I can't think of another band that lost it's frontman and focal point, yet regrouped and emerged as an even greater popular and critical success. Genesis lost Peter Gabriel and enjoyed an upsurge in appeal, but critical esteem - well, no.
Joy Division, with it's epileptic and depressed Ian Curtis, seemed to find a shadowy corner somewhere at the end of the punk era, hinting at a haunted netherworld that was both raw and spooky. They foreshadowed Goth bands like Bauhaus, and contemporary post-punk revivalists such as Interpol.
After Curtis's suicide, the band stayed together and brought in Stephen Morris's girlfriend Gillian to play keyboards. Now renamed New Order, the band turned out sleek, terse music that flirted with the dance club but retained its punky muscle. As you can see in this video, the members exude what I would call an attitude of "ordinary genius." In other words, they don't look at all like gods of rock and roll, but they possess an aesthetic sensibility that sets them above just about anything else going on in popular music. Things I love about this video: Gillian turning the knob of a synth module, Stephen looking sheepish, and the Joy Division poster on the wall. The serenity displayed on the band member's faces opposes the cliched depiction of the Romantic "struggle" of the artiste. This is about as far as you can get from "Rock" and still remain "Rock." The almost militant stance against the Rock stereotype seems "punk" to me. It's "cool," in the sense of detachment, but it still rocks like a sledgehammer. It's an enigma.
While the Beatles are getting a great deal of attention for the reissue of their remastered recordings, Saint Etienne is also in the process of re-releasing their entire recorded output with additional discs of supplementary material, starting with their first CD, Fox Base Alpha.
One can only imagine artists such as Springsteen or Dylan receiving such special treatment in the States. Saint Etienne's fans are often completists, so the band will most likely have no problem selling scads of these repackaged gems. Despite the seeming homogeneity of pop music worldwide, Saint Etienne is recognized in the UK as a marvelous and sublime entity, while being only a rare delicacy around these parts. But true fans anywhere are inspired to an almost religious level of unconditional devotion. Lucky folks in the UK are being treated to concerts during which they will perform the entire Fox Base Alpha record.
While the trio produces their own dance-pop masterpieces, they have occasionally covered other tunes, most notoriously, Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." Here's a live performance on Top Of The Pops of a hit single originally recorded in the 70's by Jigsaw. Anything Saint Etienne touches they make their own, so it ends up sounding like something they would have written anyway.
Who Do You Think You Are:
One of the (many) things I appreciate about Saint Etienne is how they maintain a profound level of chic while being kind of surreal and whimsical. And they've never been too cool to be a little silly. The royal getup that Pete is wearing is in reference to what he wore in the official (and unavailable) video, in which he portrays a king with Elvis glasses. A very recent and fascinating interview with Bob Stanley is here, if you're interested in his thoughts on the history of pop music.
More divine silliness below if you're up for a personal favorite. (Note the modulation between the verse in E Dorian mode and the chorus in F Major, using a F#7 chord going to the B flat IV chord in the new key, at the 1:06 mark - total genius!) Hug My Soul:
I'm fairly obsessed with Keiichi Sugimoto's music. Keiichi is a Japanese laptop composer/guitarist with a highly refined sense of taste and style.
He records under various project names such as Fourcolor, Fonica, and Filfla, collaborates with singer Moskitoo, and is part of the band Minamo. Except for his last release, Frolicfon, which presented live, exuberant drums upfront in the mix, his music sounds pretty much the same: delicate electronic textures interweaved with layers of simple and attractive guitar parts.
Keiichi is also a graphic designer and runs the Cubic Music label. He writes music for TV advertisements in Japan for McDonald's, Ritz crackers, and Häagen-Dazs, and has released music on such uber-chic labels as 12k , Tomlab, and apestaartje. His music epitomizes what I would identify as one particular slice of contemporary Japanese aesthetics: cool, intimate, delicate, sensitive, pretty, undemonstrative, detailed, and minimal. I appreciate work that can at once sound random and tightly controlled. That's a tough dichotomy to straddle, yet Keiichi makes it seem unforced and natural.
FilFla live at [F]luister:
FourColor/Filfla - Berklee College of Music - 10/20/08:
There is little available information out there about Keiichi, except for some reviews of his records, and his own blog. Motivated by curiosity and admiration, I contacted him for an interview. He very quickly agreed and sent his back his responses. Although he expressed an insecurity about his grasp of English, I felt his answers were clear and precise. (I did a slight amount of editing just to clarify tense in some cases, or for singular and plural agreement.)
When you compose, do you have a sound in your head, or do you improvise until you find something interesting?
yes, mostly i have imagined sounds in my head when i compose. some times, i do make sounds by improvisation.
Do you have a goal in composing music? To quiet the mind? To create a fictional space?
maybe i don't have the goal. because, i have to develop all the time.
How do you know when a new song is finished and doesn't need any more development?
mostly i have a plan for making tracks. it's like, compose --> recording --> mixing --> mastering. i just make along like that.
