Sunday night / Monday morning music
Comprised of some of the stuff I've been spinning on the Chinese radio show lately. Station charter rules are that 7% of prime time ought to be Canadian music (something like that - rule of thumb is one song per hour-long show), and the policy is to keep it French. So I cheat by playing the one French track anglophone Quebecer artists include on their albums for this very purpose XD; (sometimes it's a bonus track: see Feist). The first two are from a "Montreal Attractions" segment on jazz.
Susie Arioli - Lumière de nuit: current incarnation known as "Susie Arioli Swing Band". She's pretty famous here although I don't know about elsewhere. This is the same idea as Feist's "Amourissima", actually - wistful evocation of tinny 1920s phonographs and sepia-poster radio-show girls in cloche hats.
The Lost Fingers - Coeur de loup: three-piece from Quebec City who specialize in upbeat gypsy jazz covers of 80s pop classics. They do a mean "Billie Jean"... come to think of it I should probably have uploaded that instead. XD; You'll know this one if you're French though ahaha.
(Philippe Lafontaine was Belgium's Eurovision entry in 1990 - with a song about a Macedonian girl, confusingly.)
Marie-Chantal Toupin - Avions de papier: Everyone liked this one, but then it's very Asian pop. XD;; I'm pretty sure I've already had it on a mix somewhere. From 1998, though this wasn't the album that broke her, and she hasn't done much like it since.
Not played on radio:
Jeff Buckley feat. Elizabeth Fraser - All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun: found out about this (and its back story) from that interview Liz Fraser recently did with the Guardian. Was I the last person on earth to know this existed?! (jokersama?)
Been playing Heaven and Las Vegas quite a bit, although last.FM refuses to log it for some reason. Last heard it probably in 2001, at which point I wasn't entirely able to appreciate it - although my understanding of Cocteau Twins is largely informed by the acts they inspired, like Faye Wong and Yoko Kanno (well, no one's said so but it's obvious). Since I'm supposed to work on a half-hour Tuesday culture show now I may use Faye Wong + Cocteau Twins in my pitch to Y.* Then I guess I'll have to do the Damon Albarn one I keep avoiding writing.**
***
Decade's End: I don't really want to start on this stuff until January, actually, since 1) I'm pedantic, 2) no one's paying me to stick to their schedule, and 3) I seriously believe cultural decades are staggered from calendar decades anyway, like the 00s didn't start until 9/11 (and centuries are staggered by a decade's worth or so: the last century didn't really kick off until the Titanic / Great War, and it's only now - 2010! - starting to feel like we're living in the 21st instead of the hangover of the 20th. This is why I've been reading so much SF, by the way). But I have to make some notes, or I'm just going to forget. XD;
So I have to write about:
--Utada Hikaru
--Kings of Convenience / Erlend Øye (although that would require me to listen to the Whitest Boy Alive albums which... I haven't)
--Relatedly, the whole recap on Postal Service / "bedroom electronica" / Morr Music / Junior Boys etc., the xx probably goes here which makes it actually current + maybe I will just do a flowchart of 00s Dance/Electronica, post it, and ask ppl to critique
--Peter Doherty (guaranteed the only Libertines essay you will ever read that's mostly about Saint Etienne)
And 2009 writeups:
--Surgeon
--Animal Collective: The Wank (siiiiigh)
--
* with added bonus that no one can tell these songs are being sung in English
** with added bonus that I can steal content off the blogs of those Asian girls who follow Graham Coxon around, /jk /jk
Susie Arioli - Lumière de nuit: current incarnation known as "Susie Arioli Swing Band". She's pretty famous here although I don't know about elsewhere. This is the same idea as Feist's "Amourissima", actually - wistful evocation of tinny 1920s phonographs and sepia-poster radio-show girls in cloche hats.
The Lost Fingers - Coeur de loup: three-piece from Quebec City who specialize in upbeat gypsy jazz covers of 80s pop classics. They do a mean "Billie Jean"... come to think of it I should probably have uploaded that instead. XD; You'll know this one if you're French though ahaha.
(Philippe Lafontaine was Belgium's Eurovision entry in 1990 - with a song about a Macedonian girl, confusingly.)
Marie-Chantal Toupin - Avions de papier: Everyone liked this one, but then it's very Asian pop. XD;; I'm pretty sure I've already had it on a mix somewhere. From 1998, though this wasn't the album that broke her, and she hasn't done much like it since.
Not played on radio:
Jeff Buckley feat. Elizabeth Fraser - All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun: found out about this (and its back story) from that interview Liz Fraser recently did with the Guardian. Was I the last person on earth to know this existed?! (jokersama?)
Been playing Heaven and Las Vegas quite a bit, although last.FM refuses to log it for some reason. Last heard it probably in 2001, at which point I wasn't entirely able to appreciate it - although my understanding of Cocteau Twins is largely informed by the acts they inspired, like Faye Wong and Yoko Kanno (well, no one's said so but it's obvious). Since I'm supposed to work on a half-hour Tuesday culture show now I may use Faye Wong + Cocteau Twins in my pitch to Y.* Then I guess I'll have to do the Damon Albarn one I keep avoiding writing.**
***
Decade's End: I don't really want to start on this stuff until January, actually, since 1) I'm pedantic, 2) no one's paying me to stick to their schedule, and 3) I seriously believe cultural decades are staggered from calendar decades anyway, like the 00s didn't start until 9/11 (and centuries are staggered by a decade's worth or so: the last century didn't really kick off until the Titanic / Great War, and it's only now - 2010! - starting to feel like we're living in the 21st instead of the hangover of the 20th. This is why I've been reading so much SF, by the way). But I have to make some notes, or I'm just going to forget. XD;
So I have to write about:
--Utada Hikaru
--Kings of Convenience / Erlend Øye (although that would require me to listen to the Whitest Boy Alive albums which... I haven't)
--Relatedly, the whole recap on Postal Service / "bedroom electronica" / Morr Music / Junior Boys etc., the xx probably goes here which makes it actually current + maybe I will just do a flowchart of 00s Dance/Electronica, post it, and ask ppl to critique
--Peter Doherty (guaranteed the only Libertines essay you will ever read that's mostly about Saint Etienne)
And 2009 writeups:
--Surgeon
--Animal Collective: The Wank (siiiiigh)
--
* with added bonus that no one can tell these songs are being sung in English
** with added bonus that I can steal content off the blogs of those Asian girls who follow Graham Coxon around, /jk /jk