The fabulous Fatoumata Diawara seems to be steadily releasing videos for every song on her 2023 album, London Ko.
The latest addition is Yada, another co-write and co-production with Damon Albarn, who also provides drums and synth programming but on this occasion spares the vocals.
Given that every song on the album is a cracker, it's no revelation to say that Yada is a great tune, with an insistent rhythm, synth washes and Fatoumata delivering compelling vocals and some great guitar licks.
Yada inevitably sent me on a welcome diversion into Fatoumata Diawara's video catalogue, with five more picks across the years.
If that leaves you wanting more and/or you missed it first time around, I shared my experience of an exhilarating hour in the presence of Fatoumata Diawara last May and served up a 50-minute Dubhed selection to celebrate, both of which you can find here.
As the title suggests, Golden Mirrors: The Uncovered Sessions Vol. 1 is the first in a series of albums covering songs by other writers that Mick and Amanda have a shared interest in. The debut volume reworks 11 songs by Jackson C. Frank and includes the above single/video The Night Of The Blues.
Mick is renowned for his approach to cover versions, shining new light on artists not least his extensive translation and reworking of Serge Gainsbourg's catalogue. I've not heard of Jackson C. Frank before now and even a brief search has revealed a tragic story of childhood trauma, mental health issues, homelessness, and a untimely death the day after his 56th birthday.
Just one album - self-titled, produced by Paul Simon, 1965 - was released in Jackson's lifetime, with a collection of complete recordingsin 2015. Here is a version of The Night Of The Blues from the latter.
Side 2 of an 80s mixtape recorded 26th November 1999.
Another compilation that's taken me ages to return to, Side 1 making an appearance here in November 2023. Better late than never...!
In 1987, Get It On by T. Rex was re-released with a new remix by Tony Visconti. I don't remember why exactly, as the (rather excellent) Best Of The 20th Century Boy compilation had already been out for a couple of years and there was no jeans ad tie-in as far as I recall. There were two 12" singles with new extended versions: the Dawn Mix on yellow vinyl and the Dusk Mix on blue vinyl; I've got both, there's not a lot of difference between the two.
Propaganda's second single was Duel, a gorgeous slice of Germanic pop. On the flip side was its roughneck relation, Jewel, Claudia Brücken's sweet voice replaced by Susanne Freytag's shouty vocals. Similarly, their album A Secret Wish was mirrored with a remix companion, Wishful Thinking. It's a bit hit-and-mix, but the remix of Duel/Jewel is superb, creating a sublime duet between Susanne and Claudia.
Love Like Blood is arguably Killing Joke's defining song and originally came out in two extended 12" single formats. Not content with that, producer Zeus B. Held had a go at the song, providing the flip side to his other remix of 1986 single Adorations. This one adds a few contemporary remix touches, including some crowd noises for some reason, to firmly root the song in the mid-1980s.
I do have the 12" single of More by Doctor & The Medics, which features a remix by an up-and-coming artist called William Orbit. Unfortunately, I don't have a MP3 rip and couldn't find an alternative on t'internet. So, I've grabbed the intro from the video version and spliced it with a slight edit of the album version and Hey Presto! a DIY extended version to fill the void. Derivative it may be, but I like this song.
Derivative is not a word that could be used to describe Peek-A-Boo by Siouxsie & The Banshees. When I first heard it in 1988, I was thrilled by this change of direction for the band. Unfortunately, the rest of the album is less experimental and more familiar, but the impact of this song hasn't diminished. Peek-A-Boo was released on 7", 12" (two of 'em) and CD single. The eight minute Silver Dollar Mix which appeared on the limited edition 12" single is in fact an edit; the full length version appeared in the USA and runs for another two minutes.
Whilst Siouxsie and co were trying to push themselves in a new direction, by 1988 Iggy Pop had pretty much gone full hair metal. I like the album Instinct but it's dumb rock, even by Iggy's standards, though unapologetically so. I first heard this remix of Cold Metal on the Sounds Blasts! 1 EP, a freebie 7" single with music paper Sounds that also featured The Blue Aeroplanes (yay!), Fishbone (mmmm) and the Dan Reed Network (meh).
Closing out this compilation is my favourite version of Two Tribes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, the Carnage remix by Trevor Horn and Stephen Lipson following the standard ZTT format of instrumental first half and vocal second half. However, they also chuck in a few vocal snippets from Nash, Peds and Mark taken from throwaway B-side 'interviews', which add a bit of colour.
