Annie - Anniemal

Happy new year from everyone here at Big Static. Whilst I don't subscribe to the whole "birth of Jesus" thing, it's a good excuse for a party and some reflection on how much of a weird year it's been. I'm going to be celebrating Jesus being around for two-thousand and six years with a good few friends at some mansion in the middle of the country. Sounds like a plan doesn't it?

With the coming of this time for the mindless yet thoroughly enjoyable celebration of fuck all, I figured I'd give you all a song to get you in the mood. It's cheesy as hell and that's kind of the point. The song sounds like Daft Punk if they ditched the computer voices they insist on using and replaced them with a strikingly hot blonde woman with a lovely, sweet little singing voice. It gives me the mental image of an Apple advert with some model dancing around whatever product Apple are putting out this week. At the end every guy would be thinking "shit, I gotta get me the new Apple qMac".

Anyway, this song's taken from Annie's first full length, it's a solid record. Twelve tracks of enjoyable dance music to get the most snobby of hipsters to take of their scarf and shake their ass. A weak track here and there but still worth snapping up.

Have a great night people, hope the new year brings you all kinds of cool shit.

Heartbeat

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Portishead - S/T

It's always slightly heart warming to see a band that hate the genre that they've been lumped in to as much as I hate it. Portishead are widely considered "trip-hop". As the band themselves would back up, it smacks of music journalists trying to make a category for pretty indefinable music. So it's pretty easy to put "trip-hop" in with "post-rock" and all those other genres that just seem pretentious and pretty useless.

Anyway, pointless moan fest over. This record is the follow up to Portishead's critically acclaimed debut. It showed them to be no one trick pony as many had thought them to be. The live jazz samples are still there and the singing is still the moving, slightly awkward clash with the samples that it ever was. I had no idea which pair of tracks to throw your way so I've given up on trying to pick and just given you the first two tracks. Totally relaxing, completely innovative, get in to it kids.

It's been rumored that a new record is on it's way, the band have come back together from their various side projects to grace us with another slab of "trip-hop" genius. I'm chock full of anticipation for it, you probably should be too.

Cowboys
All Mine

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Municipal Waste - Waste 'Em All

Guess what I'm doing right now? I'm typing with fuckin' gloves on. "Why?" you might ask. Because the heating in my room is buggered and for some reason, who ever is in charge of the weather decided that snow and thus sub zero temperatures was the way to go. Three days after Christmas no less when I could have at least gone "hey, white Christmas, cool". So as an alternative to heat, I currently have thrash. Very high grade thrash at that. The sixteen songs in thirteen minutes kind of thrash that makes you think "I'm doing a pretty good snowman impression, but I'm still rockin' out". Here's a pair of tracks from Municipal Waste's blindin' debut. Fell the thrashy goodness.

Mutants Of War
Dropped Out

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The Octopus Project - One Ten Hundred Thousand Million

Sorry about the lack of updates of late. Everyone's been too busy with opening gifts, having awkward family dinners and being really merry to actually do anything that vaguely resembles work, so none of the posters have bothered with this page much. But I would like to take this opportunity to give a big wussy thank you to all of our regular readers over these past four months. It really means a lot to me, cheers.

Anyhoo, I told you I'd be posting this as soon as I'd received it and given it a good listen to make sure it wasn't a big old disappointment. Well as you can guess, it wasn't. The Octopus Project have managed to take a fairly youthful and interesting route with the post-rock layout. Instead of the nihilistic, soul crush of Godspeed! You Back Emperor or the sweeping epic qualities of Explosions In The Sky, The Octopus Project's take is one of danceable yet completely indispensable fun. A band that you can prance around like a looney to but still manages to come off as well thought out and cleverly composed. If they played stuff like this at the local disco, I might actually bother going, and none of the pilled up dickheads that populate my town would complain because they can still "get their freak awn" to it. Everyone would be a winner.

