Angry Brasstards: Youngblood Brass Band

A friend pointed me in the direction of this great brassy-scratchy Rage cover after I shared with him the funky steel stuff.

The Apples - Killing


Reminded me of the Youngblood Brass Band, a group of a dozen or so angry young guys with various skins to bang and tubes to blow. Saw them a few years ago touring thier 'Is That A Riot?' album in Cab Vol in Edinburgh, a dark wee tunnel of a club. They barely fitted on the stage, but blew us all away with such an energy and anger in their sound.

I'd say they are a jazzed-up, poetic Rage Against The Machine with brass instead of guitars. Here are a few faves on Youtube to see what I mean.

Youngblood Brass Band - Nuclear Summer


Youngblood Brass Band - March


Youngblood Brass Band - Dead Man Stomping


It mite be my woeful laptop speakers, but as explosive as these tunes sound, they are poor imitation of what it's like to have them go off live in your face. Go see them if they're ever around! Their Myspace says they're touring the UK over the next couple of weeks...

Nova Tunes: The Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band

A most rewarding by-product of trying to find Sara Schiralli's stuff was the discovery of Nova Tunes, a compilation series put out by Radio Nova, a Parisian station that sounds a lot like Radio Sing Sing, playing an eclectic mix of funky, rocky, hiphoppy, balladic, dancable stuff.

There are 22 of these compilations so far, and Sara Schiralli opens the 2.0th one (they sensibly started numbering at 0.1).

Here's Another fave off Nova Tunes 2.0:

The Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - P.I.M.P.


This other vid's description gives some background, and explains why I've heard this tune before:

"Mocambo is proud to offer another 45 from the vaults of this obscure band from Trinidad & Tobago.
This moody downtempo tune shows the influence of Latin styles and Jamaican reggae in early 1970's Trinidadian music culture. The theme is said to be derived from Venzuela and was adapted by rapper 50 Cent for his massive smash "P.I.M.P.". Our chief engineer Steven "Def Stef" Tantrum did a wonderful job in restauring the old 8-track tape and mixing the track.
While the A-Side spotlights the pan section and a featured trumpet, the B-side underlines the impact of Jamaican dub on Trinidadian Steel Bands with the spaced-out melodica solo in the style of the great Augustus Pablo.
Each one is hand-stamped on the flip side!!!"

The description apparently was sourced from Mocambo, a German record label, but they no longer have the bit about Venezuela or 50 Cent.

If you love the steel sound give this a shot too. A traditional funk instrumental with a steel drum lead. Less catchy than the first, but then it is pretty damn catchy.

THe Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - Look-A-Py-Py

Funky Female House: Don't Call Me Baby

One of my fave French-style funky house tracks with sexy vocals on top.

Madison Avenue - Don't Call Me Baby


"French-style" because Madison Avenue is actually Australian, but I reckon it just owes so much to Daft Punk and the like. The vid isn't just glitter dance and posture; about halfway thru the DJ is showing off the creative process on his blobby iMac with an old copy of ProTools or something. The remaining shots show him slightly confused about why he's on camera.

According to Wikipedia, "The song features a bass line sample from Ma Quale Idea by Italo Disco artist Pino D'Angiò which in turn is based on Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now by McFadden & Whitehead." I dug them up, and it's pretty clear.

Pino D'Angiò - Ma Quale Idea


Never heard this Italian guy before, but it's cheesy chanty fun! One to add to my Italo-Disco guilty pleasures box. The aussies basically sped this up a a bit and put a new vocal on top. And they left the popcorny "boo!" synthdrums in as a lol.

McFadden & Whitehead - Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now


Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now is a proper classic you'll get on any essential dad-age disco mix. And while researching this, Wikipedia confirmed my suspicion that this was also sampled by the GTA2 soundtrack.

Davidson - All I Wanna Do


Pop eats itself, eh?

Glitchy Reggae n Gyptek from Glasgow: MC Soom T

MC Soom T on Myspace Music
http://www.myspace.com/mcsoomt

Last time I was in the Meadow Bar (to see Kunt & the Gang) there was some really good reggae and dubby stuff playing downstairs. When I asked the DJ about the amazing voice in one record, he told me the girl's name was Soom T and well worth checking out.

Gotta agree! I was halfway to being wankered by the time I got out of Kunt, so I can't remember exactly what I heard, but everything on the Myspace is worth a listen.

