Forum Klix.ba

In 2000, the techno-folk troubadour Damon Gough, a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy, won the U.K.-based Mercury Music Prize, Brit-pop's blue ribbon award. His first full-length, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, is a song cycle relaying the life span of a romantic relationship with dry lyrical humor, soft-touch acoustic strumming, mellow horns, and gossamer strings. Repeated listenings are required, but like a down pillow, as your head sinks into this album, its warm comforts and rewards reveal themselves deep within a melodic cushion.
----
The first album by Badly Drawn Boy has been released amidst much hype--and believe me the hype is well founded. Badly Drawn Boy is basically the brainchild of Damon Gough from Manchester,England.The early e.p.'s showed great promise,and this promise has come to fruition on an album of startling variety. The influence of sixties folk musician Nick Drake seems to be all the rage at the moment.When the first notes of the first song 'The Shining' are struck I was expecting a c.d. of 18 mellow tracks.It starts off with a gentle cello-horn instrumental,then Gough adds some vocals to this beautifully mellow opening.Then track 2-'Everybody's Stalking' changes the mood totally,as it's driven by a ferocious bass line and it doesn't half rock!This is the magic of this c.d.,Gough has the ability to change the sound,the influence,the mood with consumate ease.Another example of this comes at track 8-'Body Rap' which sounds like one of those Beastie Boy,D.J. Shadow instrumental interludes.This leads straight into 'Once Around The Block' a gentle r/b piece,complete with wah-wah guitars,Blues lead guitar and excellent harmonious vocals.You may think all this mish mash of influences may make the c.d. very disjointed-but somehow it all seems to fit together perfectly.The title track,song 11-Bewilderbeast is wonderful in that it brings all these sounds together on one amazing track.Track 12 'Magic In The Air' is a haunting,melancholic ballad,with piano and guitar the backdrop for Gough's excellent vocals.Track 14 has a definite country feel to it.Track 16-'Disillusion' has a real seventies feel to it-with a sound that isn't to far removed (instrumentally) from The Doobie Brother's. 18 tracks may seem quite alot for any c.d.-especially a debut,but there are no obvious weak songs at all.I have to say it's an incredibly ambitious debut but it is one that shows the work of a very talented musician and song-writer.Finally this c.d. deserves to do really well and I would certainly reccomend it to lovers of good quality music.

The Godfathers of Glitch and the Kings of Kling-Klang come out of seclusion with a double live CD culled from various concerts on their 2004 tour. Minimum-Maximum is essentially a greatest-hits album with an audience applauding and occasionally shouting. Without them, of course, you'd never know the album was live, since Kraftwerk is the band that put the programming in pop music. Not much has changed with them since the 1980s. They're still wired to the same sonic circuitry as on Electric Café in 1986, sculpting glistening electro-soundscapes that pulse but never quite groove. And they still sing in that flat, German-accented English and French with Speak and Spell electro-voices. But rather than sound dated, this has a timeless charm, especially since Kraftwerk are among the few Kraut rock groups with a sense of humor. With only two studio albums in the last 20 years, you have to give them credit for not caving in to current electronica and techno trends--Kraftwerk remain resolutely electronic. Even their samples sound synthesized. But also give them credit for some of the most relentlessly glistening electronic music ever crafted, and a sound that remains surprisingly pure. All the hits are here, from "Autobahn" to "Tour de France," but nicely buffed to a high chrome finish.

This is the Coral's fourth album in as many years - a fact that would have been unremarkable back in their beloved 60s, but these days marks them out as musical workaholics.The most obvious difference about this one is that the endlessly inventive Scousers have drafted in former members of Portishead as producers, resulting in ghostly arrangements that clash oddly with James Skelly's enigmatic Merseybeat tunes. The results are often inspired, occasionally frustrating - but always intriguing. Even on the weaker tracks, there's an air of mystery and melancholy here that confirm the Coral as one of the British indie scene's most accomplished bands. And of course, if you don't like it, there's bound to be another along before too long.

