Spaced out disco-house-dub sounds.  The long legacy of Kraftwerk is in full effect, with their offspring adding some soul to the electronics. Plodding, nodding, swirling and whirling. DFA pop up with another awesome remix, and New Zealand is represented by The Presets in a more laid back mood. Tenebre should sound rather familiar to any Justice fans out there. Good pair of headphones for this one I think.

Tracklisting

Going Out – Coyote

Hallelujah – Happy Mondays

The Boxer (DFA Remix) – The Chemical Brothers

Dune – Richard Gateaux

Lullaby For Robert – Al Usher

As I Moved On (Run Jeremy Band/Trentemoller Remix) – Blue Foundation

Love Train (Chicken Lips Remix) – Wolfmother

Do The Whirlwind (Metronomy Remix) – Architecture In Helsinki

Summer Of Love – The Presets

Tenebre – Goblin

One Pure Thought (Supermayer Remix) – Hot Chip

I Feel Space – Lindstrom

A Feeling Of The All-Thing – Kelley Polar

Originally released in late March 2008 for Easter, it’s a peaceful selection of folk music being produced by young musicians bringing the traditional folk genre up to date with modern instruments and crossing with other contemporary genres.

The name “Easter” originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. She listened to folk music. If she was alive today she’s download this episode and listen to it whilst celebrating Easter.

Tracklisting

I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From (Royksopp remix) – Kings Of Convenience
If You’re Into It – Flight of the Conchords
Pass It On – The CoralThe Magpie/Rothbury Road/Cold Shoulder – Kathryn Tickell
Tir A Mor – Richard James
Here At The Right Time – Josh Ritter
Sophie – Jake Thackery
Unreleased studio track – Tycoons Follies
Montevideo – Alfie
Samson – Regina Spektor
Failure – Kings of Convenience
A Ribbon For My Hair – Bent

The internet music programme has returned in an archive format. With the best of the shows from its short life time. The site isn’t in iTunes any more it’s just here, so if you’ve found it or come back to find an old show then i hope you find it. If there’s a show you want to hear again but isn’t here drop me an email and i’ll see if i can dig it out.

Track listing

I Only Have Eyes For You – The Flamingos

Come Around – Timbaland (featurin g MIA)

Take Off – Sebastia n (featuring Timbaland)

Give It To Me (Sta remix) – Timbaland (featuring Nelly Furtado )

Calabria – Enur (featuring Natasha)

Got To Give It Up – Marvin Gaye

Metronomy (remix) – Architecture in Helisinki

Spottieottiedopaliscious – Outkast

Born Under A Bad Sign – Ellen McIlwaine

Who Put The Bomp? – Barry Mann

Hit the road Jack – Ray Charles

Sweet Talkin’ Guy – The Chiffons

Tears Dry On Their Own – Amy Winehouse

Walkin’ Back To Happiness – Helen Shapiro

Dance Tonight – Paul McCartney

Breakdown – Mos Def

Woodstock – Alice Smith

Doo Wop (That Thing) – Lauren Hill

Blue Moon – The Marcels

I’m Blue – Ikettes

Sometimes I feel Like Motherless Child – Kathleen Emery

18 With A Bullet – Pete Wingfield

I Only Have Eyes For You – The Flamingos

Come Around – Timbaland (featurin g MIA)

Take Off – Sebastia n (featuring Timbaland)

Give It To Me (Sta remix) – Timbaland (featuring Nelly Furtado )

Calabria – Enur (featuring Natasha)

Got To Give It Up – Marvin Gaye

Metronomy (remix) – Architecture in Helisinki

Spottieottiedopaliscious – Outkast

Born Under A Bad Sign – Ellen McIlwaine

Who Put The Bomp? – Barry Mann

Hit the road Jack – Ray Charles

Sweet Talkin’ Guy – The Chiffons

Tears Dry On Their Own – Amy Winehouse

Walkin’ Back To Happiness – Helen Shapiro

Dance Tonight – Paul McCartney

Breakdown – Mos Def

Woodstock – Alice Smith

Doo Wop (That Thing) – Lauren Hill

Blue Moon – The Marcels

I’m Blue – Ikettes

Sometimes I feel Like Motherless Child – Kathleen Emery

18 With A Bullet – Pete Wingfield

There was once a time (as the sixties turned into the seventies) when pretty much all music that wasn’t classified as pop, classical, jazz, or (the dreaded) easy listening, was known simply as ‘underground’ or ‘progressive’.

