Stereonasties Active 89FM
Friday 10 March 2006

Short show, I was sick and had to go home...

Chicken Lips - You're Not Ready Yet - Kingsize
Eddie 'Flashin' Fowlkes - T.M.F. 61 - BMG
Chris and Cosey - Driving Blind - Rough Trade
John Carpenter - The End (Remix From John Carpenter) - ZYX
i-F - The Getaway Scene - Viewlexx
New Order - Confusion (12" Mix) - Factory
Julius Kammerl - Erlangen Sud - Compost
Mya & The Mirror - Hesitation - Sire
Fuzz Against Junk - Horsebowl - Nuphonic
The Bush Tetras - You Can't Be Funky - ROIR Reissue
Maximum Joy - Stretch - Y
Material - Ciguri (Discomix) - Red
Black Devil Disco Club - One to Choose - Rephlex Reissue
DJ M35 - Balls - Dance Mania
Lindstrom - Fast & Delirious - Feedelity

It's really sar about Rod Donald. Still. Bake this cake and remember him...

ROD'S ORGANIC SPICED APPLE CAKE

1 cup chopped apple
125g melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 cup walnuts
1 cup currants

Mix apple with sugar, let stand for two minutes. Add butter and egg to apple and sugar mixture. Add this to dry ingredients, fruit and nuts. Mix well. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes. Nicest served warm with whipped cream.

Phor is a term which describes an object or action which forms the basis of a common metaphor in everyday language. It is the literal manifestation of a metaphorical figure of speech. In other words, a metaphor, minus the meta-.

So, if you take the OED definition of metaphor:

Metaphor A figure of speech in which a name or descriptive word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, that to which it is literally applicable; an instance of this, a metaphorical expression.

And subtract from it the OED definition of the prefix meta-:

Meta- With sense 'beyond, above, at a higher level'.

Then you are left with the very object or action which formed the basis of the analogy which the metaphor draws.

For example, the look on your pet cat's face after you actually feed it cream (from 'the cat that got the cream'). Or, the perilous exercise of actually skating over thin ice on top of a lake (from 'skating/trading/walking on thin ice'). Or, the experience of finding that riding a bicycle for the first time, after having not ridden a bicycle for a long time, is actually quite straightforward (from 'just like riding a bicycle') Or, trying to propel your canoe upstream without a paddle. Or 'taking the cake', without permission. Or the red cloth tape used by civil servants in the old days to tie up bundles of papers relating to an issue on which no further action was to be taken. And so on. These are all phorical phenomena.

For almost every metaphor, there is a corresponding phor. Some occur in real life more frequently than others.

EXAMPLES:

'Look what the cat dragged in!', exclaimed Lola phorically, as she watched Fluffy pawing a mutilated sparrow on the kitchen floor.

An important piece of machinery in any sewage treatment plant is the phorical shit stirrer, which is vital to the effective operation of oxidation ponds.

DERIVATIVES: phorical (adjective), phorically (adverb).

ORIGIN: Coined by Steve Kerr in Wellington, New Zealand, c. 2000. As of Feb 2006, yet to really take off.

I have coined a word. A close friend suggested putting it on wikipedia, but one of the rules of wikipedia is that it does not host original research.

The rule states:

An edit counts as original research if it proposes ideas or arguments. That is:

* it introduces a theory or method of solution; or
* it introduces original ideas; or
* it defines new terms; or
* it provides new definitions of pre-existing terms; or
* it introduces an argument (without citing a reputable source for that argument) which purports to refute or support another idea, theory, argument, or position; or
* it introduces or uses neologisms, without attributing the neologism to a reputable source; or
* it introduces a synthesis of established facts in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing the synthesis to a reputable source.

If you have an idea that you think should become part of the corpus of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news outlet, and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan manner.

The fact that we exclude something does not necessarily mean the material is bad – Wikipedia is simply not the proper venue for it. We would have to turn away even Pulitzer-level journalism and Nobel-level science if its authors tried to publish it first on Wikipedia.

