Music nerds obsess: it's Bjork time

The spirit of her 2001 album Verspertine is alive and well on Bjork's latest track Blissing Me.

In this video, she appears to have her dress stitched into her face and some significant fungal ear growth. I'd have that looked at if I were her.

It's impressive stuff, and the lyrics have a delightfully ordinary moment:

"Is this excess texting a blessing?
Two music nerds obsessing"

Funny how texting seems retro now. Enjoy the stitching and the growth and the obsessing.

Listen to Legowelt's Its Midnite And You Are Spaceweed

Have a slice of gentle acid courtesy of Legowelt. This is one of those musicians who has quietly amassed a huge discography under this name and numerous aliases including Polarius, Smackos and Nacho Patrol.

This is called 'Its Midnite And You Are Spaceweed' off his new album 'Legendary Freaks In The Trash Of Time'. That's not the best track title on the album - that accolade goes to 'My Life In A Bush Of Spaceweed'.

Digging Burial's Untrue

Burial's Untrue album turned ten last week.

The album is feted by critics. The BBC calls it "powerful". Drowned In Sound called it "unspeakably romantic". Pitchfork just banged on for ages and used the word "sophomore" six hundred times.

Burial's mystique helped. It took the press five years to discover Burial's identity. "I wanted to use the sound of the earth," said Alan Titchmarsh after being exposed by Homes & Gardens magazine. "If you listen closely, it's mostly trowels."

His production techniques have been much copied, although we seem to forget that, famously, Untrue was produced by ghosts. This posed difficult logistics for studio staff. "They couldn't use the water cooler," I remember one assistant saying in an interview, "because their hands kept going through the little cone cups."

The album is a beautiful listen. Here's a Resident Advisor tribute to the album, which is a pretty good primer for those yet to get into Burial. Long may Alan's (and his ghosts') excellent work continue.

Name that tune? I wish I could

By and large, I can lance my ear-worms pretty quickly.

You know what an ear-worm is. Those snippets of music that get caught in your thoughts. The "oh oh oh oh oh" of New Kids On The Block's Right Stuff. The "I don't want a place to stay" bit of Technotronic's Pump Up The Jam. Little audio hooks by Alice Deejay, MGMT, Drake or flipping Adele.

Usually when I can name an insistent melody, it slowly fades.

But I had a tune in my head all day yesterday I couldn't name. A cheesy melodic wash that was tickling me something rotten.

I can't explain it here, but it went "da doo do doo de doo doo". I'd heard it somewhere before, maybe from Spotify's New Music Friday service.

Was it new, though? I tried to put lyrics to it, but I couldn't tell if it was a shiny recent single or something dusty from my youth.

Last night, I went to bed with it in my head. I yearned for a good sleep so I could wake afresh and immediately declare "yes! it's so-and-so b-side from (insert obscure indie band)!"

I slept. I dreamt. Then in the morning, my phone alarm woke me up.

The ear-worm was my chuffing Samsung phone alarm.

Flipping heck. The cheesy melodic wash I couldn't identify was in my pocket all along, set to go off at 8am the next day.

Consider this particular ear-worm lanced, skinned and boiled into mulch.

The gorgeous t-shirts I once wore

My favourite t-shirt when I was younger was an 808 State 'Gorgeous' t-shirt, mainly because I got to walk around with 'gorgeous' written on my chest.

The picture you see here is from the 808 State website, but there's a pretty neat photo of me online somewhere sporting the tee in my early 20s, gurning and looking very young.

I also had a t-shirt for their 'Don Solaris' album which said, emblazoned on the front, "there is no love stronger than that between a man and his cock". I never wore it because of any braggadocio - it was just, y'know, cock, hur hur.

Sigh.

You can see that t-shirt design here (from the Attic Raider blog) - click to see it bigger. I believe this was a design by music journalist Paul Morley, who had signed 808 State to the ZTT label.

It's been so long since I wore band t-shirts. I had a great Smashing Pumpkins "ZERO" long-sleeve, a spacey-looking System 7 shirt, and no doubt a few Orbital ones here and there. I also had a couple with flashing LED lights because they looked great at raves.

It's the 'Gorgeous' one I think of most.

That is, if I ever sit gazing into the distance reminiscing on the t-shirts I loved, which I flipping DON'T.

But if I could get back together with one of them... ah, Gorgeous, we were good together.

Wait.

Hold on.

Found it!

Watch Plaid soundtracking a slow-motion Leonardo DiCaprio

Someone set Plaid's haunting track Host to this clip from Inception.

If you look too closely at this clip, you'll fall inside your screen and you'll be inside the video and everything will be half the speed or twice the speed or however the heck it worked in the film.

Anyway, despite the low YouTube resolution, I thought this was nice.

Soaking up the rays with Way Out West

The Bristol underground scene spawned some big hitters that were heavy in sound and in influence: Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Timmy Mallett. Wait. No, not Timmy Mallett.

Way Out West came from that scene too, but their sound was lighter. A music meringue. They straddled trance and drum 'n' bass, and I think they hit a particularly sweet spot on their 1996 singles The Gift and Domination. The latter sampled three different John F Kennedy speeches, all for just three words: "madness, power, domination". Not that we have any of that kind of nonsense in today's political climate. Ahem.

I had a chat with the Way Out West chaps today. We talked about the old days, when all this was just fields. They both mentioned their love for LTJ Bukem, and their recollection of playing on Top Of The Pops was particularly amusing - although you'll have to wait for a future edition of Electronic Sound for that story.

Just like Timmy Mallett, they're still going. Unlike Timmy Mallett, they haven't taken up fine art. (Seriously: check out Mallett's Palette.) Way Out West's latest work has a distinctly Balearic feel, which is probably a reflection of soaking up all that sun on their international DJing schedule. I live in Manchester so I have to ask Timmy Mallett to paint my suns. He really brings out those yellows.

Have listen to recent track Oceans and old track Domination below.

EVENT: Mother's Bloomers at the Royal Exchange

Mother's Ruin: Hey Fats, would you like to compere this event at the Royal Exchange?

Me: I AMM SELLOTAPING A HROSE

Mother's Ruin: That's fine, but would you like to compere Mother's Bloomers in November?

Me: I CANNOTE LISTEN TO YOU BCAUSE I AM PUTTING SELLOTAP ALL AROUNDD THIS HORSE

Mother's Ruin: It's the best event to see bold, brave new queer performance, and as Manchester's leading gay spoken word cartoon prop comedian, we think that--

Me: I HAV RUN OUTOF SELLOTAPE BECAUSE HORSES ARE VERRY BIG OMG

Mother's Ruin: We'll take that as a yes, then.

Buy tickets for Mother's Bloomers at the Royal Exchange on November 14th here.