As with my previous post, I've tracked down the videos for each song, or TV performances where these aren't available. The clip for Jewel by Propaganda is a real treat. The others run the range from so so serious (Killing Joke) to stunning (Siouxsie) to silly (Doctor & The Medics) to... well, you've just got to see Iggy Pop's video to wonder how many cans of hairspray the film crew got through for this one.
And then there's Two Tribes, possibly one of the greatest videos ever made. If a band tried to do that today, the pustulous orange turd would probably buy MTV, install himself as CEO and shut it down. That's if the barrel chested bareback rider hadn't already dealt with them permanently.
1) Get It On (Dusk Mix) (Tony Visconti 87 Remix): T. Rex (1987)
2) Jewelled (Remix By Robert Kraushaar & Paul Morley): Propaganda (1985)
3) Love Like Blood (The '86 Remix By Zeus B. Held): Killing Joke (1986)
4) More (Full Video Version By Doctor & The Medics & Graham Meek): Doctor & The Medics (1987)
5) Peek-A-Boo (Silver Dollar Mix By Mike Hedges) (Edit): Siouxsie & The Banshees (1988)
6) Cold Metal (Rock Version By Andy Wallace): Iggy Pop (1988)
7) Two Tribes (Carnage) (Remix By Trevor Horn & Stephen Lipson): Frankie Goes To Hollywood (1984)
In June 2023, I posted the second disc of three CD-Rs of ripped albums gifted by my friend John in early 2010. Appropriately titled Stuff, the bundle contained a fair bit of stuff - artists and albums - that I wasn't familiar with.
Today's belated return visit focuses on disc !, and again I've collated a 9-track selection, sequenced in the order that the albums were presented on the CD-R. Seven of the songs date from 2009, one from 2008 and one from 2010, which must have been freshly released when I received John's gift.
Editors appear here twice, not because I thought they're way better than anything else here, although In This Light And On This Evening is a very good album. The second track is the opener of a bonus mini-album, Cuttings II, which was included in the CD-R bundle of bootlegs.
John had previously shared music by David Kitt, which I like most of the time, depending on my mood/frame of the mind at the time. I love the instrumentation and structure but find - perhaps unfairly - that Kitt's voice can sound annoyingly indifferent at times. I like this song very much, though.
Both Editors and Doves were bands I was familiar with, yet hadn't heard any of their albums in full. I'd really liked the slew of remixes that accompanied the latter's Kingdom Of Rust and the album itself didn't disappoint either.
Likewise, Fever Ray. An astonishing solo debut from Karin Dreijer, and the beginning of an enduring fascination with their work. The same can be said for Laura Marling's debut, another artist that made an immediate impact and has grown with each album.
The Filthy Dukes album was a revelation. Based on a few tracks and remixes, I'd fully expected a collection of four-to-the-floor club bangers. Nonsense In The Dark proved to be much more complex and genre-challenging. Poison The Ivy, for example, features frYars aka Benjamin Garrett and sounds like a cover of a lost Joy Division song.
Although The Trials Of Van Occupanther will probably remain my favourite Midlake album, they proved with 2010 follow up The Courage Of Others that the parting of ways with Tim Smith wasn't the end of the road.
Of course, around the same time Midlake also provided the musical bedrock for an artist who had been in a band and gone solo. So, 2010 saw the release of The Courage Of Others as well as Queen Of Denmark by John Grant. Whatever happened to him?!
Like the Filthy Dukes pastiche of Joy Division, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's self-titled first album sounded like it could have been released on Sarah Records back in the 1980s. However, this music was purely 21st Century NYC, not Eighties Bristol.
Come Saturday seemed like an obvious pick, knowing that I was going to post the selection today, though it's also a fair representation of the album as a whole.
When I posted disc 2 back in 2023, I doctored a negative image of John's self-produced sleeve for the headline photo. This time, I've taken it outside for a very welcome dose of springtime sunshine.
I've just noticed that disc 3 includes a Christmas-themed album amongst the picks. I may not leave it until December - or another two years - before presenting the third and final part of this collection! 1) Learning How To Say Goodbye: David Kitt (2009) 2) Compulsion (Album Version): Doves (2009) 3) Papillon (Album Version): Editors (2009) 4) This House Is Full Of Noise: Editors (2009) 5) When I Grow Up (Album Version): Fever Ray (2009) 6) Poison The Ivy: Filthy Dukes ft. frYars (2009) 7) My Manic And I: Laura Marling (2008) 8) Bring Down: Midlake ft. Stephanie Dosen (2010)
9) Come Saturday: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (2009)
2008: Alas I Cannot Swim: 7
2009: Fever Ray: 5
2009: In This Light And On This Evening: 3
2009: In This Light And On This Evening / Cuttings II (limited edition 2x CD): 4 2009: Kingdom Of Rust: 2
A trio of cover versions that will likely have caused purist fans of the originals to choke on their cornflakes and fire off angry missives to Terry Wogan c/o the BBC.
