Homework Sheet July 2020

The Album Club Remixed July 2020

"Kid A" by Radiohead (2000)

Listen!

Be it MP3, vinyl or  cassette it goes without saying that we’ll get the most from the discussion if you have a good listen to the album in the run up.

The two key tracks* from the album are:

Track 1: Everything in its Right Place

Track 8: Idioteque

*These are tracks we’ll focus on, but we do want to talk about the whole album. 

Write!

Please can you let me have a three bullet point review of the album (by email) by 12 Noon on Thursday 2nd July or submit something via this blog.  This will help to prompt the discussion and give us something to get the ball rolling.

You can say what you loved, what you hated, what you don’t understand, how you felt, what was missing...

How it works...

You will receive an email invitation to participate via cleanfeed (you should use a WiFi/4G connection and headphones). 

We will start with some introductions and any questions before we kick off.

The discussion will take in- a bit of an overview, a discussion framed around two key tracks, comments, thoughts and views on the album. It will last for 20 mins and then be edited to form the future radio show.

The session will be hosted by James Sandy from Switch Radio and is planned to air on Tuesday 7th July 2020 @7 pm as part of regular arts & culture show The Unseen Swerve

The Album Cub Remixed #7

The Album Club Remixed is a regular virtual music discussion with recorded contributions and reviews from a growing band of volunteers.

The next album up for discussion is "Kid A" By Radiohead (2000).

The next recording session is planned for Friday 3rd July 2020 at 6.30 pm.

You must notify us by email if you would like to take part (oh yeah, and do some homework).

The final edit of the discussion will feature in The Unseen Swerve scheduled to broadcast on Tuesday 7th July 2020 @7 pm on Switch Radio.

Reviews for Silent Alarm by Bloc Party

Energetic and vibrant, it is an enjoyable listen to any fans of guitar based rock. I think that it came at a time where guitar rock was perhaps in its death throes and having one last big resurgence amid contemporaries such as The Libertines, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys etc. As part of that whole movement, they come across to me as the equivalent of what a band like Echobelly were to the whole Britpop thing. They were fine, they sort of did what their contemporaries were doing, but to a less fulfilling extent. They didn't score the big singles nor albums, but they were there at the time, and that's nice for them. There's leaders and there's followers, there are innovators and copiers, and I think Bloc Party fall into the latter of each set of groupings.  

- Matthew

"A new one for me. They had not crossed my path before even though this album is some 15 years old. It is ‘sitting on the fence’ time for me. I don’t dislike it, but there again I find few things that would have me rushing out to add it to my collection. If I was at a festival, standing in a field with a some cloudy cider watching this band for their 30 or 40 minutes, I think I’d quite enjoy that. But listening to the album in isolation I don’t hear any standout tunes and the vocal doesn’t stand out either (things that would possibly have me wanting to explore further). If you listen to BBC 6music during the day, their schedule is full of very similar bands (and that current indie sound) and it is very difficult to differentiate between them all”.
-Marek

The Album Club Remixed #6

The Album Club Remixed is a regular virtual music discussion with recorded contributions and reviews from a growing band of volunteers.

The next album up for discussion is "Silent Alarm" By Bloc Party (2005).

The next recording session is planned for Friday 19th June 2020 at 6.30 pm.

You must notify us by email if you would like to take part (oh yeah, and do some homework).

The final edit of the discussion will feature in The Unseen Swerve scheduled to broadcast on Tuesday 23rd June 2020 @7 pm on Switch Radio.

Album Reviews for Kraftwerk's 'The Man Machine'

I’d been aware of Kraftwerk from their ‘Autobahn’ single a few years earlier, but nothing else. As the punk scene began to fragment at the end of the 1970’s the pace-setters to come next were the New Romantics and the New Wavers. They were looking for new sounds and styles and the synthesiser was readily available and harked back to the punk ethos of “anyone can do it” because of its ease to use. But the newer bands were still melding electronic music with traditional band line-ups. Kraftwerk had been doing their thing for at least a decade at that point, ignoring the two guitars, bass and drums set up and indeed with someone who could sing. The main point of ‘The Man Machine’ was that Kraftwerk had begun to introduce beats that you could dance to. I can remember this album getting played to death at Birmingham clubs such as Holy City Zoo and The Rum Runner.

-Marek

---

The sound of Der Mencsh Machine is, to me, like cities made of glass crackling with blue tongue licking lashes of electricity.

It is the most pop leaning record of the band's career to that point, with "The Model" being perhaps their best known piece and representing the band's success in honing the new technology they had been working with into instruments which could be accepted and embraced by generations of musical purists.

The Krautrock revolution, as it has become known (though when I mentioned the term to a German friend she did not know it and thought it rather insulting) was the sound of Germany looking to put it's past behind it, but not by jumping on the bandwagon of the popular American music dominating the airwaves. It was the search for a new identity from the ruins of a troubled history.


Its influence is far reaching. I could name LCD Soundsystem and Daft Punk songs that directly lift some of the melodies from Metropolis and The Robots without apology.
-Matthew

The Album Club Remixed #5

The Album Club Remixed is a new format for our regular music discussions which now happens virtually with recorded contributions from a growing band of volunteers.