What influenced you to create music in the beginning?
it happens suddenly. for example, when i saw an interesting building or when i heard interesting sounds in town...
What record are you most proud of?
very difficult question. every work is special for me. so i can't choose anything.
Your last cd was a Filfla release. Will you release any new music on cd soon?
yes, i will. maybe next is me and other members of the project "minamo" for release. also, i have some idea for new works.
What kind of guitar do you play?
electric guitar: fender jaguar electric acoustic guitar: morris and 12 string gibson guitar, no brand classical guitar
What software do you use when you perform live? Do you use loops, or linear arrangements? What kind of digital processing do you use? Max/msp, Pluggo?
i use ableton Live when i perform. i use both loops and linear arrangements. i have used pluggo before. but recently i just use default plug-ins of ableton live.
What guitar effect pedals do you like?
delay, looper.
Are you busier with music or graphic design?
music.
How did you get involved in doing music for television advertisements?
mostly, from music production. some other advertisements are directly from clients of companies.
Will you come back to the United States for any performances?
i hope. no ideas or offers right now. but, i really want to perform in us as soon as possible!
Another bit of nostalgia here from the end of the 70's. I was quite captivated with this tune when it came out, but I don't believe I ever saw the video. Lene Lovich is truly one kooky chick. She makes Bjork look like Nancy Reagan.
The bald guitarist is Les Chappell, her longtime collaborator and life partner.
My favorite line is, "There's something in the air besides the atmosphere."
I remember seeing this video, very late at night in 1979, on some random TV show. At the time, all I was really listening to was classical music and prog rock, so I had no previous interest in David Bowie, I thought he was just some wacko. When this video came on, it took me by surprise, and I sensed there was more going on with him, in fact, I believed I was seeing "art."
It's not that the video is weird. Weird isn't always good, or even interesting, sometimes weird is just dumb. Boys Keep Swinging is chilling in a metaphysical way. Note the lack of special effects. It's essentially a theatrical performance. It's not spontaneous or tossed off, it's premeditated and carefully staged.
There are two parts, the "performance" and the "runway show." In the performance part, Bowie performs enthusiastically in eerie isolation, doing his awkward/cool rock and roll dance, without a band or any visible audience. It's like a claustrophobic peepshow. If you haven't seen this, or forget what happens next, I won't spoil it for you, but David takes some female personas for a stroll down a catwalk. It's has you wondering at first, "Is that him? It can't be him. Oh, yes, it's definitely him!" The cheap set design for the "runway" section is completely fabulous, it would have been ruined if it were of a higher quality. And don't forget cheap can look expensive on film, this was meant to look tacky. The female characters are deftly mimed in brief cameos and each of them is individually defined with a few ingenious bits of actor's business.
How can I not mention Adrian Belew's guitar solo that accompanies the runway portion? It's a sublime and unbounded bit of ecstatic improvisation.
I came across this video while our family was in Guangzhou, China for our second adoption. Our son was taking a nap and I found myself watching the V Channel, which is the Asian music video channel.
I had read in the NY Times that Chinese pop was generic and bland. Some of it is, but I found a lot of the music really delightful, pretty, delicate, and light as air, and that's not a crime. I saw a band that did some really sweet Indie pop reminiscent of the NY band Ivy.
And I was impressed by this video, “Short Stay No. 2″ by Yuan Quan. At least I think this is the video, it looks like it, but I remember it sounding different, more of a samba. Either way, it's probably something most folks in the states would never see, and it has a refreshing charm. Yuan Quan is apparently quite a big deal in China. She's an actress and musician, and she has compiled a collection of travel related songs under the series title, Short Stay that she recorded with musicians living in each of the cities she visited. Yuan Quan. Short Stay No. 2:
I've been listening closely to Junior, the new album by Röyksopp. Even if you think you've never heard of this Norwegian electronic duo, I'm pretty sure you are already familiar with some of their music, and here's why: Please don't hold this against them.
Anyway, what's really impressive on this disc is the second track, called The Girl and the Robot, a techno tinted pop tune with a sophisticated chord progression, evoking a 19th century art song as it might have been written by Grieg over a hundred years ago. This lovely harmonic sequence goes like this, in a minor: iv / VI / #VII / i / VII / VI / iv / i. It's interesting how the progression avoids the more obvious use of the dominant chord, substituting the iv chord instead, which has a softening effect. Using a #VII chord is also a brilliant substitution for the V chord, and gives the song a unique flavor.
The track is a collaboration with the truly peerless Swedish pop singer-songwriter, Robyn. There is an official video for this which is rather fabulous , but I prefer the version Röyksopp performed live on tv with Robyn (notice the cheers when the audience recognizes her!):
Other tracks feature vocals by Anneli Drecker, Karin Dreijer from The Knife, and Lykke Li from, presumably, some other planet. All worth a careful listen.
I can't think of another band that lost it's frontman and focal point, yet regrouped and emerged as an even greater popular and critical success. Genesis lost Peter Gabriel and enjoyed an upsurge in appeal, but critical esteem - well, no. 
