Well, Duran Duran don’t exactly have a great track record with cover versions, and I’m not convinced this is going to change many people’s minds, but it’s a worthy attempt, covering David Bowie‘s Five Years:
I decided to pause regular service today just to pause and celebrate the death – however brief it ends up being – of fascism in the USA. Yes, Wonderbras aren’t American, but it’s still a good excuse for some Rammstein.
It’s always nice when Kraftwerk appear out of nowhere with a new release, particularly when some of the material is exclusive. While it’s a little disappointing that this is a digital-only release, and while some of the track choices are a little perplexing, Remixes is still a rather wonderful collection. Here’s the opening track, the previously unheard Non Stop:
As you’ll have spotted if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, when I’m not criticising other people’s music, I also create some pretty poor material of my own. I’ll never ask you to like it or provide feedback, because I make it entirely for my own entertainment. I also won’t post here about it more than once a year, because this isn’t what this blog is about.
But on the offchance you’re wondering what I’ve been up to this year, here’s your update. After remixing tracks from my first two albums over the last couple of years, I moved onto my unfinished demos from my time living in Yorkshire, from 2005-2009, and built four EPs and an album out of them. It all began with Your World or Mine?, which on the album sounded like this:
The EP versions aren’t quite demos, but they aren’t quite completed either, and the most notable of these was Entranced, which was a daft 90s dance track in its initial form, then got remixed to be an expansive ambient piece, before finally settling down to become a dubby but somewhat conventional song on the album:
Left at the Bitter End led the second EP (Meanwood), and was subject to a major remix for the album, leading to a track that I’m particularly proud of. There’s also a single now with a couple of extra reinterpretations, but this is how it sounds on the album:
Times had changed when I recorded the original demos for the third and fourth EPs (Pinewood and Driftwood respectively). By this time, I was playing around with song structures, and looking to other songwriters for inspiration. If you listen to the album, you’ll find a couple of examples of this, but Animal Magnetism is one of the more experimental pieces that resulted from this period:
After this came California, which will form the backdrop for album number five. There’s a lot more material there, so time will tell whether it all appears in 2021, but work is already progressing well. For now, though, I’ll go back to keeping quiet about these works, and you’re welcome to ignore them if you’re offended by them!
Music for stowaways 