YMU Playa

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'I'm Totally Skint For It'

Back after a good while - I still dig Yahoo! Music Unlimited, especially for listening to albums I might like before I decide to buy them from Emusic, but it has to be said that the ability to find less well-known music through the service is still severely lacking.

But nonetheless, every now and again, I go back and do another label compilation, and here's the latest, 'I'm Totally Skint For It' [YMU link].

As I say: "Brighton, UK label Skint is best known for signing Fatboy Slim, of course, but they were at the forefront of the 'big beat' movement in the '90s, and some of the early highlights are here - from Hardknox through Lo-Fi Allstars and beyond, plus newer house/chill tracks from FC Kahuna, Freq Nasty, and the sublime X-Press 2." Enjoy!

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'Into The Ether'

Oops, it's great when you discover half-finished blog posts 3 months later - I just realized that I was most of the way through posting an Ether Music playlist back in January or so when I had to stop, and never started again.

Anyhow, here is the description for 'Into The Ether' [YMU link]: "Looking for Gilles Peterson DJ-ed material, I stumbled across a small cache of excellent music from small London label Ether Music, including several tracks from Peterson compilations, plus odd world music Nirvana covers from Kad and a neat album from Seu Jorge (recently notable for appearing in The Life Aquatic."

"So, lots of world (particularly Brazilian!) jazzy beats here, and it's well worth checking all the source albums."

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'Southern Fried Charm?'

Time for another label-specific mix for Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and I must say, there's _so_ much good material on YMU which it's practically impossible to find, due to the lack of good 'you might like X if you like Y' comparisons in niche genres, no label search, incorrect label listing for some minor labels, and similar issues.

So this means I ended up reverse engineering this playlist from the Discogs.com entry, but hey it worked - here's the blurb for 'Southern Fried Charm?' [YMU link]: "Norman 'Fatboy Slim' Cook's very own UK-based label Southern Fried Records started out as a place to release tracks by Cook alter egos such as the Mighty Dub Katz, but has morphed into an awesome big beat/house label in its own right.

Some highlights on this best-of selection include Scanty Sandwich's 'Because Of You', a sizable UK pop hit with its early Michael Jackson sample, as well as great tracks from chill-out dons A Man Called Adam and Prince-covering discohouse crazy Space Cowboy. All in all, most upbeat!"

MY YMU Playlist Mix: 'Planet Mu's Elliptical Orbit'

Aha, the threatened return is here with my 'best of' picks for UK label Planet Mu, in 'Planet Mu's Elliptical Orbit' [YMU link] - worth noting that all of the tracks in it are taken from full albums also available on YMU, as well, so if you like them, there's plenty more to listen to.

Here's the blurb: "UK label Planet Mu, originally started by Mike Paradinas (Mu-Ziq) as a subsidiary of Virgin, has been doing wacky, often dischordant electronic music since the late '90s.

However, more recent material is mashing up early 1993-1996 jungle and its children in ever more interesting ways, straddling the line between breakbeat, pure noise, and even some grime - highlights include Venetian Snares, Remarc, Virus Syndicate, Hellfish, and more."

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'Arch Celebrity Weirdness Alert'

I'm working on another label-specific playlist, for the excellent Planet Mu, but in the meantime, I stumbled upon the very necessary playlist 'Arch Celebrity Weirdness Alert' [YMU link] - the official description is as follows:

"Want to hear some celebrities performing odd, strange, or just plain awful songs? Sure you do, that's why you're listening to this playlist!

Thanks to the Rhino 'Golden Throats' compilations (and Rhino in general!) for some of the inspiration, but there's everything from Laurel & Hardy through Paris Hilton on show here."

Some further notes - one of the great things is that, while the 'Golden Throats' compilations aren't on YMU, some individual albums are - so you can check out the full Cassius Clay album or even Buddy Ebsen's effort if you want - a great example of why YMU rocks. Oh, and I know Pat Boone is a singer, but he's a celebrity too, and that album ('In A Metal Mood') is just too good to leave out.

(Also, the William Shatner album 'Has Been', from which the cover of Pulp's 'Common People' is taken, is one of the most surprisingly good celebrity albums ever, partly thanks to Ben Folds' producing and writing chops. Highly illogical!)

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'The Danger Of The Mouse'

Finally, a spare weekend, and the chance to come up with a specially themed playlist, with 'The Danger Of The Mouse' [YMU link], with the official description as follows:

"A compilation of tracks produced by Danger Mouse, the talented hip-pop producer best known for his Gnarls Barkley project with Cee-Lo and prodoucing Gorillaz' second album [and 'The Grey Album', of course!]

However, other recent production work for Sparklehorse and The Rapture is included here, as is material from his excellent Danger Doom album [with MF Doom] themed around Adult Swim.

There's also a very odd bonus track - a 'tribute' version of Feel Good Inc by the 'Gorillaz Tribute Band' - so a soundalike version of his production!"

