There, amidst the pleasant combination of banter, beer and pizza, I cobbled together a little browser-based puzzle/maze game.

…which you can play here
(…also part of this “get involved” drive is using GitHub.)

Obviously huge room for improvement/development. Will hopefully find time to have a crack at it over the coming weeks.

3. Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE [Spotify link]

2. Grimes - Visions [Spotify link]

1. The Raveonesttes - Observator [Spotify link]

Tracks:

3. Grimes – ‘Genesis’

2. Japandroids – ‘The House That Heaven Built’

1. Frank Ocean – ‘Pyramids’

In this case, it was February 2009. I spent the first few days recording improvisations with various instruments. Later, I’d examine these, pick out bits I thought had potential and work them into songs – by writing things based on them or even directly sampling the improvised parts.

On this particular day (the 5th, I believe), I was tinkering with an electric guitar. I decided to resurrect one of my old Sonic Youth-esque tunings (F#F#C#C#BB – previously mentioned here) and see what happened.

I came up with two riff-based things I liked. In the secondary stage, I created song structures for them both and did “proper” recordings of them, with two guitar tracks and a bass track each.

The second of the two pieces eventually got lyrics, drums, some extra noise slathered on – and ended up being track two on the resulting album, I Am Doing This To Hurt You.

The first one went no further. It was left like this:

Given how reasonably serious and straight-faced the album ended up, it’s quite clear why this wasn’t going to find a place on it. It’s utterly ridiculous! The main riff is, frankly, quite obnoxious. It even has a shoehorned-in key-change! I don’t think I even attempted to put any words to it. Even know I can’t see how any vocal could possibly work.

Still though, there’s something about it I still like. It has a sort of circus-y feel to it or something. Actually, when I was naming the scratch recordings I’d made of those riffs, I had it in my mind to name this piece ‘Fun Fun Fun’, not the other one. I kept on meaning to swap them, too, but never got around to it.

Anyway. That’s it!

Again, if you want to do anything with it, it’s there under a Creative Commons licence.

At least this time, I’m airing some previously unheard stuff (or stuff heard by very very few people)…

First up, a recording made on 1 February, 2007:

That was the first day of my first attempt at the RPM Challenge. It was the first recording I made with the second-hand Roland MC-303 I’d bought.

It was a one-take, mostly-improvised recording. I was reasonably pleased with it at the time and felt it had potential. But over the following days, as I came up with more ideas, it quickly became apparent that the album was going to go in a different direction – and that this wasn’t going have a place on it. (The resulting album, Secret Battle, can be heard/downloaded here.)

I had vague plans to do something with it. But, alas, I never did. And given that it has been on ice for over half a decade, I’m probably unlikely to at this stage.

If anyone else wants to have a crack, feel free! You can download via the widget above. It’s released under a Creative Commons licence. Or if you’re a hitRECorder, you can get busy with it here.

In this edition, we go back to February 2006 and arrive at what would become the tenth, final and – in this non-objective listener’s opinion – best track on the Projects compilation: A quiet and simple little song about a lady’s hair accessory…

Continuing the trend of the previous two years, the beginning of 2006 would see a further decline in my musical productivity. Unlike the approach of the Leaving Cert, which seemed to put my rate of writing and recording into overdrive, the months leading up to my final university exams were almost completely devoid of music-making.

My first recordings of the year didn’t appear until the end of February. And they were very bare-bones. Indeed, I appended the word ‘demo’ in parentheses to their titles, in a (kind of) lie to myself that I would flesh them out later. Perhaps I would incorporate some of the more intricate guitar work or electronic elements I’d edged towards in the recent (or, in the case of the latter, not so recent) past.

I was probably quite dismissive of them then, because at that time, I probably put more stock in arrangements and instrumentation. And these recordings just had some basic guitar and vocals – hence, were “incomplete”.

But it didn’t take me too long to realize that one of those tracks actually didn’t need any further development. It didn’t need any bells or whistles. Because, it really was – even in its spartan configuration – a fully-formed, proper song.

What I did not appreciate at first, is that it – all modesty aside – had a really good lyric. I’ve mentioned many times that, when it comes to my attention and appreciation of songs, words almost never supersede the music. Well, it seems this also clouded my ability to assess my own work. I can now look back and see that this was, up to that point, by far the best lyric I’d written. It might still be. Hilariously enough, it was one of the easiest ones to write, too.

