo debut) – released Kokomo from the Tom Cruise film Cocktail. Like sad caricatures of themselves, they had officially become their own, budget tribute act.

It’s these travesties that close The Platinum Collection. So thank goodness for programmable CD players. Just take the 60-track 3 CD set and play it backwards. Start where it all went wrong and freewheel in reverse back to where it all went right. Midway, out of your rear-view mirror, you’ll see classics like Help Me Rhonda and Good Vibrations coming towards you. And by the time you end up at the beginning you’ll be in 1962 listening to I Get Around and Surfin’ USA and the future will be but a distant memory…

Various - Produced By Trevor Horn (ZTT)

We all know about Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound’, to say nothing of Brian Wilson’s dreams of sound and even Pete Waterman’s mouth of sound. This box set makes the case for what Trevor Horn – now celebrating his 25th year of hits – has created. A “whole room of sound,” as Paul Morley once said, “the walls, floors, ceilings, doors, windows, decorated with absolute flourish.”

The stats are compelling - 30 tracks, seven No. 1’s and a further 11 Top 10 hit singles spanning four decades. MOR work with the likes of Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart is omitted in favour of what the Pet Shop Boys (represented here with the disco-Debussy It’s Alright) would term ‘pop art’.

The best tracks are the experimental pop (Malcolm McLaren, Grace Jones, Propaganda) and the 80s classics (ABC, Godley & Creme). There are passable recent hits too, ranging from Lisa Stansfield to Shane MacGowan. tATu and Frankie are sonically the most impressive, and the album is worth collecting alone for a resplendent remaster of Buggles’s Video Killed The Radio Star.

So who escaped? There’s certainly enough material to make a volume two of this release. It would make room for the FGTH and Seal singles onerous in their absence and provide a platform for tracks from The Trevor Horn Orchestra and The Musical Cast of Toys, his soundtrack session teams from Toys and Mona Lisa.

Some of the one-off singles that collectors love are also missing. Not the hack jobs like Barry Manilow (Horn produced a Take That cash-in remake of Could It Be Magic) but the lush curios of Lomax, Betsy Cook and the sublime Inge. But to dwell on these omissions would be beside the point - this compilation is as overdue as it is essential.

Produced By Trevor Horn - Wembley Arena, 11/11/04

The numbers are impressive: 25 years of hits, 6,500 in the audience, 13 acts and one royal. Add to that the pomp of a full orchestra and the personal touch of song-by-song commentary by Horn himself and you have a unique night.

Trevor Horn’s anniversary testimonial for the Princes Trust was presented more or less in chronological order. Which meant that Buggles opened the show, followed by Dollar, ABC, Yes, Propaganda and then Belle & Sebastian. After the interval (presumably for a royal toilet break), Pet Shop Boys, Lisa Stansfield, Seal and tATu brought the story up to date, before Frankie Goes To Hollywood closed the show with a bang.

The house band were a key element of this concert. Lol Creme, various members of Yes, Art of Noise and Buggles’ Geoff Downes were the ones that allowed such a variety of performers to work together seamlessly. The crowd didn’t work together half as well. Disappointed Simple Minds fans (Jim Kerr pulling out after an ear complaint) sat alongside 80s enthusiasts there for partially reformed and, it has to be said, butt-kicking ABC and Frankie, who in turn sat alongside long-haired Yes-sers and shaven-haired Pet Shoppers

So it was the artists with true charisma that got everyone in the arena on their feet and dancing together. Grace Jones did it first, dominating the stage for a stunning Slave To The Rhythm. And Seal followed through, jumping off to deliver most of Killer from within the crowd.

Horn hardly left the stage for the whole evening – singing back-up or playing bass, or darting around playing host. “I’m going to vanish back into the studio for the next 25 years,” he said at the end. But I’m not sure I believe him.

Fila Brazilia – Dicks (Twentythree)

Fila Brazilia have always been a class name to drop by fans of jazzy electronica. But aside from listing founder Steve Cobby’s Heights of Abraham offshoot as a “gem” in RC 301, I’ve never properly checked the band out. So with the release of Dicks, the Hull-based duo’s tenth album released on their fifteenth anniversary, I felt the time was long overdue.

By track five I can say that I’m a Fila convert. It’s much more melodic than I expected (and than electronic experimentalism often is) and also more daring production- and instrumentation-wise than anything equally as jazzy.

Dicks (and the band have made sure they’ve used every pun on the title you could imagine) has 29 tracks across 59 minutes. Some of which comprise random found sounds (An Impossible Place, VD and Curveball for the 21st Century). Others (like The Great Atracrtor, The Giggle Box, and Heil Mickey) are the deepest funkiest grooves, like a cross between Crosstown Traffic, Bullet, early Egg, late Biting Tongues and so on. Personally I’m quite taken with the upbeat, melodic and mellow tracks like Shellac and We’ve Almost Surprised Me – both arriving at the wrong end of the year to be summer chill out classics.

