Almost in the beginning was the Murderer...

...according to the opening lines on Current 93's new album, Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain, just announced for an early May release. Apparently scaled back from the typically ambitious original plans (three albums) to a single release with eight tracks, albeit in the usual wallet punishing array of superspecial limited editions, the latest version of C93 is the first one for years without the input of principal instrumentalist Michael Cashmore, substituting instead a bewildering cast including guitarist James Blackshaw (presumably in the Cashmore role), Coil's Ossian Brown, harpist/singer Baby Dee, porn actress Sasha Grey (that's right), mental person Andrew WK, Rickie Lee Jones, Andrew Liles and, inevitably, Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton. 

Unknown whether chief mad person David Tibet's recent thing for Om/Sleep style doom metal will make its way to the music; last year's presumed sneak preview EP Birth Canal Blues was mainly piano driven, albeit with the occasional blast of tape loop and the unforeseen introduction of Nivek Ogre style vocal treatments. Lyrical content is presumably the usual blend of nursery rhyme imagery and screaming religious apocalypse, unless by some chance Mr WK has brought along the goodtime beer drinkin' party vibe, which I can't see, myself. 2006's Black Ships Ate The Sky was occasionally brilliant but desperately long and eventually somewhat monotonous  - hopefully the eight tracks suggests a tightly edited effort as opposed to a series of 10-minute plus epics...

First 93 seconds of the album are available for download via Canadian label Jnana Records. Those needing more free Current 93 might look to the unlikeliest of sources, this month's Mojo Magazine, the cover disc of which apparently includes the Nick Cave collab version of "All The Pretty Little Horses" off the classic 1995 album of the same title. Next month, Rolling Stone with a Crass flexidisc, one presumes.

Mode Tracklisting

Depeche Mode have released the track-listing for the forthcoming, inelegantly titled Sounds of the Universe, out April 20th.

1. In Chains
2. Hole To Feed
3. Wrong 
4. Fragile Tension
5. Little Soul
6. In Sympathy
7. Peace
8. Come Back
9. Spacewalker
10. Perfect
11. Miles Away/The Truth Is
12. Jezebel
13. Corrupt

Album sounds promising* - produced by Ben Hillier, who oversaw 2005's Playing The Angel, easily DM's best album for a decade. Partly the fruits of Martin Gore's recent obsession with vintage analog gear, it's apparently more electronic than recent efforts, and, although no-one's released a song count, it sounds like Dave Gahan contributed more than a couple of tracks to the album - given the progress in his songwriting suggested by 2006's solo Hourglass, that's not bad news. Thirteen tracks in total; not clear whether that includes dodgy instrumental linking bits, but it presumably includes two of Martin Gore's increasingly histrionic lead vocals.

April 6th sees the release of first single, "Wrong", presumably followed by a punishingly long tour of the world's arenas. Hopefully this time without The Bravery shitting things up as hopelessly-out-of-depth opening band.

*Better than the latest logo, one hopes, which is poo.

Hicks on Letterman Tonight

For reasons unknown, but presumably related to the imminent 15 year anniversary of the man's death, David Letterman will finally play the Bill Hicks stand-up performance that CBS banned back in 1993, along with a current interview with Bill's mother. Here's Houston's own outlaw comic on rock stars, from the "Relentless" tour, now available as part of the essential Bill Hicks Live DVD, which includes the aforementioned Montreal gig in its entirety, "Revelations" from the Dominion in London, the first 30-minute HBO One Night Stand, and the Just A Ride documentary. All for $13, so you've no fucking excuse at all for not owning it. New feature-length documentary apparently coming soon too.

Random YouTube Friday Fugazi - Waiting Room

From 1990's compilation of the first two EPs, 13 Songs. Come back MacKaye; your country needs you.

Hours Of Sophisticated Amusement

 

Obamicon.me

New Neko Case Single Available For Free Download

"People Got A Lotta Nerve," the first single off upcoming Neko Case album Middle Cyclone, is now available for free download from Anti-.  Click here for the 192kbps mp3, or play with the thingy below to listen as a stream. Fox Confessor Brings The Flood was one of 2006's better albums, and the single, blending Kirsty MacColl harmonies with an alt.country twang, suggests good things from the follow-up, due March 3rd.

Amazon MP3 Store Deals

Amazon's regularly shoveling albums out at $1.99. Even as a physical media fascist that's too good a deal to pass up, particularly since everything in the store is 256k non-DRM mp3. Currently featured at this price: The Verve's 1997 classic Urban Hymns and The Best of The Animals. Off ye go.

