MP3 OF THE WEEK: Barry Bliss – All I Really Want mp3

“All I really want is to beat your fuckin’ ass, to be thrown in jail and rolled in broken glass, to be offered a kingdom by a crazy man and say I pass, to be beaten to death by British bobbies in mass”

One day this week I had my mp3-player on random as I was walking home, when this song came on. I don’t remember when I put it on my i-River, but when it started playing I was struck like a bolt of lightening… who is this? what is this song? and why has it taken me so long to get round to playing the damned thing!

‘All I Really Want’ is bitter, belligerent and angry but so very, very funny. It had me imagining a drunken performance at a late night cowboy bar, by a singer who’s past caring what the audience think and decides to burn all his bridges with the management by singing a song with a chorus that goes “All I really want is to beat your fuckin’ ass!”.

Click here to buy the Rough Trade ‘Antifolk’ CD that the track comes from. The CD features many other brilliant left-field songwriters like Adam Green, Turner Cody, Jeffrey Lewis and Kimya Dawson.

Barry Bliss – All I Really Want mp3

Visit Barry’s MySpace page to download two more mp3s.

Barry Bliss MySpace

NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA – The End Of Chimes (7″ EP)

Oof! OOF009: 2nd July 2007
1. Guitar Miniature No.2
“Instrumental”
2. The End Of Chimes
“Better than sleep it is to lie awake, o’er-canopied by the vast starry dome of the immeasurable sky, to feel the slumbering world sink under us and make hardly an eddy, a mere rush of foam on the great sea, beneath a sinking keel”
3. Hurdy Gurdy Miniature
“Instrumental”
4. The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls
“The morning breaks, the steeds in their stalls stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls, the day returns, but nevermore returns the traveller to the shore”

This delightful EP is for fans of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s more tranquil recordings or for those who’ve wondered what a female Sufjan Stevens might sound like.  It opens with the tranquil ‘Guitar Miniature No.2’, sounding like a warm summers evening.  Then Sharron Fortnam’s heavenly voice drifts in for the spellbinding ‘The End Of Chimes’ born aloft on sighing strings and twinkling Pianos, reciting beautiful and poetic lyrics.  ‘Hurdy Gurdy Miniature’ is more startling, coming across like a demented Donovan instrumental or an excellent Patrick Wolf B-side.  The EP is rounded off with a jaunty Folk shanty called ‘The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls’.

This is an EP that seems not to have been recorded, but more born on the breeze from some secluded, sunlight dappled forest.  Between listening to my usual diet of Punks, Rockers and Hip-Hoppers, it’s refreshing to spend a time sheltered under North Sea Radio Orchestra’s musical branches.

Click here to buy ‘The End Of Chimes’ EP direct from Oof!’s Website (You can buy their self-titled album too).

North Sea Radio Orchestra MySpace / Oof! Website

PRINCE – Planet Earth (Free Album)

ATTENTION ALL UK RESIDENTS!

Be sure to go to your newsagent tomorrow to buy a copy of The Mail On Sunday (As Loathsome as that idea sounds) because Prince’s new album ‘Planet Earth’ comes mounted on the front… absolutely free!

This philanthropic move is sure to endear him to his many fans but it’s a move that has angered the record industry. The “Suits” see this as sabotaging their war against copyright-theft/reasonable-use (Which included them illegally installing spyware on the computers of any poor sod who bought a Columbia CD last year) from within. Sony had inked a UK distribution deal for ‘Planet Earth’ but have backed out in response, so you won’t find ‘Planet Earth’ on the highstreet. If you want a copy of Prince’s album, tomorrow’s newspaper release is the only way you’re gonna get it (Unless you fork out for an import American copy in two weeks). This strikes me as Sony throwing their toys out of the pram when a maverick artist wants to give something back to fans (As well as pulling off a wizard piece of self promotion!).

HMV stores have taken the interesting step of stocking copies of the newspaper (Which they never usually carry) so customers can get the new Prince album as they would expect from one of the UK’s biggest music retailers.

Click here to watch a bit of Prince’s video for new single ‘Guitar’ on YouTube (Sadly it’s interrupted by adverts).

Click here to read my brothers review of Prince’s recent intimate gig at Koko, which he described to me over the phone as “The greatest night of his life” and as “A religious experience”.

Click here to buy the deluxe edition of the ‘Purple Rain’ DVD for the insane price of £4.99. This is how rock movies should be, get yourself a copy! Here’s the title track and my favourite Prince song… best Guitar solo ever?

Prince & The Revolution – Purple Rain mp3

Prince Website