Purple Milk
Definitely got the My Attorney “big clean sound” here, only better because you’re using computers. I think the drums are quite clever. One part genuine sounds, one part Casio SA120 keyboard fills. Where the guitars double up and lope along with the banjo (before the final verse about the Co-Op) is special. Some nice, crunchy discords in there too. This should be your Christmas single, aimed at the Didsbury market.
Love (Try to relax remix).
As a remix it has a real punch to it, thanks to the (live?) drums yer man put on. I’m not sure about the Golden Lights-phased vocal effect during the verses. But the guitar certainly benefits from being more present in the mix. Every time I listen to this song, either version, I think of that comment your brother made a while back about “your songs being great, but you fuck it up with your voice”, which I think is absolutely wrong. Because this song, and all the rest, wouldn’t work quite as well with a “proper” singer. Anyone remember The Wild Rover? Cough! Piano outro appeals to my piano outro-obsessed heart, naturally.
Sex.
Another big sound, without losing the intimacy on the line “she pushed her breasts up against me”.
The subject matter had me thinking about celibacy and girls who give bad blow jobs for a few days. You used the phrase “being brought to orgasm” and “only happened once in seven years” in the same sentence on your blog recently. This was brave, and it made me worry about your testicles. Is that level of abstinence healthy? Should I take you to Amsterdam and pay for a whore for you? Is this how one should try to help?
Because so much of the problem is in the brain. I have similar views to the lyrics expressed in this song – it caught me sideways and made me feel quite uncomfortable. As heterosexual men in our twenties, we should be mentally primed to go out every night and fuck. Because we’re instinctively programmed to do just that. But we don’t. In fact we shy away from it, or feel too worthless to have a go. What does this mean? I have to the shops soon, so I’m not getting into it now. But the first part of the song, with it’s lullaby feel, is just the right canvass to paint these words onto.
Two years ago, I would have preferred the first part of the song to the second section, but now I find myself really side-chained into that heavily compressed bass beat. And the little repose 2min55secs, with the big arpeggiated synth rumbling in. The use of the Kid Rock sample is inspired throughout, and it fits really neatly into the piece without sounding over-quantised. There are some Pebbledash choral synths at the end that really fill it all out. But it’s the screeching sound that does it for me. I’ve done a solo song with a similar sound in it, and it sounded dreadful… in a good way, but not quite as spot-on as this. The piano breakdown makes me think of the KLF with “Ebeneezer Goode”, which I only discovered recently lifted that sample of “I just know that something good is going to happen” from Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting (off the Hounds of Love album).
Fair Trade Whore.
Have you answered my question? Are you secretly wanting to go and visit a prostitute after all?! The guitar sound is a nice tribute to the Orange Pants Band-era: that lovely tinny, vox amp sound. The vocal harmonies, and brevity of the song tip the balance in favour of “keeper” instead of “b-side”, and it makes a perfect conclusion to a really nice single. At under 15mins in length, it could make the charts. In all the only real criticism I would have would have been to drop the love remix, simply because it’s not as “you” as the other tracks (for obvious reasons) and doesn’t sit as well on the tracking. It’s absence would also have given more attention to Sex as the Masterplan-esque b-side of the disc.
But no matter, the decks look clearer, and it’s nice to stick on when Radio 4 deserts you.