Random YouTube Friday Delivered Late on SundayFlipper - Sex Bomb

Sludgy San Francisco hardcore from a favorite band of Kurt Cobain (Krist Novoselic was actually in the reformed lineup from 2006 to 2008). From the recently reissued, classic 1982 debut (CD late last year, digital just popped up on eMusic last week), Album - Generic Flipper, here's a live version of "Sex Bomb" in its entire seven minute glory. The reissue series includes the second album, Gone Fishin', the double live Public Flipper Limited and the compliation Sex Bomb Baby.

RIP Virgin

The two Orange County Megastores are still in their "Everything Must Go" death throes as the first, widely expected major casualty of 2009 is named - the Times Square Virgin Megastore, the largest music store by volume in the US, will close in April, leaving just five Virgins left in the country (and none in the UK, with the ludicrously rebranded Zavvi now in administration and shops closing by the hour), with the Union Square location almost certain to go this year as well, a victim, as the Times Square shop, of a predatory landlord. This leaves the only dedicated music/media chain the US as FYE, which runs a fleet of shops so fucking worthless in terms of price and selection that it's probably done just as much to turn the public off buying music as BitTorrent and Bono combined.

The US Virgin closings are actually something of a loss - still true "Megastores" in terms of size in an era where most of the British originals were pale imitations of the original concept. Obviously not the place to go if you're looking for an autographed Crucifucks bootleg or original Krautrock import vinyl, they nonetheless had a reasonably deep catalog, (at least prior to the recent shift of floorspace to mp3 players and shitty clothing) and decent sale prices. After the passing of Tower (a superior chain in every way), and HMV's retreat from the US, the Union Square location in NYC became the city's de facto mass-market record store, at least for those unwilling to get within a hundred yards of Times Square. (The hipsters may turn their noses up at the very idea of shopping at a chain, but I picked up 24 Hours of Throbbing Gristle on CD at the Orlando Megastore just two years ago, which a) says something about the selection, and by the way b) there's not a lot more satisfying than walking out of a store smack in the middle of the Disney empire with one full day's worth of misanthropic, bleak '70s industrial music - surely the only object in the place more fetishistic and vaguely fascistic than the omnipresent Mouse itself).

What's left, and frequently ignored, is an unaffiliated network of world-class independents across the country, differing wildly in terms of size and appearance but following three common models. First, the gigantic, record nerd warehouse, where your Crucifucks bootleg is available with three different covers, and well-priced used music nestles next to new stuff, staffed by people who own even more music than you do. Amoeba in California is the obvious example here (I'm off to worship at the San Francisco shrine this week); other enterprising souls try to stuff the same concept into 500 square feet (New York's Other Music, Good Records in Dallas). The second model adds movies, toys, books, shirts and becomes essentially a pop-culture mecca (Twist & Shout in Denver, Newbury Comics in Boston). The third focuses on a specific genre or subculture (Seattle's Singles Going Steady). These shops are still stuffed with people every time I go in, and the simple trick here is they've given people a reason to come.

The decline of physical media has been well established; the total death of it has been greatly exaggerated. The fact that, in the face of the choice presented by Amazon, eBay, etc., people are less prepared to go into a useless fucking FYE and drop $19 on a new release isn't cause for alarm — it's consumer common sense in action. Going to a record shop used to be like freebasing pop culture — a concentrated, exhilarating rush to the brain. The great ones, the ones that reflect their community; the ones that work inside the local music scene; the ones who refuse to hire some stupid cunting slack-jawed twat who doesn't know who fucking Joy Division are when I go in asking for the vinyl reissues, these will continue to breed loyalty much like the indie label that cares about packaging and listens to its customers (and artists, for that matter). The big chains act like the big labels, and no-one really gives a fuck about either of them.

Mainstream music may well be too far down the road to commoditization to survive in the traditional formats (although plenty of you bought the new Coldplay album, apparently), but music is as diverse as the written word - the fact that entire genres of books are produced exclusively in shitty paperback doesn't mean people aren't still buying leather-tooled literary works, or Taschen's magnificent art and design books. If your idiot 14-year-old sister is fine buying/stealing her Hannah Montana on mp3 (and presumably her Chicken Soup For The Teenage Soul books on Kindle), then that's fine, she shouldn't have nice things anyway, and FYE'll go down the shitter without her business, but it won't affect me buying interesting music from interesting people in interesting shops.

Joy Division Documentary Streaming On Pitchfork

Grant Gee's fantastic feature-length 2007 documentary on Joy Division is streaming in high-quality video in its entirety at Pitchfork.tv. Head over there or watch it below. Indispensable, unlike this. And these.

