Wednesday, January 31, 2024

BOCUMA

Boards Of Canada - BOCUMA

This is my second compilation of unreleased and rare Boards Of Canada music. A follow up to my previous compilation BOC MAXIMA [MF]. Perfect for long drives.

For this compilation I chose to put the songs in order of the time they were released. I used the old EHX website to source the snippet of "Duffy" from Acid Memories. A snippet of the song "Circle" from Hooper Bay was sourced from an old BOC website. I added a few of my favourite songs from the Old Tunes Volume 2 compilation. The songs "Korona" from MASK100, "Orange Romeda" from We Are Reasonable People and "Seven Forty Seven" from WARP20 (Unheard) compilations. I added the Peel Sessions EP ("Happy Cycling" later being tacked on to Music Has The Right To Children is nothing short of a travesty). The Japanese only bonus tracks from Geogaddi and The Campfire Headphase. As well as a few bits from Odd Nosdam, A WARP trailer for The Campfire Headphase, and the Record Store Day "Cosecha Transmisiones".




















Tracklisting:
Duffy
Circle
Mukinabaht
Northern Plastics
David Came To Mahana'im
Fly In The Pool
I Love My New Shears
Korona
Orange Romeda
Happy Cycling
Olson [Version 3]
Aquarius [Version 3]
XYZ
From One Source All Things Depend
Macquire Ridge
Invocation
DC Bit [Odd Nosdam]
Seven Forty Seven
9-3-6-5-5-7

(We'll sail into the stars)
Two
Three
Four (I'm listening)



Friday, January 26, 2024

ISN'T EVERYTHING

My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Everything

I'm probably one of the few MBV fans who doesn't like Isn't Anything. It's viewed as the legendary precursor to Loveless. Where it all began, sound wise, for this incarnation of Kevin Shield's MBV. Don't get me wrong, there are some wonderful gems on this record. But there are just as many duds. Overall, I just never liked it as an album. There were two EPs that preceded Isn't Anything; The standalone You Made Me Realize and the single Feed Me With Your Kiss. When I listen to "Slow" from the Realize EP I can really hear where their sound begins to change. That bent, warbly, repetitive guitar strumming. Just beautiful! Also, how is "I Believe" relegated to a b-side on the Kiss single? It's just mindblowing to me that this song wasn't included on the album. The guitar playing sounds like a keyboard. It's just such a beautiful pop/love song!

Anyway, here is my version of Isn't Anything. I used the You Made Me Realize EP and the Feed Me With Your Kiss EP/Single along with the song "Instrumental B" from the bonus 7-inch single the came out with the first 500 copies of Isn't Anything. I ended the compilation with the song "Sugar" from the non-album split single with Pacific. It was written after Isn't Anything but before Loveless. Enjoy!





















Tracklisting:
Slow
Thorn
Cigarette In Your Bed
I Believe
Emptiness Inside
Drive It All Over Me
Soft As Snow
You Never Should
Lose My Breath
Instrumental B
Feed Me With Your Kiss
Nothing Much To Lose
I Can See It (But I Can't feel It)
All I Need
(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream
Sugar.

Taste my head and taste my heart
Oh, can't you see that I believe?



Tuesday, January 9, 2024

THE BEAT GOES ON (2016 TO 2018)

The Beat (or the English Beat as they were known in North America) were a 2 Tone Ska revival group formed in Birmingham England in 1978. They released three albums and a dozen singles before breaking up in 1983. David Steele and Andy Cox went on to form The Fine Young Cannibals while Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling went on to form General Public.

After releasing three General Public albums Wakeling and Rogers parted ways. Each of them doing various projects, solo albums and soundtracks until eventually returning, albeit separately, to the Beat. Until recently, two different versions of the band toured fairly frequently: "The English Beat starring Dave Wakeling" (based in California) and "The Beat Featuring Ranking Roger" (based in the UK.) Sadly, Ranking Roger died from lung cancer in the Spring of 2019.

Recently, I listened to the three albums by the two separate Beat bands and liked quite a bit of it. The Dave Wakeling Beat had better songwriting overall but I definitely did not like all of the music. So I made a little playlist that combined my favourite songs from Ranking Rogers last two Beat albums (Bounce and Public Confidential) with Dave Wakeling's latest English Beat album (Here We Go Love) to create a sort of final Beat album that had both of these extraordinary musicians together(ish) again.


 

















Tracklisting:
Heaven Hiding
The One And Only
Public Confidential
If Killing Worked
On My Way
You're Stuck
Walking On The Wrong Side
You Really Oughtta Know
Who's Dat Looking
My Dream
Here We Go Love!
A Good Day For Sunshine
How Can You Stand There
Busy Doing Nothing
Drive Her
Never Die

We said we would never die
But what did we know?
Taken away from me. and now
How I miss you so