If, like me, you’re well overdue to check out Fila Brazilia then make this your first taster. I’m off to check their A Certain Ratio remix EP…

Claudia Brucken + Andrew Poppy: Another Language (There(there))

This is a project that initially started when Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore asked German electronica icon Claudia Brucken to perform some songs at a party. She set to work with Andrew Poppy - one of the UK’s foremost avant-garde composers by day, but a dab hand at guitar-wielding by night. The party idea has long since passed but between them they have conjured a daring set of duets.

It may just be Claudia on vocals but Another Language really is a series of duets - with Poppy alternating between guitar and his native piano and providing not just backing, but equally compelling melody lines and arrangements for every song. Between them they’ve ‘reimagined’ Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (the kind of track Brucken’s fans have been waiting to hear her sing for years), the midnight cabaret of Grace Jones’ Libertango and a delicate take on Radiohead’s Nice Dream. On the atmospheric Breakfast (originally penned by The Associates’ Billy Mackenzie) Poppy dances across the piano while the vocals tell a moving story.

This is an album of firsts – Poppy’s first long-form pop project (despite intermittent projects with the likes of The The and Psychic TV), the first time Brucken has sung more than a line or two in her native tongue (like the tender Die Nebensonnen), and the first time these songs have been reinterpreted in such a simple way. It’s a sensitive set that’s sequenced exactly like a concert, in which Elvis’ Wooden Heart (one of the first records Poppy ever heard on the radio as a child) makes a touching, almost ambient finale.

Janet Jackson - From Janet to Damita Jo (Virgin)/Live in Hawaii & The Velvet Rope Special Edition Double Disc (Eagle Rock)

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got nothing against Janet Jackson’s boobs but I thought the whole Superbowl ‘wardrobe malfunction’ publicity stunt was totally wrong. Having spent the 90s carving a highly creative niche with Janet and The Velvet Rope (by far the best two albums ever created by a Jackson), she seems to have blown the 00s on mellow bedroom music and formation dancing.

Janet’s experimental streak - both musically and visually - hit a zenith with What’s It Gonna Be?, her collaboration with Busta Rhymes. This and her laid back but equally mesmerising Beanie Man collaboration are sadly missing from Virgin’s new compilation disc. But it does hold a slew of promos, almost of all of which are perfect examples of their form and are available for the first time on DVD.

Eagle Rock’s double DVD is also available now, with a concert from the Velvet Rope tour on one disc and a Hawaiian date from the subsequent All For You on the other. Disc two is best, leaving me wondering just how much more theatrical a show like this can get. Can the costumes and set pieces Janet pioneered over ten years ago really get any bigger or better? Can Janet carry on out-cirque de soleiling cirque de soleil?! Visually breathtaking, but the music suffers from far too much ‘you-had-to-be-there’ audience participation.

The live box proves just where Britney, Justin et al find their inspiration for everything they do on a live stage. But Janet’s been doing the Tribly hat-meets-synchronised dancers routine for so long it left me yearning to see her do an altogether new type of live performance - a small stage, a band and a microphone - where the songs, already perfectly illustrated on From Janet to Damita Jo, stand up on their own merits.

Onetwo - Islington Academy, 30/09/04

The debut gig for this new collaboration between OMD founder Paul Humphries and Propaganda/Act founder Claudia Brucken. Only one EP to their name so far, but with heritage like that they had a wealth of electronic pop classics to play for a crowd that hadn’t seen either on a UK stage for at least ten years.

A surprise guest on the night was Suzanne Freytag, the Agnetha to Claudia’s Frida in their original ‘Abba From Hell’ formation of Propaganda. She doesn’t seem to have aged a single day since 1984’s Dr Mabuse, which they sung as a warm-up to November’s Produced By Trevor Horn Wembley testimonial.

Paul Humphries delved into the OMD back catalogue with reverence and flair. Almost apologetic for taking Andy McClusky’s vocal part in Almost - perhaps their best ever track - it left the OMD nuts wanted to bounce up and down Joy Division-like rather than over-analyse. He’ll have to get some low-down dirty swagger into his vocals to replace Thomas Leer on Act tracks, though.

The best OMD reinterpretations were Messages and So In Love – both sounding better than ever as male/female duets. In all quite startling to witness two 80s electronic music stalwarts back on stage doing credible, new music that builds on their past rather than trades on it. And not a Here, Now, chicken or basket in sight.

Biosphere - Autour de la Lune (Touch)

...Sub-sonic sound collage from dusty radio tapes...

The Norwegian Orb. The Scandinavian Sun Electric. Biosphere is all of those things and more. The work of isolated, arctic hermit Geir Jennsen, his albums and 12”s on Apollo Records were landmarks of the early 90s ambient house scene and pointed to its myriad of possibilities and longevity.

