ADULT. brings on
the Massive Soundz
of Electro and
it really ROCKS!

Videogame music meets
the Liquid Sky soundtrack,
ADULT. has descended
from space with all the
bleeps, bloops and sonic
tweeks combined with
Nicola's femme'bot voice.

visit the ERSATZ STUDIO website
***all great electro stuff!***
click on A. for ADULT

(December 4, 2002)

Seksu Roba
currently being
hunted down!

This exciting eclectic
group is being sought
out to perform in
Worcester...
Check out their way
cool website...
Seksu Roba website

Seksu Roba song - BossaBlanco
Seksu Roba song - Zero-Gravity MiniSkirt

(October 24, 2002)

The World of Tipsy

Having not seen or head from Tipsy since their "Uh Oh" release in 2001, I was overjoyed to see the Tipsy "Remix Party" cd listed in the Newbury Comics weekly e-mailing of new releases. The fact that it wasn't ACTUALLY a new Tipsy release made me slightly skeptical as to whether or not this was just a thrown together collection of poor covers done by third rate bands... NO WAY... I've listened to this CD at least 3 times all the way through since having bought it little more than 24 hours ago and it has every bit the Tipsy feel to it.

Imagine if you will... sipping cocktails in dim lighting while a coked-out mariachi band rapid-fires horns, sitars, theremins and synths of all sorts... Toots, whistles, drones, slides, dips, frantic at times, laid back and tropical at others, sometimes sounding old fashioned like from old black'n'white Betty Boop cartoons, at other times sounding as modern and as cosmopolitan as Humphre Bogart and Robert Mitchum clothes shopping in modern SoHo, then stopping for drinks in an Indian bistro watching hot patooties stroll buy all giving that knowing glance of intrigue and excitement... Then all turns dark and wet and steamy as the synths open their trenchcoats to reveal all of their thumping electronic beats set to a world stage, swathed in ganja and mint julips and seersucker suits. Robots, lounge chairs, endless mojitos (old cuban mint drink) and nothing but time to let it all soak in...

Sounds dreamy, doesn't it? Well, every single one of the 14 covers of Tipsy songs is lovely and true to the original style and sound, with unique re-touches, alterations, modifications and subtle extravagances and deviations off the already un-beaten path. My favorite at the moment is Seksu Roba's (from Los Angeles) "Wig Out" (originally from "Uh Oh"). There are artists from places such as: Zurich, Las Vegas, Brussels, Kent (England), Seattle and St. Petersburg.

Want more? Click this link to see a short "Mr. Excitement" movie or Click this link to see a short "Space Golf" movie. Both songs are on Tipsy's debut release called "Triptease" from 1996. Listen to "Ugly Stadium" or "Cinnabar" if you like. Then quickly buy all the Tipsy you can get your retro-modified hands on. (Tipsy links, pictures, etc. found originally on their label's site: Asphodel Records.)

Lars Vegas at Pete's Candy Store

Underworld - Interpol - CSI

Felix da Housecat and more...

I've been on a music buying spree lately and have had great luck in finding cd's I'll listen to much more than just a couple times. I picked up the new Underworld cd called "A Hundred Days Off" and had low expectations, having heard that Darren Emerson, the dj aspect of the trio, had flown the cool. Much to my surprise, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have created a solid electronic cd that stands right up there with their past releases. With songs like "Dinosaur Adventure 3D" and "Luetin", I dare say that Karl Hyde's vocals have even IMPROVED, as if that was even conceived to be possible. I don't expect any of these songs to surpass "Born Slippy NUXX" (the song from "Trainspotting"), but I'm just glad that the Underworld sound has not diminished one iota. (Underworld - JBO)

The new Underworld cd made me go back and listen more to the Live Best-Of CD called "Everything Everything", which I distinctly remember hearing being played at Le Chateau clothing store in Montreal when I last went up there for serious clothes shopping.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has been a favorite (if not, THE favorite show on my list) in my tv viewing agenda and I've always said that "hey, they really need to put out a soundtrack of songs they use in the tv show". And now they have. And it's alot more electronic than I expected it to be, which isn't bad at all. Of course, The Who do "Who are you", the show's theme song, but there are some surprises like New Order doing "Crystal" and songs by Hooverphonic, Timo Maas and Euphoria PLUS a surprisingly good song from The Wallflowers called "Everybody Out of the Water". The show has it all: good characters, excellent cinematography, perplexing storylines and now a great soundtrack release. (CBS - Hip-O)