The next album up for discussion is "The Man Machine" by Kraftwerk (1978)

In part a tribute to Florian Schneider who dies recently.

The next recording session is planned for Friday 29th May 2020 at 6.30 pm.

You must notify us by email if you would like to take part (oh yeah, and do some homework).

The final edit of the discussion will feature in The Unseen Swerve scheduled to broadcast on Tuesday 2nd June 2020 @7 pm on Switch Radio.

Albums of Influence

As I'm sure many of you have, I recently received an invitation from a good friend via facebook to post ten albums that have influenced or informed my musical tastes over the years. The deal was that you couldn't say anything about them or review them,  you just let the sleeve do the talking and then pass on the invitation to another good friend. 

Lock down comes with many rules, but this one had to be broken. And so some personal reflections on my ten albums of influence...

Harvest By Neil Young

In amongst the badly mixed paints and fractured half-pots of our school art room I heard the warn tones of this album. Our art teacher at the time (the mighty Mr Taylor) motivated our half attempts at art with tunes from a dying box amp or an occasional wander through the art room accompanied playing his own old battered guitar. This album dominated my weeks in the fifth year of secondary school. Sunday still doesn't seem right without hearing a track (or six).

Suede

Although initially unimpressed with Brett Anderson's frantic struts on TOTP one Thursday in March 1993, I soon grew to love the unworldly swirls and buzz saw guitars of this debut. I recall watching a BBC news documentary about lost kids and social issues with my parents at the time. It used almost the entire Suede album as its soundtrack. I was sold. My parents were less than enamoured (not quite James Last).

Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors by Fish

Having inherited the sounds of Marillion from an early age this album was destined to effect me in some way. I still have it on gatefold vinyl. The cover alone makes it a classic. It's songs are overly complicated stabs at pop-prog, but I still know most of the lyrics and find myself subconsciously singing the 'hits'. I think if anything I learnt that listening to music should be a serious business and that albums must be taken on as a long-term prospect- a relationship.

Unplugged by Neil Young

Gone are the soft country feedback twangs of Harvest (almost). This album came to me one evening via a BBC 2 repeat of MTV's flagging flagship show for people that just wanted to put a tape on. Looking like a discarded, rain soaked, hippy and clad in a 90s-tastic leather look jacket Neil channels something exceptional. After stopping traffic with solely a guitar he then launches near falsetto into twisted versions of his classics on a booming pump organ. This album made me listen to live albums more and differently. It told me lots about the spontaneity (or not) of songs and how they should sound on the tape- unmixed and unrefined.  

Murder Ballads by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Aside from Sean Hughes' regular references and blatant T-shirt worship, I didn't really know much about King Ink in the early 90s. Unsure of the Kylie duet I boldly invested in the album from Lancaster's now long gone Ear 'Ere Records (Penny Street). I nearly bust my stereo listening to this album. A macabre jaunt into the world of murder through a storybook of lost fairy tales. It took me years to work out that the odd sounding instrument on 'Stagger Lee' was- it is Blixa Bargeld constantly screaming. From hence forth I have been a massive Bad Seeds fan and have enjoyed the journey- bright and pure. 

The Happiest Man Alive by Babybird

Stephen Jones is one of the most underated artists I could name. His output is prolific and the albums solid. This album made me think seriously about the mechanics of recording and the glory of back bedroom audio production. In truth it is part of the origin story of the King of the Buttons empire (film rights available). It taught me that there are not really any limitations in creativity- whatever kind. You should follow that idea, however mad (It's also got some guilt free dance-a-longs on it).

Are you serious by Andrew Bird

In the summer of 2016 this open ended statement/question took on a whole new significance for me as the country declared splendid isolationism to a world crying out for solidarity. How Andrew Bird manages to construct and deconstruct in such a hip swinging manner I really don't know. And so, the language of soulful defiance beyond rhetoric became clearer to me.

Magpie by Stephen Fretwell

Drifting into a peaceful dream one night in my flatpack Swindon exec pad I recalled a late guest on Mark Radcliffe's holy BBC R2 show. A few days later this album appeared as a welcome leaving gift from an equally welcome comrade. It is the throw away, casual tone of the album that warrants endless listening. It is music that is of a moment, for a moment and that lives in the moment. Magpie is an opportunist of a record that reminds me that music is as vital as coffee.

56 by Elvis Presley

All religions have their deities. All dogs have their day. 1956 was the year in which the messiah jolted every notion of sensible blues and teen music with the lunging devil of rock'n'roll. EAP is captured without the fluff, without the burgers and with the full ammunition of a lost boy making the world of music his own. Cheap compilations and magazine freebies to the floor. This disk made me take Elvis seriously.

Gorgeous George by Edwyn Collins

The last of the go-getters. An energetic collection of songs that describes the passing of an age, the death of 'indie' and the nonsense of the big bucks festival. A 60's sound reheated to challenge the very revolutions that it inspired. Intelligent pop without involving Neil Tennant- It's possible?

Hear for yourself...