Shit and goddamn. Short of publishing my word in a scholarly journal, I think I'm just gonna have to post my definition here.

Unfortunately my word, Phor, already has its own Wikipedia page. Would I be breaking the rule by slipping in my new term by way of disambiguation?

on Radio Active 89FM
here 'tis...

Cassy & Dave The Hustler - Her Dream - Mental Groove
Rythim is Rythim - Nude Photo - Transmat
Random Factor - Convergence (John Tejada Vocal Mix) - 20:20 Vision
My My - Klatta - Playhouse
Freeform Five - What Do I Want From You? (Paul Woodfrod Remix) - Fine
DJTal vs Tiefschwarz - Digital World - Art of Disco
MRI - Deep Down South - Force Tracks
Michael Mayer & Aguayo - Slow - Kompakt
Psyche - Elements - Transmat
Steve Bug - FR 101.3 - Poker Flat
Metope - Parallel to You - Areal
Matrix - Blue Film #4 - Chain Reaction
Matrix - Equator Music - Chain Reaction
Kraftwerk - Computer Love - EMI
Nathan Fake - Undoing the Laces - Traumschallplatten
Kerri Chandler - Sunset - Nite Grooves
Modern Romance - Can You Move? - Warner
Skatt Brothers - Walk the Night (Ara Simonian Remix) - ???
Coloursound - Fly With Me (Headman Dub) - City Rockers
Clashing Egos - Aminjig Nebere (I Trusted You) (Joakim's Afrobot Mix) - Life Enhancing Audio
Propoganda - Frozen Faces - Zang Tuum Tumb
Risco Connection - Stopping Version - Black Rose Music
Savage Progress - Heart Begins to Beat - Virgin
LCD Soundsystem - Yr City's A Sucker - DFA
Gramme - Telephone Me - Output
Victor - Go On Do It - Envrion Unclassics
Pet Shop Boys - Always On My Mind/In My House - EMI
Frankie Knuckles - The Whistle Song (Eric Kupper 12" Mix) - Virgin

Darshan Jesrani from Metro Area on Beats In Space a couple of months ago. Excellent minimal disco shit. Download here.

...is Starts off with a bang by Mobius Band. Free download...

More good free shit on Ghostly here.

StereoNasties for last Friday 27 Jan 2006

Enjoyable show: got a few calls, and some emails (one from the UK), and was joined in the studio by Pole, the man from Pinehaven, and some ladies. Here's the track list, it's not in order cos I can't remember it very clearly:

Rework - Jogging Beat (Roman Flugel's Tender Feet Mix) - Playhouse
Trickski - Hormony - Compost
S.O.L.T. - Funkacidic - GRC Music
Carl Craig - Demented Drums - Planet E
Justus Kohncke - Timecode - Kompakt
Nathan Fake - Dinamo - Traum Schallplatten
M. Mayer - Privat - Kompakt
LCD Soundsystem - Disco Infiltrator - DFA
Marco Passarani - Tribute - Pigna
Legowelt - Disco Rout - Ghostly
The League Unlimited Orchestra - Do Or Die - Virgin
Steve Bug - FR 101.1 - Poker Flat
Dominatrix - The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight - Uproar
Crane A.K. - Daisy Love - Force Tracks
Royalle Delite - I'll Be a Freak for YOu - Skyview
Metro Area - Proton Candt - Environ
Alexander Robotnick - Dance Boy Dance (Paul Raymond Re-Edit) - Art of Disco
Bangkok Impact - The Floor
Kerri Chandler - Sunset - Nite Grooves
Matrix - Equator Music - Chain Reaction
Freeez - I Dub U - Beggars Banquet
Patrick Cowley - Get A Little - Unidisc
Los Hermanos - Birth of 3000 - UR
Telex - Moskow Diskow - Hansa International
Daniel Wang - Nights in Berlin - Environ
Lindstrom - Fast and Delerious - Feedelity
Mr Flagio - Take a Chance - ZYX
Purple Flash - We can Make It (Darshan Jesrani Lavender Lamp Mix) - Environ

My most recent show on Active is up for the download here, all 100MB of it. Slowly getting shit together on the site...