Drum & Bass always seems to be on the receiving end of a lot of clichs, partly due to the tremendous amount released and its typical adherence to formula. Through the continuing flow of 12 singles and compilations it has built itself a niche market and group of fans almost as unique as the Punk-era, this is where its strength also lies, allowing the music to constantly redevelop itself and adapt to the changing trends in clubbing. In the last two years one of these so-called developments has been the emergence of a House influenced style championed by labels like Soul:r, Defunked and Hospital. London Elektricity has long been leaders in this sound and run the aforementioned Hospital stable. 'Billion Dollar Gravy' is their second album and perhaps the finest Drum & Bass LP to emerge from the UK this year. The title track sets the tone; a tight drum pattern and smooth chords melt into epic strings before a Reese-style bassline drops into a wall of sound. "Different Drum" features the vocals of ex-Mr Fingers and House legend, Robert Owens, who also provides a touching vocal on the beautiful "My Dreams". Long-time Hospital collaborator Liane Carrol also sings on a number of tracks, the best example probably being "Main Ingredient". Live percussion from the Jungle Drummer also proves invaluable, giving the album a live feel throughout. "Cum Dancing" and "Harlesden" are tasteful Disco influenced cuts that would move any dancefloor while epic centrepiece, "The Great Drum & Bass Swindle" features Morricone samples and MCing from Darrison. This is an album that confirms Drum & Bass musics growing stature and maturity, a gem from start to finish. Recommended.

Released in 1979, on the 2-Tone label, the album is seen by some as the defining moment in the UK ska scene. Produced by Elvis Costello the album captures brilliantly the disaffection and anger felt by the youth of the UK's 'concrete jungle' ( a phrase borrowed from Bob Marley's Catch A Fire album (1972) but equally apposite in its use here to describe the grim violent inner cities of Thatcherite Britain).

Musically, the album encapsulates UK ska's reworking of the ska sound of 1960s Jamaica. The music shares the infectious energy and humour of the original sound, but injects newfound anger and a punk sensibility. The album features a mixture of original material and covers of classic Jamaican ska tracks, "Monkey Man" had been a hit for Toots and the Maytals in 1969, "Too Hot" was a Prince Buster original from 1966 and the opening track "A Message to you, Rudy" was a single for Dandy Livingstone in 1967. "You're wondering now" had been a hit for The Skatalites.

Some of the other tracks are reworkings of Jamaican originals: "Too Much Too Young" was a reworking of Lloyd Charmers "Birth Control" (1969) and "Stupid Marriage" draws heavily on Prince Buster's hit "Judge Dread".

"Too Much Too Young" was later released on a 4 track EP and was banned by the BBC for its pro-contraception stance. The single nonetheless reached the number one spot in the U.K. "A Message to you, Rudy" had already appeared as a single, with "Nite Klub" as its B-side.

Trombonist Rico Rodriguez was one of the top Jamaican session players of 50's and 60's Jamaica and had been a regular performer in the fluid line-up of The Skatalites, a band which helped define the sound of Jamaican Ska and Reggae. He had played on the original version of "A Message To You, Rudy". His appearance on this album was quite a coup, and added considerably to the album's credentials.

Svileni wrote:Ja samo da upitam cinjenica znalce, sta treba da uradim kad odem na rapidshare ( jel' postoji neki fol tipa 2 koraka lijevo, pa, onda glavom na kvarnjaka )? Uglavnom, kad pritisnem na ponudjenu adresu rapidshare nista se ne desava. A malo je reci da bih volio imati sve ponudjeno od Radiohead-a.
Pozdrav

vee-jay wrote:...zna li mozda neko, da li je ovo neka oficijelna kompilacija - bio bi merak ovo kupiti....mozda victory zna?

evo ovog albuma niti ima na allmusic.com nit se kod amzon-a moze naci....
al ovdje

The The was the guise of Matt Johnson, a mercurial singer/songwriter whose music ran the gamut from dance-pop to country. Born August 15, 1961, in London, Johnson was raised in the flat above his father's pub, the Two Puddings, a haven for well-known celebrities and criminals; he also became exposed to music at the nightclubs and dancehalls owned by his uncle, where he saw performers like Howlin' Wolf, the Kinks, and Muddy Waters. Johnson formed his first band, Roadstar, when he was 11; at the age of 15, he was hired as a tea boy for the DeWolfe music publishing company, and within three years, he was working in their recording studio as an assistant engineer.