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'Her Voice Of Summer'

Back after a short hiatus with a compilation of some of the female-vocal tracks that I particularly adore, in the form of 'Her Voice Of Summer' [YMU link].

As the playlist description explains: "A compilation of some of the more gorgeous female voices flirting with electronica, from former Opus III singer Kirsty Hawkshaw through the wonderful Imogen Heap of Frou Frou, and encompassing other great female-fronted vocal tracks from Lamb, Jem, EBTG, Morcheeba, Zero 7, and more."

Other than that, that's all you need to know - unfortunately, my all-time favorite album, Kirsty Hawkshaw's 'O.U.T', isn't up on YMU yet, but there's plenty of other goodness from both her and the spectacular Imogen Heap. Yum.

MY YMU Playlist Mix: 'This Beat Is Technotronic'

My new Yahoo! Music Unlimited playlist is the absolutely horrible 'This Beat Is Technotronic' [YMU link], and spans from some kind of minor breakdown I had when deciding what high quality mix I was going to do next for YMU Playa - and resolving to do a low quality one instead.

As the playlist description explains: "An absolutely horrific playlist, bookended by 2 tracks by Technotronic, featuring some of the cheesiest (or darn catchiest) pop-techno hits to come out of the early '90s. These are the songs, from 2 Unlimited through C+C Music Factory and even Rednex (ack!) that get played too often at sports stadiums, but we keep coming back for more - suckers!"

(Tragically, Haddaway's 'What Is Love', as used in the Saturday Night Live club sketch, wasn't available in its original version, but there's a cheesier newer version available instead.)

BONUS LINKS: an excellent 'Mojo Top Tracks Vol.1' mix [YMU link], presumably from the UK music magazine, by 'ad1s0n', and featuring awesomeness from Keane, Doves, Supergrass, Super Furries, etc. Plus I spotted that Samantha Fox's album 'Touch Me' [YMU link] is available on YMU, if you're into topless pinups transformed into bubblegum pop superstars. Which I'm sure you are.

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'Ambience Into The Ether'

My latest Yahoo! Music Unlimited playlist is called 'Ambience Into The Ether' [YMU link], and tends toward the distinctly chilled, since I decided to compile some of my favorite ambient artists into one longform playlist.

The description in YMU itself is as follows: "[This is] my playlist of the most pulsing, most spaced slices of ambient I could find on YMU. It mainly includes some of the genre's originators, including Brian Eno, Harold Budd, and ex-Tangerine Dream-er Klaus Schulze. But it also drifts into the 'avant-garde composer' realms (Terry Riley, Steve Reich) and features some newer ambient standouts (Biosphere, Pete Namlook). Enjoy!"

Nothing much else to be said about this, other than the playlist is only 10 tracks, but about 2 hours long, thanks to some mammoth track lengths, heh. Oh, and that there are some semi-miscredits on YMU's listing, due to co-composed albums, such as the first track from 'Ambient 2' being by Brian Eno and Harold Budd, not just Budd, and one of the Namlook tracks being co-composed with Move D - you can tell if you squint at the album covers.

[Also, Harold Budd's The Serpent In Quicksilver/Abandoned Cities album [YMU link], of which one track makes it onto this playlist, is one of my favorite albums of all time - completely gorgeous piano-based ambient.]

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'Say Hello To Big Dada'

OK, as threatened a couple of posts ago when I talked about Ninja Tune, I got round to doing a playlist of UK hiphop label Big Dada, named, logically enough, 'Say Hello To Big Dada' [YMU link].

Here's the description attached to the playlist: "This UK-based Ninja Tune offshoot releases some of the best alternative hiphop from the UK and US scenes, from mainstay and British hiphop icon Roots Manuva, through the Anticon guys' Clouddead project and the awesome MF Doom alter ego King Geedorah, all the way to new signing Spank Rock's electrotastic 'Rick Rubin', Super duper recommended."

And that's about all I need to say, really, other than the fact that I like how international Big Dada ends up being, since it hoovers up a lot of the alt.hiphop that's just too wired and weird for U.S. labels, as well as important people from elsewhere in the world, such as France's TTC - here's a really good interview with them. Go listen!

YMU Album Playlist: Bruce Cockburn - 'Anything, Anytime, Anywhere'

Back again from out of country shenanigans, and let's start with an album YMU recommended to me, and I actually adore - Bruce Cockburn's 'Anything, Anytime, Anywhere' [YMU Link], which is subtitled 'Singles 1979-2002', according to Wikipedia.

Actually the Wikipedia entry is useful on Cockburn, who I suspect is slightly better known in North America than he is in England (where I was til '99, lest we forget), but it turns out he's a wonderfully understated Canadian singer-songwriter. I reckon he was dismissed as cheese by many at one point in the '80s, but a longer listen reveals extremely smart, literate power pop, at least imho.