Music Is Happiness
Tuxedo Hat

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DJ Food - Raiding The 20th Century

I sincerely suggest that anybody who has ever listened to any music in the last 100 years and liked any of it go and download DJ Food's Raiding The 20th Century. Destiny's Child vs Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, Althea and Donna vs Queen, Beastie Boys vs Franz Ferdinand, The Offspring vs Prodigy, Aqua vs Sex Pistols, S-Club 7 vs KRS-One, Kylie Minogue vs New Order... In one long track, DJ Food has managed to create the ultimate mash-up, an ode to the history of bastard pop and cut-up. If the underdogs of the internet, all the illegal downloaders around the world, are seen as an underground army of sorts then this track is without a doubt their battle cry.

This is so unbelievably hilarious and so clever that it really does have to be heard to be believed. This track is a long one - it has to be to include so much music, so I didn't want to load it on to Big Static's Streamload account. The link below is downloading it from DJ Food's site, and it is also available to anybody who uses Soulseek. I'm sure most people reading this have little problem with downloading music - this is an mp3 blog after all - and you will all probably therefore understand the humour of this track. The fact that it is quite possibly the most illegal mp3 of all time just adds to it's appeal. The whole thing is giving the middle finger to copyright laws and, as it says itself, mixes songs and artists together that were simply never meant to meet. It should feel awkward and uncomfortable but it fits together in a perfect cut-up sequence that can't fail to make anybody who listens to it smile because everybody, from your gran to your baby sister, will recognise something in this mix.

DJ Food - Raiding The 20th Century

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Throbbing Gristle - D.O.A: The Third And Final Report

Throbbing Gristle are notorious as one of the most purposely shocking experimental bands of all time. For a while they played eccentric electro songs that people like Le Tigre and Tracy & The Plastics have since copied, but then for a while they also did extreme noise-scapes that have been re-created a million times over by underground bands and performers since.

What you have to remember about Throbbing Gristle is that all of this took place in the mid-70s. Punk had just appeared, and Britain was shocked just by kids shaving their heads and putting pins through their ears... so you can imagine what the general public would make of Throbbing Gristle. Genesis P.Orridge, bass/vocals/violins, was at the time a Nazi-uniform-wearing-cross-dresser who has since had the operation to become a full-time woman. Guitarist, Cosey Fanni Tutti, was a famous porn-star who performed in strip-clubs and dirty movies to fund the band. The cover and inlay of D.O.A have photographs of a small child in her underwear lying on a bed. They sing about burns victims and death. They made headlines regularly, with the government calling them (and I quote) "wreckers of civilisation".

The song Hamburger Lady was inspired by part of a letter from Dr. Al Ackerman from Portland, USA, about a patient on his ward. You have to read it while you listen to the track to really get why this track is so disturbing, so I scanned it in for you all to have a look at if you're interested.

I know bands since have tried to be more shocking, and have probably succeeded, but you have to remember that, for their time, Throbbing Gristle were breaking boundaries that nobody had even considered touching before.



Hamburger Lady
We Hate You (Little Girls)

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Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime

Like most mid 80s LA hardcore acts, Minutemen were interested in pushing the hardcore blueprint forward from the "punk at twice the speed" simple concept it was in the first place. Along with label mates Black Flag and Husker Du, each decided to take the hardcore of old in a new direction, all three chose differently. Black Flag experimented with drone, Husker Du with a more simple rock based sound and finally The Minutemen took in pretty much everything. Whilst it is essentially a hardcore record, "Double Nickel The Dime" incorporated so many styles of guitar work throughout it's duration that sometimes you get the feeling that it was branded hardcore simply due to the strong political stand point that they take through the lyrics and of course the general speed that they play this bizarre mix of styles at.

To briefly name check the styles that Minutemen dabbled in, we have elements of flamenco, folk and country, this obviously makes for one bizarre yet strangely compelling listen.