After the demise of the duo the Marble Index in 1979, Johnson formed the first incarnation of The The with synth player Keith Laws; after playing their debut gig opening for Scritti Politti, the group issued its first single, "Controversial Subject," on the 4AD label in 1980. A year later, contractual obligations forced Johnson to issue the LP Burning Blue Soul under his own name; that year, he also recorded as a guitarist with the band the Gadgets, and The The contributed a track to the Some Bizzare Album compilation.

In 1982, The The -- now essentially a Johnson solo project, backed by a revolving coterie of musicians -- recorded the album The Pornography of Despair, which a dissatisfied Johnson chose not to release; a 1983 single recorded with Orange Juice's Zeke Manyika, "This Is the Day," formed the centerpiece of The The's proper debut, 1983's Soul Mining, an excursion into dance-flavored pop. Illness sidelined Johnson for much of the following year, and The The did not return until 1986's Infected, an eclectic commentary on the state of Britain in the modern world. Recorded with the aid of talents like Neneh Cherry, Art of Noise's Anne Dudley, and Swans' Roli Mosimann, Infected was also accompanied by an ambitious album-length video.

When The The returned with the dissonant Mind Bomb in 1989, they were once again a true band, with Johnson joined by ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr as well as bassist James Eller and former ABC drummer Dave Palmer. The same lineup remained for 1993's pared-down Dusk, but 1995's Hanky Panky marked yet another new direction when Johnson was joined by guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, keyboardist D.C. Collard, harmonica player Jim Fitting, and drummer Brian MacLeod. The first in a series of occasional albums celebrating the work of legendary performers, Hanky Panky was a brooding covers collection honoring the music of country great Hank Williams. NakedSelf followed in early 2000. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

Matt Johnson's work thrives on the tension between accessible pop and dissonant experimentation; between joyful wonder and despairing bleakness. Burning Blue Soul was a more disjointed solo album Johnson released under his own name in 1981 before these tensions were fully integrated. This reissue is a valuable sketchbook for The The fans interested in dissecting the early inner workings of Johnson's art, but the meandering tape-collages that serve as framework will leave most others cold. ~ Roch Parisien, All Music Guide

Soul Mining was heavily influenced by what was contemporary dance music in 1983. In fact, it second-guessed much of what came a little bit later - the drums in "The Twilight Hour" and "GIANT" sound quite similar to those in New Order's stellar dance single "The Perfect Kiss," but Soul Mining predates Low-life by two years. The The's first album uses the sounds of dance music, but is really not danceable at all - the drums are oppressively loud, or so over-processed as to lose all spontaneity, the atmosphere is uncomfortably claustrophobic, and of course, Matt Johnson's snarls and falsettoes put to rest the last shred of anyone's desire to dance. In effect, Soul Mining is dance music made by someone who doesn't dance, can't dance, hates dancing, and casts hateful and longing glances at the pretty and vacuous klix who dance with carnal abandon at the clubs. It's also probably the best debut album of its decade.

It's not the music that carries the album. There are many quite catchy hooks, but they sound as oddly jarring as one would expect from a dance album made in solitude about solitude. It has to be Johnson's voice that makes the album what it is - that unflagging, unyielding directness, honest anxiety and fear and withdrawn, reticent anger. Some of these songs - actually, all of them - are about the woman who done Johnson wrong, but there's none of the goths' preferred self-exonerating moping going on here. The first song, "I've Been Waiting For Tomorrow All of My Life" is Johnson's ultimatum to himself: "Another year older, and what have I done? My aspirations have shrivelled in the sun, I'm crippled by guilt, blinded by lies, I've been waiting for tomorrow all of my life!"

Soul Mining uses a narrative technique that Johnson wouldn't employ again, namely the second person. Three songs here are addressed to "you," though Johnson is clearly referring to himself. This underscores the album's self-confrontational and self-accusatory nature. "This is the Day," a somewhat upbeat tune that actually owes more to blues than to dance, is actually a portrait of dead-end nowheretown despair, in which the protagonist (Johnson), suffering from insomnia and terminal nostalgia, opens a window and sees that the day outside that he has alienated himself from is so beautiful that he can't help but think that it will bring some kind of change into his life, though no source of change is to be seen anywhere. Less subtle is "The Twilight Hour," a depiction of self-induced emotional slavery in the worst stage. Johnson seethes with venom towards his own spineless conduct - "You were emotionally independent, but starved of affection, so now you've been trapped by tenderness and beaten into submission" - and ends with a line of devastating irony: "You're relying on her for your independence."

