Soulwax: "Nite Versions" - A Classic

Whilst compiling my list of favourite albums for my last.FM page I wrote a paragraph about the album “Nite Versions” by Soulwax. In this text, I muse that there are not too many remix albums that have a film or documentary made about them. When you also consider that this album spawned a 120-date tour that visited Europe, South America, Japan, Australia and the USA, you have to wonder what is going on. 

The phenomenon of the ‘remix album’ was born in 1979 with Sly and the Family Stone’s album “10 Years Too Soon”. This album took many of Sly Stone’s hits from the 1960’s and presented them in a contemporary disco style. Next came electronic music pioneers such as Soft Cell who released remixed versions of tracks from their 1982 album “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” as “Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing”. Hot on their heels were The Human League with “Love and Dancing”, a remix album of their hit record “Dare”. The concept of a remix album was firmly established by the success of “Disco” by Pet Shop Boys in 1986. 

Since the 1980’s, remix albums have flourished with many artists and continue to sell steadily. Groups such as Nine Inch Nails have released a subsequent remix disc with all but a few of their studio albums. Soulwax are clearly paying homage to the format’s eighties history with the title of their album as Duran Duran often used the title “Nite Version” for their dance remixes. The parent album from which the tracks for “Nite Verions” are taken is 2004’s “Any Minute Now”. 

On paper, the album looks great. Soulwax members include brothers David and Stephen Dewaele of “Too Many DJ’s” fame along with drummer Steve Slingeneyer and bassist Stefaan Van Leuven. With production maestro Mark “Flood” Ellis and mixing genius Alan Moulder at the controls what could go wrong? Well quite a lot actually. 

The album sounds messy and disjointed and to a lover of electronic music, its sound veers too close to a type of ‘indie grunge’ for my taste. However, the failings of the original album serve to amplify the glory of its remixed counterpart. I initially discovered “Nite Version” as I heard the tracks “Another Excuse” and “Compute” on the Xbox 360 game “Test Drive Unlimited”. When I eventually acquired the CD I thought it was pretty good. The original “Any Minute Now” album, which I bought simultaneously, soon began collecting dust, but I was drawn back to “Nite Version” again and again. Initially, I loved three or four of the tracks, but I soon stopped skipping “E Talking” and “Slowdance” et al and began to appreciate the album in its entirety. Within time, this appreciating became love and then the love became obsession. There was only one CD in my car last summer.

Level 42 live. Never to be missed.

The last time I saw the Level 42 perform was during their ‘Greatest Hits’ tour of 2002. The only disappointment of this tour was that founding member and keyboard virtuoso Mike Lindup was absent. His return in 2006 meant that I simply had to see them during their 2008 UK tour.

On the 15th of October the band were playing the newly refurbished Sheffield City Hall. My only visit to this venue had been in 2000 and it was a distinctly underwhelming experience. However, the new oval hall is much improved. It was a pity that the stewards would not allow either dancing or photographs. Luckily, the majority of the audience broke with these conventions with encouragement from the band.

The concert itself was brilliant. Seeing Level 42 perform live is an essential part of following the band, as their musicianship is simply stunning. I will never tire of seeing Mark King’s inimitable bass playing. You watch his right thumb for an hour and a half solid. Seriously.

However this would be something of a waste as the energetic Gary Husband (drums) and genius of Mike Lindup (keyboards) are equally mesmerising. Rather than rattle through their ‘Greatest Hits’ the band chose to acknowledge that they represent more than their 80’s chart success and presented some of their best album tracks, extended instrumentals and tracks chosen by fans via their website. Some of those less familiar with these ‘obscure’ selections could be seen sitting down and ruminating over the extended instrumentals ‘Man’ and ‘The Pursuit of Accidents’ only to be brought to their feet to sing ‘Running In The Family’. Yet everyone seemed to enjoy and appreciate what they heard whether it be chart hit or not. When experts like Level 42 perform music, an audience will respond to the pure skill and dedication on show regardless of their familiarity with the material.

At the end of the show the band did not simply walk off but spent some time at the front of the stage shaking hands and chatting with their dedicated fans. A nice touch sincerely meant. I know it was sincere because I was lucky enough to meet Mark King and his brother Nathan (guitars) outside the venue afterwards.

