Showing posts with label Madchester. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Madchester. Show all posts

Monday, September 13, 2010

I'm going stupid once again: PARIS ANGELS revisit

Way back in the beginning of time, I blogged this band. Made some noise about posting a complete discography or somesuch.

I lied.

The discography was (relatively) nowhere near complete. Oh, I didn't miss anything "major", but I've since obtained at least another half-dozen tracks that should have been in the previous post.

Don't let anyone tell you The Power of Independent Trucking doesn't fix its errors ;)

So as long as we're fixing errors, we may as well post the 99.9% Complete Discography of this woefully underappreciated Manchester band, but this time we'll do it right and in FLAC no less.

And I'll come clean: The reason this is only 99.9% complete is that there are a couple questionable 7" edits out there that may or may not be relevant, and there is one last track available on some mega ultra rare compilation that they've all probably disintegrated by now (a track called "Don't Fake Mine" - if any reader has it lossless, please let me know!).

If I do locate any additions to this compendium, I will certainly post them, fear not.

So onward. Let's do this Factory Records band (that never was on Factory, but reading the names of persons involved in all aspects of this band's existence you'd sure think they were a classic Factory act) justice as all their records are LONG out of print, and they need to be heard.

It's long been my opinion that that this band, with the right label or anything beyond total label indifference (hello Virgin), could have escaped Madchester intact as the Charlatans did. They weren't simply a product of their time (listen to the music), they had gobs of talent, and the songs to go along with it. They had everything needed to be a mini-New Order (minus Hooky). They had New Order's engineer producing their records (Michael Johnson), their original label came from a strong Factory/New Order background (their initial label Sheer Joy having been started by an ex-Factory Records employee), they had that really nice blend of electronics and acoustics so wonderfully exploited by the best New Order tracks. They received dancefloor play at the Hacienda, and gigged there too (in fact the Hac is the reason I first became aware of this band, when a mate heard "Perfume" there well before release in 1990 and couldn't stop gabbing about it for months upon return to the States). They even had half of Factory's nearly-in-house design team (Craig Johnson of Johnson and Panas, who did a LOT of design for Factory and Electronic in the later years of Factory's existence) which often gave Peter Saville a run for his money (see the "Perfume" 12" cover, nearly iconic in its own right - which I've re-engineered below to serve as the cover for this compilation).

So that this band has been utterly neglected for the past almost 20 years is beyond my simple grasp. It's borderline criminal. Someone needs to step in, license these records, and give them the proper reissue treatment they deserve. Their entire catalog - the whole damn thing - has been out of print for nearly every single one of these past twenty years. It's shameful.

A few key additions to the last post:

1) New mixes "discovered" of their classic, best track "Perfume", including one which very quickly became my by-a-thousand-miles favorite interpretation of the track. I'm speaking of a previously-unknown (to me) mix called, simply, "Perfume (version)" which was tucked away as the extra track on the 12" vinyl release of their debut single. It is, in a word, spellbinding. As brilliant as I believed the "original" mix (simply entitled "Perfume" no modifiers) to be, the "(version)" variant beats it in all possible ways. How? By knifing out the sequenced drums and focusing on the nearly Steve Morris-esque drums buried in the "original" mix. Secondly, the "(version)" variant has a quite lovely harmony/alternate vocal line from other singer Jane starting about midway through the track that all other variants sadly lack. All put together, the "(version)" variant is the perfect "Perfume". And now here it is, in glorious mastered FLAC, mastered from original vinyl, and spotlessly mastered at that. Not a clue at all it's vinyl sourced.

2) The only two *released* BBC session tracks now are included - a track from their first Peel session in September 1990, and a track from a Mark Goodier session in October 1990.

3) Remixes from their last-ever single, "Fade", now included. Also included is another vinyl-only mix, the "Fade (Part 2)" mix, which was the extra track on the "Fade" 12" vinyl single, like "Perfume (version)" spotlessly mastered from original vinyl.

4) And yet another vinyl-only track, an alternate edit of "Perfume" which was titled and released as the extra track on the Virgin re-release 12" as "Perfume (summer version)". This is simply an edit of the Virgin-spawned "Perfume (all on you)" and really here for completist sakes only, I don't see people wanting this as their only example of this track. Again, mastered from original vinyl, and spotlessly mastered at that without a clue of vinyl lineage.

5) All the Virgin-released "Perfume" mixes were mis-pitched. I've fixed them. Specifically, "Perfume (loved up" / "Perfume (all on you)" / "Perfume (summer version)" all suffered from incorrect mastering, at the wrong pitch.