The entry on him also notes: "In addition to a highly successful solo career, Cockburn's songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Barenaked Ladies ("Lovers in a Dangerous Time"), Jimmy Buffett ("Pacing the Cage", "Anything, Anytime, Anywhere", "Wondering Where the Lions Are" (in the movie "Hoot")), Lori Cullen ("Fall"), Anne Murray ("One Day I Walk", "Musical Friends"), Ani DiFranco ("Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long"), and the Jerry Garcia Band ("Waiting for a Miracle")." Fun!

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'Ninja Tune Lets Us Play'

Continuing my quest to build playlists around great YMU-hosted labels you might not know enough about, we now have 'Ninja Tune Lets Us Play' [YMU Link], an entire playlist devoted to some of the best tracks from the veteran UK label.

As I explain in my description: "Founded in 1991 by Coldcut, London's Ninja Tune is one of the best eclectic breaks, electronic, scratch and nu-chill labels of all time, with artists like The Herbaliser, Kid Koala, Mr. Scruff, DJ Food and Coldcut themselves providing darn funky audio insanity for 15 years, now."

I conclude: "This is my vaguely chronological pick for the best of the awesome label." If you're starting anywhere in the 23-track compilation, my all-time favorite tracks are the Cornelius remix of Coldcut's Atomic Moog 2000, plus the awesome Get A Move On by Mr. Scruff (which you may recognize from every Lincoln car ad ever). Anyhow, I'm out of town for a few days, so no more updates for a bit, but when I get back, I might try to do a playlist for Ninja Tune's great hiphop sublabel Big Dada. Happy listening!

YMU Album Playlist: Cut Chemist - 'The Audience's Listening'

You guys probably know turntablist Lucas 'Cut Chemist' MacFadden from his work with Jurassic 5, particularly the awesome 'Lesson 6: The Lecture' as well as a whole bunch of solo scratch DJ-ing with buddies like DJ Shadow and Z-Trip, as partly showcased in the documentary Scratch.

[Random fact stream - I managed to randomly turn up to the Future Primitive Sound Session in SF in 1999 pictured at the climax of Scratch, with Z-Trip and Cut Chemist cutting up Edvard Grieg's 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King' - which is also the theme tune to classic video game Manic Miner, which I just wrote an article for PC Gamer UK magazine about. Weird. No Kevin Bacon, though.]

Anyhow, Cut Chemist's first solo album has just been released, and it's been available on Yahoo! Music Unlimited [YMU link] in the last couple of weeks. It's not completely cohesive (nor perhaps should it be, being made of snippets of every record under the sun!), but tracks such as 'The Garden', which samples Astrid Gilberto, are pretty DJ Shadow-ish shades of gorgeous, and 'The Audience Is Listening Theme Tune' is a great conclusion. Therefore, we have that very rare thing - a home-listenable turntablist album (sorry, Mixmaster Mike, X-Ecutioners) - so please do so!

My YMU Playlist Mix: 'Madchester Rave On'

Keeping on with the custom playlists, and this one is another throwback to my English roots - the hopefully rather fun 'Madchester Rave On' [YMU link].

I describe it on YMU itself as follows: "Some choice picks from the late '80s and early '90s 'Madchester'-inspired baggy music scene, with largely Manchester-raised bands like Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses blasting it with a loose-limbed, dance-influenced rock groove."

What's more: "Those who want to know more should check out the sublime Steve Coogan-starring movie '24 Hour Party People', named after the Mondays song included in this playlist." Yep, so if you dig everything from James through Flowered Up and New Fast Automatic Daffodils (!) to Inspiral Carpets, The House Of Love, The Farm, and early Blur, go take a listen!

[Also, while researching this set, I came across another similar playlist on YMU, 'From Manchester To Madchester' [YMU link], by 'pricecs'. It's got a number of similar artists, but is more a chronology of Manchester sounds, from much earlier (Buzzcocks) to much later (Oasis). But it's also well worth checking out - many thanks to him for compiling it!]

YMU Album Playlist: Grant-Lee Phillips - 'Nineteeneighties'

Firstly, thanks to Robert Burke of Yahoo! Radish for mentioning this blog over at the official Yahoo! Music Blog's 'This Week In Playlisting' weekly entry - it's very much appreciated, and I'll try to keep up regular entries here to justify the 'hype'.

While this isn't a custom playlist, the Grant-Lee Phillips album 'Nineteeneighties' [YMU link] is almost a compilation its own right, since it features the former Grant Lee Buffalo ringleader, who has apparently "become a reoccurring character on the WB's Gilmore Girls", according to his own site's news page, doing some marvellously downtempo, reflective covers of classic '80s songs.

As his site notes: "A tribute to the songwriters and artists who influenced his own music, nineteeneighties features Grant-Lee Phillips' stunning reworking of The Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation," The Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way," REM's "So. Central Rain (Sorry)," and many more."

[Mind you, my wife, a major Morrissey fan, doesn't dig Phillips' closing, almost whispered version of The Smiths' 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me', and I agree that it's almost too glacial, but everything is forgiven, thanks to the beautiful cover of The Church's already gorgeous 'Under The Milky Way'. More, plz!]