I’ve mentioned the guys over at Schitz Poppinov before. Their music blog is one of the best Ive come across, and is an excellant source of new choice chewns. But they like to take a sideways glance at things every now and then. Whether it be a sideswipe at Gene Simmonds, how cool Australian music is right now, or to give a history lesson.
Trevor Horn (sic) was one of the originators of the dynamic 12-inch remixes which were the best at the time … and still are the best. Most 12-inch remixes back then were either just extended verions of original songs and/or default disco/DJ arrangments which were too boring to listen to in an of themselves.
Trevor Horn’s 12-inch remixes were uniquely long (anywhere from 8 to 13 minutes in duration) and told stories which took the listeners through long instrumental journeys at the begenning of tracks until the climax is reached (around the 5/6 or 7 minute mark). After the climax, the original or alternate full vocal version of the track takes over from that point on to the end, lasting additional 3.5 to 5 minutes in length.
Like a novel, each of Horn’s remixes starts off with the long RISE to hit the CLIMAX at the top. Once climax is reached, the track would SUSTAIN the music with the original/alternate vocal version until it DECAYS and fades out in the end. Mostly importantly, it was the rolling basslines which DRIVE the listener (in the passenger seat) from begenning to end.
They even knocked up a nice little graph for us more graphically literate.
For the traditionally literate, read more here. And remember to rage hard.
In the 31 months of doing Borrowed Beats, the September ‘08 Edition has proven itself one of the least popular. In it’s first week it was downloaded a paltry 81 times.
‘Why could this be?’ I wondered. ‘The cover image of Mr ICE Cool‘ I asked? ‘Probably not’ they said.
‘The theme?’ I offered. ‘Well, you did brazenly state that you were cooler than everyone else’ came the reply.
‘Yeah, but that was a gag - you know, thinking you’re cool and being cool are two different things. It was a link to the Dodgeball line. I though that image pulled all that together - that guy obviously thinks he’s cool, and he’s obviously not. It was all said in parody’ I insisted.
‘Really? So you’re not as hurrah for me as you a sound?’
Well, maybe a little.
But so are these guys. (below)
So lets make Friday Myday.
The day it’s okay to say : Hurrah for me!
So I’m listening to some cool music at the moment, putting together some thoughts for the next edition of Borrowed Beats, and I keep coming back to a track that i love but can’t put my finger on why. And then I remember. GhostFace Killah. Sampled the triplejaysus out of it. But It’s undoubtedly cooler than the original, which was very very cool.
Tilly and the Wall were the coolest indie kids on the block. Cardigan and pigtail wearing chicks, they appeared on Sesame Street ( and covered ABC, naturally) and they have a tap dancer for a drummer. I remember that was the single line intro Marcus gave me when he turned me on to Tilly’s 2006 album Bottom of Barrels. The album was filled with close harmonies about rainbows and birds singing. ‘O’ is not that album.
From opener ‘Tall tall glass’ you know that Tilly et al have grown, and are bolder, louder and angrier. First single ‘Pot Kettle Black’ shows how creative they are when it comes to making the most of Pressnall’s galloping rhythms, turning two feet into an entire rhythm section. Goodbye sunrise songs, hello Party Rock. This is as loud as we’ve every heard Tilly, and they’ve fleshed out their sound with more than just volume.
‘Cacophony’ would have sat nicely on ‘Bottoms of Barrels’with its Tap-tastic intro and three-part vocal harmonies, but it too ventures into new territory with live drums and sax, with limited success it must be said. Tilly’s arsenal of glockenspiel, tap dancing and multi-layered vocals are thankfully present on the rest of the album, but there are still many surprises for long term fans. The album closer, ‘Too excited’could be a mission statement or a mission-complete statement - swearing like sailors sluts on shore leave, they leave us as they began, with heavy reverb guitars and a proclamation - “I don’t give a shit if I’m cool enough“, and in the process prove that they most certainly are.