See the prior post for the illustrated discograpy, I'll just run down the tracklisting and at the end, detail out lineage.

- - - - -

PARIS ANGELS
the 99.9% Complete Discography, 1989-1991



00 Don't Fake Mine (recorded for Piccadilly Radio March 1990)
01 Stay
02 Perfume
03 All On You (Perfume)
04 Muffin 2
05 Techno (Live at Subterania)
06 Perfume (version)
07 Stay (Peel session, 27 September 1990)
08 Scope
09 Give Me More...Scope
10 Scope Two
11 GBF
12 Oh Yes
13 I Understand
14 Oh Yes Instrumental
15 Too Easy
16 Oh Yes (Mark Goodier session, 27 October 1990)
17 Perfume (loved up)
18 Pure
19 Perfume (all on you)
20 Perfume (summer version)
21 Eternity
22 Fade
23 Smile
24 Slippery Man
25 What Goes On
26 Perfume (all on you)
27 Louise
28 Breathless
29 Chaos (Stupid Stupid)
30 Purest Values
31 Oh Yes (extended)
32 Fade
33 Fade (Tag mix)
34 Fence
35 Fade (Polo mix)
36 Fade (part two)

00 from Hit The North, various artists (Bop Cassettes, BIP 806 CD)
1 from HOME, various artists (Sheer Joy, Sheer 001CD)
2-5 from the original "Perfume" CD single (Sheer Joy, Sheer 002/CD)
6 from the original "Perfume" 12" vinyl single (Sheer Joy, Sheer 002/T)
7 from New Season - The Peel Sessions, various artists (Strange Fruit, SFRCD205)
8-11 from the "Scope" CD single (Sheer Joy, Sheer 004/CD)
12-15 from the "Oh Yes" CD single (Sheer Joy, Sheer 005/CD)
16 from the best of The Mark Goodier Radio1 Sessions Volume 1, various artists (Nighttracks, MARK 1)
17-19 from the re-released "Perfume" CD single (Virgin, VSCDT 1360)
20 from the re-released "Perfume" 12" vinyl single (Virgin, VST 1360)
21-31 from the Sundew CD album (Virgin, CDV 2667)
32-35 from the "Fade" CD single (Virgin, VSCDG 1365)
36 from the "Fade" 12" vinyl single (Virgin, VST 1365)

All the above in glorious lossless FLAC, gently remastered by your host, here! Warning - it's spread across 12 RAR files.

****** SPECIAL EDIT ******
a kind reader forwarded on a lossless rip of "Don't Fake Mine" from a various artists compilation, could be the rarest Paris Angels track!

grab the FLAC here!

enjoy...

Alternate color combos (click for full-size):


Saturday, January 31, 2009

madchester rave on: Northside

So the Madchester onslaught continues, while I think of the next posts in the variations on a theme or 5 songs memes I've got going. Today we have another largely-forgotten Manchester band, Northside.



Hyped by Factory Records as the next great thing in Manchester in 1990, Northside blazed onto the scene with two stellar singles and an of-its-time LP, then with Factory's ugly collapse in 1992 slowly faded away, ultimately dying in 1996 or so (but they've since resurfaced and are apparently still gigging about in Manchester).

Here be found a very extensive biography, the most extensive I've found on the internets by far....

Northside weren't of the baggy scene per se, they were more guitars than dance (similar to James, in fact they fulfilled the same role on Factory's roster as James did in the mid 80s when they were Factory's folkies) - yet for whatever reason the UK music weeklies insisted on lumping them in with the rest of the Madchester scene. And unfortunately, the inevitable Madchester backlash struck them full-force in the press, whilst other more baggy acts escaped relatively unscathed.

Leaping into view with the jangly double A-side "Shall We Take A Trip" / "Moody Places" (interesting fact: the band wanted "Moody Places" as the A-side with "Shall We Take A Trip" as the flip, but Factory boss Tony Wilson thought the explicit drug vibes of "Shall We Take A Trip" fit more presciently with the burgeoning Madchester scene and should be the A-side, so they compromised, and the sides are described as A and AA on the vinyl), they then released the followup "My Rising Star" before retreating to Wales to record the debut LP. And that's all she wrote, beyond a couple tracks appearing on overseas editions of the album, and an exclusive instrumental "Moody Places" on a compilation cassette.

Since their output was so limited, I give you everything they released below - another in our "Complete Discography" series as begun last week with Paris Angels.

Enjoy!

(for the record, LTM has reissued the majority of below on one CD,
Chicken Rhythms + Extras which you can peruse here...)