The title track explores much the same territory using spooky metaphors of floating down tunnels that fit the weird, wispy music flawlessly, but losing no directness in the process - "You've been read like an open book, page by page. You'll never tell anyone your inner thoughts again. You've been taken in by a heart of fool's gold, now you're drifting in circles in the depths of your soul." On the last line, Johnson's soft singing turns to a snarl, as if to show that the conclusion was well-deserved. The chorus is the album's one big sing-along moment - "Something always goes wrong when things are going right..."

"Uncertain Smile" lacks the anger of the others; it's a sweet jangle pop song about first love from the perspective of the absurd boy who later made Soul Mining. It features the musical highlight of the album, Jools Holland's wonderful jazz-piano solo. The song only shows Johnson's youth at that time - after all, that's when one's worldview is more black and white, one's expectations of oneself are higher, one's emotions are sharper, and one throws all the intensity one has into one's experiences. This gives Soul Mining an air of a kind of innocent naivete, despite all the anger flying around.

"GIANT" is one of pop music's weirdest images, due to the sheer incongruity of Johnson's tortured lyric with the odd music. The arid drums and bass suggest a torrid desert, an image that pops up in Johnson's first lines, and the little musical phrase that comes in after a couple minutes evokes no image so much as that of a little devil playing a xylophone with great gusto and abandon, shaking his head amusingly to the tune while Johnson sits helpless on his chair. Then, when the pounding tribal beat drowns out the little devil, there's a sepulchral chorus of big dancing devils, who have joined hands in a circle and are now prancing around Johnson as the whole scene recedes into the distance.

It's a bizarre image to close with, and close the album it does, now that "Perfect" is no longer the final track. It's available on the greatest hits compilation 45 RPM, but Johnson decided to excise it from the reissue of Soul Mining. While "GIANT" does make the better ending, "Perfect" is a great song in itself, a variation on the themes of Soul Mining in which Johnson is a little more cynical and irritated than usual, but still far from malicious. (Naturally, it's married to some upbeat harmonica figures.) Later, Johnson got older but not much happier; fortunately, The The's steadfast humanity, and the honesty, intelligence and understanding in The The's words and music, only increased with time.

This is quite simply a masterful album that achieves everything you want when you listen to music. The musicianship is superb, of course, because this is The The. The work starts off slowly with acoustic gems that speak of love, death and desire. It gradually builds momentum as it moves thematically in the direction of lust, pain, and "unfulfillment." Like the greatest of blues, The The successfully pulls the great sideshow act for the soul - you are drawn in with mystery and intrigue about the sense of loss and loneliness of everyday existence, and then you leave with a pregnant smile on your face. Somehow through taking the listener on a journey on the spectrum of existentialism, you are turned right around to seeing that there is true joy to be derived.

Guitars, harmonicas, drums, and the funkiest bass on any side of the Mississippi coalesce to fill these songs with alternately haunting and uplifting moods.

His voice is magical, hitting the deepest of tones, then swooping toward the sweetest highs your mind can taste. As if this work didn't accomplish enough, the titles of the songs are brilliant. "Dogs of Lust" "Helpline Operator" and Sodium Light Baby" are true nuggets of creativity that more-than-hint at the solid songs they represent.

Light several candles, enjoy some fine wine, and give yourself to The The. You won't need to look over their shoulder for anything else.

This one-man band is sadly underrated and virtually unknown, possibly because Matt Johnson is too literate for the layman to stomach, or possibly just because he tends to take 5-year-long vacations once in a while. No matter. Infected was his first platinum disc, and rightly so. It's a commentary on the state of the world today - mainly Britain, since he lived there, but really it could apply to any "civilized" modern country. Not every song is explicitly about politics, but every one has the same mood and theme - that things have reached the point where they can't go on the same way any longer and something must be done. Every song burns with desperation as Johnson tries to find a way out but can't.

One thing I like about Johnson is that he's almost never arty - you know how a lot of the time bands are so self-conscious that they basically beat you over the head and scream "We're arty!" at you? Well, he never does that, but he still always remains very poetic. Even from the song titles you can see this - "Slow Train to Dawn", for instance. Johnson pegs the problems of the world so accurately it makes me wish I had thought of it, and sometimes even predicts further developments - "Sweet Bird of Truth", a song about a soldier on a doomed flight to fight in Africa, features the line "Am I to cry like a baby/Die like a man/When all the planet's little wars start joinin' hands?" Guess what events happened just a bit down the road in the Middle East?

