Show #2590: Saturday 20th April 2024 - mclusky / Aisha Kigs / Local
Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales, 20th April 2024: The Long Song - Aisha Kigs 'Unattainable' / Behind The Track - mclusky 'to hell with good intentions' / Reem Muhammed selects... + more
Listen again via BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001yh92
PLEASE NOTE: This isn’t an official BBC / BBC Wales post. All words / opinions expressed here are my own.
There is a temptation to ascribe a mystical quality to writing music. As if creating something sublime has to be entirely intuitive and conjured in a state of grace, by bohemian individuals wearing outlandish clothes in a blissful fug of mind-expanding substances.
I think that stereotype might have been true from '66 until the mid-70's. It most definitely isn't true now. People who want to make anywhere near a living out of music have to be grafters, as well as creatively inspired (and lucky).
There are those who'd say that all art should be made for its own sake but I don't begrudge the people who keep a roof over my head the scant income they receive for their genius. I very much wish the equation was balanced more in their favour. It's astonishing that it isn't. We've taken pop music - especially - for granted since its earliest days: exploitative contracts; inhumane touring schedules; merciless roster culling if expectations aren’t met; heavy-handed interference in the artistic process; the current streaming models that pay subatomic rates but generate supernova profits for the platforms.
"Art for arts sake" is a luxury few artists can afford. Those who can probably have trust funds behind them, or connected families, or funding that is rewarded on the basis of application processes that - too frequently - aren't accessible to those who most need it.
After all, music made fiercely and in a desperation of the soul and imagination is often music that then goes on to move us, and to move music forward into new realms.
Priorities - these days - are either misplaced or misguided: everything feels increasingly tupsy torvy, through the looking glass.
So it's a good time to celebrate that songs - and recordings of songs - are often the result of hard work and application, as well as vision and inspiration.
I wrote at length about mclusky, here. Of all the artists operating in Wales in the early years of this millennium, mclusky's music might prove the most international and seminal. You will definitely hear Super Furry Animals more frequently on the radio but I can't think of another band from Wales who are as revered in the States or Australia - in particular - as mclusky. Perhaps it's because their music was forged in a crucible of - chiefly - 'alternative' north American artists... Pixies, The Jesus Lizard, Mission of Burma... they speak the lingua franca of the US underground, no wonder their music translates and still resonates.
mclusky's tentacle-brained, sardonically-charged lyricist, Andrew Falkous, takes us Behind the Tr**k of their hammerhead skipping rope chant 'To Hell With Good Intentions'.
Why asterisk out 'Tr**k'? It's not a fucking swear word, after all.
No, it isn't a fucking swear word.
Andrew Falkous reserves special contempt for the word 'tr**k' as a diminutive for music and - I tend to agree with him. A 'tr**k' is a thing that goes somewhere pre-determined, something mechanical, a word that infers the fun is in getting to the next thing rather than enjoying the thing right in front of you.
It's a bit of a shit word for music, when all's said and done.
But 'song' had already gone for 'The Long Song' feature and 'Behind the Recording' felt more unwieldy than 'Behind the Track' felt crap, so here we are.
Andrew's words about 'to hell with good intentions' emphasise a pragmatism in the writing and recording of the song that's very much at odds with most rock 'n' roll origin stories. There's no moment of Damascene revelation in the song's writing; no opium-induced vision; no story of the lyrics coming in a fever dream after a night of Bacchanalian debauchery on the streets of Roath.
Loathe as he'd be to admit it - not even if his cats had been kidnapped and accepting his cultural stature was the ransom - Andrew is a genius. Whether as the epicentre of mclusky, Future of the Left or as a one man band in Christian Fitness, his cauterising pop songs are singular, searing and never-less-than great.
So I think it's particularly galvanising to hear him resist the temptation to embroider any kind of myth around his trade.
And telling as well that this particular song was recorded by Steve Albini, a man who's engineered / recorded more epochal albums than the vast majority of humanity, but who still turns up to work in overalls, charging an inflation-adjusted equivalent of the daily rate he's always charged to make records for people.
But not 'tracks'.
Definitely not 'tracks'.
'The Long Song' on this week's show comes courtesy of the prodigiously gifted Aisha Kigs. 'Unattainable' is world class r&b-rooted uberpop. We have a proliferation of incredibly-gifted music-makers here in Wales at the moment. If inventive and excellent music came in colours, their rainbow would be blinding. Sometimes something emerges that is even better, a couple of steps apart, and recognisably a modern classic.
This is heavy praise to shovel in the direction of a brand new song. The kind of hyperbole / overblown bollocks I sometimes deal in (although most definitely trying to avoid doing that, these days) reveals itself as nothing more than a wet fart in a spacesuit if there's no substance to the praise. Because you know, don't you? You know something special when you hear it.
Then, please do me a favour and direct your ears at the earliest opportunity (preferably as part of the programme linked to above, for my own validation) but however you do it, the truth of 'Unattainable' will be clear.
It's 21st century DC Go-Go funk... from similar roots and looped rhythms as Amerie's globe-conquering '1 Thing'. And Aisha's voice is sublime. A gift from God, no doubt, but this song is brilliant because it's been crafted, sculpted and produced with absolute love, skill and conviction.