On 12 February, 2006, at the end of the day, I wrote an entry in the page-per-day diary I kept at the time, recounting the day’s events – and one oddly amusing/amusingly odd event in particular. I knew immediately that there was a song in it. Having run out of space on that day’s “official” page, I flipped to the back and, without much thought, wrote the song. There was no hasty scribbling-out of lines or violent corrections. It just all came out like so:

Despite the lack of labour that went into it, the lyric came out quite well-constructed. It actually had quite a sophisticated narrative structure (certainly moreso than previous “story-song” attempts): It had a scene-setting opening, followed by an explanatory flashback; it jumped back to present day, only to be met with a sudden twist (and then a little sting in the tail).

I left it alone for a couple of weeks. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to make music out of it. There was no melody in my head when I wrote those words. And I didn’t have any instrumental works in progress with which I could match it (as I had done many times before).

In the end, I just picked up a guitar and started slowly strumming an A chord. I began to speak/sing/speak-sing the words over it. I switched to a D. And then back to A – just alternating between the two major chords. Then I used an E to punctuate the end of the verse. Three simple, basic chords: pure beginners’ stuff. It worked, though.

The only other decisive element was the injection of some simple dynamics to match the tone of the lyrics. The first verse was soft. The second verse was harder. And the final verse was soft – then hard (and then soft and then hard again at the very end). Nothing too complicated.

In hindsight, it seems very carefully planned and thought-out. But it just happened naturally. And out popped ‘Hair Clip Surprise’:

[download 'hair clip surprise' mp3]

As I said, I wasn’t beaming with pride at first. I thought it was just a rough demo. One that probably didn’t deserve any further treatment.

It never got further treatment. But not because I didn’t think it deserved any. Just  none seemed to be required. It just worked.

The song came more into its own more in a live setting. Since most of the shows I was playing were just me with an acoustic guitar, it was ideal. It seemed to get a good response each time, too. (Although perhaps that’s some kind of wishful thinking/selective memory on my part.)

Here’s me doing it as part of a short set at Sin É in Dublin in April 2010. It’s a soundboard recording, so it didn’t really pick up the audience too well. Also, there were only about 6-8 people in said audience. Nevertheless, they seemed to like it. (Or were polite enough to clap anyway…)

[download 'Hair Clip Surprise (Live at Sin É)' mp3]

This post has definitely been a lot more self-congratulatory than the self-depreciating ones that preceded it. But, fuck it – I’m really proud of this song! I still think it’s one of the best things I’ve come up with.

And it marked a very important shift for me, with regards to subject matter.  The bulk of my earlier songs had been about unrequited desire, rejection and missed opportunities. Heck, that was, in many ways, a veritable treasure-trove of inspiration. I got a lot of mileage out of that kind of shit!

But after struggling to put feelings to words while still romantically entangled, I now a complete serious relationship  to draw upon - bitter end, aftermath and inevitable excruciating hindsight included.

This song paved the way for the David-somewhat-scathingly-looks-back-at-relationship-but-partially-disguises-it-as-a-pleasant-ditty sub-genre that would follow, yielding ‘Casual Trap’ and ‘Hard to Please’ – as well as this year’s ‘Requisitely Sensitive’ (which, in retrospect, now seems like a complete rip-off of this track!).  And really, where would we be without that?

Um, probably in the exact same place. But with slightly less bitterness in the world.

But anyway…

#10 – XTRMNTR
#9 – The Argument
#8 – Arular
#7 – Two Suns
#6 – White Blood Cells
#5 – They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
#4 – Fever to Tell
#3 – Funeral
#2 – Face Control

Leaving us with…

#1
Tegan and Sara
The Con
[2007]

Tegan and Sara are a group consisting of a pair of twins (of the same name), both of whom happen to be gay (and Canadian). In media coverage, the whole “gay twins” angle gets brought up a lot. They’re never unwilling to discuss it, though they sometimes seem a bit miffed at having the focus moved away from their music. Which is understandable. However, were it not for the “gay twins” angle, they may never have entered my life.

In June 2008, I was completely oblivious to Tegan and Sara. I had never (and still haven’t ever) watched The L Word or Grey’s Anatomy – and the associations probably would have dissuaded me from giving them a chance, had I known about them – well, the latter one anyway. I had even somehow escaped ever hearing ‘Walking With a Ghost’. Then, during that month, I read a message board discussion on whether one twin being gay would mean a higher likelihood of the other being gay – essentially a discussion on the potential influence of genetics and upbringing on a person’s sexuality.