When he's not singing about politics, he's singing about man's quest to find himself. The line "I'm just a regular guy" is used a lot throughout the album - in fact, the album tells a consistent story about "just a regular guy" whose life slowly is falling apart and who doesn't know what to do, asking "Tell me what I want in this world" on the first track. It's a very moving story, but the character in it doesn't find his answers (although The Mercy Beat provides a ray of hope for him) - Johnson leaves that to you.

The very dark, despairing lyrics are masked by airy (and really catchy) dance-pop, which may be seen as a drawback by some, but for others may serve to make the songs all the more memorable. If you liked Infected, I recommend Mind Bomb, The The's next album - if you liked that, I definitely recommend Infected. They're completely different works but at the same time they're remarkably similar, and many songs in Mind Bomb are almost sequels to songs from Infected (if you want to see how the relationship in "Slow Train to Dawn" ended, just listen to "Kingdom of Rain", another duet with another pop singer).

Lastly, if you really dig this album, know that a full-length movie was made called "Infected: The Video". Track it down on EBay (they usually sell about two or three copies every time you look) and get a copy - the videos are every bit as great as the music.

It's never been easy to pin Matt Johnson down. He's always come across as intense and dark, but much of his music is melodic and airy. He managed to turn his gentle rage into a masterpiece on 1990's Mind Bomb, and captured heat on record with Dusk. But there's no new ground broken on NakedSelf.

Overall, it is a hit-and-miss affair. The opener, "Boiling Point," is a slow build that never seems to hit stride, but "Shrunken Man" is a solid number with well-timed production. Matt has always had a good ear for melody, and most of the songs here are no exception. Tracks like "December Sunlight," "Global Eyes," and "Phantom Walls" float hand in hand with his airy vocals.

If the album proves anything, it's that Matt has learned that he should never work alone. The band he assembled here is tight and flows well with Johnson's melodic sensibilities. The strong points on NakedSelf are not hard to find, but they are subtle. And while it is a solid collection of songs, The The have shone brighter. ~ Chris True, All Music Guide

Taking almost seven years in between albums, Matt Johnson and the latest incarnation of The The release NakedSelf, a recording that scales to near rock-operatic proportions. NakedSelf is an album in its purest sense; its sum is greater than its parts, with no track standing alone as a clear single. And the parts? Concept, acid rock, noise, experimentation--the core of the record builds from a largeness of sound where artificial studio trickery is sidestepped in favor of diverse instrumentation. The CD's raw, powerful energy is funneled through acidic, fuzzed-out guitars and metal-head bass, fluctuating from a drone into a pulsating rhythm or imploding into an emotive acoustic-guitar-and-barstool love song. Johnson's vocals match the music's range. He delivers a Robert Plantlike orgasmic wail as impressively as he croons like an earnest folk-rocker. But as far as this album reaches, it's never directionless, and it spares itself from alienating a pop-minded audience. In his 20-year career leading up to this CD, Johnson has respectably put out everything from Hank Williams covers to infectious '80s power pop. His scope in talent is equal to defiance of categorization. Further, this offering, a culmination of all his musical interests, makes evident that the wait for his albums is proportionate to the rewards reaped from them.

Here are some of the weirdest musical makeovers I have ever heard. This is a collection of covers and re-mixes that are sure to leave you astounded, confused and coughing up your morning coffee.

dinash wrote:The World's Strangest Covers

Here are some of the weirdest musical makeovers I have ever heard. This is a collection of covers and re-mixes that are sure to leave you astounded, confused and coughing up your morning coffee.

dinash wrote:The World's Strangest Covers

Here are some of the weirdest musical makeovers I have ever heard. This is a collection of covers and re-mixes that are sure to leave you astounded, confused and coughing up your morning coffee.

DaysleepeR wrote:

dinash wrote:The World's Strangest Covers

Here are some of the weirdest musical makeovers I have ever heard. This is a collection of covers and re-mixes that are sure to leave you astounded, confused and coughing up your morning coffee.

Iron Man je legendaran :D:D