stuff i've been listening to.

The Beta Band - 'Squares'
This is a song off this now-defunct band's second studio album Hot Shots II released in 2001. What's notable about this song - and something you'll realise pretty quickly if you listen - is that it shares a chorus with a later, well-known Lupe Fiasco song. Both are based around a prominent sample from I Monster's 'Daydream in Blue,' only The Beta Band's sample is slightly more abridged and features their distinct brogue on top.

I like Lupe Fiasco's track, but this is much better. While the idea of pop music drawing from hip hop in the mid-to-late nineties was hardly revolutionary, a bunch of English squares (no pun intended) somehow managed to sound so original by doing just that. Sampling old soul tracks, using crusty hip hop beats, playfully cutting up their librarian-esque vocals - it all works so well when it probably shouldn't. Maybe it's exciting because the band could have so easily rested on their laurels and churned out more acoustic songs like 'Dry The Rain' - first song on their debut EP and a fantastic song no less - but they went much further than that. They were diverse, adventurous and quite geeky. Sometimes they go almost too far; the sampled string break in 'It's Not Too Beautiful' is surprising the first few times, but eventually feels like the aural equivalent of sea-sickness.

I've been thrashing the Beta Band's 'best of' this last fortnight and this is probably my favourite song on there.

Foals - 'Big Big Love (Fig. 2)'
This song is hardly old but whatever, the album leaked Feb 08 - which is long enough ago to warrant its inclusion here. The opening (not the bit with sticks but the bit with the delayed guitar) sounds "like water" according to Maddy, which is a great description. The distorted, low-cut drums and synth that come in soon thereafter are deceptively simple and maintain a feeling of floating throughout the verses. The chorus is all double-tracked shouts and yet somehow sounds nearly as weightless, and then the song is brought by down to earth by high-fret antics in the bridge/outro.

This album was was produced by Dave Sitek (aka the man of the decade) and is way too underrated. Too many reviews said that the album needed more upbeat ska-type singles like 'Cassius' and 'Balloons.' While those songs are good, the best stuff on Antidotes is easily the more atmospheric, loop-based compositions (see: 'Red Sock Pugie,' 'Tron (Is A Good Film), 'Electric Bloom'). People complain about Sitek's production (the band themselves rejected his final mix) because it's not transparent - it draws attention to it's knob twiddling ways and incidentally pulls focus from the songs. But that what I love about it, and any band or listener looking for slick, live-sounding jams should stay away from Sitek. His production makes me want to spend hours trying stuff out on Logic, and the song 'Big Big Love (Fig. 2)' makes me want to grab my guitar and delay pedals and go for it.