Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators

You are about to listen to something plainly beautiful. Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators' album Keep Reachin' Up. The incredients are quite extraordinary, though:

This is Northern Soul, somehow. But it is from "the other north": Finland.

This was not released in 1966. It was produced in 2006.

Apparently the band won every soul award there is last year. Not only for the great music, but surely also because everybody was so excited about the fact that there is a bunch of young people making a record full of kitchen soul. It was about time.

myspace

homepage

foals house party

Friday, 2nd March, left me with the most packed party I've ever been to so far.

About 70 people squashed into the living room of an ordinary english house, and another 200 or so in the rest of the building, piling up in the hallway and on the stairs. We all came to see foals, an uprising british band who had a very nice idea: Free gigs at house parties. They are on tour around the UK at the moment, and told their myspace friends to let them now if they wanted them to perform in their city when they were there. And in Manchester, it did happen. After playing a gig for the public in the night and day cafe they packed their instruments and headed down to the house party. We all were eagerly awaiting them. Excitement was so high, and I knew that evening was gonna be special when, for the first time in my life, I was offered E. (Amazing, 4 years of clubbing in Berlin and no one ever want to sell me anything, but at my first party in smiley rave city I did not have to wait anz longer than five minutes). I don't do drugs, though, just so you know!

The band arrived around midnight (who knows...) and we all had to make room for them to bring their instruments into the living room. after that, the great pushing began, lots of people wanted to see them. I managed to get instead the room. It was so packed, a pin could not have dropped on the floor. I do not really remember how long their set was, it felt quite short, though, and left everybody so sweaty that people stuck to each other.

A very nice night out!

Stan Flashman

Football almost is music, isn't it?

This is an interesting article I found on wikipedia:

Stan Flashman (born 1930 in East London, died December 1999 in Ilford) was known for many years as a ticket tout who claimed he could obtain tickets for almost anything.

In 1985 he took over as chairman of struggling Barnet Football Club who were heading towards receivership. Buying the club cost him just £50,000. Almost immediately the team improved and, with Barry Fry as manager, Barnet won the Conference and promotion to the Football League in 1991. Despite Fry's success as manager, he and Flashman had their differences and Fry was regularly sacked and then reinstated by Flashman.

He resigned as chairman in 1993 after they had narrowly avoided bankruptcy and expulsion from the Football League.

In 1995, Barnet goalkeeper, coach and manager Gary Phillips said of Flashman, "A lot of people knock Stan and I had my runs ins with him as much as anyone but at the end of the day he did save the place once. When he was good he was very, very, generous, and most of the time he looked after the lads well. Unfortunately when it went sour he, maybe, could have handed things a lot better." (Gary Phillips testimonial, May 8, 1995).

Flashman died of a heart attack in December 1999 at the age of 69.

read the wiki-entry here

What is intersting here is the very first paragraph. A tout who can get tickets for almost everything? How come he can? Where does he get them? If he can, how can I contact him? How much did he earn doing this?

And why is nobody making a feature movie out of this?

Happy Birthday

With all these homemade happy birthday videos on youtube, I decided not to make another one, but rather put up these instead





this one's for the cats:






Too bad there was no god version of Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday to be found, but the last one pretty much does the deal, anyway! It's the other way round, but the blessings are just what I feel.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

weekender

FLOWERED-UP - WEEKENDER





this video from the very early nineties (91, i think) just really struck me recently. not only is it a nice overview of the british baggy/rave culture, but also kind of anticipates lauryn hill's everything is everything



and whoever claimed that mr chris cunningham was oh so brave to be the first to include final credits in a music video?

cooking beats beats cooking

Click the empty space above, something is wrong with the preview window.

01 midlake - the trials of van occupanther

01 midlake - the trial of van occupanther

the number-one-without-a-doubt record

it was about time i posted my number one record of 2006. midlake have been written about in this blog twice already: here, and here. i cannot do anything else but recommend them. this record was the soundtrack to my summer, fall and winter. listen to them on myspace. and go out and buy the record. enough said, words cannot descrive this, anyway.

plus: lots of videos by user worldsfair on youtube.

More Timbaland

Whoops, so this blog got alot of attention from different websites. Thanx for that.

A few more things about this whole timbaland vs. tempest thing from me.

First of all, I am quite qualified to talk about this. I entered the scene some 15 years ago, first did some musics and graphics on the C64, later bought a PC and made music there.
So when I talk about C64-Arpeggios, I know what I am talking about.

