OUR SATISFACTORY SOUNDS SELECTIONS OF THE WEEK (29/09/14)

MAC DEMARCO – ROCK AND ROLL NIGHTCLUB

Mac Demarco is a huge favourite of ours here at Dissatisfied Sounds. His two most recent full length offerings ‘2’ and ‘Salad Days’ garnered him a huge hoard of devotees, but it is this low-fi track from his first album that got us intrigued.

Mac is known for being prolific, being competent on most instruments and its interesting to hear a track such as this where he is still carving out his musical identity. With warbley Elvis like vocals this track is underminned, as always with Mr. Demarco, a really juice guitar riff. Enjoy…

SATISFIED

FLEETWOOD MAC – RHIANNON (1976)

Rhiannon is one of our fave Fleetwood Mac tracks, and one of their first bangers after Nicks and Buckingham joined the group. From the Fleetwood Mac White album – the song itself has an interesting background.

Nicks discovered Rhiannon in the early 70’s through a novel called Triad, by Mary Leader. The novel is about a woman named Branwen, who is possessed by another woman named Rhiannon. There is mention of the Welsh legend of Rhiannon in the novel, but the characters in the novel bear little resemblance to their original Welsh namesakes (both Rhiannon and Branwen are major female characters in the medieval Welsh prose tales of the Mabinogion).

Nicks bought the novel in an airport just before a long flight and thought the name was so pretty that she wanted to write something about a girl named Rhiannon. She wrote “Rhiannon” in 1974, three months before joining Fleetwood Mac, while living with Richard Dashut and Lindsey Buckingham in Malibu,^[6] and has claimed that it took 10 minutes to write.

After writing the song, Nicks learned that Rhiannon originated from a Welsh goddess, and was amazed that the haunting song lyrics applied to the Welsh Rhiannon as well. Nicks researched the Mabinogion story and began work on a Rhiannon project, unsure of whether it would become a movie, a musical, a cartoon, or a ballet. There are several “Rhiannon Songs” from this unfinished project including “Stay Away” and “Maker of Birds.” Nicks wrote the Fleetwood Mac song “Angel” based on the Rhiannon story.

Nicks avoided wearing black clothing for “about two years” in an effort to distance herself from the witchcraft and dark arts associations surrounding her as a result of the lyrics to “Rhiannon” giving fans the wrong impression.

Its not the album version that we keep returning to however, its the above live 1976 version. Just wait until after the Lindsey Buckingham guitar solo and the building middle eighth – to see Stevie Nicks at her most 70’s (and probably most coked up) best. In the words of Nevermind producer Butch Vig in Dave Grohl’s Sound City – Reel Reel, “Boy, that Girls’ got some pipes!”

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RZA – YOU CAN’T STOP ME NOW

Coming from the Wu Tang Clan’s commander in chief the RZA’s fourth studio solo album Digi Snacks – You can’t stop me now represents the obligatory Hip Hop tune on our countdown. The album Digi Snacks can be seen as a concept album, with RZA himself saying,

“This world wasn’t in a digital format in 1998. Now digital is the most compelling form of commerce and entertainment so this is like a relaunch of the character.

The album is Digi Snacks because it’s a snack pack of Bobby Digital’s world. Not only music and sounds, but also the comic background, the sci-fi background, the black-exploitation background. Look at the artwork—a girl with an afro, an Asian girl, Bobby sitting in the big king’s chair and then the villains—Raven, Hawk, Eagle and Crane, the four birds of prey that I use as my enemies. Bobby Digital’s life-long nemesis. That adds a comic element to it—as well as martial arts. I’m planning a comic book, a video game—I’m already talking to people. I want fans to be aware of these things.“

Clearly RZA is an ambitious dude – but this track is worth all the pretence. Featuring our third fave Wu-Tang memeber Inspectah Decks and underpinned with an amzing sample of the Whatanauts – Mesage from a Black Man RZA spits his world view in true East Coast fashion.

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THOM YORKE – HARROWDOWN HILL

We love a good change of pace to keep you guys on your toes here at DS and so lets go for a but it of electroey rocky – well…. its hard actually to define Thom Yorke. The Radiohead frontman simultanously breaks down generes he himslef creates. his first solo effort the Eraser is no better exampke of this.

