there might have been things I missed / don't be unkind / it don't mean I'm blind

Music…..

Kerri Chandler and Monique Bingham….In the Morning (Bigga Sounds)..as if just to prove a point, to prove that deep house is alive and well despite most of the contradicting evidence, Kerri, who may well be the greatest house producer ever, simply by virtue of the fact that he is still doing it when others have fallen, and doing it properly, to turn a phrase releases this utterly disarming talk and response love song as only he can do. He likes to talk on records, and I never really tire of it. Cheesy but it works…

Trentemoller…The Last Resort..(Poker Flat)…there was once a rock’n’roll venue in Wellington called The Last Resort. It was a grotty, grubby place. In other words, just right and I liked it a lot. And that was my initial problem with this album…too clean, no edges. But repeated listens changed that perspective…the edges started to appear and I was happy, so now I play it an awful lot. I’ve liked Trentemoller’s stuff since I bought, about six years ago, that first single on Naked, which I still play, and as a bonus on this, his first full album, you get a second CD of some of the killer singles he’s released in the interim including the now classic Nam Nam and the entrancing vocal take of Always Something Better. There is a grandness about his work and he sounds like no-one else…. that works for me.

Justin Timberlake…My Love (DFA Remix)..Jive… I think of Justin as the aural equivalent of Johnny Depp. Both extracted themselves, driven by their own strength of will, from their career launching fluff and turned themselves into something of worth. Justin, in 2006, is the finest pop singer on the planet bar none, not that there is one hell of a lot of competition out there right now. The song is hardly obscure but what James Murphy & Tim Goldsworthy have done to the last three minutes or so is quite special. The bass led punk funk (I hate that phrase but it still works) workout is simply shimmering magic. A classic whether you hate him or not (and lets face it, its just peer pressure that forces you to hate the fella)

The Rapture…Whoo! Alright, yeah (Simian Mobile Disco Mix)...(Vertigo)..from what I’ve heard of the new Rapture album it’s a bit underwhelming, but I have to admit I quite like this, although to be honest in a month or two I’ll be wondering what it sounded like when I come across it. Electro, disco, pop that swirls around quite nicely and I bet sounds rather good on a muthafucka sound system. Disposable, but hey….

Depeche Mode…The Sinner in Me (Ricardo Villalobos mix) (Mute)…the word is that DM didn’t want this mix released but such was the furore over the past few months after some dodgy white labels slipped out, that they have relented and its on the forthcoming hits collection. Now it’s fashionable right now to say that Villalobos is largely overrated, but he was the name to drop twelve months back. Funny old world isn’t it. Personally I blame the NME and George Bush (actually I blame the NME but, fuck it, Bush deserves any flack he gets). Oh, the song? It’s so simple and so simply wonderful and it’s DM’s finest moment since Personal Jesus got the FK treatment.

John Lennon… The US vs John Lennon…(Capitol)…I had an online argument, you may call it a discussion, but I’d rather call it a good old fashioned trainspotter’s argument, about Lennon’s last proper album, Double Fantasy, with some latter day Johnny who said it was his solo masterpiece. Nonsense said I over and over again, it was largely of slab of MOR slush, controlled by others and it was, or it would have been if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d made Walking On Thin Ice the week he died, a shabby way to go out. I like solo Lennon a lot but I like it with balls, with snarl and the fuck you that DF misses (although if you need any evidence that those songs had something before Yoko employed Jack Douglas to smooth things out, check the demo of I’m Losing You with Cheap Trick on the Anthology box). This compilation, from the movie of the same name is an almost perfect collection of the post-Paul-fuck-you songs, even if it includes the The Ballad of John and Yoko which is a perfect fit.

Rob Mello vs Robert Owens…Energy…(Disco 45) ..more old fellas make good record shock, this post seems full of it. It must be the post Johnny Cash syndrome, or something like that. Robert Owens is, well, he is. There is not much more to say, except that if he’d never made another record beyond this, then he would still rate as one of the greatest vocalists of all time. But he did, and here we are twenty odd years later and this is another Robert Owens record that sounds like…another Robert Owens record, albeit with the nice gritty noises that Rob Mello always brings to any production. I like it a lot and will probably remember it somewhat longer than I do The Rapture tune above. The dub is especially good for those that like a little more space in their tech vox house...

Lee Perry & The Full Experience…Disco Devil (white)…I’ve been after this wonderfully mutated discoid dancefloor version of Max Romeo’s Chase The Devil for years, and now I have it on legally suspect 12”, which is better than being forced to pay some $80 for the Trojan box set that includes it.

Just my opinions…