Bitches Brewin': a monthly forum mix-tape

triggercut · December 10, 2015, 12:00am

I mean, seriously.

Miki Berenyi singing about what is clearly an acid/ecstacy trip (“Happy coursing through my veins/I don’t even know my name”) and getting to that chorus of:

Drink in your eyes, drink in your sighs
Grass in my thighs my naked legs

Come the hell on. What were we twentysomething lads of that era to do? That’s like the second most sexy music white people ever made. (The first is My Bloody Valentine, of course, and “Soft as Snow But Warm Inside” and “Lose My Breath” send your arguments to the contrary fleeing for the hills.)

I may be a wee bit tipsy.

rrmorton · December 10, 2015, 10:04am

Ha! That live show sounds amazing. I never saw them on tour, nor any of the 4AD bands I was obsessed with. (The Pixies opening for U2 in a stadium doesn’t count.) I guess that helped preserve the ethereal mystique a lot of those bands cultivated. The downside being, I never saw any of them live.

Closest I got was The Sundays whose first American tour played close enough to my college that I could make the hour-long trek. Harriet Wheeler autographed my concert ticket on the condition that I asked the rest of the band to sign it as well.

I also saw The Kinks that year, and Jane’s Addiction, and The Spin Doctors. In future re-tellings of this anecdote, I may leave off that last one.

It’s funny you mentioned that ‘naked legs’ lyric. For some reason (horny old man) it’s been standing out on recent playthroughs.

charmtrap · December 10, 2015, 10:14am

I saw Lush 3 times in 3 days when they were on tour with Ride in 1991. They played in Sacramento, Palo Alto and SF, and me and my buddies went to all three. I was a huge Ride fan, not so much a Lush fan (still not really…I love those first few EPs, but it’s always been diminishing returns for the later stuff) but they were indeed an excellent live band. And I think they got better. I saw them again in 1992 with Flaming Lips (in SLC, of all places) and they pretty much tore it up. It helped that Lush were total road warriors. That band was constantly on tour.

charmtrap · December 15, 2015, 4:50pm

Everything this month is fantastic, but my favorite is definitely Meatraffle. An unholy cross of Crass, Throbbing Gristle and the pop stylings of The Fall. Absolutely love it.

That Royal Headache is terrific old-school garagy pop-punk too. Love the whole line-up this month.

Kirian · December 27, 2015, 10:25am

It’s something else, isn’t it? They’ve taken The Fall and just run with the concept.

Kirian · January 1, 2016, 5:27pm

Okay, slight technical hitch this month (using Android app) means that I haven’t moved last month’s albums off the list yet. As people enjoyed them so much I thought I would keep them there until I can move them- if someone else can do it before I get back to my computer/stop bein’ s’ darn lazy that would be most appreciated. I mean it.

I have, however, added an album from yore by one of my old favourites, Buck 65. He deserves to be far better known both as a producer and a strange, poetic MC. See Super Pretty Naughty for a song that hits both the bad (look how vapid) and the good (but I need this release) of big club songs.

It’s a pretty dour album of divorce songs and is paired with an album called Laundromat Boogie, which is far more upbeat and not included here.

It’s a little different to previous stuff, with Baby Blanket the closest to stuff like Dirtbike, Square and Talking Honky Blues. His Bike for Three project is also worth checking out, as is his later Anticon stuff as the earlier written can be a little rough.

Kirian · January 3, 2016, 2:08pm

Okay, so here it is fellas! Clean list fellas! Add yer stuff!

charmtrap · January 3, 2016, 2:41pm

I’ve been rather enjoying this set of recordings from Else Marie Pade, an early electronic/12-tone composer…also, parenthetically, a member of the resistance during the War and also a total gearhead. All-around awesome person…her compositions are a lot like if Delia Derbyshire had turned to the dark side. Been a great atonal companion to my Christmas eggnog consumption.

Rightbug · January 4, 2016, 4:28pm

Wow, I already had an album picked out for this month and you guys have set it up nicely.

John Luther Adams is a modern American composer who creates soundscapes inspired by nature. Usually when you talk about a modern composer creating soundscapes you think of something atonal and foreign but Adams’ work is at the opposite end of the spectrum in that it all feels so familiar and comfortable, like something you’ve been listening to your entire life without realizing. It’s like he is capturing some sort of universal truths in his music, something essential and elemental.

Anyway, I had a hard time deciding which work of his to share but went with Become Ocean for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. If this appeals to you at all, also check out The Wind in High Places which is equally good. (I almost went with The Wind in High Places just because it’s broke up into more digestible chunks but I like that Become Ocean is composed for a full orchestra.)

Kirian · January 31, 2016, 4:23pm

Here’s last month.

This month: sea creatures!

malkav11 · February 4, 2016, 10:04pm

Got hooked on De Staat via the cover of Firestarter that plays over Just Cause 3’s opening credits, and then their brilliant video for Pep Talk. Well, the album that Pep Talk’s from is out now and on Spotify. It’s called O. And I kind of love it to death.

triggercut · February 5, 2016, 1:47pm

Please, please don’t hate me for what I just did. I just added Lolilta Nation by Game Theory, because…

It finally got re-released today, after being out of print since 1990, and
It was only really ever in print for 3 years, anyway, and
The original version of the album was improperly mastered, especially on CD. Enigma, ever running things poorly, mastered the original album tapes from Mitch Easter and Scott Miller without reference tones and thus equalized everything to the mid-range and basically took the drums and bass out of the record.