I first heard about Interpol by flipping through the pages of a back issue of Interview Magazine. I read the short little article underneath a large picture of the band in stylish suits in black & white and was enthralled by the New Yorkedness, the comparisons to Joy Division and the strength of the hype surrounding their new release "Turn on the Bright Lights". Even better when the hype turned out to be justified. "Bright Lights" is a dark, moody, punky, modern cd full of new angles and songs to implode to. I heard their show at Cambridge's Middle East club was completely sold out. (Matador Records)

Last on this short list of current listening faves, is a release from Felix da Housecat in which he goes glitzty & electro and somewhat 80s in sound. Pairing up with several collaborators like Miss Kitten (who I guess has been vamping it up in Europe doing sultry exotic accented vocals) and other electro-artists. "Electro" meaning fun yet cold sounding repetitive, head-pounding videogame electrobnics sounding type stuff that at first comes off as simple, but then comes off as being POWERFULLY simple, fashionable & terribly addictive. I first heard "Silver Screen Shower Scene" on Grooveradio on the internet (what happenned to that online trance dance station anyway?) and now I'm hooked on "Control Freaq" and several other tracks off this seductively stylish cd release by a guy who I knew only as a techno/house dj. (Emperor Norton)

24 Hour Party People soundtrack

Tony Wilson started Factory Records up in Manchester, U.K. in the very early 80s and with that came Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays, but more than that... The whole post-punk, pre-new wave scene developing allover the western pop music world had a unique feel in this crumbling, bleak-feeling northern English city of Manchester.

Quote from the Tony Wilson liner notes re: New Order's "Tempation": " Now Temptation by New Order 'cause this is where the Detroit boys were coming from. One of the beauties of the House music timeline was that this mindbending American import had its origins back on this side of the Atlantic. The mid-Eighties inventors of Acid-stripped beats tell how in the early 80s they tired of America's then black music, a tired bastard of disco and found succor in driving in their cars round the streets playing the primitive synthesizer constructions of English bands like Depeche Mode and New Order on their stereos."

Starting with the primordial grandaddy punk song of them all, Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K.", winding through 4 Joy Division songs (I love "Transmission") and 2 old New Order songs, plus 2 NEW New Order songs (one with Moby that blows and one with the Chemical Brothers that is heavenly dark disco: "Here to Stay")... hrow in a couple by Happy Mondays, one by the Buzzcocks, one by The Clash and even 808 State doing "Pacifica" and you have all the makings for an incredible slice of time encapsulated in music.

I've heard complaints about the movie & soundtrack leaving out other notable Northern England bands from the same time period. I would offer up two suggestions: (1) If you haven't seen the movie, please do so. It will explain better why this is so focused on the Factory Records thing rather than the whole genre/time period. (2) It would be nice to have a companion CD that collects together stuff that was not covered on either the soundtrack or the movie, i.e. The Smiths, Echo & The Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark, Siouxsie & the Banshees, etc. etc.
24 Hour Party People website
Virtual Manchester - History of the Hacienda

Pet Shop Boys

Pet Shop Boys are in the midst of releasing this brand new single called "High & Dry"(March 18, 2002) for their upcoming full length CD called "Release" (April, 2002). On the official PSB website you can actually listen to three of the B-sides to the single and that's exactly what I did here... Keep in mind that these ARE b-sides, but as the PSB's have matured as a band and their fan base has grown to expect more in the details, the b-sides have become full-fledged special treats unto themselves, but somehow didn't exactly fit on the album itself, either for space or theme issues or whatever...

Always - Beautiful, melancholic electronic number... pretty similar to what the PSBs have delivered in the past, not that that's a bad thing in the slightest...

