Boca al Lupo

One of the facts of getting older is, perhaps, that you should pay more attention to your own sanity. I'm still not sure how this works but, for me at least, this seems to include the realisation that I like a far wider range of music than I did when I was a teenager. It is true that what I liked then was not just current chart; now I like a diverse range but it still includes plenty of chart music. I liked much folk/roots music then too and I still do. Wholly electronic music is something that I'd never really considered until somehow, and quite why I can no longer remember, I decided to give it a try...

If, however, you had asked me about this kind of electronica three years ago I'd have questioned both your sanity and mine.

Then I discovered that I like it! Not all of it, of course, but that applies equally to any category of music. One of the first albums I bought in this genre was the 2007 re-release of Xela - For Frosty Mornings and Summer Nights. I was acquainted with releases by the 'Type Records' label before that but this was my first experience of Xela and I mentioned it here.

The new Xela album In Boca Al Lupo was pre-released on 2 x 12" vinyl on 24 November TYPE043V. It is wonderful and, although I have not yet listened to it sufficiently often to fully appreciate it, my thoughts are that it is rather more movingly sinister and organic than Frosty Mornings... but like it totally without lyric. It is a shame that it wasn't available in time for my suggestions for Halloween music, as it would have been the perfect dénouement.

In Boca Al Lupo is released (in the UK on import) on CD on 9 December 2008 but you might still be able to get the vinyl version here.
A prolific artist without doubt but some Xela releases have to be grabbed as soon as they appear and this, a 12" vinyl only collaboration with the The North Sea, is a good example...

RITE003(2008)

Listening today... not new and without lyrics.

I'm liking two albums very much at the moment. Neither is new, but to me they are as I've only got them this week. They are both largely without vocals but, aside from that, they are really very different indeed.

Re-released in 2007, and made by the Type Records supremo himself, it is just awesome. That said it is also important to realise that this is total electronica.

Rather different is this live CD, recorded and produced in Chicago by Steve Albini, released by sort-of-Brighton-based Electrelane. Absolutely revolutionary it may not be* but it is a fine release and only makes me want to see them play live even more than I already do!

Electrelane - Axes

* In both cases I've meddled vicariously with the album art-work a little (in part because neither album had the title or artist on the cover) but, while on the subject of altering things, The Partisan (Track 10 on Axes) is actually a rather remarkable cover of a cover! It started life not as French Resistance anthem Chant de Partisans but as an earlier (White Russian) one by Anna Marly, who had later adopted France as her homeland. It was then translated into French, but in England in 1943, and used as propaganda on BBC radio. Later still was an English translation (origin currently unknown to me) and it was made notable by Leonard Cohen (1969) and Joan Baez (1972), only to reappear here interpreted in a yet another different way! This one does have vocals but, as is very often the Electrelane way, those of Verity Susman are not prominent in the mix. It is certainly true here, and perhaps the exact intention is that they are almost indecipherable?
I'm delighted to say that, for the curious like me, versions of the lyric, in Russian, French, English and also Persian can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chant_des_Partisans