It's an eclectic mix of glitchy reggae, jaunty folk, and big beats with sweet vocals. She's collaborated with lots of folk I love and lots more folk I'm gonna be checking out ;)

Fave tracks are probably What Is Life (with King Creosote), Dirty Money (with Jahtari 8-bit reggae soundsystem), Don't Forget To Wake Up (Asian Dub-esque), and Net In A Circle (atmospheric glitchyness about "when the drugs are done dancing").

What Is Life


Dirty Money


And lots lots more to click thru on Youtube. Have a look!

http://www.myspace.com/saraschiralli

Gothic Futurism RIP: Rammellzee's deid

Rammellzee died a couple months ago:

"Rammellzee was also instrumental as one of the original hip hop artists from the New York area who introduced specific vocal styles which date back to the early 1980s. His influence can still be heard in contemporary artists such as The Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill. His song Beat Bop was featured in the film Style Wars. Rammellzee makes a cameo appearance near the end of Jim Jarmusch's 1984 film Stranger Than Paradise."

Only know about this guy at all because my dad picked up his "Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee" CD in a Fopp bargain bin a few years back. Weird stuff. Dark and bleepy hiphop, kinda space-age. He called 'gothic futurism'. The follow track is not quite representative of the rest, but it's one of my faves; an amusing wee track about Operation Rentpayer.

Rammellzee - Pay The Rent feat. Shockdell


Sound advice.

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Telefunken @ Cabaret Voltaire 2010/08/20

Just wanna give these guys a shout out for being even more fun than the last nite's Slam set in the end!

Didn't know what to expect from Slam save for "they are awesome... i've seen them three times and i'm still basically a slam virgin... my gf has seen them seven times!" They were fresh on the Glasgow scene just before my dad there went a bit stale (and bailed east). And while they scored hi on pounding seething techno points, I was a little disappointed that they took turns instead of DJing together.

But the two of Telefunken were sexing up the wee side room with squelchy funky basslines and sexy lectry organ riffs. Unlike the main room, it was not a sardine sweatbox. People were free to move about and express the funk thru bodywork, like swinging, bodypopping, leapfrogging, whatever. Their shit brought out the best of a few in the club that nite :)

Check out their site for a ton of mixes. Dunno what they were actually playing, but I suspect it's a lot of almost-forgotten Italian and German disco house giants. The two tunes below I requested but they didn't play. I think they'd fit the mood tho!

Lil Louis - French Kiss


808 State - Pacific State

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Ultrachip @ The Forrest Cafe 2010/08/21 - 22 (Saturday, Sunday)

A friend recommended this to me. "Scotland's first chiptune festival" sounds like a laff! Don't know any of these guys yet, but I'll try to get along to at least one of the nites.

"There will be live chip music, visuals & DJing from 8pm – 3am on the Saturday and Sunday night. Age limit: 18+ due to there being a bar.

During the day on Sunday there will be workshops on chiptune composing, circuit bending & VJing (full details here). Also, there will be a Chip Market with a range of chip-related goods on sale, running 12-5pm in the main hall upstairs. Age limit: none, all ages welcome."

So bring along yer casio n a crosshead n get bendy wi that noise making equipment!

Got into the modscene and chiptune stuff as a teenager after downloading a trippy old-school mod for Doom called 8-bit deathmatch. Dark, claustro, boxy levels with eppy-inducing flashing walls, strobing lights, and a pixelated power arsenal. Best thing was the soundtrack tho - some of the modscene's best grindy and bleepy loops and tracks were also included!

So I'm hoping it will sound not completely unlike these:

Doom 8bitdm Part 1


Doom 8bitdm Part 2

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: SOMA Party @ Cabaret Voltaire 2010/08/20

So keen for Soma! See you there tonite!

DF Concerts presents The Edge Festival

SOMA RECORDS NIGHT

Main Room:
Slam
Funk D'Void
Harvey McKay (Live)

Room 2:
Telefunken: Alan Gray & Nick Wilson

www.somarecords.com

Edinburgh
Cabaret Voltaire
Friday 20th August 11pm - 4am


www.theedgefestival.com

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Three Musicians and a Beatboxer @ Lebowski's 2010/08/18

On Sunday me and my friends had an afternoon jam at Lebowski's! First gig, got paid, even got invited back!

Arren got a sunday slot and roped his friends together to form some sort of band. We were a ragtag bunch, but I think it went okay! He played guitar and sang, while Paul brought his congas ad guiro, Myles was on bass for a bit, and I was beatboxing once the bongos were packed up.

Highlight of the day was definitely Paul on the bongos. Some of the tunes just came to life with his rhythms. Under the sea, for example!

