A bit of a catch-up today. First, thanks for the nice response to the Bjork preview I posted on Friday. I've been comparing "Volta" today with the new Timbaland album, "Shock Value".
As I write, I've just started listening to Bjork's new album, "Volta", for the third time. The first single, "Earth Intruders", is playing right now, a kind of euphoric marching song driven by three radical beat scientists: freestyling avant drummer Chris Corsano; Congolese troupe Konono No1; and, most notably, Timbaland. It's pretty dizzying, as you might imagine.
I've been meaning to write about the wonderful Marnie Stern album on Kill Rock Stars for a couple of weeks now. I was tipped off about it by one of Uncut's writers, Louis Pattison, who raved to me about it. She's "an extremely proficient one-woman axe hero," he wrote in an email, "a bit like Deerhoof but with better songs and added lead guitar power." Chuck in the battling influences of Sleater-Kinney and Lightning Bolt and damn, he was right.
So Mark E Smith is a DJ, right? He's booked the club for the night, therefore it stands to reason he can play the records. But then this German guy turns up and says he's the DJ, says he's Sven Vath. Whatever should Mark do? Simple: "I flooded the club," he says proudly. That'll show them.
I was recently moved to reminisce about the night Lou Reed invited me to dinner after a show at the Hammersmith Odeon, an occasion that famously ended up in chaos when he was annoyed by something David Bowie said to him that sparked off quite a lively assault, Lou smacking Bowie somewhat savagely around the head.
In between all the meetings and extraneous stuff today (oh, and kicking myself for missing the Leonard Cohen lig that Allan blogs about here), I've belatedly got round to hearing Gallows.
The Cuckoo Club is a swish, luxuriously upholstered private members bar and restaurant, just off Regent Street, where everything that isn’t leather, velvet, silk or glass is gleaming stainless steel, or something that looks like it.
It's odd, but the two albums I've played most in the past week both remind me a bit of LCD Soundsystem. This might be because I've played the LCD album more than anything else this year. But 1990s and Von Sudenfed both have strange affinities with James Murphy, I'm convinced.
