Tag Archives: New Music United

Soft Cell – Her Imagination (1984)

by 2010s • Tags: , , , , ,

This Last Night in Sodom is a 1984 album released by electro-synth pop duo Soft Cell for Phonogram records. It was released about a month after its two members Marc Almond and David Ball announced their breakup in a letter to various music magazines, including Melody Maker and NME, in the UK. The album represents a shift in style from the delicate, erotic, dancefloor-friendly pop of their earlier records. The album contains a more eclectic mix of styles as well, from the Spanish-influenced “L’Esqualita” (inspired by the drag bar in New York City of the same name- the actual real name being “La Escuelita”) to the rockabilly-tinged “Down in the Subway”. The thematic elements of the songs are also noticeably darker, even for Soft Cell, and center around self-destruction and the breakdown of innocence. “Meet Murder My Angel”, according to Almond, is about the mind of a murderer before he slaughters his victim, while “Where Was Your Heart (When You Needed It Most)” centers on a girl who loses all self-esteem after being raped while intoxicated. The main single was “Soul Inside”, which reached number 18 in the UK charts in September 1983. The artwork was originally printed entirely in red and gold ink, down to the liner notes, lyrics, LP labels, and serial number. The album was largely a critical success, but ultimately received little commercial attention, and has since gone out of print. A remastered version with bonus tracks, which included a 12″ single mix of “Soul Inside”, a cover version of the theme from the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, and “Her Imagination”, cut during a session at the BBC, was also released, although this too has since stopped circulation and copies are quite rare.




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She slips in and out of her dull imagination
That floats around the twilight of her tomb
Clutching her little treasures
That represent a happy moment
Displayed with sad affection in her room

But this life is a prison
And it hurts to hear the children laughing
While they live their pretty little dreams
And frozen all the while
Is a tearful bitter smile
Nothings really what it seems

Nothings really what it seems
Nothings really what it seems

Like a silver little fool
You were standing at the alter
In the tides by the candles
As they burn

Pressed against the mirror
Playing all your favourite film stars
Ready for the camera
That would never, never turn

Push aside the curtain
Of your tiny garret window
And glare out on the narrow little world

You were in your wedding dress
Great expectations more or less
Playing with your dolls like any ordinary
Little girl

Candle light
Candle bright
Won’t you light my way tonight
Candle light
Candle bright
Won’t you light my way tonight

Now it’s the futile bitter feelings
That clutch you in the middle
You were never really given a chance

And the spite that jabs your mind
Hides a heart thats really warm and kind
And the pulse that races with
Each other inquisitive glance

You were always the outsider
And they set you up a childhood
To be just another cuddly toy

And the whisper in the street
When the street corner gossips meet
The woman on the fourth floor
He was such a happy boy

The woman on the fourth floor
He was such a happy boy
The woman on the fourth floor
He was such a happy boy
The woman on the fourth floor
He was such a happy boy

Candle light
Candle bright
Won’t you light my way tonight
Candle light
Candle bright
Won’t you light my way tonight
Candle light
Candle bright
Won’t you light my way tonight

Boards of Canada – Reach for the Dead (2013)

by 2010s • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Finally it’s here: our first proper taste of Boards of Canada’s Tomorrow’s Harvest. After much lead-up, you can now listen to the album’s “Reach for the Dead.” Much like you’d expect, the track takes a sombre route, hitting those BoC touchstones while adding a whole new layer of updated and wicked-eerie atmospherics to the mix. Expand your mind below. As previously reported, Tomorrow’s Harvest will be available on June 11 via Warp. [Source]











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Boney M. – Still I’m Sad (1977)

by 1970s • Tags: , , , ,

Love for Sale is the second album by Boney M. The album includes the hits “Ma Baker” (#96 on the Billboard Hot 100, #31 on the Club Play Singles chart), and “Belfast”. It also includes covers: “Love for Sale” (by Cole Porter), “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” (by Creedence Clearwater Revival), and “Still I’m Sad” (by The Yardbirds).





