Category: dance

Chumbawamba – Scapegoat (Tubthumper, 1997)

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The nineties were probably when I first really became aware of ‘music’ as an entity – before that it was always in the background (my mom is never not listening to music, a trait which I’ve thankfully inherited) but sometime between ages 4 and my early teens I started to become able to distinguish tracks, albums, artists, and genres. A friend of mine had the Chumbawamba audio cassette tape, and we’d listen and dance to it all the time – and while everyone might consider Tubthumber’s eponymous track overplayed, the rest of the album has some really fun stuff on it. The last track, ‘Scapegoat,’ is my favorite.

The album contains a lot of sampling used in ‘intermissions’ between tracks, and this one starts off with a little orchestral ‘presenting…’ sequence, which quickly drops off into an electronic into for the real song – warped synth and classic drum machine claps transition to an easily understandable electro-rock groove. Electric guitar, a dancey percussion / bassline combo, and a trancey snare fill lead into the first verse, courtesy very ‘folky’ (as opposed to ‘electronic’ or ‘rocky’) female vocals:

Aftershave and smoke 
And the same unfunny jokes 
They say they’ll take you 
‘Anywhere 
But there’ 
Believe every half-whispered 
Half-remembered lie 
Where truth is a luxury 
They can’t afford to buy 

The accompaniment takes a break during the chorus, cutting back to a nice punchy kick, sparse guitar (which synchronizes with the bassline), and the tasty brass lines that are generally featured on most of the tracks of this album. Things are kind of orchestrally electronic for a few moments, until the break at 1:36, with just the distorted synth line and the dancey percussion, and then we get back to the verse again:

Backed into a corner 
He barricades his life 
Fastens up the shutters every night 
This island is big enough 
For every castaway 
But most of us are looking round 
For someone else to blame 

And once again, the chorus:

Scapegoat 
Looking for a scapegoat 

There’s always someone else for 
you to blame 

By now we know exactly what to expect from this song – all the elements are pretty firmly established. But just for fun, another quick breaks gives us an almost mournful brass line which sounds a lot like an earlier track called ‘The Big Issue’, especially the last little melody bit, before the trancey snare fill and cymbal crashes pulls us back into the meat of the song again. One more break at 3:52, and we’re done – all the layers play at once, and the track fades out.

Once again, keeping with the album’s practice of sampled intermissions, we get a man admitting tearfully that “Boy – you can know out a bloody good tune, but what the fuck does that matter? Now I’m going to take my boys onto the town. Thank you.”

What does the song mean? I’ve got to admit that the parts I find most appealing are the solid electro-rock areas, especially how the intro resolves into the section at 0:26. The rhythm and sounds are perfectly spot-on, clean and poppy. I like the phrasing in the chorus too, although I change the words a little in my head: “Scapegoats, looking for our scapegoats, there’s always someone else for us to blame.” Culture wars, moral panic, scapegoating, and the resulting witch-hunts are human social phenomenon that I find fascinating (plus I feel a little smug that I have the detachment required to recognize them rather then just getting swept up, or at least I think I do), and my version of the chorus makes it sound like Chumbawamba is observing the same thing.

Speed Suit – Evidence (This Party Is A Time Machine, 2008)

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My friend Dan Beyer is a member of the duo known as ‘Speed Suit‘ (Nathanial Oester is the other player). After his first show in a basement somewhere in NE Portland, Dan hooked me up with a sweet bootleg CD of the tracks they performed. The second track is easily my favorite.

So compare the beginning to ‘Map of the Problematique‘ by Muse off of their album ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ – hot, totally danceable percussion right up front, an explosive stand-in for a splash cymbal, and then nearly the same grinding electric guitar sounding synth. The expertly-clipped drum samples and winding synth line drive the whole thing forward.

