Listening Club - Easter Vortex - 31st March 2013

Happy eggs, bunnies and zombie jesus time everyone. Hope you're enjoying the long weekend. I'm a busy little beastie today, and still in a place of wobbly internet, so on with the show...

Last week, o my word, @akx sent us all to another dimension where it's permanently Sunday afternoon at Glastonbury and the mushroom tea has just been brewed, courtesy of Ott's "Mir". Indeed several of us (anyone seen @holette?) may still be floating about out there... Major thanks to @akx for the pick, and for pinning down @monkeytypes for next week's frisbee...

Yes, "next weeks" - this week, as you know, pleased and delighted to present a small holiday interlude to the regular progamming, the Easter Vortex!

So... from a topic suggested by @tibieryo and plucked out of the pipes by @jimmccauley, here's ten non-english-language tracks, as selected by the #listeningclub inner sanctum, and shuffled about into randomness by yours truly. And a mega selection it is indeed - not giving anything away, but we've got quite a few umlauts to get through this evening, that's for sure...

Download is here (dropbox direct), and Mixcloud here!

ALSO don't forget we've done the clock shuffle, so sticking to the rule we had this time last year, we've all moved to British Summer Time (which is the same here in Amsterdam, but they call it European Summer Time, natch)!

Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin!

So hope to see you tonight at 8pm BST/EST (GMT+1)!

Listening Club - 24th March 2013

Yo, mo' hoes and bros toes...

Well then, this little section of the globe seems to have seriously got stuck in a "Season Not Found" issue, has it not? Whither spring? Where's the little green buds? Small furry animals poking their little heads out of slumberland? Not a one. Here in the Dam there's a little more sun and light than usual, but apart from that there's nothing to persuade me to take the thermals off. Am I going on about this a bit much? Probably, but hell, there's frolicking to be done, and frolicking cannot be done in a big coat, scarf, hat and gloves, unless they're big enough to accommodate two. Hem hem.

Speaking of accommodating, don't forget NEXT SUNDAY we here at #listeningclub will be accommodating your non-English selections for the inaugural EASTER VORTEX - all of you please pick one tune in any language apart from English - email or DM me your choices as soon as you can please! (Also don't forget there's clock malarkey going on next weekend also, so we'll be moving to 8pm BST. BST? Hah! See first paragraph...)

Last Sunday, @jimmccaulley was in the hot seat, and supplied us with a serious dose of psychedelic mockney-hop in the form of Aleister X's "Half-Speed Mastered", which truly boggled the assembled heads. Many thanks to Jim for the trip, and for thrusting the #lc frisbee over to @akx for this week's selection. And over to Aarni for the preamble...

"This choice was a little bit harder than the last one... mainly because my first choice would've been more jazz. Less deathly jazz than before, but anyway. 

So, seeing as it'll eventually, slowly start being summer again (even though it's still snow and slush and ice everywhere here), I thought hey, let's play an album that was my soundtrack for a summer a couple years ago. So here goes! 

Oh, and the first track features a sample that became a favorite quote of mine. You'll probably notice it." 

Righty-ho. Download is here (direct link), or the Mixcloud stream here!

Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin!

Hope to see you at 8pm GMT!

Listening Club - 17th March 2013

Guten tag, my little chaps and chapolatas...

Hope all is fine and dandy with you - I'm taking a break from apartment hunting here in th' Dam to tap this out (which is more scam-avoidance than actual hunting right now - and I thought London was bad for accommodation scams... this place beats it hands down - caveat emptor in excelsis etc), but I'm optimistic, so feeling happy to crack open an afternoon beer and cross my fingers that the sun manages to poke thru the clouds some time soon so I can go for a pleasurable stroll.

Happy also to announce the forthcoming arrival of the Easter Vortex, as prompted by @jimmccauley, and themed by @tibieryo in a few quick tweets during the week, so yea verily, on Sunday 31st March it will occur - all of you please pick one tune in any language apart from English - email or DM me your choices, I'll shuffle them about and we'll see how far around the world we can get. Excitement awaits!