Wendyhouse
The Wendyhouse Christmas Album
Wiggley Tapes

Wellington's well loved and best known DIY rockers EE Monk and Mr Pudding return with a compilation of Christmas songs (also a compact disc submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Pudding's MFA). As you'd expect, theirs is an 'underground' perspective on Xmas, a warm-hearted and often funny critique of hollow materialism and social/familial obligation. The order of the day here is satire, not syrup.

Opener 'Santa's Lament' is very Tom Waits, a gravely, guttural story of an 'existential crisis/ for the big man in red.' 'Teddy's Anger' tells the story of an unwanted toy, discarded after 42 seconds of attention and now waiting to be taken to the Sallie's Army. On the stand-up comic 'Xenical Xmas', Santa is recast as an overweight, over-stressed, hard drinkin', negative role model for the kids.

There are no carols here, at least not traditional ones. Perhaps in a generation or two groups of bright eyed kids will serenade their unsuspecting neighbourhood with 'Christmas is for Losers': 'Jesus loves a loser/Jesus loves a zero/Jesus it's his birthday/Jesus time of the year-o/Come have a slice of Jesus Christ'. This is one Christmas album which will not be piped into a mall near you any time soon.



Madonna
Confessions on a Dance Floor
Warner Bros
4/5

Madge returns to her early eighties disco roots on her fourteenth album. 'Confessions...' is packed with mid-tempo housey numbers, which could just as easily grace the club floor as the living room. Accordingly, the tracks are segued into one another, and mirror balls and sparkly high heels grace the cover art. The bulk of the album is produced by Thin White Duke, who tweaks the synths, vocoders, and filters for maximum glam retro effect. Much of the album is reminiscent of Giorgio Moroder circa 1980, which is no bad thing. Sure, there's a little filler here, but single 'Hung up' and the electroclashy 'Forbidden Love' are highlights.

Rhombus
Future Reference
Sony BMG
4/5

Future Reference sees Rhombus return with a follow up to 2002's Bass Player. The musical core of Rhombus remains the production team of Thomas Voyce, Simon Rycroft and DJ Koa (Roots Foundation) laying a down tracks for Imon Star and Antsman's conscious raps, and MC Mana's rougher dancehall delivery. Future Reference adds the soulful vocals of Deva Mahal and Ebb's Lisa Tomlin to the mix. It's an accomplished, eclectic affair that doesn't disappoint. The disc begins with a handful of tracks on which Rhombus show off the pop sensibility that saw their debut go platinum: witness the rolling, funky 'Mile High' and the excellent, Fat Freddy's-ish 'Together'. Later, the album veers into Michael Franti territory on 'Pocket Full of Seconds' and 'Love Spreads', and on to classic roots reggae with 'True Rub-a-Dub Love Style'. Tomlins' stunning vocal performance on 'Scorching Bay', a beautiful anthem to cutting work to go drink on the beach, is an absolute highlight. It's also great to hear the band branch out into more unconventional territory. 'Cloudkicks' apparently layers a koto sample over Pasifikan drumming and programmed breakbeats. Closing track 'Sojare' sets a Rajastani lullaby against delicately programmed hi-hats and gently skanking bass line. Very impressive.

The Rainy Days
Facework
Gestalt Information Communications Systems Network
5/5

Having released just a handful of singles and albums since forming way back in the early nineties, Auckland's Rainy Days are hardly prolific, which is a pity, because the diverse and uniformly excellent Facework shows what a brilliant, original band they are. The album covers a lot of ground within in a loose garage rock paradigm, from the raw Stooges romp of the title track, to the indie-folky Go Betweens sound on cuts like "The Photographer", to the gently trippy "Liquid Oxygen". The banjo on "It's a Way Out" recalls Beggars Banquet-era Rolling Stones. In short, absolutely bloody fantastic.

