We're Gonna Shake Up Your Sleepy Mind

Having already posted three Colourbox songs recently I wasn't going to do anymore but the mp3 player keeps chucking this up, as if it's urging me to share it, and who am I to ignore the God of the portable music device?

Arena 2 is a brilliant mid-80s, proto-house torch song- huge piano, skittering and rudimentary drum track and massive soulful vocal. It makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. Stunning.

Arena 2

MARRS Attacks

Pump Up The Volume by MARRS is surely one of the greatest singles ever made and a number one single to boot. From 1987 it was a one-off collaboration between members of AR Kane and Colourbox, both Bagging Area favourites, with extra input from djs Dave Dorrell and CJ Mackintosh. Does it sound twenty four years old? I've lost track of how things should sound after that amount of time. Made up mainly of samples it still shakes dancefloors- well, the floor in my front room anyway. I don't know if anyone would play it in a proper club anymore. This is the B-side Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance), made up of an AR Kane track with Colourbox programming the drum machine.

Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance).mp3

Sight Of You

There's no getting away from it- Pale Saints 1989 song Sight Of You is shoegazing with a capital S. And very plummy, choirboy vocals. I haven't heard this for years and it doesn't quite match up with the song it was in my head, but it's still good enough for a Thursday night.

Sight_Of_You.mp3

Baby I Love You So

I couldn't let Colourbox go by without posting this, the A-side to the 12" single with Tuesday's postee Looks Like We're Shy One Horse on the flip. Baby I Love You So is a cover of an Augustus Pablo track. This is electronic dub at it's best- big, swirly sound with swathes of colourful synths, a massive bassline, reverby guitars, samples and vocals from Lorita Grahame. Seven minutes or so of wonder. Play it back to back with Looks Like... for full effect.

02 Baby I Love You So 12_.mp3

Breakdown

And back again...

Here's some more Colourbox, this time their debut single Breakdown from 1982, with guest vocals from Debian Curry. There's much less dub and none of the Western samples on Breakdown, just some very 80s leftfield electronic pop but I believe this kind of thing is all the rage with young folk today. Funny how bands then could go from pop to weird, a journey bands tend to do in reverse, if at all. The fact they had a variety of influences and used them all to make their own music that changed and developed over five years, is something to be applauded.

Breakdown.mp3

Looks Like We're Shy One Horse

One of the records Weatherall played when warming up for the Screamadelica live show on Sunday night was this- Looks Like We're Shy One Horse by Colourbox, a magnificent piece of electronic dub with an extended and very dubby outro. Sounded even better booming through Primal Scream's PA system. Looks Like... was released as the B-side to Colourbox's 1986 single Baby I Love You So. On the same day they released their Offical Colourbox World Cup Theme single. Colourbox went on to collaborate with A.R. Kane as MARRS and hit the number one spot with the mighty Pump Up The Volume. This is subtler and spacier but no less good.

No-one- that's no-one, not one single soul- has downloaded yesterday's live version of Come Together. This is a Bagging Area first, a completely unwanted track.

12 Looks Like We\'re Shy One Horse.wma

So He's Lying On Top Again

In fact, having listened to yesterday's Belly song Feed The Tree and this one Gepetto back to back (both off their 1993 album Star), I think this one may be even better. Just pressing play makes getting up at the end of October worthwhile.

gepetto.mp3

Take Your Hat Off Boy When You're Talking To Me

Lovely US indie hit from 1993 from Tanya Donelly's Belly- an ode to mortality and respecting your woman, wrapped in a great tune and with some chiming guitars. Belly called it a day in 1996 after taking Radiohead on tour with them and themselves supporting superstar era REM. Tanya Donelly continues to record as a solo artist, leaving Belly's back catalogue stuffed with little gems like this one and it's follow up Gepetto.

01 Feed the Tree.wma

4AD #3

Three 4AD posts in a row, this time from Lush, the Camden Abba. Lush had a few good moments, although their drinking often seemed to overshadow their music in the press. Of which they got plenty, partly due to their female front two Emma and Miki. This track Sweetness And Light was one of their best known, and I think turned up selling cars at some point. They split up in 1998, after drummer Chris committed suicide, and went their seperate ways. Bassist Phil plays with The Jesus And Mary Chain, not sure about Miki and Emma- I think one of them resurfaced in a band some time ago. This version of Sweetness And Light (Orange Squash) is a My Bloody Valentine remix (which essentially means Kevin Shields), done for a film called Splendor.

Me either.

Sweetness and Light_MBV remix.mp3 - 4shared.com - online file sharing and storage - download

4AD #2

Cut from a similar piece of cloth (dirty denim or suede, or leather maybe), and also on 4AD were Spirea X. Leader Jim Beattie had spent six years in Primal Scream and played guitar (12 string) on their early singles and the Sonic Flower Groove album. When he formed Spirea X, named after an early Primal Scream b-side, Jim declared Spirea X would do better than his former bandmates by 'having better songs, better melodies, better arrangements, better everything'. He also claimed to be God at one point, before downgrading himself to Jesus. No shortage of ego then.

Chlorine Dream is a lovely piece of 60s indebted guitar pop (check the opening guitar lines) coupled with some early 90s backbeat and production. Another good single Speed Reaction followed and then an album, Fireblade Skies, which the press liked but sold little. I've not listened to the album for ages, but Chlorine Dream is on the mp3 player and always sounds good when it pops up. Obviously being on 4AD they had nice record sleeves, something not to be sniffed at.

ChlorineDream.mp3

Pick Three Words

Kurt Ralske's Ultra Vivid Scene were another band much loved by the now defunkt Melody Maker. Taking the usual Velvets and Mary Chain influences they made buzzy, melodic, two chord, American indie-pop, and as they were signed to 4AD, had beautiful sleeves. This is Special One from 1990, recorded with Pixies Kim Deal. One of those bands who you suspect picked three random words from the dictionary for their name- or was that Ocean Colour Scene?

Special One.mp3

A Love From Outer Space

Hugely influential, much loved by Melody Maker, dream-pop/shoegaze/acid house/whatever, from AR Kane, who made two albums, 69 and i, and a load of singles. A Love From Outer Space was their poppiest moment. AR Kane were also half of MARRS, whose Pump Up The Volume was a number 1 smash and one of the first British entirely sample-made records.

A Love From Outer Space.mp3