The instigator of that thread had brought it up after being exposed to some band that consisted of a pair of gay twins… In a fleeting moment of curiosity, I grabbed a copy of their then most recent album, which had been released the previous summer. It was called The Con.

When listening to an album for the first time, unless it’s the long-awaited new release of one of my favourite artists, or something I’ve already heard one or two tracks from and am very excited about, or something recommended to me by someone whose musical opinion I wholeheartedly trust, I don’t always give it my 100%, utmost, undivided, stop-everything-put-on-the-headphones attention.  Especially not if it’s an album I’ve acquired on a complete and utter whim.

In those situations, I usually put it on in the background and continue reading whatever it was I was reading, or doing the dishes, or whatever menial task is at hand. If it grabs me, it grabs me. If it’s not instantly offensive, I’ll give it another try or two later. But if it doesn’t hook me then, it’s possible that it could quickly fade into the recesses of my collection. It might only get a reprieve if I stumble across one of its tracks through a different medium – or if one catches me by surprise on a shuffle through library. So the “whim-got” albums have a tougher job to win me over. They don’t get as much benefit-of-the-doubt…

Listening to The Con for the first time, the first few tracks certainly did not offend me. It sounded pleasant enough. But nothing jolted me in a good way either. That was until the sixth of its 14 tracks burst upon my ears. This track (which I would later learn had been, very understandably, chosen as the album’s lead single) got a hold of me as soon as it started, with that opening piano melody jumping into my cranium:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s a truly infectious song. All of the elements conspire to make you powerless to resist it: A simple beat propels it on, with a shaker skittering about; the aforementioned piano hook punctuates the chorus lines as it pleasantly punctuates your skull; the bass – the song’s secret weapon – bounces up and down and all around; and even the lyric, ostensibly about a relationship, sounds like it’s speaking for song itself, saying it just wants to get (back) into our heads. And it does.

After encountering ‘Back In Your Head’, my attention was pretty rapt. I listened to the rest of the album. And then I went back and listened to it from the start again. And again. And again…

Each track was a winner. Of course, some were more immediate than others. One of the early favourites was the album’s title track, the third song on the album:

Click here to view the embedded video.

After more listens – along with inevitable obsessive reading up about the band – the differing personalities became more apparent. I had assumed, like many do, that they were quite a collaborative pair. But in fact, it was quite the opposite. The two wrote almost entirely independently of each other. And they recorded things in a fairly separate fashion too: Although they got additional personnel involved in the studio, many of the recordings only feature one sister. (Live, they perform together seamlessly, which sort of adds to the confusion…)

The default distinction is that Tegan is responsible for the more straightforward/rockier/poppier tracks, while Sara’s output tends to be more intricate/complex/subtle. There are, of course, some “uncharacteristic” exceptions, such as the poppiest track (‘Back In Your Head’) being a Sara song and Tegan having the two quietest numbers on the album.

But though I began to understand the differences between them more, I didn’t gravitate to either more than the other. It wasn’t like with Fugazi or Sonic Youth, where I tended to be more immediately drawn to a particular voice (though in those groups it did tend to be mainly just the vocalist that was different – and the bands wrote the music collectively). Instead, I could appreciate both – separately, but equally. ‘Twas a winning combination.

Later, my appreciation for their distinct styles, their distinct personalities, them as a group – and for the album specifically – would all be increased further when I watched The Con: The Movie, a making-of documentary that came on a DVD with the special edition of the album (which I would later get my hands on).

It’s funny in that I often find myself arguing that an artist’s music should stand on its own – and how one’s opinion of the music shouldn’t be coloured by how one feels about the artist. This usually comes up when talking about artists who are arseholes, but who sometimes produce top-quality music (Billy Corgan springs to mind).

But I broke my own rule with The Con. Watching that documentary allowed my to get to know Tegan and Sara and the dynamic between them – and then essentially just fell in love with them. And I think it actually made me love the album more. Highly illogical and irrational, but I believe that’s what happened.

I highly recommend seeking out the doc, even just as a general music-making-related piece of film. Here’s a sample (the “chapter” on Sara’s brooking track, ‘Like O, Like H’):

Click here to view the embedded video.