This latest work recalls Scanner’s Sound For Spaces and Sylvian’s Ember Glance with its stripped down environmental electronics based on a specific installation or commission. The roots of this piece go back to Radio France Culture who contacted Jennsen for music for their ‘Festival de Radio France’. He was given access to the radio station’s historic archives where he found an early 60s radio play of De la Terre à la Lune by Jules Verne. This dialogue was then woven into own recordings of the MIR space station to create something that’s startlingly unique.

Word of warning, though, it’s not quite as exciting in practice as it sounds on paper. Jenssen stays true his ambient roots and what results is like a sequel to Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks, as opposed to some kind of mashed-up voyage through the archives that a DJ might put together. Sub-bass, clicks and cuts, there are many hallmarks of an ambient classic here. And Rotation and Disparu have a wonderful sense of grace, but I couldn’t help but be left with a sinking sense of ‘anticipointment’...

Anne Piglle - L’Histoire D’Anne Pigalle

Singer, actress, painter, performance artist. Search on Google.com for Anne Pigalle and you get a variety of results – and they’re all the same person. On one hand, there’s ArtsHole.co.uk which talks about Anne Pigalle’s Erotic Revue as “an antidote to the constant bombardment of generic pornographic images we witness everyday in the media.” On the other, there’s a user at RateYourMusic.com that calls Pigalle’s ‘He Stranger’ single “A perfect expression of melancholy and desire from the most underrated artist in recent years.”

Although Pigalle’s milieu remains the stage, this new DVD is a must for fans and anyone that’s come across her one, highly collectable, album from 1985. Part biography, part fantasy, it traces her life story from early the punk scene of 1977 Paris to i-D cover star as ‘the anti-Sade’ in 1984 London, then on to LA, around the USA and back.

This self-produced and directed short film pulls from a dazzling array of sources – TV footage, music videos, magazines, home movies, films and showreels. It’s collaged together with world-weary voice over of highs and lows and some dramatically Twin Peaks-esque music by TDS.

Those with a passing interest will be surprised at the DVD’s gloriously stripped down format – comprising the short film, a limited edition hand made sleeve and nothing else. Quite possibly the only extras-free DVD reviewed this month, it diminishes the power of the format but not the content, which is both enthralling and mystifying.

Made In Sheffield - The Birth of Electronic Pop (Slackjaw Films)

Repackaged beautifully by The Designers Republic, this is a welcome DVD transfer for Eve Wood’s fascinating documentary about the late 70s Sheffield electronic scene.

If you need a history lesson – on how sparks flew out of a baron industrial climate creating some of pop’s most influential music – or just want to revel archive footage and anecdotes then this is a must buy. The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Heaven 17, ABC (and their legendary Vice Versa ‘prequel’) all feature prominently. To say nothing of some more obscure names – like I’m So Hollow and John Peel favourites Artery – hitherto only talked about in indie 7” collector circles also get a long overdue platform.

Wood takes just under an hour to guide you through how in the late 70s guitars were trashed and – in the true spirit of punk – anyone with an idea or vision jumped up on stage and used keyboards and synthesizers to make themselves heard. From the first art school twiddlings of Humnan League the story closes just as ABC take to the stage to perform on Top Of The Pops. It’s a compelling story although the inclusion of more guitar-oriented groups like The Extras and even Pulp is disorienting, even if they do offer valuable insights into Sheffield band life.

As well as a gallery of very rare photos, DVD extras include crystal clear early footage of Vice Versa right at the moment they were about to go into a cocoon and come out the other side as ABC. Pitifully short but the kind of stuff collectors have been waiting to see for years. The only material you’ll find over-familiar is interviews with Phil Oakey and his Human League band mates – they seem to be permanently on TV these days on ‘Top Ten This’ or ‘I Love That’!

The Orb - Bicycles and Tricycles (Cooking Vinyl)

One thing’s for certain – a new Orb release is never a case of ‘same old same old’. Ten albums and 16 years after ‘A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre of the Ultraworld’ there is little whiff of ambient house – the genre The Orb pioneered – on Bicycles and Tricycles. They’ve evolved, something which some of the pretenders to the chill out throne would do well to try for themselves.

You need to persevere with Bicycles and Tricycles in places. Tracks like the Zion Train-esque ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ sound like filler on first listen but bear up well to repeat plays. ‘The Land of Green Ginger’ is the most traditionally Orb-like track, complete with odd sampled narration and synth sounds reminiscent of Paterson’s work with Sun Electric. It was first heard on Paterson’s Back To Mine compilation where it followed beautifully from Julie Cruise’s ‘Falling’. Elsewhere, ‘Aftermath’, with vocals from MC Shoom T, sounds like a welcome and long-overdue follow-up to ‘Perpetual Dawn’.

The most exciting part of this album is ‘From a Distance’ – the sound of Orb founder Alex Paterson getting back together with his original partner-in-crime Jimmy Cauty (who jumped ship in 1990 to form The KLF). This track has been unceremoniously panned in fan quarters but I love it. In fact I love it a little more for that very reason. I’m like that. If this is anything to go by, then pre-orders should be placed immediately for the pair’s forthcoming Custerd project.