monkey necklace owl

Back to 4AD AGAIN for the B-Side of 1987's Number 1 smasheroo Pump Up The Volume. As any fool knows this was the collaboration between AR Kane, Colourbox and CJ Macintosh which really brought sampling into the charts. I'd love to say that I got this single at the time but let's face it, I was a real indie snob. I only bought the 12" after hearing this track, the double A side.

M|A|R|R|S - Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)



Apparently (according to youknowwho) this wasn't a happy collaboration, with AR Kane and Colourbox working in seperate studios on the two tracks; Pump Up The Volume being mostly the work of The Box, with minimal input from the Kaners.

As far as Anitina went, AR Kane brought the elephantine-feedback and sheets of guitar noise (plus blissed-out vocals and ickle-baby-acid-head lyrics), while Colourbox supplied the monumental beats and heavy dub effects which really make the track - the best bit is from 4.37 when it all goes underwater before the gallop to the finish line. Still sounds great.

Back in the day, Simon Reynolds would have called this oceanic dub-rock.

Hmmm, Colourbox... methinks I feel a non-alphabetical post coming on...

Visit - M|A|R|R|S (Wikipedia)
Buy - Pump Up The Volume CD (import)

Nina Nastasia - Ugly Face



Oxes - Kaz Hayashi '01



These go together because they were amongst the last artists that I really got turned onto by John Peel. And both of them involved me staring open-mouthed at the radio as I heard something that I really wasn't expecting, which is an experience that I will never have again. Think about it - the media continue to move more and more towards narrowcasting, with genre programs increasingly ghettoised in their own little compartments. The opportunities for exposure to something unexpected are increasingly rare.

Ugly Face was in a late-night Festive 50 show and just gobsmacked me, it's so spine-chilling. I know I've (kind-of) featured Nina Nastasia on here before, but she really is a great artist. And it's so cool to hear Steve Albini's recording style applied to this sort of music, which it suits so well. Plus you don't hear enough bowed saw these days.

Oxes I heard on a live session from Maida Vale which entailed me sitting in the car outside my house, grinning like a tit and not being able to go in until the session finished. I guess they could come across as slightly academic math-rockers but I think they're genuinely hilarious.

I have a theory that they were all massive metal geeks as kids and are trying to get to the motherlode of Great Riffs (as it were), knocking out the keystones of rock lore ad infinitum until they achieve some kind of cosmic high. Whilst pulling rock poses, jumping off things and gurning.

Just listen - it's like Stars on 45 for metal riffs. For example, I reckon there are definite echoes of Iron Maiden in this track, especially the rumpty-tumpty-Run-To-The-Hills section at 0.37

Visit - Nina Nastasia
Buy - The Blackened Air

Visit - Oxes
Visit - Oxes (MySpace)
Buy - Oxxxes