Also I had an email discussion with Ronnie from rekkerd.org today which made me think about a few more aspects of this.

I am meanwhile absolutely convinced that timbaland ripped this track from tempest and/or GRG. Thats that. Those videos prove it for me. I mean, you never hear C64-Style arpeggios somewhere in Chart-Music and all of a sudden timbaland comes around with a beat which sounds so much like this track, this aint chance or coincidence. And even if it's not a perfect fit, doesnt matter, I guess the least that timbaland can do is chop stuff up a little bit.

Now, I spent the better part of the day reading around the net about this thing and it seems that on one hand alot of sceners or close-to-the-scene people are outraged while some non-sceners don't see the point.
You can read comments everywhere like "it was on the net for free, so whats the fuzz", "sounds like some crap-midi-file anyway" and so on and so forth.

The point is simply : It doesnt matter. Tempest made the track, and in the second he started the track he gained the copyright for it. This is the same thing all over the world. Do something of artistic value and it's yours. And just because he put it out as freeware doesn't mean anyone can rip it up or sample it. The only thing he gave up by releasing this as freeware is the right to charge people for listening to it.

Secondly, those stupid claims "hiphop is always about sampling". Yes I know. My music is samplebased too. I do know quite alot about sampling and how to do it and all. I keep a list of artists/tracks I sampled from, should the day come that I can make money with my tracks, I will pay for clearance.
And if you sample from artists from the industry, you normally have to pay alot. Which makes sense, really. Black Eyed Peas surely paid alot to Sergio Mendes to make this track they recently did. Because the track is nothing without that Sergio Mendes Sample.
You pay less if you sample some half second and put it back in the background, so the sample is not that important and all.
But all in all, the way should be like "hey, I love this sound of yours, used it in a track of mine
and now I will give you some of the money I earn with this track because without your sound my track would not have been possible this way." Every artist in the biz is very uptight about this and their copyrights and will go after you if you violate that.

And what do we have in this case ? Some frigging 8-bar loops which make up the whole song. If Tempest was in the biz he would get about 95% of the money this track generates, for sure.
But, and here is the point, he is only a "geek" who put up his "music for free on the net anyway".
All that timbaland did was adding some drums. Anyone with abit of musical knowledge and a cracked Fruity Loops can do this.
And that is the frigging point. The major portion of that track is done by Tempest/GRG. It's nice that Timbaland likes the sound and uses the samples, but pay for it and name your source, for christs sake. And share the better part of the money with those artists, because this track would not have been without those two people. Show some respect. (Thats the word all those HipHops are mumbling about all the time).

I would love to know what would have happened if tempest made a track using a (however small) sample from timbaland and got some attention for that.

In the scene rippers are considered people with low morale and respect, in the real world they make millions and get interviews for being such kick-ass producers. This sucks.

I seriously hope that tempest gets the money and backup he needs to sue Timbaland and/or Geffen Records, because I am afraid otherwise they will just sit this one out.

Timbaland rips

There is currently alot of buzz on the net about Timbaland having ripped portions of a freeware C64 song without giving credits, let alone any money.

If it's true (and it seems to be) then this is a real shock, a successful producer like timbaland stealing from other people... Those people tend to rip your head off if you sample more than three milliseconds of their work, seems they take it much easier the other way around.

The facts about this read like this :

In 2000 Tempest does a MOD called "acid jazzed evening". A MOD is an Amiga-Music file, Amiga being the old computer (you probably played around with one of those if you are close to 30).
A while later someone called GRG converted this track into a SID-File (having asked tempest for permission beforehand), SID being the soundchip of the old C64-Computer (yet again, if you are close to 30, you probably had some fun with this one).

In 2006 the new Nelly Furtado album produced by Timbaland contains a song called "do it", which is apparently built around the SID-Conversion of "acid jazzed evening". In the liner-notes he claims full credit for this song. No hint of any other artist involved.