It took a while for a favourite individual track to appear. As with my #2 album of that decade, it was the last track on the album that took me the longest to fully appreciate it. But when I finally did, it superseded all the others. I still find it difficult to hear ‘Call It Off’ and not play it at least twice more.

It’s is one of those two quiet Tegan tracks on the album (also featuring Sara on backing vocals). It’s short, it’s simple, it’s sweet…

…and it’s also fitting way to end things – both the album and this series of posts!

Click here to view the embedded video.

After the barrage of musical activity in 2002, followed by the still-reasonably-productive 2003, things got a bit quiet. The main reason for this was my getting involved in a proper, serious, long-term relationship. This affected musical productivity in two significant ways:

1. Time – spare time that would previously have been spent writing and recording music were now being filled in other ways.
2. Subject matter – almost all of my material was based on unrequited attraction and feelings of inadequacy. I just wasn’t able – or didn’t have the urge – to write about the opposite kinds of feelings. Also, it’s a bit dicey writing songs about someone you’re going out with, because there’s a strong chance they might actually listen to them – and read into them.

So there wasn’t a huge quantity of material. And this, unfortunately, wasn’t compensated by any big surge in quality. When I compiled Projects, covering nearly five whole years of output, 80% of the tracks came from the first two of those years. The three-year stretch from June 2003 to June 2006 was represented by just two songs.

The first of these was a somewhat bizarre guitar-led track whose lyrical jumping-off point was the pair of dungarees I was wont to wear at the time.

I specifically mention the guitar, because there was a fair amount of non-guitar stuff happening at the time. After ‘Sentimental Baby’, there was a bit of keyboard stuff. Although actually, my main thing in late-2004/early-2005 (well, only thing, given how little I was doing at the time) was chopping up samples of older recordings. That and looping my voice. Key inspirations at the time were Liars’ They Were Wrong… (which I’ve written about before) and Björk’s Medúlla.

My first recording in 2005, entitled ‘Sewing Skills’, reflects these influences quite readily:

[download 'Sewing Skills' mp3]

(Needless to say, that track didn’t make the cut for Projects, nor even my less-selective Selection compilation)

The dungaree song, though, brought guitars back into the fold. And in a way I hadn’t really done before, too. Most of my songs just had strummed chords or basic, rhythmic riffs. Any “lead” guitar was either some one-note accompaniment in later verses, or the occasional, very primitive guitar break/solo. This new song, though, had lead parts through almost the entire song, somewhat rudely intruding upon the vocals.

It sounded like this:

[download 'Virgin-Like' mp3]

The title, ‘Virgin-Like’, was definitely a Madonna reference, but I can’t really remember why. In fact, I can’t really remember anything about how the lyrics came together. I know it started with the dungaree reference – and that the verses went through two or three different versions before I settled on the disjointed end result.

It seems quite easy to infer that it was all something sexual, but I really don’t think that’s what I was going for at all. Honestly, I’m not sure if there’s any coherent meaning in this one.

So just forget about it…?

‘Virgin-Like’ was somewhat notable in being one of the first of my own songs I was able to perform confidently (and competently?) on stage. The first solo gig I did, I was very nervous and ended up forgetting loads of words and giggling as I sang. My second happened about a year later – and in the interim, I’d gained some live experience playing bass in a band. Accompanied by Mr Gerard Lynch on drums, I worked through my nerves on the first song of the night. And by the second, I think I was doing ok:

[download 'Virgin-Like (Live)' mp3]

The song was also significant in that it aided my further forays into electronic music. Songs like ‘Sentimental Baby’ and ‘One-Sided’ involved electronic instrumentation. But they were recorded exactly like the guitar-based stuff I was doing: multi-tracked recordings of me playing. In late 2005, however, I started delving into software synthesizers and sequencers. I began to learn about programming and constructing songs, rather than recording them.

One of my first experiments was to redo an existing song electronically, using an “acquired” copy of FL (Fruity Loops) Studio. ‘Virgin-Like’ just seemed to lend itself to this kind of treatment. And thus, we got ‘Virgin-Like (Version-Like)’:

[download 'Virgin-Like (Version-Like)' mp3]

I think the song – in each of its guises – holds up ok. It definitely lacks the emotional drive of some of the other Projects tracks. Indeed, lyrically, it’s rather silly. But I think, sound- and structure-wise, it’s unusual and fun enough to warrant its inclusion.