Jamie Cullum
Catching Tales
Universal
2/5

The third album of saccharine pop jazz from British singer-songwriter prodigy (he released his debut album at age 19) Jamie Cullum. Cullum and his dully proficient backing band of musicians work their way through a diverse set of crooning ballads and uptempo numbers (like opener 'Get Your Way', driven by a funky Lee Dorsey break). Billed as a kind of Sinatra for Generation Y, it's hard to find Cullum's patina of smoky sophistication convincing, given his youth and the calculated, sterile sound of the disc. Still, there's no questioning his voice is gold. Liner notes, lyrics and a 'making of' doco DVD are included.

Joanna Newsom and Smog at Indigo a couple of Tuesdays back was a cracker. I'd been listening to The Milk-Eyed Mender pretty heavily since a friend introduced me to it just a couple of weeks before the show was announced. (The name rang a bell at the time, I think Newsom was mentioned in a Robert Christgau best of 2004 thing on the Village Voice website). I kept being ready to lose patience with her cutesy coo-ey Bjorky/Kate Bush voice and start hating, but it just didn't happen. And every time I listened to and this didn't happen, I liked it more and more.

Bill Callahan's stuff I've known for a while, and I've definitely got a soft spot for Knock Knock, and at least half of every other album of his that I've heard. His set was super-minimal - just his slow, simple songs, his deep voice, and nuthin' fancy on the guitar. This worked kinda okay and everyone I spoke to loved it, but for me he DEFINITELY needed to give it up a little more for the audience, or at least have some kind accompaniment. Like a couple of lines of speed. At the very least, you could say his onstage persona was consistent with the picture of him you get from his recordings - straight up, and very down.

Joanna Newsom pretty much left everyone totally floored. Her talent seems prodigious - or else maybe she was raised in some hippy commune by poetry obsessed parents who forced her to learn the harp. Stranger things have happened. She performed a lot of the great tracks from Milk-Eyed Mender (Bridges and Balloons; The Sprout and The Bean; Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie; Peach Plum Pear; (if you've heard the album you'll know I'm not kidding about the song titles); The Book of Right On), and a number of EPIC new tracks, which were pretty much open-ended, structure-wise, at least 20 minutes long, and each of which must have contained a small notebook full of her manic, pseudo middle English yrics.

This is a classic case of a performer sounding bloody awful on paper - the affected voice, the medieval poetry, the harp - but in fact being the complete opposite. Thing is, it's not what she does, so much as how she does it, and the fact that when she does it, it seems thoroughly natural, even as she sings some highly literate but insensible stream of consciousness rant (yes, Dylan-esque) about cockles and ledgers and little robins and, for all I know sealing wax and brown vinegar all tied up with string. I mean think of Will Oldham for a minute - he sings in a crazy voice and obviously fetishises Depression and Civil War era American life and music, but he's so completely convincing and great at what he does, that no one (well, none of his fans) barely bats an eyelid at all his 'thees' and 'thys'.

And, for the record, a harp is a cool instrument - it seemed to have the range of grand piano and the timbre of a classical guitar. And, as Ross pointed out, looks like a gigantic chess piece.

A friend lent me a bunch of stuff, including The Editors, who sound more like Interpol than Interpol, which must make them the Stone Temple Pilots of the current crop. Maybe that's unfair - but regardless, it seems the 'postpunk revival' has officially begun to eat itself.

This has no doubt been expressed better elsewhere, but there is often a kind of aesthetic/conceptual poverty in stylistic revivalist movements. It's like thethinking has already been done, and all that's left to do is wait for the cycle of fashion to come round again, caricature the relevant aspects of the clothes, themes, sound. It's there on a plate for the exploitation.

When Martin Hannett was working with Joy Division, I think they would have been hyper aware of aesthetics of what they were doing, and they clearly had strong influences, like the Velvets, but they don't actually sound anything VU, even when they cover them. They radically transformed their influences, added their own perspective, and at once were a part of, but transcended, a contemporary scene. By way of contrast, the Stone Temple Pilots 'complete shit' factor is, to me, where bands appear to fail to do anything but ape some other band that is already leaning pretty heavily on their influences - where they're a copy of a copy, if you like. And what the hell's the point of that?