There is a great Youtube-Video around comparing these two songs :

Another video about a ringtone he released in 2005 :

I am very convinced about this, basically because of one thing : You can clearly hear the arpeggios of the C64 Track in that Nelly Furtado Track. "Arpeggio" is a musical term describing the style of splitting up a chord and playing the individual notes in fast succession, in "real" music its done on guitars or harps, in electronic music this is something very popular in trance music. However, a very distinctive style of arpeggios can be hard in alot of MOD and SID Files where they are done in a very special technical way (you can't even determine a real notelength for each small note). I do not know alot of real hardware or software synth that can do those kind of arpeggios, you need a real or emulated C64/Amiga for this (and have to know how to work these, too). (Edit: As was revealed meanwhile Timbaland has a "SID-Station" in his Studio, a Synthesizer built upon the Soundchip of the C64. Which is capable of playing tunes like the one from GRG...)

The point of all this is simply that even a big-ass producer like timbaland does seem to confuse the term "freeware" with "free to do anything with". If I put out music for free on the net like the MOD and SID files mentioned above, I still hold the copyrights to it and no one is allowed to abuse that stuff. It's just my decision not to charge any money for listening to it. It's strange that someone who is surely very uptight about his own copyrights does not care about other artists copyrights.

And I know that HipHop has always been about sampling, but there has been a "culture" about paying royalties for sampled material for some decades now, and thats for a good reason. Seems those vultures now start to grab their melodies and stuff from people who can't defend themselves. (Neither tempest nor grg will go to court with this, because as someone stated "it's a suicide mission to trial geffen records, or any other major for that matter.")

To this date, neither Timbaland nor Geffen Records have issued an official statement nor tried to contact tempest or GRG.

Part2 of this post with some more thoughts.

Links :

There is a discussion going on on the somethingawful.com-forums with some more in-depth background information.

A page on pelulamu gathering links and information about the subject (thanx for linking us).

Some more info on ukscene.

The digg-page about this with comments from tempest himself.

Def Sounds (an american Hiphop-Mag) catched on to the whole story.

Finally, the official ringtone which sounds very, very much like the original SID-File.

My Record of the Year

This may sound utterly stupid to some people, but after going through some "official" 2006-top-album lists I realized that there is only one record that came out this year that I was spinning more than a few times, and that is "St. Elsewhere" by Gnarls Barkley. Oh, I love that one. Playful, sloppy beats mixed with lyrics that are great and sound like they have been written five minutes before the actual recording started. Since my sister already covered that one I won't write any more about it.

(I actually had some other records in mind but had to realize they all came out 2005).

I didn't like The Knife (actually had a small discussion with TBA about it, somehow I can't get into those cold electronics done by the people up north, just doesnt appeal to me), I am utterly bored with todays (Indy)-Rock music (I rather listen to some 60s/70s beat/rock/psych/prog, for me thats the real deal), I still can't get a finger on that (probably non-existing) phenomena called "Disco-Punk" and HipHop remained either the disgusting sexistic bullshit or the boring, uncreative intro-sampling "take a hit, make a hit"-shit it has been for a while now.

There have been some great tracks I loved in the dance scene this year (Robosonic - "Yasmin" (coconut wireless remix), Palermo Disko Machine - "Pump", Buscemi - Jazz Jumper, 1200 Beats - "Run it Dub" just fall into my mind), but sadly the clubs in my hometown keep up their love for minimal techno-stuff and those are tracks I listened to at home.

But basically in 2006 I just unplugged from modern music even more. I guess I did miss some great stuff because no-one told me about or I simply refused to listen (TBA is still trying all the time, hehe), but I was occupied with other music.
I spent my year listening to more of the 60s and 70s, jazz, soundtracks, disco, got alot of those old eastern-european records I love so much (jazz, funk, pop, you name it) and really started to get more into classic and contemporary classic music (like with synths and stuff, from the (you guessed it) 70s).

I really don't know if it's true what someone told me a few days ago in a bar, that art in general literally came to a standstill in the past years, lets see what the new 2007 brings.
But one of the reasons why I love 60s/70s music in general so much is simply the fact that back then all those musicians gathered together in a studio and started playing together whereas today with computers and stuff nearly all music, even the classic "band-on-stage" rock music gets recorded with each member of the band playing their parts alone in the studio, often recorded in "takes" and then cut and looped and modified to "fit". The magic of musicians interacting and playing together and with each other just isn't happening anymore. I don't know any recent tracks that made me listen closely to the way the bass-player in the background suddenly starts freaking out during the bridge (stiletto main theme), the way the drummer keeps varying his breaks all trough the song (warren schatz - "I need your smile") and I don't the goosebumps I get when in some 70s Bert Kaempfert song suddenly a string quartet starts playing some incredibly emotional chords. Maybe I am getting old. Sigh.