...postscript: I don't think there's anything missing from below, though I do have (and am loooking at) a live VHS the band released in 1991 (possibly even before the LP was released), entitled simply Live (recorded at the PSV Club, Manchester 8 October 1990). Unfortunately I don't have the capacity to capture the video, and the audio, from what I recall, is pretty ugly. Nevertheless I may yet get the audio captured and uploaded at some future date.

---

NORTHSIDE
Moody Places: The Complete Discography



FAC 268 "Shall We Take A Trip" / "Moody Places" (single)



01 Moody Places (12" version)
02 Shall We Take A Trip


FAC 298 "My Rising Star" (single)



03 My Rising Star (12" version)
04 My Rising Star (instrumental)


FAC 308 "Take 5" (single)



05 Take 5 (12" version)
06 Take 5 (7" version)
07 Who's To Blame (instrumental)


FACD 310 Chicken Rhythms (LP)



08 Take 5
09 Weight Of Air
10 Funky Munky
11 A Change Is On Its Way
12 Yeah Man
13 Tour De World
14 Wishful Thinking
15 Shall We Take A Trip
16 Who's To Blame
17 Practise Makes Perfect
18 My Rising Star (edit)

(and from overseas editions of Chicken Rhythms)

19
Tour De World (live)
20 Yeah Man (live)


FAC305c The Factory Tape (special to Select magazine, 1991)



21 Moody Places (instrumental)


---

And there you have it. I figured since the band wanted "Moody Places" as the debut A-side I'd do the same here, and what better way to close out their Complete Discography collection with the instrumental version of the same (though it is different, besides just lacking vocals...).

Comments, questions, points of order - just drop a note in the comment box!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

madchester rave on: Paris Angels

In keeping with the blog's ongoing Manchester themed posts of late, one utterly forgotten band (except for one song, more on that later...) I'd like to spotlight is Paris Angels.



If you know them at all, it's for their 1990 indie groover Madchester-flavored hit-of-sorts "Perfume" (video) - a top track indeed. What many don't know is that they actually released an album, and 3 other singles.

Paris Angels came together in 1990 or so right as Madchester was cresting. They managed to create quite a New Order-ish blend of rock and dance, at times sounding oddly like a blend of Electronic/Revenge/The Other Two - isn't that New Order? Yes it is, but the blend they created doesn't have that classic Hooky bass sound.

First surfacing on a compilation of Manchester acts entitled "Home" with the song "Stay", the band then released their classic debut single "Perfume". Riding "Perfume" as long as the music press allowed them, they released 2 other singles on Manchester indie label Sheer Joy (owned by a disgruntled ex-Factory Records employee!), then signed to a major label and reissued Perfume (different mixes), then finally an LP. After one more single they fell off the face of the earth. Apparently the band were victims of a Great Purge after Virgin sold itself off to EMI - they finished recording a 2nd LP but when turning up with the record were shown the door.

Guitarist Paul Wagstaff would later resurface in Shaun Ryder's post-Happy Mondays act Black Grape.

So without further ado, I present... Paris Angels, Complete Discography. If there's any tracks missing beyond the odd radio session, I've never heard of them existing.

Paris_Angels-Complete.part1.rar
Paris_Angels-Complete.part2.rar

(you'll have to download both files to extract, it's one RAR archive split into two files - grab the decompression software here if you don't have anything to extract RAR files)

-----------------------------

HOME (compilation)



(Compilation CD, 1989 Sheer Joy SHEER CD001)

Stay


PERFUME (single)



(1990 Sheer Joy SHEER 002/CD)

Perfume
All On You (Perfume)
Muffin 2
Techno (Live at Subterania)


SCOPE (single



(1990 Sheer Joy SHEER 004/CD)

Scope
Give Me More...Scope
Scope Two
GBF


OH YES (single)



(1991 Sheer Joy SHEER 005/CD)

Oh Yes
I Understand
Oh Yes instrumental
Too Easy


PERFUME (single - Virgin issue)



(1991 Virgin VSCDT 1360)

Perfume (Loved Up)
Pure
Perfume (All On You)


SUNDEW (debut LP)



(1991 Virgin CDV 2667)

Eternity
Fade
Smile
Slippery Man
What Goes On
Perfume (All On You)
Louise
Breathless
Chaos (Stupid Stupid)
Purest Values
Oh Yes


FADE (single)



(1991 Virgin VSCDG 1365)

Fade
Fade (Tag Mix)
Fence
Fade (Polo Mix)

--------------------

Anything missing? Drop a line in the comment box....

enjoy!