Frenchy’s Fracas

General Description
Artist/Band: José González || ||
Album Title: In Our Nature
Year: 2007

Talented singer..

How I Got Into This Music
Funny thing, I’ve ignored this album for almost a year. I didn’t mind his vocals on the Zero 7 album The Garden, but it wasn’t something that got me all enthousiastic to go listen to other stuff from this guy. Hey, that’s how things work sometimes in my head!
Anyway, coupla months back I heard a small part of his cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop and that triggered quite a lot of interest on my part. So, I had a listen.

Reviews: || || ||
Videos: ||
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Tracks that got my attention:
How Low
Love this opening track: a single guitar and those deep, dubbed vocals give a great threatening/sad mood to this song. Walking happily drunk through a minefield.

Killing For Love
Love the guitar, annoying repeating bit at the end.
Great lines:
You’ve got a heart filled with passion.
Will you let it burn for hate or compassion.

In Our Nature
Sweet title track. Another simple anti-violence song.

Teardrop
Just listen to it (the vid’s a bit crappy, but still..)
Here’s the Teardrop video at youtube:

It’s brilliant because Gonzalez doesn’t try to better Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals, he makes the song his own..

The Nest
Beautiful vocals, mellow track.

Cycling Trivialities
Beautiful vocals, mellow track.
(No, not a copy/paste error..)

Conclusion
It was fun (re-)discovering this version of Teardrop. I mailed friends of mine about it as if it was one of my greatest achievements in finding this song and telling them about it. But.. They already knew the song and had the album.. An ego is such a silly, fragile thing, heheh..
Back to the album. I played it for a month without getting bored by all the syruppy sweetness and that’s something in my book. For this review I played it all again and still find it enjoyable, something I really didn’t expect.
Like the album and the artist!

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General Description
Artist/Band: Massive Attack
Album Title: Protection
Year: 1994

Bristol Sound, second time around
 
How I Got Into This Music
Well, read my review of their first album here

Album credits at artistdirect.com || Google Search: Lyrics of Protection

Tracks that got my attention:
Protection
You have to emotionally comatose not to have any feelings triggered by this song. Tracey Thorn’s incredible vocals combined with those haunting beats and keyboards - incredible!

Karmacoma
This song can sometimes get on a nerves a bit, but it still works for me (especially, if you listen to Tricky’s solo version)

Three
Hmm.. I always kinda feel guilty for not playing this song every day.. Ghost keyboards and that beat combined with the almost Oriental/Indian sounding vocals of Nicolette.

Weather Storm
Here’s an instrumental that I skip almost constantly

Spying Glass
Weak track, but almost anything with mister Horace Andy is okay in my book ;o)

Better Things
Tracey Thorn’s second track. Love the lyrics:
You say the magic’s gone, Well i’m not a magician
You say the spark’s gone, Well get an electrician
And save your line about needing to be free
All that’s bullshit babe, You just want rid of me
Nuff said..

Eurochild
Not working for me..

Sly
Still one of the most well-crafted songs I’ve ever heard, just listen to the beats, the lazy but scary and moody orchestration (those strings!) and of course, Nicolette’s vocals!

Heat Miser
Every hospital’s favorite track

Light My Fire (Live)
The second best version ever made of this song! And no, the one by the Doors ain’t the best one ;o)
Horace Andy rips up this track and gives it a great sense of aggression, sort of a new lease of life. This song is groovy, how do you make a classic song like this into a dance track? If this is blasphemy, then thank God for the unbelievers!

Conclusion
A great follow-up to their first breakthrough album, Blue Lines. It also hints to the direction this group is taking its music: it’s not ‘just’ a great mash-up of sound systems and intelligent production like the previous one. This album goes into scarier and darker places.
Not the cause of me not naming it one of my Faves, that’s just down to the fact that I don’t play this album as much as the first one. But their version of Light My Fire gets played almost every other day in my life. That track was the first one I heard of this album and it still gets me all psyched up, ready to attack the world with a smile..

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General Description
Artist/Band: Massive Attack
Album Title: Blue Lines
Year: 1991

(image from http://www.ideezik.com)

How I Got Into This Music
First song I ever heard from them was when I saw the video for “Daydreaming”. It didn’t quite register, but the black and white visuals with the band (if you can call them that) did get my attention, especially singer Shara Nelson’s haunting vocals. Then, as usual, I forgot about it ;o).
After a while in 1991/1992 (hazy recollection) the single/anthem “Unfinished Sympathy” broke and the whole world was glued to the TV while watching that weird video of Shara Nelson walking the streets of LA. Incredible! A sound and groove that I hadn’t heard before: her vocals full of sadness and fierceness, the little annoying bells giving the track its theme and the goose pimples violin orchestration: wowee!
This still didn’t get me to listen to the whole album, but after some very insistent advice from a friend of mine (hoi Joentje!) I got the album and boy, am I glad I did!
Massive Attack consisted of four core members, all sound system and party music afficionadoes from Bristol. Their sound was unique for that time and with theirs and Portishead’s efforts the Bristol sound called TripHop was born and labelled.

Tracks that got my attention (well, all of them actually, but still..):

Safe From Harm
Least favorite track

One Love
Mister Horace Andy performing his skills with great samples backing the track

Blue Lines
Wow! Wow! Oooooh.. Coolest track of the Universe! Great lyrics: “Can’t be with the one you love that love the one you with” (remember where it’s from?). And the totally toned down James Brown guitar lick and the wicked keyboards, man!

Be Thankful For What You’ve Got
Video got banned coz it showed a very classy strip act (if such thing exists). This track always makes me feel better about everything: “Diamonds in the back, sunroof top, diggin the scene with the gangster lean, ooh.. ooh.. oohh..”

Five Man Army
“Sharper than a Wilkinson razor sword”, manmanman!! Cool lyrics, dubstyle with Mister Horace Andy on the background - nice!!

Unfinished Sympathy
Breakthrough track - everybody had the song in their head: now that’s power..

Daydreaming
Now here’s some trivia, boys and girls: the track is sampled from a Wally Badarou’s track called Mambo. Want more on the samples used by Massive? Try this topic from the nice people at: Massive Attack Area.
Great song!

Lately
Shara Nelson’s great vocals on a great track

Hymn Of The Big Wheel
Well now, here’s an original almost sample-free song from Massive: vocals by Mister Horace Andy and Neneh Cherry (also credited as arranger on the album). The voices gel perfectly and the drive in the beat is one of my favorites.

Conclusion
One of the best dance albums ever released, while stretching the definition of the term dance coz it’s not a album you’ll be playing or hearing at a dance venue. But there’s a whole cult around the remixes that can really make you shake that booty, so no worries there, I guess..
The impact of this album on the music scene that time can be exaggerated then and now but for me it was huge: sounds, use of samples, orchestrations, arrangements and production I never heard before in that way or manner. Now, maybe it’s my lack of experience, but who cares? This album shook my world in a very, very pleasant manner..

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