Song of the Day No.59

Brand New Life

by Young Marble Giants (Colossal Youth, 1980)

Being one of Kurt Cobain's favourite bands should get a group some kind of public recognition, but it wasn't until the Domino re-issue of the Welsh three-piece's only album in 2007 was there enough momentum to play live again after almost 20 years. In 2004 BBC Radio Wales produced a documentary on the band while the likes of Adam Green, Belle & Sebastian and Galaxie 500 have covered them. Moxham, Moxham and Statton joined forces in 1978 and went their separate way just two years later citing creative differences and personal tensions, but in that short time they created a body of work as influential and distinct as any.

Listen to YMG and the steady tick-tocking of a pre-recorded electronic beat on 'Brand New Life' is as close to drums as you'll get. Cold, clinical guitars drive the song forward, sometimes with a sharp, jagged edge and at other times as a blunt, percussive motor. Alison Statton's charmingly flat vocals distantly follow the rhythm with nonchalance backed by the brothers' every now and then. The overriding sound is empty, but good-empty. Less is more. An adage adhered to by Young Marble Giants to startling effect.

AR

Song Of The Day No.19

Turn Me Well

by Micachu (Jewellery, 2009)

The all too familiar figure of the East London DJ/MC has in recent years come to be more associated with ridicule than anything else. Certainly we wouldn’t associate people peddling grime mix tapes on the streets of Bow with students composing pieces for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Enter: Micachu.

The track 'Turn Me Well' taken from her Rough Trade debut Jewelry is a fine example of Micachu’s ability to inhabit two, or ten, worlds at once. Part of Micachu’s charm is her reluctance to use traditional pop song structures: in this song we are treated to an intro featuring a vacuum cleaner then a prolonged verse powered by a “dirty, grimey" snare (to borrow a phrase from Bow’s most famous son). This arrangement retains a strong pop ethos whilst still managing to baffle and confuse over the length of the album. Here we have a classically trained musician who probably grew up in the wrong neighbourhood of London and was then ordered to make an album with known madman producer Matthew Herbert sat at the helm

Easy listening it is not, immensely fun it is.

DJ/B

Keep Your Ears and Eyes Open

For this edition we have a new group that we've recently discovered and fallen in love with. Warpaint hail from California and are currently doing the rounds in the States, then onto the UK and France after having played various gigs at SXSW.



The female foursome have also signed to Rough Trade for the release of their first long player, which is due at some point this year. At the moment you can sample their delights in this video and on their myspace and you can buy their e.p. here.

Hope you all like it as much as we do...