Harrowdown Hill in Longworth, Oxfordshire is notable for being the place where the body of Dr. David Kelly was found in 2003. His evidence had raised questions about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction — the official justification for the UK government’s decision to invade Iraq. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Yorke said, “The government and the Ministry of Defence… were directly responsible for outing him and that put him in a position of unbearable pressure that he couldn’t deal with, and they knew they were doing it and what it would do to him… I’ve been feeling really uncomfortable about that song lately, because it was a personal tragedy, and Dr. Kelly has a family who are still grieving. But I also felt that not to write it would perhaps have been worse.” In another interview, Yorke said that “Harrowdown Hill” is “the most angry song I’ve ever written in my life. I’m not gonna get into the background to it, the way I see it… And it’s not for me or for any of us to dig any of this up. So it’s a bit of an uncomfortable thing.”Yorke also notes that “‘Harrowdown Hill’ was kicking around during Hail to the Thief, but there was no way that was going to work with the band.”

A deeply personal, dark track that bears repeated plays. One that leaves us uncomfortable and at that same time….

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OUR SATISFACTORY SOUNDS SELECTIONS OF THE WEEK (22/09/14)

ANTHEM  – BLACK ROSE

We love a bit of Barrington Levvy here at Dissatisfied Towers and frankly we also love a good remix. Anthem’s Black Rose provides us with both and that makes us very happy!

Henrik Schwarz and Jesse Rose are two names synonymous with House music, no doubt. The former releasing a strew of quality originals and remixes for a long time now (one of which featured in our top 2010 list) ; the latter is the boss of the glorious Made to Play imprint as well as Front Room and Play it Down, not to mention a superb producer. In fact his “Let’s Start Again” EP on Dubsided back in 2005 is a huge record and I relish playing that badboy on the ones and twos every time I get a chance. 

These two pillars of modern dance music culture have come together to bring you a track of such epic proportions that there can only be one word in the Oxford English Dictionary apt to describe it, and that word is Anthem. Now you may be thinking that they are blowing their own trumpet a little bit, however when these two mammoth minds collide under their Black Rose moniker it is safe to say they have the “cojones”, the gravitas and an esteemed music CV to label their debut output as such.

The video will make you trip harder than falling down a flight of stairs – but its definitely worth a watch. Check this massively original tune out and check Anthem out – the duo make literally crazy music.

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RJD2 – GIMME THE LOOT

RJD2 is an amazing DJ, creating haunting;y orginal soundscapes with the same ease that he creates melodic joyful tunes. Ghostwriter is probably our favourite of his – so when we came across this remixed with our third fave Biggie track, we were in love. The two tunes seem to mesh perfectly, with the horns of Ghostwriter mixed perfectly with the GIMMME THE LOOT chorus. We almost prefer this to the Biggie original, as when we hear “from the berretta, putting all the holes in ya sweater” nothing can stopping us from jumping up and grooving to this remix. We don’t feel the need to say much more about this one- it speak s for itself. 

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COWBELL – HANGING BY A THREAD

Cowbell – and their debut offering Beat Stampede – aren’t breaking new ground by any means. But you don’t always have to be different to be great.

‘Hanging By a Thread’, Sam Cooke-esque soulful pop inviting replay after replay, shows a lighter side of the band daring to emerge from the album’s crackling, cranked guitars and stampeding drums. Beat Stampede is a record so studded with top notch tunes that, in the good old days when people hung on a disc jockey’s or popular music journalist’s every syrupy word and duly trooped off to department stores with real paper to buy real plastic, it would genuinely and without irony, be described as ‘chart topper’. Unfortunately now days – its a bit old hat.

Plus points as well for getting more women in rock n roll, especially on the drums.

This however, is not to say we find it, how do you say….

SATISFYING 

REMY SHAND – TAKE A MESSGE

In case you forgot, Shand hit it big in 2002 with his debut album “The Way I Feel.” In 2003, he picked up four Juno Award nominations and won in the category of R&B/Soul Recording of the Year for the track “The Way I Feel.”

He was also nominated for four Grammy Awards that year, including, Best R&B Album, Best R&B Vocal Performance – Male, Best R&B Song and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance.

His best tune in our opinion is the above “Take A Message”.

Then  disappeared, some claiming that he had fallen into drug addiction, others that he had quite the music biz and finally others claimed that he had finally just topped himself. That is…..until the middle of 2013 wheremysterious videos sta`rted popping up on his youtube account.

We love a bit of George Michael here and Remy easily takes up the mantel and rolls with it – cool pop tunes from Canada.