Meanwhile back in time, this time last week @alliswoon was clutching the #LC frisb, and came forward with Final Fantasy aka Owen Pallett's "He Poos Clouds", which got the assembled all hopped up on catgut arpeggios and sorcery. Many thanks to Allison for the pick, and for thrusting that man @jimmccauley back into the limelight once again. Over to Jim...


“So... ya wanna see Andy? Anybody gotta flashlight and a couple of shovels?”

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with this week’s choice. Am I in a tiny minority of people who get the whole meta thing going on with this particular artist? Or am I drawing conclusions from circumstantial evidence and seeing a game that isn’t actually being played? I’m a sucker for a good rock and roll swindle, and this reeks of it to me. You can tell a man by the company he keeps and all that, and this one comes from a stable with plenty of previous.

I’m not even going to try categorise it; it’s a stylistic mish-mash, all over the place and filled with sunshine and sleaze more or less in equal measure, and I’m expecting it to be excellently divisive. Importantly, though, I came for the scam but I’ve stuck around for the tunes. Whether it’s 4real or not, it sounds pretty good to me. The UK contingent may well find more to point at because, well, you’ll see.

And anyway, wrong with being sexy?"

Yeah? Yeah. Download is here (direct dropbox link), or the Mixcloud stream is here!

Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin!

Hope to see you at 8pm GMT!

Listening Club - 10th March 2013

Hello y'all!

Hope you're all doing fine - I'm on another flying visit back to London for a couple of birthday parties and the usual dose of admin and laundry. Current status is good, considering lack of sleep, amount of alcohol consumed, number of breezes shot and amount of Prins Thomas DJing danced to. However, there's more to do before I head back to The Dam, so on with the show...

Last week, @tibieryo bounced back into the game with Warren Zevon's "Life'll Kill Ya", a mighty fine selection indeed. Many thanks to him for the choice, and for nominating @alliswoon to take her debut - over to her for the pre-match...


"There is but one thing that irks me enormously about this album.

It isn't the music, which grabbed me and took hold at first listen three years ago.

It isn't the instrumentation or the vocals, which may not be everyone’s cuppa, but are certainly interesting and fun to listen to.

In all honesty, it isn't anything to do with the audio – it’s the cover, which depicts a lovely and well-detailed pen and ink drawing in striking black on white THAT IS PARTIALLY OCCLUDED BY A POORLY FORMATTED AND COMPLETELY OUT-OF-PLACE GREY TEXT BOX.

That being said, I hope you enjoy it."

Okaydoke. Download is here (direct dropbox link), or the Mixcloud stream is here!

Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin!

Hope to see you at 8pm GMT!

Listening Club - 3rd March 2013

Heigh ho folks,

Another week and another sketchy hotel internet connection, so you're back, cheering on our intrepid hero as he pummels the refresh button on his browser, ducking and diving under heavy showers of 404s and DNS errors, attempting to bring you a small sliver of mystery joy of a Sunday afternoon. The future is only a router reset away, boys and girls...

Last week, in less fluctuating times, @NeilPBardhan stepped up to the LC plate for the first time, and funked us all out with Medeski, Martin & Wood's "Shack-Man" album from 1996. A cracking album, and very well received, so many thanks to him for the selection, and for the transatlantic frisbee flip across to @tibieryo for this week - over to him for the preamble...


"When I was a kid, my mother had a few discs in the car she'd play all the time. I was scared of one of them. The music was really dark. Less so the music. More so the lyrics. They were just absolute pitch black in tone.

But my only friend growing up (who shares his name with an MC of note with an album to release this year) was always laughing. He and I were both eight years old, and he'd be laughing at the lines he could understand and ignoring the ones he couldn't. The ones he couldn't understand were the ones that frightened me.

Ten years later, I was off and gone to college. Looking for new music to listen to, I remembered the best-of that my mother always pumped in the car. So I downloaded the discography. And I realized that while I'd been right to be scared as a child, my friend had been right to laugh, too.

It turns out they'd gone through a few periods, musically. This is one of the later albums, after sobering up. My mother prefers the earlier, angrier, wilder stuff. I prefer the later, sober, mature stuff.

I don't think my friend ever listened to anything like this again.

PS: Guess which song on this album is one of my favourite love songs ever written for bonus points."