Or maybe I just felt I needed to include at least one song from 2004/2005 on that compilation…

Trawling through external hard drives sometimes yields some fruitful (re-) discoveries.

In this evening’s case, it was stumbling across my original demo for ‘hard to please’. This song ending up being received quite well when I “finished” it for the people person album – and also when I played it live.

This demo was (mostly) recorded on 19 and 20 July, 2009. It featured a glockenspiel thingie (pictured above) I’d picked up in a second-hand shop in central Hiroshima, where I was living at the time.

Nearby on said hard drive, I found a text file which, as well as referring to the song-in-progress as ‘happy G’ – had tabbed out the main riff, and also a complementary guitar part for the verses, which, unless my ears are deceiving me really really well, isn’t present on the demo at all. And definitely isn’t on the album version:

E |---------------------0------------|
B |-------------0---------0-----0----|
G |-----0---------0---0-----------0=-|
D |-------0---4-----2---------2------|
A |---2-----2---------------3--------|
E |-3--------------------------------|

It’s placed above the main riff in that file, so it’s possible that this was actually the first thing I’d come up with.

Anyway…

Here’s the demo:

[download 'hard to please (demo)' mp3]

#2
Handsome Furs
Face Control
[2009]

In November 2010, I wrote the following on my Tumblr:

Dear Handsome Furs’ second album, Face Control,

Since we met last year, I have listened to you about 500 million times. And still you persist in being absolutely fucking excellent. What it is about you that, after no matter how many repeat listens – even multiple back-to-back repeat listens, my love for you never diminishes? I look forward to listening to you time and time again for the rest of my life.

David.xx

It’s been nearly two years since then. In the interim, the band released their third album, Sound Kapital, which was great. I saw them live twice, both times excellent. And then, about three months ago, they announced that they were breaking up, which was lame. Throughout, though, my feelings for Face Control has remained exceedingly strong.

It was not always like this, however. I first listened to the album in mid-2009, not too long after it came out. This was while I was living in Hiroshima. A Canadian friend had received a package from the homeland containing three new/recent albums from Canadian artists. Face Control was one of the three.

I remembered having been intrigued by an article I’d seen on Pitchfork, a while prior to this. It wasn’t anything to do with whatever was written about their music. Nor did it relate to Dan Boeckner’s “main” band, Wold Parade, since I’d given their first album a spin before and hadn’t connected with it (…this has since been amended). It was simply – and superficially – the fact that they were a married couple. And that were full-on smooching in the photo that was included.

So when I was confronted with Face Control, with its very arresting cover art, I was quite excited about giving it a listen. And so I did. And, well, I didn’t really get it. I think I gave the first track my full attention, before letting it fade into the background of whatever day it was that I was doing this. Actually, this was pretty much the exact same thing that had happened with that Wolf Parade album. I could get into Spencer Krug’s yelping on track one and subsequently tuned out. Perhaps if I’d just hung in there for track two, which has Dan on lead vocal instead, it might have all turned out differently.

This Handsome Furs album-opener, called ‘Legal Tender’, was very simple and sparse, but also harsh and abrasive. At the time, I didn’t think this was in a good way. Which is odd now, of course, because these are the things I absolutely love about it. The beats that introduce it are quite confrontational. It broods for the verse, building expectation for an explosive chorus. But when the chorus comes, it does the exact opposite. It drops out. The explosion comes after the chorus, but it’s over quick, repeating the cycle once before it hits the climax, dead in a motel. And then it’s over. Brilliant:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The idea that, at one time, this song didn’t instantly ignite a fire in me, is now quite bizarre. I can’t help but feel a thrill when I hear it now. As much for the song itself as knowing that the next 35-40 minutes are going be excellent.

Yes, this didn’t click until January 2010. I had moved back to Ireland the previous month. I hadn’t lined up a job prior to my return, so most of January was spent looking for jobs. Which, as we all know, can be a boring and frustrating way to fill your time. It was in this context that I revisited the album. And I got it. Or it got me.

Well, probably still having lingering skepticism from that initial exposure, ‘Legal Tender’ didn’t fully get me. But then it bled into track two and that certainly did the deal. For a long time, ’Evangeline’ was my favourite song on the album. It doesn’t change the formula too much from ‘Legal Tender’. It has a simpler beat, offset by having more complex mini-lead-guitar-break-thingies-that-Dan-likes-to-put-in-songs-a-lot. Where it bests the preceding song, though, is when it comes to its climax, following the second chorus.

