Patrick Dawes
- title
Circus Train
- label
Tummy Touch
- format
- 7inch
He has played percussion for The Herbalizer & Doc Martin,but is best known as the percussionist for Groove Armada, whose debut record 'Northern Star' had come out on Tummy Touch in 1998. He always seems to be behind the scenes though. The only time I've seen him receiving credit is on the remix of Madonna's 'Music': EUROPEAN CD SINGLE TRACKLISTING 1. Album Version (3:44) 2. Groove Armada's 7" Edit (3:38) Produced by Madonna and Mirwais Ahmadza, Track 2 Remix and Additional Production by Groove Armada. Guitar by Keeling Lee. Bass Guitar by Jonathan White. Percussion by Patrick Dawes. Additional String Arrangement by Dan Hewson.>> This single has Patrick Dawes all by himself with a B-side remix by The Mammal and Time Love Lee. As with the Crackpot 7"' on Tummy Touch I reviewed a few weeks ago, I like the original version best. The only neat thing the remix adds is a hardcore style drum break at the end of the track, like Losfeld did on one of the tracks on his CD. The song itself is an instrumental with an oboe and a wordless vocal on top of a circus sounding background, animal sounds, whistles (slide and otherwise), clarinet, drums, and percussion. The song is really fun and does not sound cluttered or stupid - just good. Fave: A-side
This compilation is very similar to the 'Cashier Escape Route' comp or the 'Putting the Morr back in Morrissey' comp. It is an electronica compilation with people who are experimenting with beats that you could not dance to. The bands are working on finding the unique sound that will elevate them to the top of a heavily populated group of peers. the most successful on this comp are L'usine, whose 'Fog' track (#7) is a remix of a Funckarma piece, and Funckarma themselves, with the 'Wiert' track (#9). I also like the last piece on the comp, the Autophonic track 'Vicious Circles' (#12) which has a machine treated vocal, an exception to this basically instrumental compilation. 'Vicious Circles' held my interest for all of its 7:30 length. Faves: 7,9,12
At this point we already have the 2 latest singles (one 7", one 12") of Tim Love Lee at WZBC. This is his newest (second) CD. Even though he runs the disco-ish Peace Fest and Tummy Touch label, the stuff on this disc seems to have more in common with the exotic sounds of Martin Denny. In fact, the first song 'Exit 747" is an instrumental that is completely classic exotica sounding. I could picture Combustible Edison playing it. 'Exit 747" leads right into 'Twilight Reservation'. These 2 songs played together combine to make my fave cut on the CD, though each song is pretty long (#1= 5:53, #2= 5:16). 'Twilight Reservation' reminds me of a Las Vegas crooner like Engleberg Humperdink doing sparse minimal vocals in a Martin Denny tune. It works oh so fine! Next is 'First Base Bossa' (#3). This song is on the 7", but it is completely different here, with Spanish phrase lessons echoing a meeting between a man and a woman to a bossa nova background. The 7" version is an instrumental, and is longer than this 1:58 version. 'The Goodbye Highway' (#8) is another long piece at 6:50. It carries the same feel as the first two tracks and is every bit as successful. The last of my fave tracks is 'Go Down Dixie' (#10). It's impact is lessened on me as I have had it for some time as a 12". I have gotten calls when I've played this song on my show, and it is a really unique piece, with the speed manipulation of the vocals during the song, and the general stucture and execution of it all. As I write that, something becomes clear to me. Tim Love Lee is using a lot of the techniques of 'dub' mixed into his exotica brew. It is a sweet drink... a Scorpion Bowl, as it might be. Faves: 1,2,3,8,10
The Beta Bodega website says that Needle (identity unknown) is an intelligence agent working out of El Salvador and the freedom fighters known as F.M.L.N. The music on this CD is very abstract. It uses Spanish voice transmisions and the sounds of electical devices to make busy and minimal collages that sound confusing and slightly sinister. The disc starts off with a very abrasive cut. The second cut I like a lot, but it is very short - just over a minute. The third track is made up entirely of female voices in Spanish. The sixth track is my favorite on the disc because it seems to combine all the ideas on the CD into one cut with very interesting end results. The eleventh track is another very abrasive song like the first track on the disc. I cannot find any titles or track listings, but Needle is possibly a collective made up on various tracks of Frank Metzger (formally of Oval), Patcha Kutek, V8, Kim Cascone (Ritornell, Rastermusic), Phonem (Morr Music), Full Swing (Orthlorng Musork, Ritornell), Sony Mao (Rice and Beans, Fal.ch), Andreas Berthling (Staalplaat, Microwave, Fällt), Øivind Idsø (Ritornell), and Random Industries (ex-Autopoieses from Mille Plateaux). If you look in Forced Exposures website and search by label for 'Beta Bodega' you will find good info about all three of the Beta Bodega records I have added today in the gullbuy. 