OK. I know I know. “Dude. 27 fucking songs. What the hell?” Look, some of those songs are all of about :30 long. And yes, I thought about adding just “highlights” from the album, but it works and sounds so glorious in the double-album concept thing that it was that I left it as is. Skip around, or skip completely.

But yeahhhh…This is one of the great lost records of the alternative generation, lost no more. Four distinct album sides about the first generation of MTV teenagers realizing their seductive come-hithers to the rest of the world are about to be answered in ways they never anticipated, wanted, or frankly can understand or deal with. It’s a record about life throwing you into the deep end, constantly…and that first painful realization that that’s exactly what life is a lot of the time in the first place.

It’s also a record worth meeting halfway. When I was a kid, I got fascinated by the lyrics to “I Am The Walrus”, convinced that John Lennon had put all these cool, deeper meanings into the song and all I had to know to “get” them was to find the cultural references and connect those dots. Imagine my surprise at discovering that Semolina Pilchard was a nonsense name John just made up.

There’s nothing here that’s just made up. Kinda like Kubrick, there’s no part of this record, no lyric, no sound, that’s accidental.

And, thanks to the remastering wizards at Omnivore (who reissued this) and some enterprising soul who finally found the master tapes, the album sounds utterly glorious now. Drummer Gil Ray comes front and center, revealing his background punk, artcore, and metal groups. Gui Gassuan’s bass is a revelation. Who knew there was bottom end on 1980s albums?

(Okkervil River’s Will Sheff wrote the extensive liner notes for this, and they’re so great…especially considering Will must’ve been all of 5 or 6 years old when this originally came out.)

Plain and simple, Lolita Nation deserves all its accolades and, with this re-release, should no longer be considered one of the lost masterpieces of the 1980s. Rather, it should be spoken of in any conversation that references Hüsker Dü‘s Zen Arcade and the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime. Like those records, Lolita Nation is a sprawling, messy, and brilliant work that over-extends itself to capture its time, place, and scene in beautifully flawed perfection. -Popmatters.com

(Also, these are actual Lolita Nation song titles:

“Watch Who You’re Calling Space Garbage, Meteor Mouth”
“All Clockwork and No Bodily Fluids Makes HAL a Dull Metal Humbert”
and of course, the gorgeous thirty second power ballad:

“DEFMACROS / HOWSOMETH / INGDOTIME / SALENGTHS / OMETHINGL / ETBFOLLOW / AAFTERNOO / NGETPRESE / NTMOMENTI / FTHINGSWO / NTALWAYSB / ETHISWAYT / BCACAUSEA / BWASTEAFT / ERNOONWHE / NEQBMERET / URNFROMSH / OWLITTLEG / REENPLACE” )

charmtrap · February 5, 2016, 2:32pm

Adding the album Escapists by The Autumn Stones. Seemingly middle-aged dudes (from their picture on Google images) from Toronto who clearly have The June Brides and the Wedding Present hanging around their record collections, but their touchstones range from Echo to the Smiths to the Stone Roses. This is the kind of scratchy working-class indiepop that I’m basically guaranteed to adore.

Pyperkub · February 5, 2016, 2:44pm

Heard “Sour Cherry” by The Kills on the Blacklist the other day, and I’m catching up on some of their stuff. Pretty neat, though one thing I’ve noticed in most of my new(ish) music purchases is that drum machines are killing the great Rock & Roll Drummers.

rrmorton · February 7, 2016, 10:11am

Some great picks this month! I have Lolita Nation on cassette somewhere in the attic (pretty sure it was that Kubrick song title that motivated the purchase) but I’m eager to pay it another visit. Hoping to get it on vinyl this week.

I decided to go with the new release from Tindersticks called The Waiting Room. 10 albums and 25 years into their career and still sounding great.

Kirian · February 7, 2016, 12:13pm

May I be the first, and not the last, to say awesome frikkin’ job, mates.

rrmorton · February 7, 2016, 12:46pm

Hear, hear. Make no mistake, internet!.. we are good at what we do.

Really glad you added Tortoise’s The Catastrophist as I’ve been meaning to check that out. Their entire back catalog is being reissued on vinyl to coincide with that release so I picked up Millions Now Living Will Never Die last week. I also want to get TNT.

Kirian · February 29, 2016, 3:02pm

Ayup!

So last month, like Di Caprio’s burning will, fades away;this month we will see! YES!

triggercut · February 29, 2016, 4:25pm

Cool beans. Loved the February selections. Autumn Stones were particularly right up my alley, but the Tindersticks was a real unexpected pleasure.

For March, I’ve added the brand new album from pinkshinyultrablast, Grandfeathered.

Not only is it a really cool record that skips across a number of genres, it’s also a really fun challenge to tell friends you’re listening to a Ukrainian shoegaze dreampop band without sounding like a completely pretentious ass. Try it!

charmtrap · March 1, 2016, 2:26pm

Last month: loved that new Tindersticks, didn’t really love the new Tortoise, was a little perplexed by De Staat, but was happy to visit Lolita Nation again

This month: one might say almost a novelty record…it’s The Duke St. Workshop doing music and cutting-up the voice of Laurence R. Harvey (B-movie actor and star of The Human Centipede movies) reading Lovecraft’s From Beyond and The Hound. It’s an oddity and a one-off, but the effect lands somewhere between Current 93 and Board of Canada. Good stuff to listen to in the dark.