The Little Mermaid - Under The Sea


Same again next week! We did agree to practice some more, but I may have to cancel that if I perform at all, given how busy my non-musical life is getting!

Edionburgh Festival Gigs: After Dark @ Henry's Cellar Bar 2010/08/14

This should have been posted a while ago, but like I said, it's been a busy week! Ideally, I'd like to write about gigs before they happen as well as after, but, y'know, I'm having too much fun.

We do like After Dark, so because we had a free late weekend flyer for Henry's Cellar, it was clearly the right thing to do to go see them again!

The mercifully short act before was some terrible warbly singer-songwriter girl telling us how amazing it was to be here and what lovely people we are.

After Dark stepped to the stage more confidently than last time, and it was a better set overall. Different line up too, tho I don't think I've seen the same one twice tbh. Paul brought the congas again for a little latin flair in the rhythm, but they weren't without the drumkit where it was needed.

A most pleasant surpise was their new material. My fave song of the nite was one they called "P. Irate" or "P. I. Rate" or something like that, a fun wee accordion-driven pirate shanty which became a raucous singalong as soon as we learned the chorus: "Yo ho, me hearties, yo ho!" "YO HO!". About half way through they got shipwrecked on a very funky island, so it took another latin swing as they learned the local rhythms.

Love it every time they play their funked up laid back Snoop Dog cover.

Snoop Dog - Sensual Seduction


As ever, "I got my mojo working!" got all eight of us in the place on our feet and grooving and flailing to the end. It goes a little something like this classic Muddy Waters performance.

Muddy Waters - Got My Mojo Working


Holgate, the new guitarist, was a bit shy on some of the tracks since he only learned the material that day, but he sounded great on the mike singing a lovely blues song he knows. (I'll try to find out what it was.)

Hope they lay this stuff down to disc soon!

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Animal Hospital @ Sneaky Pete's 2010/08/12

This should have been posted a while ago, but it's been a busy week, what with all-day afterparties, getting a job, and moving house and such!

Animal Hospital: Minimal techno
for sick puppies and kittens
(Credit: David Lewis)

Animal Hospital was fucking awesome, as always. Every second Thursday of the month at Sneaky Pete's.

Nick Dow was first up when I arrived. This guy blew everyone away with his own material. This guy's doing really well, and I wanna hear more from him! Eerie minimal soundscapes with pleasant clicks n pops. Have a listen on his Myspace.

Course, coz it's festy time, the place was bangin' till 5am! The residents impressed as usual, and there was another guest pumping out the silky tunes too. I think I caught his name but was too busy dancing to remember.

Nick Dow

After a bit of sit-down sitar + beatbox fun while waiting for a taxi, the afterparty got underway, and did it go on its merry way! 20 hours later still spangled. The peak moment was probably sometime just before noon Friday when this balkan banger hit the deck.

Sebastien Leger - Balkamaniac


And this wasn't actually played ("because it's hard to mix"), but I was pointed in the direction of this filthy obscene pounder. Makes me wanna run things over.

T. Raumschmiere - Monstertruckdriver


This nite I also met a guy who has a radio gig in the borders playing whatever alternative tracks take his fancy. These days he seems to fancy glitchy stuff and folktronica. Have a listen to the Dinner and Bass show on Soundcloud! As I write, on the second hour of the first show is available; Soundcloud might be having issues, because this guy has 2 public tracks but only 1 is visible.
Dinner & Bass on TD1Radio.co.uk - The Alternative Selection(2nd Hour) by dinnerandbass by dinnerandbass

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Admiral Fallow @ Sneaky Pete's 2010/08/11

Admiral Fallow played a bouncy-flouncy, fun-fun-fun-fun-fun set at Sneaky Pete's sweat box last nite!


These guys are up-n-coming indie rock from Glasgow. Whimsical and fun, thoughtful and emotional, but not dreary and wrist-slitty like so much of this genre can be.

They played all the faves (my friends were having a great singalong), a few new ones, and even squeezed in their first ever encore at the end!
Check out their Facebook or Myspace for their tunes. 'Sqealing Pigs' is a belter. 'Old Balloons' is a singalong favorite for my friend. 'Subbuteo' is one of those "really quiet tunes... shh" that explodes with sound halfway through. When I heard it live it nearly melted my face. Good work!
Gotta run, back to Sneaky's tonite for some filthy minimal till 5am ;)
Image credit: Greig Middlemiss (Different Light Photography)

More Hick Hop

After listening again to Gangstagrass I thought of a couple of track that would go quite well.