Viet Nam
West Germany

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Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island

"On Avery Island" was one of two full lengths that Neutral Milk Hotel released before their untimely break up. Along with their follow up "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" they managed to carve themselves as one of the best lo-fi bands of all time, rubbing elbows with Guided By Voices, Sebadoh and the like. What made me pick this release over their second album is it's general way of staying true to lo-fi concepts, whilst the later record was much more technically produced and therefore lost most of the warm, fuzzy qualities that "On Avery Island" has in bucket loads.

It's quite easy to be put off by the out of key singing on first listen, but on closer inspection it seems as if the vocals are slipping and at times slightly awkward for a reason, that being to add emphasis to certain points in the lyrics, thus helping them to become more prominent under the wall of noise. So basically we have a record that seems slapped together quickly but in fact took a painful amount of subtlety and care to make it the interesting early work that it is.

Song Against Sex
Where You'll Find Me

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The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace

This post is long overdue. I can't imagine many of our readers aren't familiar with The Fall but this is just In case. "This Nations Saving Grace" comes from The Fall's more poppy time and thus I'd say makes this record more accessible for newcomers. It's generally an impressive mixture of their tried and tested feedback loaded post-punk sound with a new addition of American pop-rock, almost giving them a Joy Division quality in their dark yet catchy tracks.

I'm somewhat amazed with how well this record has aged. I try not to dabble in politics here as I don't consider myself educated on the matter at all. But there are matters of education and matters of common sense. The fact that the bleak world view that this record paints seems worryingly in tune with today's England is somewhat worrying to me but also gives validation as to why this record is still important.

Barmy
Spoilt Victorian Child

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Khanate - S/T

I figured I'd post something that's in tune with the Christmas spirit. If you want one of those huge glowing, Singing santas to fall off your neighbor's roof and squash a bunch of carol singers. I don't really dislike Christmas but that would be really funny to see. About ten annoying brats under a huge pile of wires and surprisingly heavy plastic, maybe with Santa still going "ho ho ho, meeeeerry Christmas" over the screaming kids.

Maybe I'm letting this music effect my thought process a bit much here. But an hour of sludgey doom courtesy of Southern Lord will have that effect on you. Mainly I want to post about the one song below, not that the whole album doesn't bring the doom on an absurd level but this one song really scares the shit out of me. It's called "No Joy" and it's the most soul destroying piece of audio fear imaginable. I enjoy this track the same way I enjoyed the movie "Eraserhead". They're both proof that a completely bleak concept has it's enjoyable points.

No Joy

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Blackalicious - Nia

The hip-hop posts around here have been pretty sparse of late, so here's one of my personal favorites. Blackalicious have been justifying the importance of their often criticized and mocked genre, single handedly ever since this, their debut album hit the shelves years back. Not to say they're the only decent hip-hop act going but they're certainly one of the most important and enjoyable of this era. Their MC, Gift Of Gab is a fine example of the immense amount of skill that creating a well put together rap takes. He raps in a way that's completely clear yet still manages to go at break-neck pace.

I was lucky enough to catch them live this summer and watching Gab freestyle really surprised me, not many rappers seem to have such faith in their own talent as to be able to take a chance and really show off to the fans.

I chose "Nia" over "Blazing Arrows" and this year's "The Craft" mainly due to my love of it's lo-fi presentation. Very simple production and the voice never has any trouble being heard over the beat. This wasn't as true on the two later records, they seemed slightly over produced and awkward in composure. They're great records, don't get me wrong but "Nia" just has the edge.

The Fabulous Ones
Reanimation

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Pinback - Blue Screen Life

Usually I find it hard to get in to bands that are overly emotive and sometimes whiny by nature. It's probably why I found myself completely discarding this record on first listen. "Dull suburban kids complaining about how awkward "love" is", was the initial impression I was given. But alas, time makes fools of us all and I've found myself being drawn back to this record over and over.