This double CD set in a great hardcover book sleeve has plenty to see, read, and hear from The Ventures. The book inside says that this set is special because 'it mostly caters to Ventures completists and there will be many items here that the average Ventures fan will not own. The earliest cut worth mentioning is a cover of The Shadows 'The Savage', which came out on a USA single ion 1963 (Dolton 85). Before now the only way really of hearing this was if you had a 1973 UK double album compilation Legendary Masters that carried this one collectable track!'. OK - Now for my take. I urge you to explore the link set to the band's name above. It is an amazing site that seems to have every Ventures song as an MP3. I'm not particularly crazy about this set, but then I was not a real fan of The Ventures coming into this. But I'll admit that I thought that this set would sway me. For me The Ventures are still best remembered by the 'Learn to play the Electric Bass with The Ventures' LP I had as a child. I used to use that LP to tune my bass to my turntable's version of an 'A' so I could play along with my favorite LPs at home. I can still quote the whole spoken intro and tuning procedure from that record as accurately as I can the 'Future Legend' spoken intro to Bowie's 'Diamond Dogs' LP. This double CD set seems to concentrate on later period Ventures stuff. I think many of the tracks came from Japanese only records which came out in the 70's and 80's, many with disco-ish guitars, strings, or brass. The songs I REALLY love are 1982's 'Hollywood Punk' (disc 1, #12), 1980's 'Dick Tracy' (disc 1, #22), 1966's 'Green Hornet theme' (disc 2, #17), 1966's 'Secret Agent Man' (disc 2, #18), 1963's 'The Savage' (disc 2, #22), and 1972's 'Peter & The Wolf (alt take released in Holland)' (disc 2, #23). There are a handful of vocal songs which surprised me. Some are wordless vocal songs. My fave of these is 1999's 'Kimi To Itsumademo (Stereo with Chorus)'. Some are pure pop. My fave of these would be 1976's 'Things Have Got to Get Better' (disc 2, #12). Some are Free Design styled harmony vocal fests like 1967"s 'Hey There Sunshine' (disc 1, #21). 
I picked this up because it fascinated me: it was just released, it was cheap, and I liked the back cover photo of the band, with 6 guys, three on each side of the female vocalist. Every member of the band looked interesting - not too cool to be unreal, not too square to be a drag. When I first got home and listened to it I was not too happy though. I thought the disc was not accurately reflected in Forced Exposure's writeup: 'The classic Canadian band that released the great Psychedelic Pop LP 'David' in 1969. Featuring the dreamy and spacey females vocals of Deborah Kelly, their music speaks of the ideals of the youth of the time and features some fine electric fuzz guitar, great orchestration, and backed by outstanding keyboards'. The problem was the 'dreamy and spacey females vocals of Deborah Kelly' were only in 3 of the 11 songs, and it seemed like the person who wrote that review only listened to the centerpiece song 'Because I'm Black' (#7), which IS all of things the FE review states. Deborah Kelly sings backgrounds in several others, but principally the disc has male vocals. Add to this covers of The Beatle's 'Hey Jude' and The Animal's 'House of the Rising Sun' and I was not too psyched. After listening to it for what it was instead of what I expected it to be, I discovered that I liked 7 of the songs. 'Cup Of Tea' (#5) sounded like a Kieth West / Tomorrow song. 'Flight of the Egyptian Army' (#6) is a great instrumental, 'Alvin J. Ashtray' is a Deborah Kelly vocaled mod rocker, and 'Take My Hand' (#11) features duets between her and the male vocalist with his voice inflecting like Frank Zappa in parts. The first song on the disc 'Little Boys' is Sunshine Pop that is well done, but is my least favorite of the songs I like. The 2 songs I like best are 'Descension' (#8) and 'Because I'm Black' (#7). It is almost hilarious to hear this white bread band's female vocalist singing 'Because I'm Black', though it is delivered with heart and sincerity, kind of like Lulu sang 'To Sir, With Love'. 'Descension' has a really cool processed background vocal that adds to the psychedelic feel of the song, which has 'Blood, Sweat, and Tears' styled brass in it too. 