Everything contemporary, unusual and otherwise unclassifiable found its way into a rack in the record store that was labelled just ‘progressive’. Naturally this was the principal place I would look for anything exciting or challenging. I would return to the same few stores in Manchester and thumb through the same collections of discs week by week, wondering whether or not to buy a particular disc, invariably one adorned with a curious image and with an esoteric sounding title, trying to decide if the music would be as enjoyably intriguing as the sleeve. There was no internet to aid research, so almost everything I sampled was based on personal recommendation, or a lead from an enthusiastic NME or Melody Maker review. More often than not I simply bought it on a whim, or after a cursory listen to a track or two in the listening booths still installed in the better stores.

Faced with a mixed lot of largely unknown and previously unheard discs, and with precious little guidance, it is remarkable that most albums I picked up were by and large fresh and eminently listenable. Some of what I found was truly progressive, in a way that I don’t think has been heard since. The world of music really was opening up. In that first explosion of audio experimentation, I discovered things that are genuinely timeless, and so, with the passing of time, here I am still listening.

A cautionary note, however. Please do not confuse ‘progressive’ with ‘Prog’. At some sad time in the early- to mid-seventies, the likes of ELP, Rick Wakeman and Yes would appear to have embarked upon a willful and systematic ruination of the genre. With each new album they recorded longer and longer pieces, but for no discernible benefit, and with less and less musical discipline or charm. Often they had fairly meaningless ‘concepts’ underlying them, in an attempt to imbue them with some sort of higher musical significance.

Thus it was that the perfectly acceptable, and suitably descriptive, tag of ‘progressive’ was mercilessly shortened to simply ‘Prog’ rock. This was a quite different term for what was quite different music altogether, albeit springing from similar origins. This rather pejorative term has lingered in the collective memory as one which not only sums up this other largely unpleasant musical backwater, but sadly has also besmirched the heritage and credibility of musically sophisticated recordings such as the ones to be found in this collection.

What we have in this playlist, by way of clarification, is mostly work from those early days of progressive, and is definitely not what I would call ‘Prog’. This, instead, is from the time when pop seemed to turn to rock almost overnight, and the LP found favour as a preferred medium to the 3 minute single, which by then was already redolent of the first psychedelic era. A later playlist will address more directly the transition from pop single to rock LP track, but these recordings are definitely album material only. They are somewhat longer than 3 minutes, no longer constrained by 7″ vinyl nor daytime radio restrictions, and whilst they feature extended instrumental passages, and are musically quite complex, they display a sparkling sense of musical invention. The basic instrumentation of electric guitar, bass, drums was augmented first with keyboards, then often with wind and strings, and most significantly, with their electronic counterpart: the magnificent mellotron.

This collection begins and ends with pieces by Van der Graaf Generator, who are archetypal ‘progressive’, and a band truly without equal. The opener ‘Man Erg’, from their opus ‘Pawn Hearts’, has been played continuously by me since its release in 1971, and it still chills me with its haunting presence. The last piece is an impassioned live rendition of ‘Childlike Faith in Childhood’s End’, which was the closing track from the penultimate Van der Graaf album, ‘Still Life’, before they called it a day in 1976, and laid the way clear for Punk.

I could write much more about the other songs in this list, and detail my reasons for selecting them, but I’m hoping that you’ll discover and enjoy this music with that same spirit of enquiry that I did first time around.

Track listing coming soon

aka Pookie Wonder ’s Payback aka Dang Radio on the Internet Music Programme.

Extra special episode this week, courtesy of Pookie Wonder of the Mighty Dang Radio.All kinds of music of the highest order. Listen now and then go directly to www.dangradio.com When you get there you’ll find a sort of parallel universe with an Internet Music Program me guest episode on the hot Dang Radio. Its a bit like the Take On Me video by Aha, proper trippy, through the looking glass situtaion.

