Here is our 11th instalment of Multiple Exposures, the series where we ask people to give us a list of their 15 favourite pieces of repetitive music.
This time we have a great list from Alessio Gastaldello from the Italian psych band Mamuthones.
Alessio's List consists of:
CAN – Yoodooright
First krautrock track I loved. That first listening was so important to me that my e-mail address is still yoodooright@XXXXXX.com . CAN were capable to mix effortlessly the sheer physicality of funk and a more intellectual approach to music that is still unparalleled: James Brown meets Stockhausen indeed (without the boring bits).
CAN
Velvet Underground – Some kinda love
Neither my favourite Velvet song nor their most repetitive one (what about the “What goes on” version out of the “1969” live album?). But when I saw them in 1993 (and I was a still very impressionable kid), their version of this song just floored me. Moe Tucker stood behind her kit, like a worker at his desk, and started mercilessly hammering the bass drum with the right hand while holding herself up with the left one. She just did this “tum-tum-tum” thing for 10 minutes straight. I think she is the best drummer of the world.
Velvet Underground
Neu! – Hallogallo
Because it must be present in such a list!
Neu!
Giusto Pio – Motore Immobile
Giusto Pio was a long-standing collaborator of Italian singer-songwriter Franco Battiato. “Motore Immobile” is the side-long title track of an album released by Cramps Records (Area, Arti & Mestieri etc): when I had the chance to listen to it with Makoto Kawabata, he just dryly commented: “Very minimalistic!”.
Giusto Pio
Pink Floyd – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Pink Floyd are the first band I loved when I was fourteen. I think I lost part of my QI listening to the “At Pompeii” version too many times… generally chanting to myself “Set the controls for the heart of the sun… ahahaha Set the controls for the heart of the sun” (I still do this!).
Pink Floyd
Manuel Goettsching – E2E4
I don’t like going to disco but I can appreciate some club music… especially if it is made by a great musician like Manuel Goettsching (I was tempted to put Ash Ra temple’s “Flowers must die” in the list but there’s already enough mind-damaging krautrock on it so I went for some krautsynth).
Manuel Goettsching
Adriano Celentano – Prisencolinensinainciusol
Adriano Celentano is one of the most popular Italian singers. In 1972 he recorded this “Prisencolinensinainciusol”. The song finds Adriano at the best of his idiot savant persona: hilarious fake English rapping, killer groove, great horn arrangement: to get the full experience just watch him dance here
Adriano Celentano
Talking Heads – The Great Curve
It’s very difficult to pick only a track from the “Remain in light” album. Each song is a perfect repetitive song. I chose this one because I love the way they are able to add layer after layer of intensity while keeping everything under control (and yes, Andrew Belew is one of my favorite guitarists: check also King Crimson’s “Sleepless”, especially the Kevorkian club remix, for some truly trance-like NY disco).
Talking Heads
23 SKIDOO – The gospel goes to New Guinea
I discovered 23 Skidoo only some years ago, but what a discovery! Dark, tribalistic wave dance that today sounds even fresher than in the early Eighties.
23 SKIDOO
Einstuerzende Neubauten – Interimsliebenden
I love them. I chose this because it is the first EN track I heard and it reminds me of my first visit to Berlin. Good singing by Blixa, great percussion work.
Einstuerzende Neubauten
The Cure – A Forest
Grey, water-coloured psychedelia from another of my favourite bands. The hypnotic bassline is of course ultra-classic, Tolhurst’s less than “less is more” drumming gives a new meaning to the word “minimalism”. When we were kids, we used to challenge each other in singing “again and again etc” without taking breath.
The Cure
Miles Davis – On the Corner
The long suite on the first side of this album is a completely stunning tour de force of two-note bass funkiness paired with some of the most distorted guitar-playing this side of Funkadelic’s “Maggot brain”. I guess at the time it sounded like a crazy jump into the unknown: today, it sounds even more futuristic than in 1972.
Miles Davis
Popol Vuh – Aguirre
Another krautrock track? Yes… however it’s amazing!
Popol Vuh
The Stooges – We will fall
The “Oh gi ran ja ran” chant is like a hellish version of the “Nam myoho renge kyo” buddhist invocation. This song manages the trick to be absolutely mesmerizing and at the same time totally stupid, in a bored-teenager-stoned-on-his-sofa way: basically the unholy marriage of avant-gardish pretentions and wild American garage rock that made the Stooges so special. John Cale’s viola is just the icing on the cake.
The Stooges
Ramones – Now I wanna sniff some glue
Another slab of teenage American boredom at its best/ worst: “Now I wanna sniff some glue/ Now I wanna have somethin’ to do” (ad libitum). Nevermind Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti, this is real poetry (especially if combined with Johnny Ramone’s chainsaw guitar noise).
Ramones
Image by Joe McHugh and East Totem West
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