At 0:36 we get a short little ‘one two three four’ moment where the highhat counts us into the first verse: breathy vocals, the same punchy drums, and a great echoey synth on the off-beat.

show me some evidence, don’t give me lies
when left in the darkness we’re led by our hearts
and our hearts are so easily carried away

this isn’t a carousel ride this is life
so if youre feeling lucky and brave take the reigns

The coupling of the syncopated vocals with the kick at 0:50 doesn’t give us any time to catch our breath – it’s almost impossible to relax, because the song just keeps moving forward. The breathy sigh and vamps into the chorus at 1:10 is another bit of Muse-like sensability, while the break at 1:24 keeps things pretty solidly focused on the dancey percussion.

hey
is passion just a weakness
when were acting out on impulse

Another verse at 1:43, this time with an extra distorted synth lead atop the rest of the instruments, and a neat little bendy break at 1:58, which we didn’t get the first time around. I don’t even know what the lyrics are at this point, and I’m not really sure that it matters – enough words sneak through to give you a sort of general good feeling about things. Everything drops down for another great break at 2:14 – and back into the chorus again, and that Muse-esque bassline.

so take back the heresy unless you’ve got spite
meet me at dusk and we’ll settle this
lets bury the hatchet youre using as if its an axe

Short and sweet, things cut right off at 3:00. After talking to Dan and Nate, both Justice and Muse gave some  cues when they were hashing out the instrumentation for these tracks. If you’re into it, feel free to download and listen to the other Speed Suit tracks- I uploaded a .zip of the show for your listening pleasure. And if you’re interested in the group, check out Speed Suit on Myspace.

update july ’09 – check out Speed Suit’s website on thehinge.net for some sweet new tracks!

ATB – Mysterious Skies (No Silence, 2004)

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Talk about formulaic – but this is a good formula. I hadn’t thought of it this way before, but this is early 2000′s trance – compare to Ian Van Dahl’s ‘Castles In The Sky’, released a few years earlier, or even ‘Days Go By’ by Dirty Vegas in 2002.

Stringy analogue synth lines introduce the track, giving us a sort of baseline, establishing a foundation that the rest of the song will build up from. Hints of trancey staccato synth blips filter through, delayed out to echo around amongst the sort of wash of trance pads, until it all gives way to exactly what we’re hoping for at 0:56 – a cymbal crash, four-by-four kicks, bass on the offbeat, hihat layered over top, and the persistent synth line. Things slow down for a bit at 1:54, because there’s only so much stereotypical trance you can take in one sitting, and the instrumentation acquires some nice dramatic piano, which it sweeps up into more bars of classic trance.

Things slow down again around 2:56, breaking down until we’re left with some quiet bass, the trance synth cutting back in, some splashy cymbals, and a nice breathy lead that flies over the rest of the instruments – this is the peak of the song, where all the elements that’ve been introduced are all playing together.

Naturally, the epic echoey piano is brought through again at the end, while everything else calms down, and then everything swims into a way phased-out pad that refers back to the previous track ‘Marrakech’ earlier on the album, and leads into the next one, ‘Collides With Beauty.’

It isn’t unique, it isn’t special, but it’s not bad either – if you like pictures of Jesus, you don’t care that the dozen or so in your collection all look nearly identical, even they’re created by different artists. You just like looking at that iconic depiction of Jesus. Same with this – if you like this particular brand of trance, then you like this track, and if you’re a DJ, you love it because it mixes so effortlessly into any of the others.

Shiny Toy Guns – Ghost Town (Season of Poison, 2008)

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things start off weird, with some almost wild-west theatrical vocals, which quickly transition into something that reminds me more of The Offpsring. Then, at :29, we get the female vocals:

everyone livin in ghost town
everyone buried in wasteland

we don’t want to we don’t have to
be like that livin in ghost town

all the boys shout it out loud now
all the girls scream it out loud uh,

we don’ t want to
we don’t have to
live like that.

pull me back you know
we’re never gonna back down

Like ‘When Did This Storm Begin’, once the female singer starts belting out those lyrics, time flies by – the backing instrumentation keeps things solid in the background, but it’s really all about the sound of her voice. The male singer jumps in to help out with the chorus: “we’re dead in this ghost town, you’re better than ghost oh, let go let go.”

A break at 2:32 returns to the brief intro, then moves into the bridge, with new lyrical melodies and additional accompaniment, and then a nice big break at 3:02, ending at 3:12 and jumping right back into the chorus. The synths bend around, the guitar jams, and everything stops suddenly as the track ends, leaving the two vocalists hanging in midair.

Dean Gray – Dr Who On Holiday (American Edit, 2005)

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How can you go wrong with a track that opens juxtaposing quotes from George Bush and the Daleks?