Doppler Effekt are an electro band that also have recorded as Japanese Telecom on Detroit's Intuit Solar records. There is one song on this disc that sounds a whole lot like the excellent Boston band Freezepop. That would be 'Scientist' (#3). The female vocalist has deadpan vocals similiar to Adult or Ladytron. There are 2 songs which push the envelope of good taste when her deadpan vocals talk about sex in a clinical way that may be inappropriate for the airwaves. They are 'Pornoactress' (#13) and 'Pornoviewer' (#15). The song that's currently my fave is 'Speak & Spell' (#10) which has machine voices in it. I also like the instrumental 'Voice Activated (#9). When reseaching them to write this review, the only website I could find with useful info was in French. The following is a tweaked version of a translation of that page. 'Dopplereffekt are one of the strangest and most mysterious groups of the contemporary electronic scene. They do not give any interviews, and very seldom do any shows. Few know who they really are. Until now their discs were only available in limited editions on their Détroit label Dataphysix. Dopplereffekt hide behind strange German pseudonyms, but the names of their pieces and their texts are in English. These texts form a strange mixture of scientific jargon, political slogans and sexual allusions. The music of Dopplereffekt is very eclectic and unusual. The obvious influence of the Kraftwerk Masters should not mask the musical esthetics invented by Dopplereffekt, who are at the origin of the current electro revival. DJ Hell, éminence of the German label International Deejay Gigolo Records, established contact with Dopplereffekt in Detroit. For the first time on CD the complete works of Dopplereffekt ( 2 LPs plus one 45) was made possible'.
Partnership of Stewart Walker & Jake Mandell doing experimental techno electronics. This 12" is my fave of the three Beta Bodega Coalition releases being added this week. It is very bright and upbeat sounding and has sounds that make it appear very futuristic instead of merely experimental. Hamijama might also include Yakeshi Muto (half of Phoenicia). Beta Bodega coalition shares the same type of views and identity as Green Galactic, 
This 23 minute EP is Bungalow's first release of 2001. There are 4 versions of the song 'Move Your MP3'. With repeating lyric of 'Put your left hand in the air, and your MP3 in your underwear' we are not talking any intellectual stretcher here. Despite that stupid line, I did enjoy the (somewhat cliche) web/sex euphemisms of the lines 'I met you in a web cafe, your eyes were monochrome' and 'Your mouth and eyes were photoshop, your body Freehand 5. I had to download you directly on my floppy drive'. My fave version is the first one, the 3:37 edit. It starts off with 'Blue Monday'-styled New Order beats, and has male vocals. The second mix is the 6:24 Adamski mix, which changes the feel to that of a Chic song. Fantastic Plastic Machine's 7:20 mix is OK but not astounding. It sounds like 70's TV police show theme music (brass and strings) with a disco 4/4 beat. It has a neat break at the -4:00 point, but spends the last three minutes of the song in useless repetition of the music. Finally, the 5:35 long version of the original cut closes the EP, the extra 2 minutes not really adding anything. 
Marco Haus runs this label and created the music on this 12". Shitkatapult is a division of Kompakt Records which has very quickly established itself by putting out somewhat minimal tech-house records with abrasive edges. The 2 recent Rechenzentrum 12"s on this label were very popular on WZBC. This 22 minute 4 song EP has 2 songs I like a lot, and 2 that are just OK. The 2 I like are the first songs on each side. The first song on the A-side 'Zarbitter' (delicate bitter) has the 4/4 beat, but it feels like it's being viewed through a haze of smoke with the warped background sound that makes it feel like a fatigued march. The second song 'Bittersuess' (bittersweet) seems similiar to the first song, but not as hazy and therefore not as interesting to me. On the B-side, the first song is 'Der Leirkastenmann'. It is the longest song on the 12" at 7:57 and is my favorite as well. The mechanized sound of it is like being in a factory, or maybe a washing machine. Difference is, I LIKE listening to this repetitive rhythm, while a factory is just plain boring. Another way of looking at it is like it is a funky factory's dub. The last song is 'Es Foehrt Ein Zug Nach Nirgendwa' (This train is going nowhere). It is the shortest of the 12"s songs at 2:57, and my least fave. It floats like a song on an Enraptured 7".