I guess what sets Pinback apart from the bed wetting crowd is their strong lust for a decent melody and well crafted vocal harmony as opposed to wallowing in a pit of self indulgent, melodramatic nonsense. The lyrics also seem to become less lame with each hearing. Your once powerful dislike for the heart on sleeve way of song writing can quickly be transformed in to a strong sense of warmth. Just listen to the way "Bbtone" is crafted, tell me that doesn't give the old heart strings a bit of a tug.

Bbtone
Penelope

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Pitchfork - Eucalyptus

Before there was Drive Like Jehu there was Pitchfork. The first recorded band involving Jehu's main creative team, John Reis and Rick Fork. Prior to my first hearing this record, I was expecting what you usually get with bands that later evolved in to amazing bands. A record that smacks of inexperience and an over eager nature, something for just the die hard fans. Not something that a casual Jehu fan like myself would really want to listen to on any kind of regular basis. Frankly, I was pretty damn wrong. If It wouldn't get me a beating from the Jehu fan club, I'd be tempted to call this the third Drive Like Jehu record. Perhaps "Eucalyptus" isn't as mind blowing as "S/T" or "Yank Crime" and my inexperience thought can be held true in some places. But it's a fantastic prologue to "S/T" and shows that even from a younger age, this song writing team really were something special.

This record is pretty hard to get hold of, if you enjoy the sample tracks, get it at Swami Records, it's the only place I've been able to find it.

Placebo
Twitch

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Foetus - Deaf

Recorded back when they were still under the name "You've Got Foetus On Your Breath", this record shows a blooming of the awkward and loud style of industrial that would quickly become Foetus' signature sound. Many of the bands members and diehard fans don't think much of this record, mainly due to their belief that it hasn't aged well and is insuperior to future releases. Obviously I don't agree, or I wouldn't be posting it here. Whilst perhaps it hasn't aged perfectly and it wasn't the most intellectual or well put together of their output. It does have an incredibly youthful and energetic quality to it and I find it to be somewhat endearing.

"Deaf" is about as far from easy listening as you could possibly manage. All yelped vocals and noisy samples with lyrics that wouldn't fit together in any other scenario. As much as they may not want to admit it, this noise that they loathe was somewhat of a pivotal record in their careers. They have since basically perfected the industrial sound and have proved themselves to be basically kingpins of the industrial genre.

I am Surrounded By Incompetence
Thank Heaven For Push Button Phones

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The Folk Implosion - Dare To Be Surprised

More Lou Barlow for you. This time taken from his side project during his time in Sebadoh, The Folk Implosion. In this band he found another vehicle to showcase his simple yet beautiful song writing talent. Not as guitar based as Jr or Sebadoh, it was a chance for his lyrics to really shine. Almost a whole record of "Poledo". Whilst the lyrics are the main focus, his guitar work added it's usual strong dark tone to the majority of the lyrics. The record also managed to completely shame his former band mate J Mascis who's J Mascis and The Fog project was found to be completely inferior.

Pole Position
Insinuation

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Thrones - Sperm Whale

As you may already know by now, I'm quite fond of disturbed, sludgey metal tinged music. Sounds that a number of our readers may find unlistenable but I take great enjoyment in letting them completely freak me out. Thus why I've decided to give you a pair of tracks from one of Joe Preston's many musical projects. He's spent time in The Melvins, Earth, Sunn 0))) and is currently in High On Fire. If you're familiar with any of them then you are fully aware of the awkward, noisy musical output that he is famous for.

Thrones aren't exactly similar to any of his other bands. Whilst The Melvins were big on high speed stoner and Sunn 0))) spent hours destroying everyone's ears with complete sonic nihilism. Thrones concentrate more on pure disturbed sludge metal. Crushing riffs whilst bizarre voices added an even more intense nervous feel to the recordings. The kind of music only a man as experienced in nut house styled metal as Joe Preston could perfect.

