Tag Archives: coming

#902: Nine Black Alps – Never Coming Down

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Nine Black Alps released their debut album Everything Is back in 2005. As you fellow music listeners know, singles have to be released from albums to create a buzz and get people interested. In the band’s case, they had a few to pick from. When they released ‘Just Friends’ as one of those singles, ‘Never Coming Down’ was one of its B-sides – found on seven inch vinyl copies. Once they got all the singles out of their system, the band released something of a post-album release, the Glitter Gulch EP in 2006, which included a small number of B-sides plus a live number recorded for a French radio station. ‘Never Coming Down’ is on there too and was now available to a wider audience because back in the 2000s it’s fair to say that vinyl was not on people’s minds.

The track differs from the majority of those that made it onto Everything Is in that it’s a slow burner mainly led by acoustic guitars. It begins with a drum pattern that remains the same throughout the four minutes the song lasts for. A melodic bassline joins in before those acoustic guitars come in together to fill out the soundscape. The use of the acoustics provide a warm feeling to the ears. They certainly have a relaxing element to them. I particularly like it when that bass slide occurs during the choruses alongside those “ooh” backing vocals. It’s some sweet stuff. The music’s mellow overall, but it’s paired with lyrics about feeling empty, lonely and needing someone to talk to. It’s a conflicting dynamic that’s been done many a time before, but I’m definitely not complaining ‘cos it’s done so well here. You think it’s a comfortable listen, but then you hear Sam Forrest singing about the dread people can feel when they’ve let a friend down. Then it turns into a sad listen. One that makes you ponder. Then the song fades out with the bassline and drums from the start into silence, leaving nothing behind. It’s actually quite a heavy track thinking about it now.

The band had all of their B-sides available to play on their official website about a decade ago. Even the very rare ones that were only available on vinyl. That’s where I heard this track for the first time. I downloaded them from there using a program called Freecorder, which required listening to all of the tracks from front to back while the application simultaneously recorded and saved them onto my computer. It worked, I still have the programme today. Was well worth the time spent. Good thing I did because those songs aren’t up there anymore. You can find ’em on YouTube though.

My iPod #370: Gorillaz – Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head

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Looking through my iPod before I started this I found that, to my embarrassment, I have accidentally missed out a song. Silly me. I thought I had the order sussed out too. I’ll get to it one day. For now, the series must continue.

“Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head” begins the “End of the World” track trilogy at the end of the “Demon Days” album with “Don’t Get Lost in Heaven” and the title track coming after. Listen to those three songs in succession. I also don’t think they have an official name together, “End of the World” just seems like the most appropriate thing to call it.

The track is essentially a story, narrated by the late and great Dennis Hopper, about the ‘Happyfolk’ who live under the great mountain called Monkey. Monkey eventually explodes, consuming the Earth in a great wave of fire after the ‘Strangefolk’ dig deep into its centre, stealing the jewels that lie within it. A menacing, repetitive bassline plays with deep humming backing vocals and clicking guitar licks setting the tracks mysterious and creepy tone during the verses. Damon Albarn (2D) comes in with a few verses too, accompanied by a sole acoustic guitar.

I read an interesting comment on there that suggested that this track was the main track of the entire album. Every track preceding has essentially been parts of the narrative that is told in this one song where everything comes together. Kinda makes sense. The happyfolk being the “Last Living Souls” and everything, and “Feel Good Inc.” being that point where the happy people seem to realise that something is going amiss but try and block it out to all they’re might. It’s very long to describe. But I can see it. Can’t remember where I saw that comment though, must have been years ago. Oh well.

My iPod #206: Paul McCartney – Coming Up

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What’s up everyone! New year, new me, new year, new me. How are you all? I’m very well.

So it has come to this. Only a few more hours until the new year. I never thought when I started the blog in February that could have the energy or the mental capacity to write about one song each day (more or less). It has been good fun. I may have sounded repetitive on many occasions; you have to give me a break though. Has anyone done anything like this before? Probably. But I haven’t seen it, so it hasn’t as far as I know.

How’s the change in design? Thought the blog needed some spice and crap. So it will stay like this for the foreseeable future.

“Coming Up” by Paul McCartney was released as the first single from his second solo album “McCartney II” in 1980. It is a track of pure optimism. The ascending melodies played on the bass and the keyboards along with McCartney’s manipulated vocals combine to produce a cheerful tune about looking forward to the times ahead. If you need a friend, McCartney tells you it’s coming up. You want a love? Paul says it’s coming. You want peace? Paul says it’s coming… like a flower. We just have to believe! I made that up, I don’t know what I am saying anymore.

Have a happy new year!

My iPod #79: Late of the Pier – The Bears Are Coming

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“The Bears Are Coming” is a song by the band Late of the Pier, a dance-punky quartet who have only released one album to this day called “Fantasy Black Channel”. They haven’t been around for quite some time, and in this duration their fans have yearned and pined for new material.

I don’t know if I would call myself a fan of the band. If I am, it would be embarrassing to compare myself to others who actually keep up with whatever the members of the band do, whether it is “Late of the Pier” or side projects and stuff. But I like the album. It never has the same sound throughout each song. It’s diverse, it’s eclectic, it’s whatever synonym there is that means “wide range in differences”.

I remember talking to two of my friends about the music they listened to when I was in Year 8 or something. I had only vaguely heard something about the band, I think my sister liked them. Ben (one of them) talked about “Late of the Pier” and how he thought the name “Does It Offend You, Yeah?” was a cool name for a band. He also started singing “Space and the Woods” which was quite funny. Normally he just reads books all the time, and I never knew then that he listened to music very much.

“The Bears Are Coming” played for about ten seconds on a Virgin Media Music Videos preview on my TV. Virgin Media allows you to watch a large number of music videos for free as part of their “On Demand” option. The first line and part of the second were the only parts of the video that played, and I thought it sounded good.

I didn’t watch the video though. It sounds odd that I didn’t. It’s pretty weird that I didn’t if it was available for free. I don’t think I actually listened to the full song until late last year.

It’s a good song. It was released as a single too. Late of the Pier’s singles are very good. If you haven’t listened to it yet, watch the video above.

You might be confused by it. It’s much less confusing than the video for “Focker” though. That video is something else.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.