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Far Corporation – Stairway To Heaven (1985)

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by 1980s • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Far Corporation is a british band created by record producer Frank Farian, who created the bands Boney M. and Milli Vanilli. The name was shortened from “Frank Farian Corporation”, which was originally put together to record a cover of the Paul Simon piece “Mother and Child Reunion” as a charity record and reached the top 10 in several European countries. That group’s lineup included members of Barclay James Harvest, Toto, Boney M and Force Majeure. Far Corporation’s primary claim to fame is their cover of “Stairway to Heaven”. Contrary to public perception, Far Corporation was actually the first group to make the singles charts with this song as Led Zeppelin had never released it as a single. Some of the musicians Farian assembled include vocalist Robin McAuley, drummer Simon Phillips, ex-Saga drummer Curt Cress, and three members of Toto: vocalist Bobby Kimball, keyboardist David Paich, and guitarist Steve Lukather. Far Corporation released its first album Division One in 1985 on IMP/ATCO Records and their cover of “Stairway to Heaven” reached #8 on the UK Singles Chart.Also included on the album was a cover of Free’s “Fire and Water” (their second single). A second album Advantage was completed for a 1987 release, heralded by the new single “One by One”. Both this as well as the second single – a cover of Cockney Rebel’s “Sebastian” – failed to reach the charts, and the album was eventually scrapped. Two of the lost recordings, “Make Believe” and “Big Brother”, surfaced as Bobby Kimball duets on Farian artist Jayne (Collins)’s Ambush in the Night album (1989) and Milli Vanilli’s second album The Moment of Truth (1991). The rest was recycled along a few new recordings on the group’s second release, 1994′s Solitude on MCI-BMG. This time they were joined by former Thin Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham. Mostly assembled in honour of Farian’s 25 years anniversary as a producer, the album failed to repeat the success of “Stairway to Heaven”.




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[via Tonny Pape]

Skinny Puppy – Wornin (2013)

by 2010s • Tags: , , , ,

In its nearly three decades of existence, Skinny Puppy has established itself as a groundbreaking innovative voice in the world of electronic music. Fearless in both its musical experimentation and voicing a stance on the issues of our times, the new album, Weapon, is no exception.

This stunning new album stands as a commentary on that which it is named after, the Weapon, or more specifically, to the concurrent glorification of the gun culture and simultaneous horror at the devastation the gun can cause. Given this view, the pop undertones of the albums opening “wornin” and the compelling counterpoint of the vocals and lyrics seem to reflect our mass media homogenization of an instrument of death into an entertainment centerpiece. “illisiT” could then be focusing on the authoritarian control applied to us under the guise of protecting us from the criminal element. Though possibly it is from the view of the average citizen, arming themselves against the threat of each other. The more it is analyzed, the more it could be pondered on varying levels. Perhaps the classic Skinny Puppy sounds evident in the song “solvent” are a nod to not only the past, but to a bleak Orwellian future, cycle of the weapon leads only to power in the hands of those who have no fear of using it. Are we facing a 1984 dystopia filtered through a Kafkaesque lens? A world where the illusion of power given to the private citizen afforded ownership of a weapon distracts them from the Big Brother drones that watch overhead?

Parallels could certainly be drawn from our own society to a track like “tsudanama”, where the ever building menace of the mechanized rhythms crashes over the listener in waves as the vocals at times seem to take the tone of the voice of protest, standing against the inevitable tide of the dystopian path of progress. Then does “plasiCage” implore the listener to take up the fight against a gun worship culture and the spiraling towards oligarchy? Or are the mournful tones “terminal” a funeral dirge for our society?

Could the weapon be the gun, or the one who wields it? Is it in creating an arms race among the populace, or does it lie in the resulting authoritarian control given to those who are charged with protecting us from ourselves? Is it the power to profit from the cycle? Is it the singular act of speaking against the conditioning of our thoughts and actions? [Source]




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Mark Lanegan + Duke Garwood – Pentacostal (2013)

by 2010s • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Having previously teamed with Isobel Campbell and Greg Dulli on separate projects, grunge survivor, Mark Lanegan is no stranger to the collaborative album. His latest effort, however, an album recorded with English bluesman, Duke Garwood, may have you heading for google as you hit play. Garwood’s name doesn’t come with much recognition on this side of the Atlantic. Fret not. Lanegan is said to be a huge fan of Garwood’s and “Pentecostal,” the first cut released from Black Pudding (May 14th on Ipecac) finds Lanegan back on the well-tread road of American roots music. Garwood is no slouch, either. For those who had mixed feelings about The Mark Lanegan Band’s Blues Funeral and its reliance on more modern, electronic elements, both the direction and the accompaniment of Black Pudding are welcome developments. [Source]




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