There’s the requisite quiet, muted guitar bit. Then, at the two-minute mark he throws in a couple of isolated strums to start to bring things back up. And then he starts hitting one chord and holds it. And then, at the moment you expect things to change… he holds the chord for the same length of time again! It’s a great use of tension – pure edge-of-the-seat stuff. But great tension isn’t much use if there isn’t a great pay-off to follow. Thankfully, ‘Evangeline’ brings it home in a big and brilliant fashion:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I wrote before (on Tumblr again) about how the album has an incredible opening one-two combo. And how it also has an amazing closing one-two combo (which I’ll get to in a bit). And how, because of this, I sometimes forget how great the middle of the album is.

I mean, the opening and closing pairs remain the album’s four highest high-points. Relative to them, the middle doesn’t pack as impecable a punch. But it still connects pretty damn well. ‘Talking Hotel Arbat Blues’, the New Order-referencing ‘All We Want, Baby, Is Everything’ and ‘Nyet Spasiba’ all rock solidly – and in similar ways.

The album’s three “vignettes”, ‘(Passport Kontrol)’, ‘(White City)’ and ‘(It’s Not Me It’s You)’ may seem like cursory additions, but they’re integral to the flow of the album – and each have their individual charms too.

Sitting right in the middle of all this is ‘I’m Confused’, probably the most well-known track off the album – thanks in large part to its memorable zombie-horror video (with its man-this-would-be-exceptionally-weird-if-you-didn’t-know-they-were-married ending):

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s an absolute stomper of a track. Leading in with that ominous, buzzing synth (not nearly as long on the album as it is in the video), only to have that jerking, hurtling beat crash into it. Dan’s vocal is especially good on this one too. I ended up (recently) attempting a one-take acoustic cover of the track. Even without the beat, the blistering lead guitar and that it’s me performing it, the quality of the song itself is evident there too. It’s just a great song.

The relative black sheep of the bunch for me is ‘Officer of Hearts’. It’s longer and slower than anything else on the album. While a shift in gears of some kind is usually welcome on every album, this one comes across as being somewhat aimless. And at nearly six minutes in length, it sort of outstays its welcome. Not that I don’t like it. I just don’t love love love it the way I do the rest of the album.

Still, it – along with ‘(It’s Not Me It’s You)’ to follow – does serve to cleanse the palate before things ramp up for the aforementioned closing brace of brilliance.

‘Thy Will Be Done’ bounces playfully – almost the polar opposite to the plodding of ‘Officer…’. Structurally, it’s probably the most straightforward track on the album, devoid of the left-field twists that crop up else where. Its simplicity is its charm though. It goes straight for the gut, no unnecessary embellishments or frills. And it sets things up perfectly for the grand finale.

Like many last songs on albums, it took me a while to fully appreciate ‘Radio Kaliningrad’. I believe a lot of this comes down to my insistence of listening to albums in full, in order. That’s not an unusual habit, I suppose. But it has often led to cases where, having not specifically allotted time to listen to a full album, or getting interrupted, or listening to music as I fall asleep, I literally miss out on the later tracks. There’s also situations where I fall more instantly in love with earlier tracks on the album and end up skipping back and repeating them, taking up valuable listening-to-the-rest-of-the-album time. That happened with ‘Evangeline’ in this case. Another example, which was happening around the same time, in early 2010, was when I became obsessed with Yeasayer’s ‘O.N.E.’ on their second album, Odd Blood, and listened to it incessantly, delaying my eventual discovery of ‘Grizelda’ at the end.

But I did get to ‘Radio Kaliningrad’ eventually. And where would I be without it? It’s a monumental piece of music, full of urgency, power and noise. With regards to the dynamics, it doesn’t really attempt the “let’s go quiet” trick employed by ‘Legal Tender’ and ‘Evangeline’. But instead, it just ramps up and up with each iteration, until Dan’s screaming about how “we never said goodbye, bye, bye, bye, bye…” at the end.

Earlier this year (yet again on Tumblr), I made an official declaration:

After well over 100 listens in the last couple of years (including four times in succession just there), each time loving it more than the last, I think I can safely say that this is now my favourite song in the universe of all time ever.