02 roy budd - get carter ost (1971)

02 roy budd - get carter soundtrack (1971)

the get carter soundtrack, written by the film composer roy budd, was given to me by my brother in 2005 already. i enjoyed it from the start, but grew to love it even more in 2006. this is 70's jazz music, becoming very groovy at times. the record is a mix of calm, quiet tracks which sometimes have a psychedelic twist to them, and loud danceable funk songs, often with female vocals. it's hard finding videos for this one, but i'll drop in some wherever i can.

for a roy budd bio, i had to check allmusic.com, because i didnt know anything about him. well, apparently he was somewhat of a musical prodigy, teaching himself how to play the piano by ear before the age of six and started to work as a full-time professional musician when he was 16. most of the records he did were scores. allmusic says that get carter was his most-appreciated one.

the opening sequence of the movie with the opening theme gives a good idea of how roy budd's music sounds:



in case you find the music a bit too lame, keep in mind that the whole score was written to fulfil the purpose of accompanying the pictures. in the end of the video, you can hear a very short bit of looking for someone, another track of this album.

as i said before, the record can be divided into what could be "regular" tracks and what are called "themes". the main title theme, get carter, appears quite a few times throughout the cd. the intro itself is a version of it, too.

you can listen to the main version here:



i guess that this is one of the things i really like about this record: it's not a bundle of individual songs that you listen to in a row. instead, you got themes popping up again now and then like reccurring ideas, or different strings of a movie plot.
also worth mentioning is that the theme songs are by no means shorter than the other ones, which makes get carter quite a long-lasting experience.

and here's how the "classical" songs work:



one of my favourite songs is getting nowhere in a hurry. you can listen to it on myspace. in fact, all four tracks on the profile page are from the get carter soundtrack.

my definite number one track hallucinations i couldnt find anywhere, though. there is an okay remix version made for this youtube video:



it gets quite close to the original idea of the song, but unfortunately it is based on the instrumental. the vocal track underlines the structure of the song, makes it even more dreamy and weary. imaging these lines sung over the music slowly, very carefully:

"hallucinations
strange sensations
hallucinations
mind creation
why do i, why do i
try to fly to the sky

hallucinations
send me drifting
...
what i feel isn't real
am i lost? double-crossed

earth, sea, sun, sky
the world beneath my feet
slipping by"

only records number one gets more mystical.

03 the animal five - the animal five (2006)

03 the animal five - the animal five ep (2006)

the having-so-much-fun record

the animal five is not really a full album, rather an ep, with six songs on it. not bad to have such a short record, after all this meant i could listen to it even more often!
to start your very first release with a song line like "you keep on begging for more" is a very posh thing to do. may i be reminded of oasis' debut phrase "tonight i'm a rock'n'roll star". but naming it spareparts instead of rock'n'roll star gives the whole thing an ironic twist (given that my assumption on an oasis-animal five connection is there at all, which obviously isn't very likely). how humble to ask for "only spareparts". this first song has what defines the animal five for me: melodies, a crazy singer, and the energy to really play with the guitars.



this one, sharks, was released as a single. i really like it, but the cream of the crop is the next one, sonic sea. you can listen to it on the animal five's myspace page. i can't really explain why, but it just moves me. is it because of the viking-esque male choir? or how the singer martin von inghardt squeezes so many lyrics in so little notes. or the fact that i interpret it as a song about music? what do you think? look for the answer here

i am waiting for the day when i'll hear pixiedust included in a dj set. it should get every indie kid on the dancefloor, when lyrically it's already hinting at next day's hangover. i've praised i love myself for hating you as "song title 2006" before, and now it officially gets the award. and i couldn't conclude this review any better than with the song title of the last track: live fast die old. listen to it, it's over, listen to it again, it never gets old.

btw: i was told the animal five got their name because the rolling stones mentioned them as one of their favourite bands, back then in the 60s or so. and well, the stones are not in this years' list, so guess which band i think is better..