Oso Malo
Django

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The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill

This is The Young Gods, a 1990s industrial band's interpretation of the music of 1920s-1950s show composer, Kurt Weill. It sounds like a horrible concept doesn't it? Frankly, prior to hearing this, I wasn't at all familiar with The Young Gods or Kurt Weill. Both classical and industrial aren't really forms of music that I tend to dabble in too much. But this record really has caught my attention. Instead of the unpleasant, pretentious interpretation I was expecting, I was given music that seemed ideal for a gothic circus. Listening to this gives me mental images of elephants painted black and Robert Smith doing a tumbling act. An entertaining yet completely creepy display.

The Young Gods have done an inspired job here. There's still heavy elements of a classical feel to the music but their use of electronic instruments has given the music an entirely new flow. I don't know what Kurt Weill would make of it, but I feel they've handled his compositions with a level of expertise and knowledge and understanding of composure to make that dead guy and his fans proud.

Solomon Song
Alabama Song

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Utah Phillips & Ani Difranco - The Past Didn't Go Anywhere

I am SO sorry for having not posted in such a long time! Sorry, everybody!

This CD is one I was given by a friend, because he knew how much I love Ani Difranco. I have all of her stuff, but this is probably one of the most unusual of her vast discography as it features her dealing with the music side of things, lots of snappy acoustic guitars, scratching and eccentric drumbeats, with Utah Phillips talking over the top. Utah Phillips is, I quote, "a true eclectic, archivist, historian, activist, philosopher, hobo, tramp, member of the IWW, and just about everything in between." Technically he's a folk singer and story-writer. Anybody who has every heard anything by Ani Difranco will have to agree that she is one of the most gifted and important figures in folk music, or in the world of singer-songwriters, or just in the world of music... ever. I know I'm utterly biased as one of her many adoring fans, but everything and anything I have ever heard by her has been amazing, and this is no different. It's some of her more experimental stuff, but the unmistakable "Ani sound" is still there.

Utah Phillips is equally as impressive. His readings can reduce audiences to laughter and to tears within the same story. There's a lot of very moving political story telling in this, but with quite a dark sense of humour.

It's a blend of some incredible poetry and stories and beautiful musicianship. Fans of Saul Williams, Ani Difranco, post-rock, beat poetry and so on will lap this up.

Korea
Natural Resources

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Ratatat - S/T

This year I discovered two excellent, fairly unknown instrumental bands. The first was The Octopus Project which I intend to post as soon as my import of their most recent album arrives, the second was a guitar duo named Ratatat. Upon listening to them I was convinced that their music was being created through the use of keyboards and synthesizers. I was way off. It's two guys with a guitar each and the ability to use their instruments to make some incredibly enjoyable dance rock that really defies the boundaries of the sounds you should be able to create with a guitar.

El Pico
Everest

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Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

A band having serious Sabbath worship issues has never discredited their music to me. Which is probably why I enjoy Sleep and stoner rock as a genre so much. This could have something to do with my general fondness of Sabbath and my satisfaction in a wave of talent taking their music in new directions or just generally ripping them off with a certain flare and enjoyable nature. Sleep's Holy Mountain falls more in to the derivative yet completely enjoyable side. Most of the guitar work is pure Iommi masterful plodding and the vocals are clearly reminiscent of a young Ozzy.

On later albums they would branch out and make a sound that whilst not completely their own, was heavily recognizable. However, I'm drawing your attention to their earlier work simply because of it's enjoyable, hero worshipping nature. A good hour of stoned guitar wandering. A love for lyrics about bizarre mythical creatures that could have only been written by geeky D & D fans or people that are stoned out of their minds. Here's the first two tracks. Enjoy.

Dragonaut
The Druid

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Part Chimp - I Am Come

Well I've finally made my decision, Big Static's album of the year is Part Chimp's "I Am Come". Despite heavy competition from Million Dead, Lightning Bolt, French Toast and Spoon, Part Chimp just managed to take the gold with their hour of Mogwai meets Mclusky styled noise rock. They managed to improve on their debut just enough to create a record that deserves any bit of recognition it gets. I've always found it enjoyable to see a band with such an agenda. Delivering ear splitting noise with a killer melody hidden beneath a sea of distortion and yelped vocals. As Part Chimp are completely fluent in this school of musical creation, they've captured my interest enough for me to put them on this podium.

