Ash: Astoria.

Photo by Sheep Purple

My fiancee and I went to see Ash on Saturday night, performing 1977 in its entirety at the Astoria. At least, that was the plan. However, the mistaken assumption that they would begin playing at 9 rather than 8pm caused us to miss two thirds of the album performance (including Goldfinger and Girl From Mars, obviously, which made us so sad). Despondent, we hung our hopes on at least getting a decent encore.

The encore was a magnificent hour-long fangasm. In addition to fucking fantastic singles like Shining Light and A Life Less Ordinary, they ran through a number of covers (I Only Want To Be With You, Helen Love's genius Punk Boy), old favourites Uncle Pat and Jack Names The Planets, a brand new song, and just generally brought the house down. For being brought back onstage by Imperial Stormtroopers and blitzing John Williams' (Mos Eisley) Cantina Band, they score impossibly high points. Hell, I consider the Cantina Band performance worth the ticket price alone. I've had the Girl From Mars single since small times, but I never in my life would have expected to ever see Ash play that live.

So, thanks Ash (Thash). We'll kindly forget about the last album if you keep up this sort of performance onstage.

Here are the studio recorded versions of Punk Boy and Cantina Band.

Knickerbocker.

I've yet to sample the new Fujiya & Miyagi album, Lightbulbs, in all its glory, but I have been loving the single, Knickerbocker. Yes, it sounds like a Neu! vignette, but I have absolutely no problem with that sort of behaviour, and it's wonderfully addictive. The simple pleasure of a stroll along the Brighton waterfront with an ice cream in your hand, hardwired for the crisp, sleek sound of German engineering. Obviously.

Stay away from the future.

It is important that I remind you all that once upon a 1995, David Bowie and Brian Eno made a cyberpunk industrial pop concept album called Outside (or 1.Outside, if you're eternally optimistic about ever seeing the remaining four parts of the cycle). It is brilliant and deserves your ears. I might love it a little bit more than Low.

Listen here for two particularly brilliant songs from the album.
We Prick You
No Control

Squarepusher: Delta V.

One of my absolute favourite recording artists is Squarepusher, and I'm pretty excited to learn that Warp will be releasing his new album, Just a Souvenir, in October.

Pretty excited, but also a little wary, because although I venerate the Squarepusher discography, the preview track streaming on the Warp Myspace, Delta V, actually isn't all that. I mean, it's okay, I'd happily blast my ears with it on my way to work, but meh. I love the fuzzier kind of bass riff, but beyond that it doesn't do very much. Maybe it will grow on me?

In the meantime, I will continue to marvel at Tom Jenkinson's gradual transformation into Bill Bailey.

Muxtape down.

Boooo.

Hopefully, the claim that "the site is not closed indefinitely" will prove accurate.

Happens Today.

Today I've enjoyed Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, the new collaborative effort by pop pioneers David Byrne and Brian Eno. While my anticipation for this has been heightened by my love of their 1981 collaboration, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, this new project is far removed from that seething rattle of sample-based new-wave.

Everything That Happens... is a lush, expansive pop album by two talents undimmed by their years in the business. The romance of the project, two old friends releasing an album apparently for the joy of it, sweetens it. This isn't the groundbreaking, genre-busting work generally associated with Byrne and Eno, but it is a fine collection of pop songs executed with particular style and elegance. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Everyone seems to be raving about I Feel My Stuff, which is ace, but the song that's made the biggest impact on me is Everything That Happens. So, why don't you listen to that, and then go and stream the whole album off the website, and then maybe buy the thing.

Everything.

everythingthathappens.com

I am excited.

More later.