One of the greatest live bands in the world. Even if you are not overly familiar with their work you should never pass up the opportunity of seeing them in the flesh. It’s a wonderful, life affirming experience.

LsstFM listening map

As an avid user of LastFM and its 'scrobbling' software I am always interested in statistics related to my listening habits. Recently I have been investigating various scripts and BBCode utilities that can be used to display a range of statistics in your LastFM profile.

Of all the utilities to be found on the web, I was drawn most strongly to the work of Anthony Liekens. Anthony’s website offers the opportunity to create an interactive map showing links between the artists and genre’s you listen to. Once you enter your username the website retrieves your information and begins to create a map on screen. The map shifts in response to the data by moving unrelated tags apart and creating a cluster of related genre’s and artists.

I have to say that the majority of the items on my personal map were not a great surprise: 80’s, electronic, and synth-pop are very prominent tags which link strongly to the majority of the music I listen to. The map also shows a large number of artists in the EMB/Industrial/Future Pop genre with a scattering of ‘new wave’ artists thrown in for good measure. I was pleased to note the eclectic nature of my musical taste was represented with the ‘classical’ tag in evidence. This isolated cluster linked to music by Beethoven, Wendy Carlos and Philip Glass et al.

However, what did catch my eye was the revolting tag of ‘indie’. You see ‘indie’ music is something of an anathema to me. I hate both he tag and the music. Just mention the word ‘indie’ and it brings me out in a cold sweat. Note that the rock area of my map is fairly isolated and being shoved off to the corner by the sheer volume of ‘synth-pop’ and ‘emb’ bands.

It seems I am not as prejudiced as I think. Both Coldplay and the Longpigs were represented along with artists tagged with ‘prog-rock’ and ‘brit pop’. For a dedicated enthusiast of electronic music I felt as if I had let myself down slightly.

Yet on closer examination, the majority of the bands included are in my library because they use synthesizers as part of their sound. Yes is one example of a group I began to listen to as the minimoog performances of Mr Rick Wakeman are something wonderful to behold. Coldplay used tunes written by Kraftwerk and utilise many electronic instruments. In his solo work Ian Brown has created some fantastic music utilising a mixture of synthesizers and conventional rock instruments.

I have no excuse for the Rolling Stones. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

Happy Birthday Chris

On Saturday I took a few moment to wish Chirs Lowe a happy birthday via the Pet Shop Boys website using my 'pethead' username 'Alter ego'.

Imagine my suprise when I received a personal message in reply.

I don't know if I'm more amazed that Chris read them or that he replied to me.

A Pet Shop Boys forum aser said: "I saw that message from Alter Ego. Wondered if it was actually Neil, or at least someone close to Chris." Afraid not. I'm just another nobody!

Someone else said: "bettin alter ego feels like a pillock!". no not really!

The worst remastered CD ever.....

Now from my last post you will note my disappointment at the quality of reissued or remastered CD’s issued by my favourite bands. With the arrival of the first of the New Order ‘collectors editions’ I have found a new low in quality. 

Having placed my bonus disc into my rather expensive Marantz CD player I immediately removed it and checked it for dust and dirt. I ripped the CD into my computer at a high bit rate and assumed the pops and crackles were due to a poor rip. I tried every CD player I had and the result was the same. To make matters worse, the original album sounds little different to the original CD I own. Before I wrapped the faulty CD up to return to sender, I decided to check the last bastion of specialist knowledge: the official website forum. 

Here you will find many heated debates raging around the subject. I could not help but raise a smile as member after member threw their hat in the ring with lost tempers and childish antics abound. It reminded me of when my favourite group the Pet Shop Boys reissued their back catalogue. The rants we fans entered into were ferocious enough to be commented upon by Neil Tennant in a radio documentary, much to our equal delight and shame. But at least the Pet Shop Boys reissues were consistent and sourced from the master recordings. The New Order collectors editions are poorly mastered, include poor vinyl transfers and even feature the same track on more than one of the bonus CD’s! They are a shambles from start to finish and I have since cancelled my orders for the remaining four albums. I cannot condemn them highly enough. Avoid at any price.