War Machine
Punishment Ride

The Boggs - Stitches

The Boggs play what could loosely be described as country/folk music. Of course they play it at about twice the speed and make the generally tired blueprint sound alive and amazing. Imagine Willie Nelson songs played by Drive Like Jehu. Feel free to think that's the dumbest idea you've ever heard. It's what I thought when someone described them to me. But the music itself really blew me away. Their sound gives off the impression that they're just doing what they want, I know that's a huge clique but in this instance it's completely valid.

Like usual, I'm flat out telling you to buy this record of you like the sample tracks. Their debut is slightly less impressive but still worth the money.

The Ark
Low Light Hour

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Suicide - S/T

As always, I've fallen in love with a record that was released about thirty years ago. Therefore ruining my chances of ever seeing the band live and making me feel like a right muppet for not having heard it years ago. I got this yesterday after being told over and over to stop being a tight fuck and shell out for it. Just yesterday! I've been alive for nearly two eras and I only just heard this yesterday. You can't see me but I assure you, I'm kicking myself.

Suicide was just two guys. Martin Rev created incredibly dark and awkward loops through the use of a synthesizer and drum machine and Alan Vega told dark stories with his slick man-bitch like vocals. Their band name was perfect to the general lyrical and musical tone of the band. It's also interesting to see that they've stood the test of time so well. Through hearing this record you can see where a number of bands pinched elements of their sound. I can hear bits of REM, Soft Cell and definitely the A.R.E Weapons in these disturbed post-punk ramblings. I can even hear bits of Bruce Springsteen's later albums in here.

Ghost Rider
Che

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Scratch Acid - The Greatest Gift (Discography)

Yeah, I know, this was released some time before this year, in fact I'm taking a break from this best of the year shit. If that annoys you, you're quite sad really.

Scratch Acid would later on become The Jesus Lizard, they were in many ways similar except Scratch Acid were more basic, disjointed and as impossible as it may seem, more disturbed. Yow's vocals were even less concerned with melody and more wrapped around the idea of scaring the shit out of their listeners. The random scream on "She Said" really caught me off guard the first time I heard it. His ability to go from his barely coherent low rambles to a scream of pure dementia is always simultaneously a joy and mind fuck to listen to. This is always backed up with some of the darkest yet surprisingly funky bass lines ever to appear on a noise record like this.

The Greatest Gift is basically a collection of their ep's and 7's, put together and distributed for us all to enjoy. Any other releases from this band are nigh on impossible to find so if you want any Scratch Acid on disk or wax, this is all you'll be able to get your hands on without spending hours on ebay or whatever, before paying a ridiculous amount for it. You can get this collection on amazon for about £5 so grab this baby up.

She Said
Lay Screaming

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Spoon - Gimme Fiction

I know, this is a pretty obvious choice for any "best of the year" list and yeah, I know this band is jocked to no end by every moronic hipster e-rag out there. But damn these guys can write a good pop song. I think it's their simplicity that does it for me. Very basic strumming, well written and engaging lyrics. They're the one indy pop band that has my full attention at the moment. Whilst Architecture In Helsinki annoyed the living hell out of me with their overly enthusiastic, high speed nonsense and Sufjan Stevens' melodramatic whining toyed with my "shut the fuck up" sense. Spoon managed to make a solid and amusing record that briefed their importance to my every day life. When I was riding the train to college, thinking of how tedious my day was going to be, putting this record in my trusty walkman managed to cheer me up just that little bit. When I had a six page essay to write on the importance of narrative in the 1950s film noir "Gilda", throwing on this record made the dirge that little bit more bearable. It's the melody, man, it just does something for me.

The Two Sides Of Monsieur Valentine
I Summon You

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