Jack Parow - Cooler As Ekke

More on Jack Parow later when I get round to blogging my South African musical discoveries. :)

Nelly feat. Tim McGraw - Over And Over

Okay, the Nelly/Tim McGraw track is cheezy as hell, but my dad liked it!

Einburgh Festival Gigs: Bombskare @ Whistle Binkies 2010/09/08

So, Edinburgh's 20-legged ska monster returns to rock up the fest!

Well, maybe. I'm being a sad sack tonite and staying in, but a mate said they're playing. Can't even confirm this coz Whistle Binkie's listings page only displays upcoming shows, and it's technically tomorrow now.

Anyway, fine excuse to share some awesome ska!

"I'm So Happy" is one of my fave Bombskare tracks, but this live handycam recording is the only thing I can find on Youtube the now. The quality doesn't do them justice, and it's not the complete performance either, but it should give you an idea of their live energy!

Another fave is "Fistful of Dynamite", a soaring instrumental skankalong reminiscent of Apache. This is the promo vid so it actually sounds alrite.

Seen these guys in St Andrews last year, and more recently in Edinburgh at the Club 54-46 ska nite, 4 hours of hi-energy skankin grooves! Their mates The Big Hand were up first, and I got to mosh about to Bombskare with their trumpet player after they had finished the set!

Seeing as these two go together so well, here's a couple of Big Hand faves as well.

Post-Gig: After Dark @ Henry's Cellar Bar

After Dark were awesome! More laid back style that I've heard them before, mainly coz Paul was trying out his lovely new conga drums. A bit of slidey jazz guitar and twinkling piano riffs from Felipe and David too.

They got us all dancing to "Mojo", of course. And squeezed in a bit of Credence at the end ;)

Missed little Egypt! I heard the gig started at 11pm, but when we arrived shortly after that, three bands had already played. Did discover their cunningly misspelled Myspace tho, so give it a listen! I agree with one poster who writes "drums a bit more overdrive would help this lovely fresh unpretentious pop".

The warm up for After Dark was awesome tho, a real surprising discovery!  The Dark Jokes, already started when we arrived, at first sounded like country, with a good bit of fiddle. The rock vibe got harder thru the next few tracks, sounding like Pearl Jam for a bit, and then banging out hard a la Rage n having a go at the Polis. But the angry peak chilled at the end with a nice long reggae number called "Virtual Romance" about two fated MSN lovers.

Lookin forward to seein these guys again soon!

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: After Dark @ Henry's Cellar Bar 2010/08/07 24:30

Just a quick post to say After Dark are playing at Henry's Cellar Bar tonite :D

Check the Myspace for tunes n the Facebook for info.

St Andrews blues rock legends! More on these guys later, but for take it from me that you're in for a boozy bluesy nite. Covers of Hendix, Chilis, Snoop Dog, as well as fresh original stuff and new takes on the classic rock'n'roll blues canon. "I got my MOJO WORKIN'!"

Also playing are Little Egypt. Clever, melodic, whimsical indie rock. Enjoyed them last time I was at Henry's. Hope they have a drummer this time tho! Beware that the two Little Egypts on Myspace are not this one.

Henry's Cellar Bar's gig listings for August. Great dirty wee understreet venue just off Morrison St. Go check it out!

Image credit: bengoulter.com

Hick Hop: Gangstagrass

Some tasty blues country hick hop for y'all!

Gangstagrass is the bluegrass/gangsta rap mashup project of New York producer Rench, which my flatmate and I recently discovered while watching her new favorite show in Edinburgh.

"Justified" is a great wee drama full of good ol boys, drinkin n shootin, meth lab intrigue, religious nuttery, n a suave cop with a great smile and sure aim. Go see it on Five.tv if you can.  Best thing about it tho is prob the Emmy-nominated theme tune, 'Long Hard Times To Come'.

A whole album of of this stuff was apparently released for free around 2008 on gangstagrass.com, but the site now appears to be dead. The torrent is still available on TPB.

As Rench admits in a Bluegrass Blog interview, he's not the first to combine country music and hiphop, but having been steeped in honky-tonk and bluegrass before getting into the hiphop scene makes him a good candidate to put together the two!