Sexy Northerner - Wow... what a weird chorus/bridge/whatever that was... Thumping, strobing, under heavy cover of darkness for the first part of the tune, but then they add an Underworld-esque cowboy twang/electronic guitar repeater thing that merges into a glammy something or other chant thing: "It's not all football and fags, No, it's not all football and fags" (that's straight from the PSB's lyrics on their website)... The chorus: "How does he do it? Act like he's got nothing to do? Sexy Northerner..."

Home & Dry (Ambient Mix) - Oh man... very sweeping, beautiful uplifting tune about going home... home and dry... really makes ya wish you could see them in concert again real soon...

Pet Shop Boys' website

Simple Minds

Simple Minds is a group that most people know one ("(Don't You) Forget About Me"), maybe two songs ("Alive & Kicking")by and maybe the fact that lead singer was married to Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders. I had kinda forgotten about them, to tell you the truth until I came across Neapolis which I bought in a limited edition tin. Having not heard Simple Minds for many years, I was surprised at how much I actually liked this album as a whole and was kinda shocked to hear that they still toured & put out new material. No offense, but the new stuff kinda reminds me of a more sedate, poppier version of U2, minus all the over-the-top political overtures that Bono feels he has to foist off on us all.

Fast forward to October 2001 and I see there's a new Simple Minds CD out ("Neon Lights"), but this time it's all covers. I read on Amazon.com that they DO have an album of original material waiting to come out, but that there are legal issues tying it up. "Neon Lights" has alot of surprises and a couple disappointments and a couple, well, there-it-is kind of tracks. "Gloria" by Van Morrison: techno'd up, but still pretty much the same. David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World": very true to the original, very strong, muted yet strong vocals. "Homosapien" by Pete Shelley (formerly of the Buzzcocks: A great semi-forgotten track, slowed-down and intensified and disco-fied. Very good track. Same goes for Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot" which is very good and definitely on par with (or better than?) U2's cover of it.... Kraftwerk's "Neon Lights" is a great song, but it was covered better by Orchestral Manoevers in the Dark years ago on their "Sugar Tax" album. The Doors' "Hello I Love You" is a jokey waste of time, but thankfully "Bring On The Dancing Horses" by Echo & The Bunnymen comes right after it... Neil Young's "The Needle & The Damage Done" and Roxy Music's "For Your Pleasure" nicely blend right together and, to be honest, I didn't know who did them originally anyway... "All Tomorrow's Parties" by Velvet Underground also falls into that category, but I do like the Simple Minds cover quite a bit. "Being Boiled" I was really fascinated with because it was written by Ware/Marsh/Oakey who I only really knew as being Heaven 17, but then I was reminded that they were the core of The Human League. Still, the song was unfamiliar to me, but the cover was very funky and very cool to hear with headphones on. A major uplifting surprise was the last track, an UPBEAT version of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

Simple Minds' website

New Order

New Order is another of these pop groups that started in the 80s that I've always liked, but no one seemed to really know who they are or what they did. Every now and then you MIGHT hear "Bizarre Love Triangle" or "True Faith" on crappy "Best Mix" radio stations or on Joe Cortez's "Back to the Eighties Friday Night" radio show, but New Order remain kinda in the dark on the pop scene. About a year ago, they had a sort of comeback song on the soundtrack to "The Beach" and the song was called "Brutal".

2001: Supposedly New Order is back. The new single is called "Crystal", which may or may not be a drug reference. The song fits in perfectly with all of NO's other singles and it's really nice to hear Peter Hook's sweet bass guitar playing lead so beautifully. I've always loved hearing almost any song where his guitar work was evident, like on his Monaco cd (singular, only because the 2nd Monaco cd was only released as an import and was WAY too expensive to bother buying, as with Electronic's last cd). Lead singer Bernard Sumner sounds great, as always... there's really nothing that new about this single (or the other new song on the single, "Behind Closed Doors"), and I'm fine with that. I 'm just happy to hear NEW New Order material. A new NEW album should be coming out in mid-October 2001 and it's called "Get Ready". So, I'm getting ready....

