So we've had a Baltimore post, now time for Detroit. Perhaps I should make my blog theme post-industrial Rust Belt cities? Cleveland I think I could do... Anyone got any suggestions?
It should go without saying how much brilliant music has come from Detroit. This year is Motown's 50th anniversary of course - what a legacy! No doubt I'll do a (very long) Motown post in the future, but of course there's also the Stooges and the space funk of Detroit Techno - music very much rooted in the place where it was conceived.
But I really didn't know I'd be blogging about Detroit this time. I wanted to talk about a new electro / indie-tronica artist Deastro who I've just come across. I've been listening to the album Keeper's for a few months but it was only when I came to try & find out a little out it online that I found he's a Detroit producer. The album has been supported by eMusic and it's certainly worth a listen with a somewhat schizo mix of styles, opaque, slightly mystical lyrics, and an emphasis on songs rather than the dancefloor. Reminds me of Cut Copy a bit. Deastro has now apparently signed with Ghostly International which sounds like a good fit to me.
Buy Keeper's here
Similar in feel is which has been passed on to me by my brother - his own production. Here's what he says: Falory 'O is John Sweeney - a spiralline melodian from Belfast. Writing and recording in his living room he sends musical transmissions to Celeste and The Rest - the Party Beings. It may be a good party, it may be a bad party or it may be a rude party.
I guess it's difficult to judge objectively the work of someone you know but I think this is a real interesting, tricksy production. Pity he's not from Detroit. Would love to hear some comments
When I first moved to London 15 years ago, I thought that guitar music was history, that the future lay with machine music. (What a dick!) This was before dance music had become the commercialised soundtrack to a Yates's Saturday night, still felt 'culturally important' even, when 'experimental' was not code for unlistenable (personally speaking). I remember wondering what all the fuss was with Oasis & Blur - they were just recycling the riffs and attitude of the past. Couldn't people see there was nothing NEW in this? My heroes were boldly questing for new sounds, taking us devotees on long (maybe too long) psychedelic journeys into our own (head) space.
Underground Resistance were a mysterious Detroit cult with the fiercest, funkiest, spaciest techno and a confrontational attitude at odds with the easy going, druggy, apolitical UK dance scene. At the time I don't think I was ever clear about their personnel, though certainly it included 'Mad' Mike Banks and Jeff Mills but it wasn't about personalities, it was about the manifesto & the music. The manifesto was a load of tosh ''change by sonic revolution" - I could see that even then - but the music still stands up. The music sounds amazing in fact. Futuristic and coldly beautiful
Buy Underground Resistance music here
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