Track listing

M.I.A – M.I.A

Eddie Bo – The (Dang) Thang

Eve ft Swizz Beatz – Tambourine

The Kingsmen (or Kinks?) – Louie Louie

Belleville Rendevous Prince – Chelsea Rodgers

The Go! Team – Grip like a vice (Clash the Disco Kids Remix)

Bjork – Earth Intruders (Spank Rock Remix)

Go Home Productions – Supreme Evil

Electric Light Orchestra – Sweet Talking Woman

Jerry Lee Lewis – Money (that’s what I want)

Barrett Strong – Money (that’s what I want)

Etta James – Money (that’s what I want)

The Trashmen – Money (that’s what I want)

The Flying Lizards – Money (that’s what I want

Easy Star All–Stars – Money

Mr Vegas – Lean wid it

Ginuwine – Pony (instrumental)

Aldo Vanucci – The Last Goodbye

Toots & The Maytals – Louie Louie

Randy’s AllStars – Batman

Helen Reddy – Hit the road Jack

The Lions ft Noelle – Think

Leroy Sibbles – Express Yourself

Johnny Osbourne – Truth and Rights

Kate Bush – Rocket Man

Tracklisting coming soon

Many thanks this week to djtc for providing the audio excursion. There’s some beautiful pieces of music to enjoy, so pop your headphones on and loose youself for an hour. In his own words:

“Picking up on the “global” tag of this global interweb thing, here’s a show in lots of different languages – 11, to be precise – performed by people from all over the planet. It’s a bit like a hi-fi version of when you were young and you used to mess around with the longwave radio to find foreign stations…

Oh, and you can play everyone’s favourite Anglophone game – listen to the tracks and see if you can hear any English words in the foreign-ness. For example, on the final track: “where am I? Bushey!”, or on the Sigur Rós effort: “You sigh low”, et cetera.”

Tracklisting

La Bague (French) – Cerys Matthews (Wales)

Murmullo (Spanish) – Buena Vista Social Club (Cuba)

Hana (Japanese) – Asa-Chang and Junray (Japan)

untitled track 4 (”Hopelandish”) – Sigur Rós (Iceland)

Vökuró (Icelandic) – Björk (Iceland)

Aprés Moi (French, English and Russian) – Regina Spektor (USA)

Afro-Left (”Djum-Djum”) – Leftfield (England)

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (Urdu) – Cornershop (England)

Arglwydd Dyma Fi (Welsh) – Cerys Matthews (Wales)

Tres Equis (Spanish) – Cypress Hill (USA)

Ils Étaient Une Fois (French) – Saïan Supa Crew (France)

No Caminho Do Bem (Portuguese) – Tim Mala (Brazil)

Gwreiddiau Dwfn Mawrth Oer Ar Y Blaned Neifion (Welsh) – Super Furry Animals (Wales)

Urami Bushi (Japanese) – Meiko Kajo (Japan)

As a bonus the tracklisting is ‘themed’ too. See if you can figure it out

Track listing

Layla, by Eric
Samson, by ??????
Julia, by John
Edward, by James
Jolene, by Dolly
Shadrach, by Adam
Laura, by Jason
Michael, by Alex
Debra, by Bek
Lenny, by Gareth
Suzanne, by Leonard
Daniel, by William (originally by Reginald)

And what better way to start than with a lickle bit a reggae music fi ya to bubble and wine to.

Tracklisting

The Prince – Madness

The Rain – Bruce Ruffin

Cool Out Son – Junior Murvin

On My Radio – The Selecter

Money – Easy All Stars

King – UB40

Lip Up Fatty – Bad Manners

Mirror In The Bathroom – The Beat

Liquidator – Harry J Allstars

Red Red Wine – Tony Tribe

Truth And Rights – Johnny Osbourne

Youths Dem Cold – Richie Spice

Tears Of A Clown – The Beat

Freedom Street – Ken Boothe

Strongman Samson – Eric Morris

Rub And Squeeze – Lee Perry

Let George Do It – Don Drummond

Over The River – Justin Hinds And The Dominoes

Open The Door – Clive And Naomi

The Ska Is The Limit – Laurel Aitken

Admiral Bailey – Jump Up