04 cocorosie - la maison de mon reve (2004)

04 cocorosie - la maison de mon reve (2004)

'oooh, cocorosie...' seems to be the normal reaction from everyone who has heard their music. cocorosie wrap you in their music, they put you in a dreamy state and make you feel dizzy and stoned without drugs.
when i listened to them, i wondered how someone could come up with music as fragile as this and yet be so strong and humourous. i wondered why there had been a time in my life when i disliked female voices and it's own sensuous touch. cocorosie's songs are like carefully constructed swings that look instable, but when you ride them you can reach heights you never reached before. their fragileness and the open-hearted lyrics actually prevent vulnerability. the vulnerability i would have expected from girls making music like this.
to the songs: by your side is a perfect example of what i like about cocorosie. you've got this sporadic, yet unignorable beat, a beautiful melody and lots of extra sounds. squeaks, clangs, chirps with a voice like glass. yet the lyrics are far away from being naive schoolgirls' dreams, are rather extremely ironic:

"i'll be the best girl you'd ever meet
and for a diamond ring
i'll do these kinds of things
i'll scrub your floor
never be a bore
i'd tuck you in
i do not snore
i'd wear your black eyes
bake you apple pies
i won't ask whys
and i try not to cry
i'll always be by your side
even when you're down and out
i'll always be by your side
even when you're down and out
and its nearly midnight
and all i want with my life
is to be a housewife"

not convinced yet? how about these lyrics from jesus loves me:

"jesus loves me
but not my wife
not my nigger friends
or their nigger lives
but jesus loves me
dat for sure
'cause the bible tell me so"



(nevermind the video, i don't think it is an official one)

this is a fan video for not for sale:

05 tom tom club - tom tom club (1981)

05 tom tom club - tom tom club (1981)

the inspiration record

unbelievable that this record was released in 1981. it sounds so fresh. hiphop beats, a female rapper, sing-along melodies. this is a good mood record, a well-made one. a friend and i honestly thought about forming a pop-group when we listened to this record. if we made music, it should sounds like this, we decided.
the record hits you already with the intro of the first song, wordy rappinghood, a rant about communication.
'ramta tamtam ramtamtam...'
ignore the video, the audience's clapping and the host's stupid words (!) and enjoy how the singer emphasises the lyrics:



genius of love conveys the impression of being really badly produced. the whole songs sounds low-fi and not well mixed. yet it is very inventive, there is so much going on in this song.



wordy rappinghood and genius of love may be the two catchiest songs, but the rest of the album is similar. tom tom club is the kind of stuff that you need before you go out or when you party at home. sounds like i had a lot of parties this year. ;)

06 jens lekman - oh you're so silent jens (2005)

06 jens lekman - oh you're so silent jens (2005)

the a-flirt-to-come-back-to record

i got into jens lekman because pocketful of money was on a mixtape i got. I didn't instantly recognise this song's beauty, but one day at work it totally hit me. I had to press play again and lekman's gorgeous voice filled the shop with warmth. Then the girl who had made the mixtape for me and i discussed him. So here come the (very random) facts: jens lekman, living in göteborg, sweden, 25 years of age, loves music and travelling, gives away his music for free on his website, keeps a blog about music that outshines this one here. jens lekman and i had a short flirt this summer, but recently i put his record on again, and i think it is one of those that you don't listen to regularly, but will come back to every once in a while for a very long time. Read more here where i wrote about him before.

07 professor pez - we found the beach, where is the ocean (2005)

07 professor pez - we found the beach, where is the ocean (2005)

the from-zero-to-hundred-
in-eight-months record

professor pez is a special case, and a hard one indeed. i did not at all like we found the beach, where is the ocean when i got it back in february/march. i had lots of trouble with the singer's voice, something that thankfully has been confirmed by another extensive listener. sometimes i still do not feel that comfortable with it. yet i gave the record a few spins and the chance to find its way into my musical memory. i realised this when suddenly i woke up with imperial airwaves playing in my mind or when the perfect test became my earworm for a whole week. there even was a song i instantly liked: steady amputations was so damn catchy it did get hold of my right at the very first time i heard it. what i love about professor pez is the lightness with which they create great melodies, the playfulness of their songs and arrangements, and the fact that they are an adorably bunch of young people – creative, intelligent, not at all made-up musicians playing the games of the record industry. these guys deserve not stardom, but praise for the fact that they love to make music. And hell, my wish for 2007 would be the chance to see them live on stage – either in bergen, where they come from, or because of a german release of their material.

the perfect test video. the ninjas are a norwegian bunch of people who call themselves new age ninjas:

08 the whitest boy alive - dreams (2006)