Download is here (direct dropbox link), or the Mixcloud stream is here!

Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin!

Hope to see you at 8pm GMT!

Listening Club - 24th February 2013

Happy Hi to you all,

Another early tapped out intro for me, as I'm off tonight to finally check out Amsterdam's two most well known venues, who both happen to have concurrently excellent events this (Saturday) evening... First will be to the Melkweg for an open house mixed bag event of bands, DJs, gallery shows, cinema, theatre and comedy - New York's most excellent Budos Band are in the lineup, so regardless of what else is on, I'll be delightedly cutting an afro-funk rug for at least an hour... Then onwards to the Paradiso, for the main show of the city's Sonic Acts festival, featuring amongst others, The Bug, Coki, Dean Blunt of Hype Williams and Mika Vainio of Pan Sonic. Yup, electronics of the weird and heavy variety will abound, and minds will be most likely blown. I'm thoroughly looking forward to it, and not sure how wobbly I'll be tomorrow, so getting this ready to go in advance seems a sensible move, no?

Anyhoo, last week @JimMcCauley was in the driver's seat, and took us all to a most unusual land, courtesy of Serafina Steer's "The Moths Are Real" - A welcome place to be, and a grand contrast to the last few weeks of noise pollution. Thanks to Jim for the choice, and (after a little to-ing and fro-ing) for directing the frisbee of love to @NeilPBardhan for his debut #LC selection. Over to Neil for the intro...

"Hi Listeners!

I found the frisbee in my lap earlier this week and realized that all my vague thoughts over the past few months of 'What would I pick, if I had the chance?' hadn't come to any grand conclusions! I went through a couple rounds of selections, consulted with a mathematician,  and finally settled on one of my all-time favorite albums that just carries me through life, over & over again. It's really never been clear to me how well-known this group is, nor do I remember at this point how I first heard them. Likely even if you've only heard of them, this earlier disc may be new to you unless you've hit their live shows... And, to qualify further, even then, it's not always clear 'what's what' to fans like myself, who can just get lost in it all!

And, should I end up re-frisbeed in the future, I think I've got a few other choices up my digital record sleeve that you might enjoy."

Jolly good! Dropbox download is here, and Mixcloud stream here!

Looking forward to it - see you at 8pm GMT!

Listening Club - 17th February 2013

Greetings and salutations!

Hope all is going well for you all - Things not exactly tickety-boo here, as I've been without internet for the last day or two - much scurrying about has been done by official types, and a general plethora of turning-things-off-and-then-turning-them-back-on-again, so I'm hoping that someone manages to fix it soon for rather obvious reasons, otherwise I'll be off to find an internet caff to try and get this down the pipes to you all in good time for this evening. If you're reading this then obviously one way or another I have succeeded! Huzzah!!!

Succeed also didst fair @holette last week, although with the distorto-might of My Bloody Valentine's platter-du-jour, "MBV" at her side who would dare stop her? Not any of the #LC regulars that was for sure. A fine pick indeed - thanks to @holette for going for the road more travelled for once (a rarity in #LC land as any fule kno), and for sailing the frisbee across to yonder @JimMcCauley. And here he is with the intro...

"You should always go with your instinct. Last time round I knew straight away what I wanted to pick, then panicked a bit and changed my mind talked myself into something else and it all ended up going a bit prog. Not quite sure how that happened, really. This time I knew straight away what I was going to pick, panicked a bit the next morning, then had a bit of a think and told my panicking self to shit off.

This is a bit of a new one; the result of one of those chance hearings on the radio. One of those occasions when you hear a song and something about it grabs you from the off; and so five minutes later you own the album. This album probably shouldn’t be my thing; I don’t want to say too much but it’s a bit singer-songwritery and a bit folky and a bit trendy East London. But it has me thoroughly besotted; it’s made up of interesting and unlikely elements that fit together very pleasantly indeed, and it makes up about half of my preferred listening at the moment – the other half being last week’s My Bloody Valentine album.
And after last week’s excellent raucousness this ought to contrast nicely. Enjoy!"

Well there you have it... Dropbox download is here, and Mixcloud stream here!

Looking forward to it - see you at 8pm GMT!