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THE HEAVY – DO YOU LIKE THEM NOW?

The Heavy claim to be the music industry’s worst kept secret. They make blazing, urgent, infectious rock-soul with a strong dose of hip-hop and if you’ve eve been on Dissatisfied Sounds before – that never goes amiss. You’ve heard their songs in a lot of different places, and it’s likely that you loved them.

Hailing from good old Blighty, and forming in the fertile swamps of England’s West Country in the mid-naughties, around the axis of Dan Taylor (guitarist and songwriter) and Kelvin Swaby (vocalist and songwriter,) the Heavy immediately astounded. Jaw dropping, freshly minted riffs, swinging hip-hop drums, funk-ridden bass and Swaby’s startling, Mayfield-esque vocals meant early singles ‘That Kind of Man’ and ‘Colleen’ blew minds and won hearts. The debut album they were taken from – ‘Great Vengeance and Furious Fire’ – became an instant connoisseurs’ classic.

Their third LP may be titled The Glorious Dead, but soulful rock-‘n’-rollers The Heavy are alive and well—and the classic guitar riffs, funky horns, and Curtis Mayfield-reminiscent vocals that fans have been missing since their 2009 album, The House that Dirt Built, are all in tow. That album’s lead single, “How You Like Me Now,” was one of the year’s most joyful surprises; and the first single from The Glorious Dead, “What Makes a Good Man?” follows in its catchy, triumphant footsteps. Play this album loudly enough, and it may just be possible to rouse the dead.

It was their sophomore album, though, that saw them blasting into homes across the globe. ‘The House that Dirt Built’ was everything a second album should be: a deeper, richer progression from the band’s early work. It also yielded the mighty ‘How You Like Me Now?’ The single was licensed for a major commercial in the 3rd Quarter of the Superbowl (the biggest ad slot in the world) and quite simply went stratospheric – whilst not even being the best on the album (that award goes to Short Change Hero – listen below)

“How You Like Me Now?” continued to be eaten up by the mainstream media machine – A heady mix of impassioned, incandescent vocal, gargantuan riff and boom-bap drums, it also happened to conjure up a triumph-in-adversity sentiment that struck a chord across the globe. The song went on to become the first for which David Letterman ever requested an encore, when The Heavy played the “Late Show,” and appeared everywhere from “Entourage,” Academy Award-nominated film The Fighter, and Mark Wahlberg’s hit comedy ‘Ted.’

“It became such a big tune, that people asked, ‘How are you going to top that?’.” Swaby says.

The answer was 2012’s ‘The Glorious Dead,’ the band’s third album. Searching for inspiration, The Heavy – which in addition to Taylor and Swaby includes Spencer Page (bass) and Chris Ellul (drums) – travelled from their Bath, England hometown to Columbus, Georgia. There, they hooked up with local gospel singers and musicians for some Southern Gothic sublimity.

The final magic ingredient in the mix was Gabriel “Bosco Mann” Roth of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, who added string and horn parts to four songs.

Even deeper, a touch darker, and with shades of Southern Gothic infesting the swampy rock n’ soul of previous records, the album was another giant step forward, Frankensteining swampy voodoo and b-movie zombies with garage rock and Gospel-soaked soul.

Lead single ‘What Makes a Good Man?’ showed that The Heavy were able to write brilliant singles time after time, with synchs snowing in once again, and American radio coming on board. The band toured the world exhaustively, wowing audiences with their transcendental live performances.

“It was over the top, in a good way,” adds Heavy frontman Kelvin Swaby. “We went pretty cinematic, setting out to score a film that hasn’t been written.”

“It’s good to have a bit of light and shade,” Taylor adds.

Since then, The Heavy has gone on to achieve storming success in Japan, playing Fuji Rock, chalking up a #1 alternative album on iTunes Japan, scoring a major Pepsi synch and playing Japan’s biggest breakfast TV show, ‘Sukkiri.’ The band will play a full Japanese tour in October 2014.

Their music was used in the stunning Guiness Sapeurs ad, they played Glastonbury, sold out Shepherd’s Bush Empire and re-recorded How You Like Me Now? with none other than 50 Cent, to launch ESPN’s coverage of the NFL Draft Week.

Whilst they may, in the same vein as the National, have traded in their underground credibility for a slot in the Super Bowl. Its always nice to see a band be rewarded with fame, glamour and cash for being original and frankly – pretty fucking good.

That leaves us….