Either you’re with those who love freedom or you’re with those who hate innocent life
All inferior creatures are to be considered the enemy of the Daleks and destroyed
Either you’re with us, or you’re with the enemy
We obey no one, we are the superior beings

This song is a mashup of ‘Doctorin the Tardis‘ by the KLF, and ‘Holiday‘ by Green Day (links included to highlight the interesting similarities between their respective music videos), and it’s a near-perfect fit – the rolling percussion from the KLF track is too catchy to ignore, and its sparse guitar interlocks nicely with Green Day’s own instrumentation.

Unfortunately, it kind of loses momentum around 3:15 – what once was arguably the coolest part of the Green Day song (“Sieg Heil to the president Gasman … Kill all the fags that don’t agree”) is relegated to being the least complexly mashed up phrase of the Dran Gray track, which is pretty disapointing. The guitar in the background is what’s killing it, I think, it’s repetitive, and panned way left so it’s impossible to ignore.

Dean Gray’s American Edit is pretty good overall as a mashup album, much better then Dangermouse’s The Grey Album. You can’t buy it, since that would be illegal, but it doesn’t take much creative searching (I found this one in like 5 seconds) to get yourself a copy. Enjoy!

Covenant – Call the Ships to Port (Northern Lights, 2002)

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(the first 14 seconds or so are quiet, so be patient – or turn it up!)

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a billion words ago
the sailors disappeared
a story for the children
to rock them back to sleep

tonight we light the fires
we call our ships to port
tonight we walk on water
and tomorrow we’ll be gone 

a billion words ago
they sang a song of leaving
an echo from the chorus
will call them back again

It’s nearly midnight, and the wind is bitterly cold – yet the entire population of a small arctic fishing village stands in a line along the shore, facing outwards into the frigid bay. Wrapped in animal skins and furs, the children watch intently as an old woman stands before the congregation, raising her mittens, her breath puffing out in tiny clouds lost amongst the sparse snowfall.

She tells the story that they’ve all heard on the same night every year – none alive remember, but all imagine the sailors guiding their proud ships out of the harbor and outwards towards the ocean, never again to return. As she finishes her story, she steps back and joins the line of villagers. In her hands she holds a small box of matches and a expertly folded paper boat, coated in wax. She removes one of her mittens, and, with numb fingers, lights a match. Fumbling, she manages to light the edge of the paper sail before the match is extinguished in the wind – immediately, the people on either side of her edge closer, to tip their own paper boats against hers, spreading the flame one by one down the line. As the fire spreads, the woman carefully walks to the place where the icy waves lap ceaselessly against the pebbles of the beach, and sets her sputtering boat afloat, watching as her friends and family do the same.

When all the boats have been launched, everyone watches the ragged ‘V’ sail outwards, towards the darkness. Everyone quietly hums an old hymn as they wait for the long-promised return of the sailors they lost so many years ago – hoping against all odds that their lost fellows will let the flambeaux armada guide them back home.

I’m not sure if I read a folk story along these lines somewhere, but that’s what this song sounds like to me. There’s some interesting imagery used in the lyrics: “a billion words ago”, “a million burning books”, “a fabric of ideals to decorate our homes”, “a mountain of mistakes for us to climb for pleasure”, “a hundred clocks are ticking”, and of course the chilling: “a billion words ago they sang a song of leaving. an echo from the chorus will call them back again”.

Fire seems to figure heavily in the verses, as well as the final chorus: “tonight we light the fires, we call our ships to port. tonight we walk on water and tomorrow we’ll be gone”. It creates an almost tactile environment for the song to take place in (helped by the album title, ‘Northern Lights’) of cold wind, snow drifts, icey water, and guttering flames.

This song has its apex at the final chorus (3:51) – throughout the song, the melody has stayed low, and at this point it nearly jumps an octave, until the lead singer’s voice echoes the sustained synth lines that were carrying the song along up to that point.

The instrumentation is driving and keeps things saturated, with only a couple of breaks around 1:47 and 2:17. The bass synth almost steps in to shore up the percussion (a single kick drum) and keeps a sort of rolling beat that carries everything along, and the ghostly higher synths float above, keeping things interesting while you wait for the next verse to start.

This is quite possibly my favorite track on this album, although Northern Lights is full of good ones. If you’re into this kind of music, Covenant has put out a couple of albums that I’d recommend: Northen Lights and Skyshaper.