Archive for the ‘Blue Pearl’ Category

Blue Fukamachi

Tuesday, January 30th, 2018

Somehow, for whatever reason, some five months after the fact, I got my damn Twitter account unsuspended. I have no idea how I did this. I sent them countless emails over these past few months, pleading my case from every possible angle I could think of. During that time, I’m happy that I never succumbed to the urge to send vulgar insults or baseless threats. Trust me, many an unsent message contained both.

Maybe my restraint paid off. Maybe someone finally realized their mistake. Maybe someone just pushed the wrong button. I don’t care. I’m just happy I got my fucking account back after all this damn time. Not because I really like Twitter all that much, but dammit it’s important for me to stay on brand. UnLostTurntable was a shitty replacement name.

Anyways, @LostTurntable, follow me for random things. Mostly art.

Blue Pearl
Mother Dawn (Buckateer Mix 1)
Mother Dawn (Buckateer Mix 2)
Mother Dawn (Buckateer Mix 3)
Mother Dawn (Lunacy Mix)
Blue Pearl was a side-project of Youth from Killing Joke and featured Durga McBroom on vocals. The group also sported guest appearances from David Gilmour and Richard Wright from Pink Floyd, albeit not on this track.

All of these remixes are by The Orb and sound very much like remixes by The Orb, so your mileage may vary depending on how excited that sounds to you. Me, I’m not a big fan of The Orb’s remix work. They often fuck up with source material too much, and to me that’s the problem with these remixes here. They just sound like ambient dub Orb tracks, save for the Lunacy Mix, which has an actual beat and vocals.

Jun Fukamachi’s 21st Century Band
Shin-Ku
This is jazz fusion but please keep reading.

I went bit of a buying spree of Japanese jazz fusion as of late, trying to figure out which albums in the genre appeal to me and which ones don’t. I’m super hot and cold on this stuff. I either think it’s the best stuff ever or it makes me want to slam spikes in my ears, and I wanted to figure out why. What makes “good” jazz fusion to me? I think I was able to pin down the criteria:

  1. Absolute minimum vocals.
  2. Guitar or keyboard-centric
  3. Fast tempo
  4. The most synthesizers the better

With all these components, I really dig this stuff. It takes on a funky vibe that I hella get behind, like this track by piano virtuoso Jun Fukamachi. It has a jazz core, that’s for sure, but it branches out from that really quickly. It has a weird prog bent, some bizarre electronic accents, and more a few dope solos. And whoever the drummer is, wow. They really kick it into gear in the second half. It’s about 10 minutes long, but it still has structure, it doesn’t feel like a bunch of guys in the room just jamming nonstop. At least, it doesn’t to me.

I get that this isn’t the kind of stuff that people come to this blog for, and that’s cool. But if you don’t like it…just, don’t tell me? No one is making you download this free music, after all.

If you do like it, or have recommendations based on it, let me know! Leave a comment or you can contact me on my motherfucking back from the dead Twitter account.

Damn that feels good to say.

How I Spend my Friday Nights

Saturday, February 12th, 2011

Hey look, it’s music on a Friday night/Saturday morning!

Blue Pearl
Alive (Goa Mix)
Alive (Radio Mix)
Alive (Organapella Mix)
Down To You (Massey Mix)

Last year much hoopla was made of Metallic Spheres, the new album by The Orb that featured Youth from Killing Joke and David Gilmour. The funny thing was that both of those guys already worked together at least once before.

Blue Pearl was a collaboration between Youth and female singer Durga McBroom, who worked as a backup singer for Pink Floyd in the 1980s. I guess she had a fan in David Gilmour, who contributed some guitar work to Blue Pearl’s only album, 1990’s Naked. According to Wikipedia Richard Wright from Pink Floyd also contributed on the album, but I don’t know if his work is on any of these tracks.

As for the songs themselves, they are very 80s house sounding, and pretty dated. Still, McBroom has a crazy amazing voice and the tracks are an excellent example of that kind of music.

Youssou N’Dour
Undecided (Deep 12” Dance Mix)
Undecided (12” Dance Instrumental)
Undecided (Deep Radio Mix)

I know nothing about Youssou N’Dour. Sorry. I bought this 12″ single on a whim and dug it for its Deep Forest-ness. Enjoy.

Soft Cell
Numbers (Extended Version)
Barriers

Now this is an artist I know about. I thought that by now damn near every obscure 80s track had been re-released on CD or digitally, but I guess I was mistaken. These versions of Numbers and Barrriers are not in print in any digital format (although the extended version of Numbers was on one re-issue of a Soft Cell album at one point, I can’t find that one anymore.)

Now look, I love me some Soft Cell. Tainted Love? Easily one of the top three songs of the decade. Sex Dwarf? Easily the best named-song of the decade. But these tracks? Well…I’m sure if you’re a devoted Soft Cell fanatic you’ll be very happy to find them here. Um, enjoy.