Scala >> Holding and hoarding

In an effort to ramp up the excitement level, I've decided to maybe start adding text flourishes around each song name.  So you will find that even more lasers of pure adrenaline are gushing out of your arteries while reading this blog than before.  Note: Use these new, larger lasers wisely.

––///// Scala - "Hold Me Down"

(Touch, 1995) \\\\\––

Scala evolved out of the British electro-dreampoppers Seefeel.  Not to brag, but I created the Wikipedia page for Seefeel's influential debut album Quique years ago, so go check that album out before listening to anything by Scala.  In the course of only 4 minutes, this song mutates and devolves into some surreal and unsettling soundscapes, with every possible studio/production trick used, though in very subtle ways, with only a muffled, slowed-down drumbeat leading the way through the darkness.  Students majoring in record producing/engineering should literally be assigned this song so they can try to dissect all the little things that are going on.  15 years later, the album still sounds way more futuristic and innovative than almost anything else that has ever been released in this genre.  The song "Naked" on this album (Beauty Nowhere) could've been a real hit single; "Ride Me" is more in the spooky vein of "Hold Me Down".  This album's song titles are not bashful, and Sarah Peacock's voice is one of the deadliest baby-makin' devices in music history, in my opinion.  Bizarrely, after the band Scala came to an end, she worked at a super-hip London music club called... Scala.  I see what she did there.  The CD booklet's graphic design, done by Touch founder Jon Wozencroft (w/ "film output by Orange Communications, Ltd.," plus photos by people named Alexei Tylevich, Phillip Thoeni, and Juergen Teller), is a stunning smörgåsbord that goes perfectly with the music, yet stands alone just fine too.

You really have to listen to this while driving around at night in an unfamiliar part of town, which is how I first heard it, in late '08, while trying to find a music club called Chelsea's Cafe in Baton Rouge to see A Place To Bury Strangers & Sian Alice Group.  It was one of the freakiest listening experiences of my life, and the concert was boocoo (a little NOLA Yat slang there) great too.

This one goes out to Alicia Acacia (Merry Deth).

Sarah Peacock, jus' chillin' with her life-sized action figure alter-ego before going to hold down some thieves until the cops arrive

She looks very similar to Richard D. James, a.k.a. Aphex Twin; and they're both redheaded '90s electronic music innovators from England.  Coincidence?

Speaking of relations, I don't know if Sarah Peacock is related to Alice Peacock, who was the singer on UNKLE's amazing downtempo classic "Bloodstain".  Maybe everyone is related in England.

Planets with similar climates - Björk - "Bath" (2005), Magic Dirt - "Fear" (1996), Ciccone Youth - "G-Force" (1988), Replikants - "Patty's Trip" (1996), Curve - "Rising (Headspace Mix [by Future Sound Of London])" (1993), Zoviet*France - "Look Into Me" (1990), 5ive Style - "I Told Ya" (1995), Autechre - "Basscadet (Seefeelmx [by Seefeel])" (1994), Low - "I Remember" (7" version) (1998).

Here is a clip from this barbecue at my parents' house a few weekends ago of a youth holding down a balloon.  My legs can be seen near the beginning with the blue shorts on.  I don't even know if this kid knows who Justin Bieber is, or what his music sounds like, or what music is, but it was pretty entertaining.  By about the 2-hour mark, it became somewhat less entertaining.