Random YouTube Friday:Adam & The Ants - Never Trust A Man (With Egg On His Face)

The Mk.2 Ants live in Tokyo in 1981 performing "Never Trust A Man" off the classic 1979 debut, Dirk Wears White Sox, an album I'm almost positive Franz Ferdinand have listened to once or twice. Not entirely sure what number two drummer Merrick is doing bopping around his handbag on the left, mind.

New Moz

Morrissey's back, more Smiths-sounding than for several years, with a new single, "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" that bodes well for upcoming and recently leaked album Years Of Refusal after 2006's disappointing Ringleader of the Tormentors, which in turn came after 2004's victorious return to form You Are The Quarry. 

Things don't appear to have gone terribly well in the interim however, as the gentleman who two years ago appeared to be on an atypically candid (and successful) quest for arse (the only recent lyrical visual I could have done without more than "explosive kegs between my legs" is Robert Smith singing about getting sucked off on the last Cure album) is now well back to form, throwing his arms around the titular city because "only stone and steel accept my love." Careful mate, you could get a nasty scratch.

Comedy Trousers

There's really fuck all to write about at the moment as we're a couple of weeks away from any new releases and I can't be arsed to trawl through the back catalog and come up with something pithy. By way of recompense, here's rare live footage of Depeche Mode, featuring Dave Gahan in the world's tallest pair of trousers, covering Bryan Ferry covering the Everly Brother's "The Price Of Love" in Amsterdam in 1981, a performance that Haircut 100 might reject as a little twee, and one that makes much of debut album Speak & Spell sound like Minor Threat by comparison. Ace.

Random YouTube Friday:Throwing Muses - Not Too Soon/Bright Yellow Gun

Among the best and most interesting of the early 90s college rock explosion. "Not Too Soon" is from 1991's outstanding The Real Ramona, the last album with Tanya Donnelly in the lineup. "Bright Yellow Gun" is from 1995's University.

Fucking Record Company Bastards

Steve Jobs's dumpy replacement announced today at MacWorld that all music available on iTunes will henceforth be available in the "Plus" format — 256kbps mp3 with no DRM — along with a tiered pricing model for music - 69¢, 99¢ and $1.29 per song, depending, presumably, on the whim of the studios. The upgraded DRM-free encoding is a good thing, although Amazon has been offering the same thing across a catalog at least as large for some time now. The tiered pricing is somewhat problematic, but, assuming the $1.29 price is for new releases, might conceivably be a bonus, depending on how much catalog stuff is priced at the bottom tier. I've got a feeling we'll see the CD model followed, however, making the 69¢ tier the equivalent of the $8.99 "Nice Price" album while popular older stuff is still flogged at close to 19 bucks.

This has always been utterly counter-intuitive (and a model not followed, for example, by the same fucking studios when trying to shift their movies). Damn near every human being on the planet owns a copy of Revolver, for example. There's no reason for this (overrated) album to run nearly 20 bucks, but it does. What can you get for $8.99? Rick Astley's Greatest Hits, or The Cure's Wild Mood Swings, the latter an album so dire that Robert Smith's embarrassment physically manifested itself in 125 pounds of extra tits and gut. 

If the major labels are going to survive they're going to have to stop acting like cunts to their customers. This includes:

a) Shitty limited editions of new releases in piss-poor packaging with a "bonus" DVD containing an electronic media kit (this is the equivalent of bundling an advert for the car with your new fucking car, and then charging 20% extra for the edition).

b) Charging outrageous prices for music that has turned a profit thousands of times over. EMI doesn't need to continue to clear $7 profit on every copy of Dark Side Of The Moon. It's the rock equivalent of Smokey And The Bandit - it ought to run a fiver.

c) Further hastening the demise of physical music by this "eco-packaging" trend that manages to position cheap, shitty packaging as an environmentally conscious bonus (this is happening in a particularly egregious fashion in the UK, with back catalog stuff suddenly getting repackaged in what appears to be fragments of used egg carton). They ought to be treating the 25 of us left still buying physical media nicely, not rubbing our faces in it. This lesson appears to have been learned with regard to the thriving vinyl market, where new and back catalog albums are lavishly packaged in gatefold sleeves on 180 gram vinyl. There's no reason to stuff a $19 CD in a package that even 1997-era AOL would reject as cheap shit. My copy of PJ Harvey's White Chalk came wrapped in poo-smeared newspaper.

d) Ill-conceived, poorly remastered, badly packaged Deluxe/Legacy/Collector Editions of albums that don't deserve it, with a bonus disc containing six remixes you've already got and a live bootleg that should have stayed bootleg, plus sleeve notes written by Paul Morley, recycled from an earlier piece written by Paul Morley.

e) Stop designing otherwise splendid $75 box sets where the discs themselves (you know, the things with the actual music on them) are tucked into scratchy little slits in the book or crap cardboard sleeves, thus ensuring the discs are all scratched to buggery before I've even broken the shrinkwrap.

f) Releasing records by Coldplay.