Can’t really give a song more praise than that. It’s only been a few months since then, but things have not changed. A superb closing to a superb album…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Massive Attack – ‘Live With Me’
Released on:
Collected [Compilation - 2006]

Also available on:
‘Live With Me’ [Single - 2006]

My relationship with Massive Attack has partly mirrored the one I have with Portishead. That is, for a long time – particularly when they were at the peak of their popularity, I didn’t really have any relationship with them.

Being long before XTRMNTR cured my of my electronic intolerance, I remained very skeptical when ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ seemed to be constantly airing on MTV. A couple of years later, I did find myself being quite fascinated by the similarly ubiquitous video for ‘Protection’. However, this was entirely related to the quality video itself (the work of a certain Michel Gondry). In fact, I distinctly remember finding the song quite boring.

The first time I really connected with any Massive Attack material was in 1998, courtesy of a World Cup-timed Adidas ad, which featured Alessandro del Piero, David Beckham, Patrick Kluivert and Zinedine Zidane – and the track ‘Angel’ from MA’s third album, Mezzanine:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The music was immense. But it didn’t spark me to dive into their music. (In fact, I think it was a while before I found out/realised that it was Massive Attack’s music in the ad.)  Nor the subsequent appearance of another MTV-dominating video, this one for Mezzanine‘s most renowned track, ‘Teardrop’. Neither of the singles from 2003′s 100th Window caught my ear, either.

My only other potential gateway was someone I knew (who’d made me that Portishead CD) being somewhat obsessed with the Protection single, ’Karmacoma’. I liked it, but… I wasn’t going to bite.

‘Karmacoma’ also had an intriguing, somewhat freaky, Kubrick (The Shining)-inspired, vaguely controversial video. It was directed by Jonathan Glazer, who was also behind some equally-intriguing, but much less troubling stuff like Blur’s Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange)-inspired video for ‘The Universal’, Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit’ and Jamiroquai’s ‘Virtual Insanity’. His greatest offering, though, was the intense, disturbing clip for UNKLE’s ‘Rabbit in Your Headlights’. (Oh, and he did that famous Guinness Surfer ad…)

I bring up Glazer because in 2006, after making a couple of forays into feature film-making (Sexy Beast and Birth – both of which I have still yet to see), he made his first music video in over half-a-decade.

This was seen as a big deal. It got a much-advertised premiere on UK’s Channel 4. And, it was all because it was Glazer – with not a much emphasis on the artist behind the track. I know I tuned in because of Glazer, and not because of whoever was responsible for the song. As it turns out, this was Massive Attack. The song – the obligatory new track on their best-of collection, Collected - was called ‘Live With Me’:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, when I set out to write this, I’d initially planned on not referencing this video. Mainly because, well, I don’t really like it. I really didn’t like it then. And my opinion of it has only marginally gone up since. I just don’t think it works.

It’s hard to watch – deliberately so, I’m not going to fault that. But it feels like he/they were going for something provocative just for the sake of it. Woman drinks herself into oblivion. Troubling. Harsh. Etc.

But it doesn’t serve the song. It doesn’t do it justice. Which is a shame, because it’s an amazing song.

I didn’t realize this when I saw that video, of course, because I was too distracted by the video. I don’t remember the song making any impact on me.

That didn’t happen until a few weeks – or maybe even a couple of months – later, when the alternative, performance-based video (also directed by Glazer, apparently(?)), focusing solely on guest vocalist Terry Callier, graced my television screen:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was enthralled. The power of the track, diluted by that other, boozy video, came through intensely. This version was almost certainly commissioned solely so that the song could be aired pre-watershed/on more conservative channels. But it worked so much better.

Finally, I was able to fully embrace a Massive Attack track. I’m not sure what it was about this one. It essentially retreads the steps laid down by ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ all those years before – soulful vocals, relatively unobtrusive beats and swathes of strings. But its execution is impeccable.

I would later purchase Collected, which allowed me to reappraise those earlier singles. And I grew to love them (…except for ‘Protection’ – I still think that’s kind of boring…). But ‘Live With Me’, tucked away at the end of the compilation, still dominates.

I wonder if it’s my obsession with the sole non-album track on the compilation that has hampered desire to go and explore the back catalogue (as with Crowded House, I have, to this day, never listened to a Massive Attack studio album in full).  It’s probably just laziness though…