Here's New Order's lame, slow-loading website

Goldfrapp

Stephanie asked me if I was interested in going to see this band Goldfrapp play in Boston. At the time, I had already planned on trekking to Montreal for the weekend, but I went out and bought the Goldfrapp CD "Felt Mountain" just the same. From the sound clips I had heard ever-so-briefly on cd now, I was blown away by this otherworldly group, who's home base I couldn't identify. At first I thought they were a local Boston group or, if not from there, maybe from New Zealand. Well, the bio at cd now says they are from Bath, England. Goldfrapp is two people: Allison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory and they've created an odd, sountrack-like, breathtaking, sweeping collection of songs that tread a thin line between James Bond-type sounding theme songs and sultry, moody, dark+smoky cabaret numbers. The sounds used can, at times, sound like Portishead or Bjork, but I'd go see Goldfrapp in a heartbeat, if I wasn't being tempted by my own personal siren: Montreal. Who knows, maybe I'll scrap the trip and see them at Axis in Boston anyway...

Here's Goldfrapp's own website

Here's Goldfrapp's label, MUTE, with an almost unreadable bio section

Nicola Conte

Thanks to David at Other Music in Cambridge, I now have a new favorite cd, that being the incomparable Nicola Conte who I may never have even heard of had it not been for my looking for things similar to stuff on the jazz-hiphop-electronic fusion label Compost. David reccomended Conte as being similar to Compost's or akin to Tipsy in a sense. Well, this guy Conte really knows how to rock out bossanova style. He perfectly melds subtle sampling, real live instruments and that authentic bossa nova ala '60s sound. Maybe "rocks" isn't the exact word that jazz fans might use, but this is the kind of stuff that I can see revitalizing jazz and introducing it even moreso to younger folks who might have had some exposure to it in some hiphop, but need some pushing over the edge when it comes to understanding that this fusion/sampling/live instruments thing is both cool and yet still jazz. (There are some people, as strange as it may sound, who don't necessarily see jazz as being cool.)

I guess that "Jet Sounds" came out a couple months ago in Europe, but "Bossa Per Due" (which in French could translate into the "lost bossanova" or something) is the domestic release. "Jet Sounds" has one extra track that "Bossa" doesn't have, so as a truly fruity collector and fan, I picked up both. And I even got Dad a copy for his birthday!

Trust me, if this guy plays "live" in New England anytime soon, I'll be there, cheering him on.

Here's some bio info from the Eighteenth Street Lounge Music label

Shriekback

Shriekback is one of those bands that I routinely get "stuck" on for reasons that are hard to explain. They were (and still are) one of the 80s most under-recognized yet incredibly talented pop bands going, but they've had such a hard time in staying consistent with a label/record company and in other areas that not a whole lot of people remember much of anything about them except that they did a cover of "Get Down Tonight" (by KC & the Sunshine Band). THAT was a great cover, but it didn't represent what the band was about at all. This CD collection is of Shriekback's earliest work on Y Records including a couple of their best songs: "All Lined Up", "My Spine (is the Bassline)" and "Working on the Ground".

The band is made up of Barry Andrews (former XTC keyboardist on their 1st two cd's), Dave Allen (from Gang of Four) and Carl Marsh (who I believe went on to do stuff with Heaven 17 and other synth groups of the 80s). They had super heavy funky basslines, odd-interminglings of middle-eastern/indian sounds, drum machines, bizarre-ly phrased lyrics and a sound unlike any of their peers. I first got into them back in high school in 1986 or so when I was introduced to "Fish Below the Ice" off their "Oil and Gold" album. That LP had as a running the theme: de-evolution. One song, "Nemesis", talked about all kinds of stuff including "priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals, no one move a muscle as the dead come home. Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis...". Shriekback has alot of great albums that are well worth discovering including, "Big Night Music", "Sacred City" and even the most recent release from last year (1999) "Naked Apes and Pond Life", which took alot of time to grow on me, but I really like it alot now. What really sucks is that about 5 years ago when I was in London, I was there a week early or a week late to see Shriekback perform live acoustically... I hope they come around again in some form or another...