4AD Free Digital Compilation

The nice people at 4AD have a free compilation of tracks the label released in 2008 available to download here. Artists include Stereolab, The Breeders, Deerhunter and TV On The Radio, whose last album was by some margin the most disappointing thing I listened to last year. The mp3s are all tagged according to the source album rather than as a compilation, so you'll have to fuck around with those, and the whole thing's encoded at a pretty disappointing 96kbps, but it's worth at least temporary space on iTunes to check out anything you may have missed.

Most of the 4AD catalog is available on emusic (along with the rest of the Beggars Group labels), which is well worth the $12 each month it costs for 50 non-DRM'ed 192kbps mp3s, particularly for padding out the back catalog. The monthly forced expiration of your downloads actually works to the system's benefit as it compels you to download a few test tracks of stuff you might not otherwise have listened to. The low cost per song also means that, should you download something utterly fucking awful, like, say, the new Antony & The Johnsons EP, you can happily and immediately purge it from your hard drive.

Random YouTube Friday:Coil - The First Five Minutes After Violent Death/The Golden Section

Some enterprising Italian person has taken scenes from 1922 Danish witchcraft "documentary" Haxan and set them to two Horse Rotorvator/Gold Is The Metal era Coil tracks.  The result is somewhat unsettling, but that's Coil for you.

Albums Of The Year 2008: 10-1

10. The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust

Fantastic return to form from Danish feedback/girl group fans, with a dark, menacing collection of songs that mix Shangri-Las vocals and lyrical beauty/death obsession with chiming guitar and heavy distortion.  Lead-off track "Aly, Walk With Me" is a standout. They followed it up with no less than four EPs, one a month, through the end of the year.

9. Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night

I'd never paid this lot much attention before because they looked like Lynrd Skynrd and I'm not fucking having it, but Only By The Night is a great album, full of 70s-influenced American rock anthems. They'd cut their hair too, thank fuck, so I was able to listen to it. 
[Sex On Fire]

8. Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree

The dominatrix takes a holiday in a remote west country village and delivers an album of pastoral beauty, and, let's not deny it, billowy translucent dresses. Single "A&E" and opening track "Clowns" are standouts.

7. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement

Arguably more interesting than the second Arctic Monkeys album , and I've heard fuck all by The Rascals, Alex Turner and Miles Kane's side project resulted in a brilliant album of British indie through a widescreen 60s filter of dramatic orchestral flourishes - a Northern Scott Walker soundtracking a Len Deighton thriller while Christine Keeler peels her stockings off.
[The Age Of The Understatement]

6. M83 - Saturdays = Youth

Smells like clove cigarettes and cheap perfume. Flawlessly executed tribute to mid 80s synthpop and John Hughes/Savage Steve Holland movies. "Graveyard Girl" and "Kim & Jessie" are classics of the period, delivered 20 years later.
[Kim & Jessie]

5. Young Knives - Superabundance

With most of the recent postpunk revivalists failing to sustain the promise of their first or first couple of albums (Bloc Party, Futureheads), Ashby's Young Knives released a second album that was richer and more diverse than 2006's Voices of Animals and Men.  Witty, sarky and great fun - classic indie from a band that looks like a trio of John Hodgmans. Nice tweed jackets too.
[Terra Firma]

4. Toadies - No Deliverance

Long awaited return of Fort Worth's finest sees a return to the sound of their debut, Rubberneck, with a heavier dose of Texas bar band boogie. Exceeded expectations, and they were terrific in concert. Now, where's the Brutal Juice reunion album?
[No Deliverance]

3. The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

Jersey punks channelling Springsteen through a Social Distortion/Against Me filter built blue collar character studies into gritty, romantic street anthems. Brilliant from start to finish, particularly the title track and closer "The Back Seat."

2. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Party album of the year, MGMT's debut mixes electro, indie and dashes of funk. A stunning debut.
[Time To Pretend]

1. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

The Bad Seeds leave the piano at home but remember to bring Grinderman's guitars with them. Louder and brasher than the last couple of albums, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! mixes street life, biblical allegory and a sexual braggadocio befitting the owner of the world's greatest moustache. Utterly essential.