Please do send new music excellence to me via the BBC Introducing Uploader or as a download link to my BBC email address. You'll work it out. It has a dot between my first name and my last name.
Keep on trucking x
THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST
The Pooh Sticks - 'The World Is Turning On (1991 version)'
Swansea
Adwaith - 'Mwy'
Carmarthen
http://facebook.com/adwaithmusic
Hana Lili - 'Iconic'
Sully
http://hanalili.os.fan
The Allergies - 'Koliko (feat. K.O.G)'
Cardiff
Deyah - 'Wild Behaviour'
Newport
http://instagram.com/iamdeyah
CATTY - 'Healing Out of Spite'
Caernarfon
http://instagram.com/catty.mp3
Carwyn Ellis - 'BIG SKY LOVE (Song For Sachiko)'
Cardiff
http://carwynellis.bandcamp.com
Tom Auton - 'How’d I Get So Low? [2024]'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/Tom-Auton-317705458277900
Georgia Ruth - 'Duw Neu Magic'
Aberystwyth
http://georgiaruth.co.uk
Jordan Rees - 'We Still Have Time (Passenger Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)'
Cardiff
http://www.jordanrees.com/
C E L A V I - 'COFIA'R ENW'
Bangor
http://WEARECELAVI.COM
Em Koko - 'Inside Out'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555557547871
Noah Bouchard - 'Peter's Right For Once'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/noahbouchardmusic
THE LONG SONG #040 - AISHA KIGS
Aisha Kigs - 'Unattainable'
Cardiff
http://www.facebook.com/aisha.kigs
Knuckle MC - 'Tri Telynegwr Ft. Mr Phormula + 3hree8ight'
Llanrug
http://www.instagram.com/foulkes1
Monet - 'Scuff Button'
Swansea
Fauna Twin - 'With a Y'
Llanberis
http://www.facebook.com/faunatwin
Stepco - 'Don't Mess With The 303'
Ammanford
http://soundcloud.com/stepcodj
Jellis - 'Can't Get You'
Penarth
John Mouse - 'That's Just The Way Our Love Is'
Cardiff
http://johnmouse.bandcamp.com
Sybs - 'Paid Gofyn Pam [sengl]'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/SYBSband
HARD DRIVE DEEP DIVE #008
The Hot Puppies - 'Green Eyeliner'
Aberystwyth
Obey Cobra - 'Blue Hour'
South Wales
EYE - 'The Other Sees'
Cardiff / Wrexham
http://eye-uk.bandcamp.com
The Joy Formidable - 'Vista'
Mold
http://thejoyformidable.com
Tarian - 'Half Of Mine (Alizé)'
Cardiff
http://www.instagram.com/tarian_uk
Yellow Belly - 'Other Half'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/YellowBellyMus
REEM SELECTS...
Local - 'My Love ft. Shanessa'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/stilllocal
No Thee No Ess - 'Don't Try Too Hard'
Swansea / Cardiff
http://facebook.com/no-thee-no-ess-167376857062
Martin Carr - 'Orpheus Lament'
Cardiff
http://av8recordsltd.co.uk/releases/martin-carr-ye-gods-and-little-fishes-av8-21/
BEHIND THE TRACK #010 - mclusky
mclusky - 'To Hell With Good Intentions'
Cardiff / Rhyl
http://mcluskymclusky.bandcamp.com
Helen Love - 'Stay With Me'
Swansea
https://ilovealcopop.co.uk/collections/helen-love
Francesca Scott - 'Summertime'
Laugharne
http://facebook.com/Francesca.Scott.Music
Black Lakes - 'Hurricane'
Chepstow
http://facebook.com/Blacklakes
Just A Gent / Carlie / Kiss The Moon / Stutters - 'Stargazing'
Llanfair Clydogau / Australia
http://facebook.com/itscarliemusic
LUVLY - 'Tides Calling'
Cardiff
http://www.instagram.com/lifeofluvly
Shimmer - 'So Much Regret'
Swansea
http://linktr.ee/shimmeruk
Taran [2024] - 'Pan Ddaw'r Nos'
Cardiff
http://instagram.com/taran.band/
Meg Ella - 'Hearsay'
Llangrannog
http://megella.net
Bwncath - 'Y Gwerinwr'
Caernarfon
http://bwncath.com
Thomas James White - 'A million thoughts at once'
Cardiff
http://thomasjameswhite.com
SHOW STATS
543 diff songs/ 603 Total. 391 Artists in 16 shows since 1st, Jan '24 (~Songs per:38, Unique artists per:24) Welsh:99% Cymraeg:11% (feat. lyrics in Welsh); Source: Uploader:43%, Direct:16%, Bought:17%, Plugger:21%, Commission:2%
Comprehensive Session / Interview List: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w-rIPj0l0QhUcbEm08PUPLUWh-416mwlteG_8wpNWtQ/edit?usp=sharing
Subscribe to my Substack: https://adamwalton.substack.com
Adam Walton