Sell me it again Sam

Having recently purchased the ‘remastered’ versions of Blancmange’s three albums and with New Order’s ‘collectors’ editions in the post, I have begun to consider why I’m buying music I already own. 

In recent years, I have purchased numerous ‘remastered’ CD’s including the entire back catalogue of Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys and Yello, along with various reissued versions of albums by Front 242, Level 42, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Gary Numan. These are the CD’s that immediately come to mind, I am sure if I thought further there would be many more. The amount of money I have spent is quite staggering and yet I already own much of the music I am buying; I am being sold the same thing twice. So why am I a sucker for reissued albums and singles? 

Well firstly, there is the lure of previously unreleased material or remixes that are otherwise difficult to acquire. Secondly, these CD’s boast that they offer considerably enhanced audio quality. We are also enticed by new or improved artwork, which provides a feeling of luxury or elitism. 

Yet the reality is not always the experience we are promised. On purchasing a new ‘remastered’ CD, I often find myself immediately jumping to the bonus tracks. Often it becomes apparent why this ‘unreleased’ material was not made available originally: its crap. I have even come across CD’s where the master tape is obviously missing and thus a recording has been made from a vinyl source. Hardly the high fidelity experience you are enticed with. 

Similarly, 99% of reissued CD’s seem to have been created by people unfamiliar with the artists work or just plain incompetent. Often you will find that tracks have substituted for their ‘single mix’ or an uncredited alternate version with absolutely no explanation. Remixes are often labelled incorrectly, glaring omissions are made or the running order has been altered. Not one of the reissued CD’s I have purchased have been immune from one, or more of these mistakes. So record companies take note: if you want people to buy even more of the music they already own, get someone competent to compile it.

Rock? You can keep it

I recently visited the house of a friend and I could not help but look at her CD collection. I was amazed that there seemed to be only about 20 CD’s. I find it very difficult to understand how someone of similar age to me could have only accumulated 20 albums they feel are worth purchasing. You see to me, music is important, very important. That is not to say I like all music, in the words of Chris Lowe, “I don’t like much, but what I do like, I love passionately.”

I have never related to the conventional rock band set up. The notion of music created entirely with drums, guitar and bass seems something of an anathema to me. If you use the same instruments, you end up sounding the same as everyone else. I have absolutely no love for bland conventional ‘rock’ music. It is the world of electronic music where I find the only music I have truly loved.

I have no idea why this is. Maybe it is because I reached my teenage years during the 1980’s when electronic music was the new fashion. Maybe it was a reaction to the world of opera and classical music my father worked in. I am sure that a large part of my musical taste was formed by a hatred of musical and artistic convention and trends. I took great pride recently when a friend sent me a message via my Facebook page to say she had only heard of one artist on my list of most played songs gleaned from my mp3 player. I enjoy the fact that hardly anyone knows groups I like such as VNV Nation, Front 242, Front line Assembly, Apoptygma Berzerk, And One or No-Man. The less people know about these groups, the richer those of us who uncover them feel.

The only draw back to enjoying music by less famous artists is actually finding it. Try walking into HMV and asking for a Wolfsheim album. “We can order it, but it’ll take a month to arrive”. At the end of the month, they tell you they cannot get it after all. Happily, this also adds to the experience for me. Finally acquiring an obscure and rare CD is fulfilling in both the music it provides but also knowing you are amongst a select few who own it.

Therefore, you can say music taste is ‘sad’ until you are blue in the face, but I could not care less. You see I believe the music we like is the soundtrack to our lives. The music we like is determined by what happens in our lives. I have a friend who quite likes Elvis. It is not because he appreciates his voice particularly but because his Dad always played Elvis in the car when he was a child. This music became part of his life and thus he shares an affinity with it. Certain songs can not only remind us of a time in our lives but also bring back the feelings and emotions we felt at the time. Therefore, when you insult my music taste, you insult the life I have experienced and not necessarily me as a person. I thus find it had to fathom how someone in their 30’s has only 20 or so CD’s, but then not all of us want to be reminded of what has happened during our lives.

I have since discovered this research into the link between musical taste and personality. Interesting stuff.