Personally, I love 'em.
1) Sex Machine: The Flying Lizards (Cover of '(Get Up I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine' by James Brown) (1984)
2) It's Still Rock 'n' Roll To Me: Laptop (Cover of Billy Joel) (1999)
3) Layla (Derek Sings Derek): Fortran 5 ft. Derek Nimmo (Cover of Derek & The Dominos) (1993)
The Domino label is reissuing Pete Shelley's solo albums, Homosapien (1981) and XL-1 (1983), on vinyl and CD in June.
Both are based on the expanded editions available since the mid-late 1990s, with bonus B-sides and/or dub mixes. The double vinyl formats keep the original 10-track album on the first two sides and the packaging for both looks rather lovely.
It's good to see Pete Shelley's work, especially his solo songs, getting a timely reappraisal in what will have been his 70th year. Whilst some of the songs, produced by Martin Rushent, haven't dated as well as others, the music itself has lost none of the lyrical and melodic shine forty odd years later.
Domino has posted a video from each album (though bizarrely, with links to John Cale's website and social media - cut and paste job, anyone?), neither of which I saw on TV at the time.
A swift trawl of YT has uncovered a couple more promos from 1986 album Heaven & The Sea, which I hope will also receive the reissue treatment sometime soon. I've also found a TV appearance and a live performance, both featuring the legendary Barry Adamson on bass.
1) Homosapien (1981)
2) Telephone Operator (1983)
3) Waiting For Love (1986)
4) On Your Own (1986)
5) Never Again (Music Convoy, German TV) (1984)
6) If You Ask Me (I Won't Say No) (Live) (1984)
I've also resurrected the link to a post from September 2021. Actually about the passing of Sir Clive Sinclair, it inevitably mentioned the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum, and from there naturally dovetailed into Pete Shelley's XL-1 album. It included a half hour Dubhed selection of songs and mixes from the album, which you can find here.
Bryan Ferry has a new album out, which seemed a good excuse to post a Dubhed selection featuring his old band, Roxy Music.
More by accident than design, over half of this 10-song is drawn exclusively from 1973, with a few diversions from the 1980s occupying the second quarter.
A reminder that I don't listen to Roxy Music nearly as often as I should. For Your Pleasure and Stranded are on this week's playlist, for starters.
1) Amazona (1973)
2) The Pride And The Pain (1973)
3) The Main Thing (Dance Mix) (1982)
4) Oh Yeah (Album Version) (1980)
5) More Than This (Album Version) (1982)
6) Same Old Scene (Album Version) (1980)
7) Strictly Confidential (1973)
8) Do The Strand (USA 7" Mix) (1973)
9) In Every Dream Home A Heartache (Album Version) (1973)
I stumbled across a clip of Kim Gordon and Kim Deal performing Little Trouble Girl live on TV for the first time ever last Wednesday, and it's a treat.
I only sporadically subscribe to Netflix (e.g. when there's a 30-day free trial or the like), so I was completely ignorant of the talk show Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney, which debuted on 12th March. I also have no idea who John Mulaney is either, if you're asking.
However, a major benefit of living in 2025 is that it doesn't matter where you live, or whether or not you shell out money every month to any number of subscription channels. If you have access to t'internet, then you have access to music clips from around the world, past and present.
I mean, what are the chances that Kim and Kim would do this again on, say, The Graham Norton Show, Later...With Jools Holland or Sunday Brunch?
Kim and Kim's version of Little Trouble Girl is all the more affecting for it's pure, raw performance: there's no vocal gymnastics, no glam costumes or hair, no dancers or choreography; just Kim singing and Kim speaking, supported by the band. The song speaks for itself.
As if that weren't enough, it was preceded by Kim Deal with the title track of her album Nobody Loves You More.
And, earlier in the show, by Kim Gordon with BYE BYE, from her album The Collective.
To complete the complement of Kims, here's the original video for Little Trouble Girl, released as a single from Sonic Youth's 1995 album, Washing Machine.
The chorus on the studio version is completed by Lorette Velvette and Melissa Dunn, though only the two Kims appear in the promo.