We get a flavor of the creative process as he explains why the rhythmically straightforward and melody-driven licks and riffs of bluegrass make it particularly rich pickins for a hiphop sample bank:

"I started experimenting with sampling pedal steel guitar licks for trip-hop songs maybe 9 years ago, which gradually grew into writing full country songs to hip-hop beats and recording live fiddle and pedal steel over them. The style drew mostly from 60′s honky-tonk, but it struck me that in some ways bluegrass was better suited for mixing with hip-hop because straight 4/4 with no swing is more common and there is much more of a choppy rhythmic drive to the style. It’s also very instrumentally driven with very little percussion, which leaves room to add beats over it when you sample it."

Rench also makes it clear that he makes no mainstream compromises despite risking alienating the hardcore fans of each genre:

"Someone doing this to make it more accessible might have watered down the hip-hop, or used more cliche blugrass riffs that would sound cartoonish and sterotypical, but I am not about to offer people MC Hammer meets Hee-Haw."

So it's for the open-minded. But isn't that the essence of the mashup? If it works, why not? And this does, very well. This is gonna fit in very well with a mix of Mos Dub and Magical Mystery Chambers, I'm sure.

Check out the Myspace for a taste of his latest hick hop installment, "Lightning On The Strings, Thunder On The Mic". My flatmate is shopping for a copy tomorrow :)

Dirty Minimal: A Nite Out In Edinburgh

Still in Edinburgh. Wish I could say I've been in a flurry of social drama that's kept me from posting tunes. But mostly I've just been dossing round Dad's ripping as much of his CD collection as I can carry. This lappy's got a 320GB hard drive; how else am I gonna use it but to fill it with loads of rips? I'll find the time to actually sift through it all later. Weeks of solid listening time.

A fun thing that happened last Thursday, a tradition among me and my friends, was our mate Gabe's 'Animal Hospital', a banging nite of filthy minimal techno. This time we were boppin away in Sneaky Pete's a dirty wee box of a club in Edinburgh. The sweat was pretty much running down the walls, it was so hot in there! It wasn't quite wall-to-wall packed, but I reckon they have no aircon, and that crap smelly plastic smoke kept getting blown everywhere.

But it was some good solid hours of adrenaline fuelled dancing! We actually got there late enuff to miss Gabe's set; he was on first this time. Sam and Gregor were both pretty good, but I remember my fasvorite guy being the one in the red cap who was playing stuff a wee bit more energetic than canon minimal. We cheered at every cool breakdown n flash of chorussy melody!

Don't actually know a lot of minimal stuff by name tho. Didn't recognise anything played that nite, but I'll try to find out coz there was some pulsing silky bassline running round the room that nite.

So instead, here's a couple of my favorite ever minimal tracks. These are preper 6-in-the-morning, shut-the-curtains tunes:

I used to get these two confused coz of the titles and because I would never hear them with a clear head. But now I'm more familiar with my minimal, I reckon this mix of 'The Sky Was Pink' is my fave minimal track so far.

Towards the end of the nite I was approached by a keen kid from the Basque region who told me he was in Scotland for the summer learning Enlgish by bunking off his classes and chatting to real people instead. Sounds to me like the best way to learn! I got chatting to his mates too, and when I found out they liked drugs and were from Madrid I couldn't help but sing a bit of Ska-P to them. They laffed and danced; I reckon they appreciated the cultural exchange. So here's 'Cannabis'; "Legalegalización!":

Viva Ska-P! It's a band like this that makes me wanna learn Spanish.

Unfortunately that week there wasn't much of an afterparty, coz everyone was prepping for Rock Ness, which started the day after. But we did make it back to a friend's place for a few hours, with lots of party fodder, a decent soundsystem, and loads of vinyl. He mixed a bit of records before feeling too fucked so let Winamp play on. It must have been about four or five in the morning when this classic came on, which I'd only heard for the first time earlier the same day. I dunno whether it was deliberately played or not, but we all spontaneously got up and started moshing/flailing about with silly grins on our faces, just like these guys:

They all look high as kites in this vid as well.

Top Tune: My Sharona

Who was My Sharona?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8518794.stm

Spending the week in Edinburgh. Got here yesterday, and wasted little time before getting bawbagged in Roseburn off Dad's discount tinnies. So would write more today, but I'm feeling a little rough, you understand?

So for now I will share an interesting BBC article covering the history of and story behind a power pop hit and favorite of mine, "My Sharona". Apparently the  Knack's frontman died this week, so expect this to be radio-revived and fullpriced soon.

Never thought much about the lyrics of this one before reading the article; I always just liked the hook and the bounciness! Apparently it was written to woo an underage girl he fancied, and it worked. She ended up marrying him! "Such a dirty mind"...

