And one more:



Love it.

It's yours if you want it mate.

Okay, here’s the headline: Supercar were the Radiohead of Japan.

That’s the lazy rock journalist’s go–to description. And I can see the parallels between the two bands, I really can … but while that off-the-cuff description is meant as a complement, it always reads as a dismissal to me. A waving away. I know it’s supposed to be ‘These guys are as great as Radiohead!’ but I always read it as ‘Pffft, they’re just a Radiohead clone’.

Supercar were so much more than that. (And I don’t think they ever sounded like Radiohead anyway – it’s just that they had similar lyrical and musical themes.) Bowie was a big fan, which should really be all you need to know.

Supercar’s debut album, Three Out Change, landed in ’98. Their second, Jump Up, in ’99. Within the year, they followed up with a double-whammy – two albums, designed to balance each other, called Ooyeah and Ookeah. All four records were stunners. Somewhere between (ahem) Radiohead, Slowdive, Ride and … oh, I don’t know. Pick your favourite slacker indie noise band. I hear a strong dash of Sonic Youth in there, personally.

In 2000, Supercar slammed on the handbrake and took a hard drift sideways. I reckon maybe they took a a lot of drugs. They embraced synths and drum machines and started to let their guitars swirl and drone. Their next album, Futurama, blew my mind. It’s like Cornelius joined Sonic Youth. Wide open guitar soundscapes dotted with synths and hypnotic disaffected vocals that switch from male to female and back again. The lead single, White Surf Style 5, is an all-time favourite – and video is fucking nuts. There’s some incredible live footage of Supercar performing it at Fuji Rock, but I can’t deny you all the utter madness of the video. You’ve really got to see it.

Over the next couple of albums, the electronic comes further and further to the fore, while the guitars recede. This slow transition across a suite of three records yields the highlights of their career, for me. By 2004’s Answer, their final album, Supercar had gone completely electronic and utterly, utterly mad. Psychedilia with deep, deep baselines. The stuff inbetween is the gold, in my opinion. The songs where they mix genres and revel in the liminal space.

I’m not gonna try to give you a clear overview of Supercar’s output. I’m just going to give you one track from each of their three periods and if you want to go deeper you can explore for yourselves. There have been a couple of post-breakup collections, and I highly recommend getting hold of A and B – their greatest hits and greatest B-sides.

Lucky



White Surf Style 5



Baby Once More

On this today.

I stuck the whole of Futurama on during Saturday afternoon and it’s still a great album to me. I can’t 100% explain why … I think it’s just the right level of background/working music for me. Enough musical hooks to keep me interested, while the vocals have a detachment that allows me to get on with my own thing.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

   So a YES, yup, nope from me.

Vocals on last one are terrible.

They're not on Spotify unfortunately, would've liked to hear the album Lucky was on.  

Anyone fancy doing a week or shall we tuck the thread up for a bit of a sleep?

I'd be game via PM if you are...

I have a J Live hard on at the moment, but I can do it in the hip hop thread if that's better.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

They're not on Spotify unfortunately, would've liked to hear the album Lucky was on.

I packed up all their albums (not compilations, EPs, etc, just the full albums) and there’s not enough space on the B&B Dropbox … so I’ll PM you a link to download ’em from mine.

Anyone else wants a copy, just say so.

That's the album cover for J-Live's 2014 release, Around the Sun.

He's been so incredibly consistent that I've had trouble picking songs or albums for a sampler. But I've decided this album is the one for now, as it has a good few examples of his MO. Keeping it to one album means if you dig it, you can listen to that album. Saying that if you dig this album, you can go in with confidence to basically ALL his other albums knowing you'll probably like them too.

He's just basically always really good. He goes above that sometimes, but never seens to drop bad stuff. 

And occasionally, he really kills a beat, and frequently, he really kills a topic with his lyrics and flows. 

Just awesome.



First up, the intro to the album, which is just a straight up good banger.



Live version of Worlds Apart. A vintage J-Live track. He'll take a word or concept and riff off it for entire songs. It's definitely one of his strong sub-genres. See also, I am a Man, How Much is Water and at least 2-3 other classics. 

His ability to do this sort of thing but not fall into all the obvious cliches, or if he does use cliches to flip them cleverly, and add caveats and subtlety, all while keeping a killer flow is second to none.



Again, this sort of track is a cliche, but he's self aware enough to nail it and cover all his bases.



And just a general grown folks song that gives me all the feels.

Wasn't really taken with the live track but the other three are either quite good or v.good.  He sounds a bit like a cruise controlled Abdominal.  Condescending Wonka/Skeptical African lols.  Around the Sun is probably my favourite (only 8k views?).

Absolutely.  I'm still near the surface though, you pick three tracks and I'll pick two more?

Ok, time for some more Tobe love.

This one already posted elsewhere, but I think I'll post both versions as it highlights why this project is so amazing. (and calling it a project is what we're left with after diving deep. On the originals 2 and 3 interview outros, the in joke is the interviewer asking if they a group, the response is laughter. Tobe is MC, but Nell (fro in vids) is producer on all, and fat (blonde) is tobe's wife and all over the visuals)

Jockin (album version)


Jockin (live experience version)


I'd try and just listen to that live version, the mimed video kills the energy of the bands performance.

The genius of it all is how well both versions work.

(live from the swat is a very generous "greatest hits" basically, and all the versions, bar a few, are drastically different to studio versions.)

And talk about prolific, there's nearly a video for every single song.

5 albums worth in a few years. Amazing.


Day Ones


Finish with one of the straight fire catchy AF RNB tracks.

Beautiful.

(could have picked from like 7-8 tracks of equal quality.)

Also, 100% on board for all the socks and sandals love.

A few more then.  Also posted elsewhere, insane Tiny Desk:



And the getTWISTEDsundays, where his wife twists his hair while he spits over classic beats:





Fully with you Face, voice, flow, lyrics - tick, TICK, tick.  I think he has the potential to be an all-timer.