Maybe I'm being nostalgic/idealist but it always seemed to me the postpunk era was at its core about experimenting, NOT ABOUT BEING POP. i.e. it was not a bunch of bands whose raison d'etre was to cash in. (Note wryly that there are no major label acts making a living by revisiting the more 'difficult' Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire - although these two acts ARE enjoying a revival in the sphere of dance music).

Of course there are always plenty of great bands which are able to avoid this vacant revivalist copy-of-a-copy trap, maybe through hyper selfconscious music nerd eclecticism, (LCD Soundsystem), or bloody-minded purism and a decadent/savant/premonitionary vision (Royal Trux), or some combination of these. And jesus, there's absolutely nothing wrong with re-exploring old forms of music - in fact, it seems that that's completely central to pushing music to new places.

I do find it a little weird that the current postpunk trend thing involves a cross-fertilisation with emo-punk. I'm just observing this, not criticising it. It's something that's present in a heap of good bands - like Interpol and our own Mint Chicks and Die!Die!Die! I suppose (the totally great) Fugazi are probably a pretty obvious bridge between a kind of terse, spare, funky postpunk and the emo movement. Its just that one thing I really like about Joy Div, Go4, Au Pairs, Wire, and Fugazi for that matter, is their very un-emo-ness - they're so cerebral, but absolutely NO LESS HUMAN for it. After all, we all have brains and think abstract thoughts as much as we have lingering teen angst.

On that note I'm looking forward to the day when my name finally comes up on the library reserves list for Simon Reynold's postpunk history Rip It Up and Start Again. Incidentally, if nothing else, the title reminds us that the well-known and long since completely crap NZ music rag used once to be the shizz.

Anyway there was also remastered Gang of Four best of, which I had mixed feelings about, having lived with and loved the original versions on wax for many years. The remasters are all super shiny and phat and transparent, and while the songs still kick the ass of anything that's come since, the updated production values to me kind of cheapened them, or at least robbed them of their original character, as did the largely pointless dance-remixes-by-trendy-rock-bands on disc 2. But in saying this I freely admit to being a snob. I seem to remember a Go4 best of/retrospective coming out just a few years back - "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" - or some other vaguely inappropriate revolutionary Chinese title. Why do we need remasters as well? They're not Led Zep. Yet.

I have to also mention a great collection of prepunk and postpunk and punkpunk stuff complied by Jon Savage for a German label, called England's Dreaming (the collection is not limited to English bands - it's just the name of Savage's book) which they have in the Wellington Public Library. Some of it's pretty hard out, but it's freakin' great.

Anyway, the same friend lent me Arcade Fire's Funeral, which sounded pretty damn great to me, almost a midpoint between a kind of Interpol sound and alt-country (maybe it's just the violin?) - though that's probably a glib and crap way to describe it. Point being, it's a great album.

Electric Caboose on Active 89FM, 1-3am Saturday 29 September 2005

Well, half a radio show. I drunkenly f**ked up the MD recording for the second half - having earlier in the evening been introduced to the central european/baltic tradition of consuming ice cold vodka by the glass full. Mostly sentimental/melancholic synthesiser stuff, and retro techno.

You can download it here. (NB: this is a 50MB file).

i-F - Theme from PACK - Disko B/Viewlexx
Little Computer People Project - Little Computer People - Psi49Net
Black Strobe - Innerstrings (7-Hurtz Version) - Output
Metope - Libertango - Areal
Acid Maria and Abe Duque - Turn Down the Lights - ???
The Juan MacLean - My Time is Running Out - DFA
The Human League - You Remind Me of Gold - Virgin
3rd Face - Canto Della Liberta - Classic
Klonhertz - Three Girl Rhumba - Southern Fried Records
Jesper Dahlback - Polyhouse - ELP Medien
Ianeq - The Light - Mental Groove
Kalabrese - The 73 Chicken Fried Rice - Perlon
Victor - Go On Do It (Morgan Geist Breakfast Club Dub) - Environ