Complete Recordings (1989-1992)

Lately, it seems like I've been hearing a lot of bands popping up that remind me of Black Tambourine. Groups like Vivian Girls and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart seem to take a lot of their sound from the collection of songs by this short lived American noise pop group. The band consisted of vocalist Pam Berry, Archie Moore, Mike Schulman, and Brian Nelson (who later went on to join the indie-pop group Velocity Girl, who I also recommend). The group was signed to Slumberland Records, a label that is also home to many other pioneering indie-pop bands such as Tiger Trap, Boyracer, and 14 Iced Bears.

This album is a bittersweet collection of songs dealing with the usual things.... heartbreak, love, jealousy, etc. My personal favorite on the record is the song "Throw Aggi Off the Bridge", which is about Annabel (Aggi) Wright of the Glasgow group, The Pastels. Pam Berry had a crush on the lead singer of the Pastels (Stephen McRobbie) and believed that Aggi was coming between the two of them.



(Sorry the video isn't the best quality.)

But yeah. If you're a fan of the 80's indie-pop or shoegaze scene, this album is pretty essential.

Track Listing
1. For Ex-Lovers Only 2:41
2. Black Car 3:28
3. Pack You Up 2:22
4. Can't Explain 2:23
5. I Was Wrong 1:32
6. Throw Aggi Off the Bridge 3:31
7. Drown 2:41
8. We Can't Be Friends 1:49
9. By Tomorrow 3:02
10. Pam's Tan 1:18

listenlistenlisten!

Slumberland Records
unofficial myspace

Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971), Cannabis (1970)

Often referred to as the "dirty old man" of pop music, Serge Gainsbourg was without a doubt one of the most important figures in modern French music. Gainsbourg's music is a little hard to classify. He mixed the elements of jazz and popular music quite seamlessly throughout his career. Over the span of his career, he worked with many other famous french musicians such as France Gall and Brigitte Bardot. The thing that he was most known for was the sexual nature of much of his music. His most famous album, Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971) was a concept album about a relationship with a young woman. The cover of the album leads the listener to believe that the character Melody Nelson was a Lolita-esque girl. The cover, as pictured above, features Gainsbourg's wife, Jane Birkin. Gainsbourg often collaborated with Jane Birkin on his albums.

Histoire de Melody Nelson is the first Gainsbourg album I will have available. Though, the album runs quite short, (only 27:57) I think it's quite good, and a great example of Gainsbourg's sound.



The video below is an example of some of Gainsbourg's antics. In this clip, Gainsbourg says to Whitney Houston on live TV that he "wants to fuck her."




The second album that I will have available in this post is Gainsbourg's soundtrack to the 1970 film called Cannabis. Cannabis was a mafia movie in which both Gainsbourg and his wife Jane Birkin starred in. Though I have never actually watched the film, I am a big fan of the soundtrack. The guitar work on the album sounds great, and simply from reading reviews of it, I'm guessing that the music was probably the best thing about film.

I kind of wish I knew more about the picture just for the sake of this post, but since the music is great by itself, I don't think that it's completely necessary. The imdb page for the movie is here, though. Cannabis

Well, that's it for now. Enjoy!

Melody Nelson Track Listing
1. Melody 7:32
2. Ballade de Melody Nelson 2:00
3. Valse de Melody 1:31
4. Ah! Melody 1:47
5. L'hôtel particulier 4:05
6. En Melody 3:25
7. Cargo Culte 7:37

get it!


Cannabis Track Listing
1. Cannabis 2:27
2. Première Blessure 2:25
3. Deuxième Homme 1:10
4. Jane Dans la Nuit 1:24
5. Danger 2:09
6. Chanvre Indien 2:28
7. Avant de Mourir 5:25
8. Arabique 1:31
9. Cannis 2:28
10. I Want to Feel Crazy 1:42
11. Dernière Blessure 1:25
12. Piège 3:11
13. Cannabis-Bis 1:49

get it!

Amalgamation (1971)

Yes, I finally picked up a copy of Japrocksampler. If you haven't read it before, I highly recommend buying the book. I'll probably be posting quite a few albums from Julian Cope's top 50, but I'm going to start with this one, since I've been listening to it a lot lately.

The album is Amalgamation by Masahiko Satoh and the Soundbreakers. Satoh is a jazz pianist. This album, which was one of the many "super sessions" which were created during this time period, featured many other musicians such as Kimio Mizutani, who was already known for his guitar work with the group Love Live Life + One.

This album is a bit difficult to describe. It is a mixture of psychedelic music, musique concrete, progressive rock and free jazz. The record is quite unpredictable, and features a lot of unique instrumentation, including some traditional Japanese instruments. Listening to it is a pretty strange trip.

The record is seperated into 2 tracks, side one and side two. Side one is 15 minutes and 49 seconds long. Side two is 21 minutes and 18 seconds.



give it a try

Satoh's website

The Kitchen Tapes (1983)

"When I listen to The Raincoats I feel as if I'm a stowaway in an attic, violating and in the dark. Rather than listening to them I feel like I'm listening in on them. We're together in the same old house and I have to be completely still or they will hear me spying from above and, if I get caught - everything will be ruined because it's their thing. They're playing their music for themselves. It's not as sacred as wire-tapping a buddhist monk's telephone or something because if The Raincoats did catch me, they would probably just ask me if I wanted some tea. I would comply, then they would finish playing their songs and I would say thank you very much for making me feel good." - Kurt Cobain, June 1993.


The Raincoats are one of my favorite bands from the post-punk era. This English group, started by Ana da Silva and Gina Birch, created 5 full albums between 1977 and 1996. The band is best known for their first self titled album, which featured energetic post-punk anthems like Fairytale in the Supermarket, and their famous cover of The Kinks 'Lola'.



The Kitchen Tapes, released on cassette in 1983, was recorded live at The Kitchen arts space in New York City. The album features excellent live versions of many of the songs from Odyshape and Moving, including my favorite version of the song 'No One's Little Girl' (which just happens to be one of my all time favorite songs in general.)

This is just generally a fun album, and a good example of the movement of lo-fi female post-punk bands from the late 70's and early 80's.

Track Listing
1. No One's Little Girl 3:38
2. Balloonacy 4:19
3. Oh Oh La La La 3:17
4. Only Loved at Night 3:20
5. I Saw a Hill 3:14
6. Mouth of a Story 3:14
7. The Body 3:14
8. Shouting Out Loud 3:19
9. Rainstorm 3:54
10. Dance of Hopping Mad 4:59
11. Animal Rhapsody 3:54
12. Puberty Song 1:17
13. No Side To Fall In 1:21
14. Honey Mad Woman 3:05



listen?

Raincoats Myspace