The Strokes are a NYC band that are bringing back the Trash & Vaudeville black stovepipe trouser look and the sound of 1976 NYC art punk. 'The Modern Age' (#1) starts with a riff that sounds like Plastic Bertrand's 'Ca Pane Pour Moi', guitars that sound like The Feelies, and vocals that sound like Lou Reed. It is a catchy tune that really propels itself. 'Last Nite' keeps the 'Feelies' comparison, but adds a quick guitar solo that Robert Quine might have played for Richard Hell when he was in the Voidoids. 'Barely Legal' sounds like what already to me is 'The Strokes' sound. You see, while they recall earlier bands lots of times, they are doing their own thing. In 1976 no NYC band would have sounded liked this because Julian Casablancas vocals are just too melodic, practiced, and nice sounding in the end. First wave punk bands at the time featured vocalists who had voices that rubbed traditional ideas of 'good vocalists' in the face. Julian Casablancas voice sounds just perfect, but it works in 2001. I kind of hope that they can release a full length as strong as this 3 song EP and put NYC back on the map where it once stood as a worldclass leader in sound.
Big new reconstruction of this track licensed from Mille Plateaux - features: Swap ( music aus strom), Spike (push button objects), & Otto Von Schirach (schematic's secret weapon). Steve Castro's Miami FL label Beta Bodega puts out political music by technological subversives. On this 4 tracker there is one track by Ultra-Red, a remix of that track by Otto Von Schirach, then 2 other Ultra-Red tracks: 1 remixed by Leekon, 1 by Spike. Ultra-Red are a Los Angeles collective who fit into the Beta Bodega activist scheme through their work involving fights including one against the destruction of hundreds of low income housing units deemed by the city to be structurally unsound, yet declared by independent architects to be OK except for a small handful of units. Ultra-Red have gone on the frontlines of the bulldozer teams and stopped them from knocking down homes. Their work almost exactly parallels one of the plots within James Elroy's 'The Big Nowhere'. 
The second CD by Angela of Wierdo Records and Dave Dugan, who record together as The Phenomenological Boys. We are very lucky to have this disc. It is a CDR that the artists seem to have just tossed off without any expectations. As with the first CD they put out, it is worth much more than that to us. Angela has an amazing knowledge of many separate genres and styles of music, yet a disarmingly down to earth no no-nsense personality. The Phenomenological Boys is an experimental sounding project. My fave tracks are the 2 most regular sounding, and probably the least likely to be performed live successfully, involving multi-tracked vocals (#1) or samples (#13) as they do. 'The Puppy' (#1) has Angela's chorus of vocals sounding like a bit of the melody was copped from 60's girl group sounds. 'The Pussy-Cat Polka' (#13) has a jazzy stucture and nice vocals, with fun lyrics about cats and tasty samples. I just love that song! 'What Made Her Wish to Die?' (#4) uses vocals, an acoustic guitar, and a broken acoustic guitars stuck strings to make an interesting and pleasant song that reminded me of Rebby Sharp. 'Do You See Me On My Knees?' (#7) sounds like some of the women art/hardcore groups that WZBC DJs Ivanna (Tues 12-3 PM) and Sandra (Tues 3-5 PM) play on their shows. It is an insane song - totally over the top vocals and a sax part like the Screaming Luttenbachers. 'Alan Bishop's Roller Skates' (#2) reminds me of some of the more experimental stuff by SF duo Crawling With Tarts. 'Wednesday' (#6) is interesting but not one of my faves. It has a totured whisper vocal like Kim Gordon used to do, and somewhat sparse backing from a constant plucked guitar, drums, and some keyboard. It is a good song and well put together, just not particularly my thing with the vocal.