Discovered the track as a teenager through my Dad's collection, which I intend to tear through this week while I have the chance.

Actually, I think I first heard it as a sample off Run DMC's classic "Raising Hell" album that he got me one birthday when I was discovering hiphop. Back when Fopp was a shop and people still bought CDs!

So here's the cheesy 80s-MTV-style vid for "It's Tricky", featuring the awesome porkpie hats and fat Adidas sneakers that were their trademark. Check the cameos from Penn and Teller!

Embedding is disallowed, so here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU8ZeuWl8R0

And here instead is just the audio:

Jaggy Music From Glasgow: Hudson Mohawke

Hudson Mohawke on Myspace Music

http://www.myspace.com/hudsonmo

Been chilling in Glasgow for a few days. For a skint graduand, that means dossing about Mum's catching up with Youtube, Myspace, and Facebook. While I explore the web for tunes and banter, we try not alarm each other with our polar ideas of hygiene and tidyness, and I try not to get depressed about her lack of passion for music.

There isn't even a sound system here. It got put in the loft after the iPod dock moved in. But hey, at least there's a big digital TV, which means I can listen to 6 Music whenever Eastenders isn't on!

But I've got a few friends in this cities thriving music scene who can help me out. Managed to catch up with my old mate and muso Joe for a music swap sesh over a bowl of Tesco PovertyPrice broth, and doscivered some cracking new talent that's buzzing up the clubs here the now, before heading off to Kelvingrove park to enjoy a few beers in the bright sunshiny day.

I've never really been into dubstep much. Feels like an intro that never finishes. Could probly lurch to it stoned, but clubs, requiring social interaction and a sense of balance, are intimidating and terrifying in such a state. Maybe I've just not heard the right stuff till now.

Hudson Mohawke def sounds like the right stuff! A jaggy-hiphoppy, jazzy-dubsteppy DJ and producer from Glasgow who has just been signed to Warp Records. This guy has been around for a while, but is just making big now apparently.

His Myspace has loads of his new tunes on it, but my first and fave is this silky sexy smokin banger called 'Ooops', which you can hear thru this vid. It's a refix of this girl Tweet who fancies herself, and if she's as sexy as the beats, why not?

Other tracks to check out include 'Joy Fantastic', a bouncy jaggy bit of psychadelic funk with a smooth lyric from Oliver Daysoul.

ZooO00oO0m is a dark glitchy beepy hiphop instrumental; Freek'n'U is a deep noizy horny soulful balad. These are on the Myspace, along with some more 'traditional' r'n'b-like tracks, still with a buzzed-up glitchy twang to them.

Listen to all of it, it's all good n groovy!

He's stoked to be playing in Barcelona ("fuckinn yasssssssss") later this month, and is playing London the week after! Prob can't make it to either unfortunately, coz writing this blog don't make me any less skint.

Teuchter Techno: Peatbog Faeries

Peatbog Faeries on Myspace Music

http://www.myspace.com/peatbogfaeries

Just back from spending a few lovely days travelling round and exploring the beautiful Isle Of Skye. Made friends and enjoyed some picturesque and magical locations. But no trip for me is complete without some musical influence or exchange. So I introducted my travel budy to the essential Caravan Palace, and some funky skanky Fishbone, and picked up some good dub n hiphop playlists from German hostelmates featuring Dub Conspiracy and Peter Fox.

All good stuff, but hardly part of the local scene, which unfortunately I didn't get a chance to check out while I was there. But on the ferry from Skye to Uist there was in the CD rack a whole range of celtic- and folksy-looking stuff: Capercallie, Red Hot Chili Pipers... But the one to catch my eye was a Peatbog Faeries album called 'Croftwork'. I enjoyed the German proto-techno reference so I had to check out at least this group if no other.

So glad I did! Fucky-rocky-folk music, tcheuchter techo? I dunno what to call it but it's a great mix of traditional and moren musical sensibilities, and so danceable! My fave track on the Myspace the now is prob 'There's a girl behind the bar', which has an awesome synthy buildup before flowing into some frantic fiddle with a pumping bassline that's reminiscent of 'Two Tribes'. Some of the other stuff is more rock-leaning, some of it's balladic. The intro of 'Friend of Crazy Joe' was weirdly like the Spyro the Dragon soundtrack, but that might just be me.

Apparently these guys are playing at the Glasgow Oran Mor on June 24th. Never been to that venue before, but this would be a perfect chance to change that! Who's up for going?