08 the whitest boy alive - dreams (2006)

the love-at-first-sight-and-not
-even-the-slightest-doubt-before record

a record fof the category „i would never have discovered on my one". It was a present by a smart friend, the kind of friends that make a note somewhere in their mind when you say things like „i think erlend oye has one the greatest voices ever." and then they give you his latest record, a project called the whitest boy alive. A record that sounds like a unity. cosy, but danceable at the same time, with oye's voice very present in the foreground. I obviously share my favour with lots of other people: myspace is full of whitest boy alive fans, music press adores him. And this is very much a berlin thing. erlend oye, who put the musical world in awe with his band kings of convience and their records quiet is the new loud (2001) and riot on an empty street (2004), moved from bergen, norway to berlin in to become a dj at the club wmf. From there he made it into all sorts of music and arts magazines all over the world and onto the wall of the loo of my current favourite astro bar:

pencil: „... ?? ... be quiet"
blue writing: „quiet is the new loud"
black writing: „riot on an empty street"

ok, not that funny, but quite striking after three beers.

this live recording of burning gives a good impression of the sound and the people's love:

09 los lobos - ???

09 los lobos - ???

the unknown record

i have no idea which los lobos record to put here. basically because i don't really know any los lobos record. the ride is quite good. it's from 2004 and it has a lovely version of bobby womack's across 110th street on it. someday from just another band from east l.a. is a killer track. i found it on the love song for bobby long soundtrack last year. what i like about los lobos is not a certain track or a certain album, but mainly the fact that i like their music at all. two years ago i would probably have neglected these mexican vibed sounds with partially spanish vocals. i didnt expect this, but i fell for them, instantly. i'm gonna listen to los lobos more frequently, more systematically. come back here to read more next year!

down on the riverbed:

10 postal service - give up (2003)

10 the postal service - give up (2003)

the gonna-need-this-kind-of-

shit-for-the-rest-of-my-life record

because i listened to death cab for cutie's plans already in 2005 and because i listened to it extensively when i was unhappily in love (so it has this bad taste to it now) i'd rather want the postal service's give up in this list. the music is similar, but more electronical, more dreamy, less guitar. give up is not as good as death cab for cutie's plans, though. On plans i love every single song, am able to recall every single melody. give up is not that catchy. But i have ben gibbard's voice stroking my ear drums with lyrics just as sensitive and poetic as those on plans:

'tells your new friends
i am a visitor here
I am not permanent'

(the district sleeps alone tonight)



'they will see us waving from such great heights
"come down now" they'll say
but everything looks perfect from far away
"come down now" but we'll stay'
(such great heights)



'i want so badly to believe
that there is truth and love is real
and I want life in every word
to the extent that it's absurd'
(clark gable)

that's how you feel when you feel lonely, that how i feel when i yearn for something i don't know what it is. these songs, the district sleeps alone tonight, such great heights and clark gable are just randomly picked examples, the whole record is soo good.

just like plans, give up was there to lull me into sleep without making me cry, and to make me get out of bed the very next morning (when i put it on again) without making me skip forward to whichever song was my current fave.

This record was given to me by one of the dearest friends i gained this year, to let me know what kind of music he was into. Bingo – me, too. great way to become really good friends.

11 gnarls barkley - st. elsewhere (2006)

11 gnarls barkley - st.elsewhere (2006)

the must-be-in record

why not start my top ten with a number 11? i made a list of records and ended up with st.elsewhere being the left-over. but hell, this record deserves a place in the hit list. let us start with the facts: crazy, the first single, was the summer song 2006. and righteously so, not only because it is damn catchy and puts everybody in a great mood, but also because it was the first song ever that reached the top of the charts in the uk without any distribution of physical copies of the track. in other words: it got number one only by downloads. make a note in your history books, people!



but what is even more important: gnarls barkley easily keep the standard of crazy throughout the whole record. the intro song go-go gadget gospel is a hymn that sets the pace for the rest of the songs.
gone daddy gone, i had to learn, is a violent femmes cover, one that is in fact quite close to the original version.





smiley faces is my favourite, just a thought the breakbeat ballade and transformer the song with the funny gimmicks. all in all, st. elsewhere is a record that lines up in a row with those of gorillaz or dj shadow. it combines hiphop with breakbeat with pop with soul with dance. we need more music like this. we need more summer songs like these - next year!

smiley faces, video version with a touch of the likes of spinal tap or a mighty wind: