Das Zeitgeist Zimmer, 30.07.12-5.08.12

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Name: Corin Tucker Band
Based: USA
Listen: ‘Neskowin’
Need to Know: The closest thing you’ll get to new Sleater Kinney material this year

Hegel: I love Sleater-Kinney. I love Sleater-Kinney a great deal, in fact, and so their indefinite hiatus landed me with a heavy heart indeed. Last year saw two thirds of the band perform in the top-notch Wild Flag, and now the other third is set to release new solo album Kill My Blues on September 18 via Kill Rock Stars.

Corin Tucker’s first solo album, 1,000 Years, was solid enough, if a bit lacklustre in the energy stakes. But this new material is, to use the parlance of our times, riotously kicking out the jams… motherfucker. ‘Neskowin’ is all kinds of awesome, and I’m pretty sure it’s lyrically about masturbation, which just happens to be one of my hobbies, so that’s a bonus. Corin Tucker’s unmistakable wailing has been gone too long, and this new stuff seems more power-pop ish then her earlier material, which is a pleasant development to say the least.

More importantly ,this song reminds me of a time when indie rock actually rocked, instead of being all about beardy, weepy young men, combining  half assed sampler “experiments”, with oh-so delicate chamber pop navel gazing. It bores me to tears, while simultaneously making me want to smash things. It can’t hold a candle to this stuff, that’s for sure.

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Who: Real Soul
Based: Los Angeles
Listen: Nintendo And Kush (free download album)
Need to know: The best free N64-flavoured jazz-funk album you’ll hear all day

Herder:What is it about video games that inspires so much music? Maybe it’s that artists always find inspiration from their surroundings, from Bob Dylan articulating the voice of the Baby Boomers on ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’, to NWA attacking police brutality on, erm, ‘Fuck Tha Police’, to David Bowie taking inspiration from the fact that he’s literally an extraterrestrial on, well, pretty much everything he’s ever done. Maybe that’s why Christopher Wing, aka Real Soul, called his new album Nintendo And Kush. Say what you see, y’know? Anyway, it’s an interesting take on chip-tune for the way Wing infuses Thundercat-esque  funky bass lines with Squarepusher-derived mathematical rhythms on tracks like ‘Hope’ and ’8-Bit’.

I’ve been um-ing and err-ing about whether Nintendo And Kush is a brilliantly blunt (excuse the pun) album title, or the worst I’ve ever heard. At the moment I’m erring toward the former, but that may well be because I’ve been hitting the bong and I just finally completed Ocarina Of Time. What an almighty gaming achievement! I’m going to order some pizza.

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Name: Bolts
Based: Liverpool
Listen: ‘Arc’
Need to Know: Beatmaker with judicious taste in samples

Hegel: Bolts is a Mr Luke Bolton from Liverpool, and besides that not much is known, apart from the fact that he’s very adept at making J Dilla-iscous beats (that word is so going to catch on, I can feel it in my incongruously old bones.) We’ve had a potter about the young gent’s Soundcloud page and liked what we’ve found, with ‘Arc’ being a personal highlight.

It’s a damn sexy beat, and I’m doing my head in trying to figure out where those incredibly lush samples come from.  I’m going to say it’s taken from ’70s Lalo Schiffren, or something indebted to that great man, but I might be way off the mark. In any case, just listen to this and try not to picture Dirty Harry morosely cruising the streets of San Francisco at 5am. Yes, the serial killer/child abuser has gotten away, and that stupid chief has thrown the book at him (but chief, he gets results!), but the very next scene he’s going to come back swinging by beating the shit out of the drug smuggler who has the necessary info. Due process and civil liberties; they just don’t work, I tell you! That’s the sort of feeling I need to my beats to give off.

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