This is all about my beepy-bloopy tendencies and how I got into the stuff in the first place.

I better point out, right at the beginning, that I don’t see there being any difference between indie and electronica exactly.  Or at least, the dividing line is so blurred and there is so much crossover that the distinction is completely pointless, really.

I think the only reason I really make a distinction myself is because I became a music obsessive by listening to the likes of Dylan and Tom Waits and so on, and then moved onto the like of The Pogues and the Waterboys – not a beep in sight, basically.

Consequently, when I heard bands like Saint Etienne for the first time, although I loved lots of it, I didn’t explore much further because I just wasn’t used to electronic noises.  In actual fact, by the end of the podcast I think I come to the conclusion that it was actually an electronic beat which I really wasn’t used to, mostly, but in any case, I found it quite hard to get into anything vaguely electro for ages.  Given that I could barely make a distinction between the two these days, that seems kind of odd, too.

Toadcast #104 – The Bleepcast

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01. The Pet Shop Boys – Rent (03.46)
02. Stereolab – The Light That Will Cease to Fail (12.09)
03. Dubstar – St. Swithin’s Day (15.25)
04. U2 – Lemon (23.05)
05. Jason Lytle – On a Piece of Wood I Go (30.49)
06. The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist (35.57)
07. LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum (40.42)
08. Money Can’t Buy Music – We Are All Asphyxiate (48.59)
09. Magic Arm – Daft Punk is Playing at My House (52.41)
10. Parts & Labour – Fractured Skies (57.49)
11. Jon Hopkins – Circle My Demise (King Creosote) (65.13)

I was fascinated to hear this record, an electronic spoken-word collaboration between Ballboy’s Gordon MacIntyre and Maja MÃ¥ngÃ¥rd, (who is Swedish, and might just be his wife, but I’m not certain) but I would say that it is really only partially successful. Some of it really is good, and some just doesn’t quite click for me, but it’s definitely an interesting record.

This album feels a little like an extension of the instincts which drove McIntyre to write I Hate Scotland during his Ballboy days – a rambling, contemplative monologue set to music.  I don’t know enough about Ballboy’s back catalogue to make any kind of statement like that definitively, but it certainly feels like a large step in a similar direction.

The lyrics are absolutely key to music like this, and these remind me very, very strongly of Belle & Sebastian.  Beautifulgirlsunnyledges could easily be one of theirs, although don’t take that as a disparagement of the song, which is really lovely.  This kind of unrestrained stream of consciousness is present on most songs: McIntyre just seems to set a thought loose in his brain letting it flit around, just to see where it will go.  At times he veers towards deeper thoughts, but most of the more profound musings are lightened either by very dry humour or by gentle whimsy.  He’s not fannying around at all, just making sure we know he isn’t taking himself too seriously or trying to solve all the world’s problems in a three-minute pop song.

Lyrically and musically, er, whilst I like an awful lot of this, it can veer towards being just a little bit soft from time to time.  The electronics have just a little too much tweeness and niceness in them, compared to the glitch and skitter which I tend to prefer.  And the lyrics can, slightly in the way of the recent MJ Hibbett & the Validators album, seem just a little middle-aged from time to time.  What I mean by that is, I guess, just a little more inwardly focussed and domestic than I might personally expect.  This is no surprise, because Gordon is more veteran than tyro, nor is it any shame exactly, it’s just something which prevents me connecting with the lyrical content from time to time.

So for all there’s a lot here which I really like, there’s also a fair bit which I don’t quite connect with.  It’s a really interesting album though, and I am always impressed by people who push in radically different directions after making music of a certain type for a long time.

Money Can’t Buy Music – Beautifulgirlsunnyledges

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Money Can’t Buy Music – We Will All Asphyxiate

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