iloveshortsongs

No One Here Available - Andy Partridge (1985)

the-theme-is:

XTC frontman A.P. recorded this reggae-tinged novelty outgoing answering machine tune during the mid-eighties, heyday of the cassette ansaphone.

“Here it is, that Jacob Marley and the Wailers answerphone message. One of a series I made for my then brother in law in 1985. Stick it on your phone, feel free. Hearing it now, it sounds more like Robert Morley and his waders.” - A.P.

(via chalkhills)

Mr. Partridge has had his time in the sun on shortsongs once before. Have a faux-reggae winter.

The Room Obscured - Harold Budd (2000)

Nothing gets the party started faster than ambient piano jams by Harold Budd. Invite your friends over and mellow out.

A pioneer in ambient music, Budd has worked with musical luminaries from Brian Eno to The Cocteau Twins to Jah Wobble to U2 all the way to shortsongs favorite Andy Partridge.

His playing is tender and calming, even in this short snippet. So lay back and RELAX. Then call up your friends and rock out to the new Blur song. K? K.

Ice Jet Kiss - Andy Partridge (2004)

When XTC founder Partridge was confronted by Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies) to pen a tune for his television series Wonderfalls, he was originally told that the song could not have lyrics. Andy did a few unused but still brilliant little sketch-ditties that finally came to light on his Fuzzy Warbles series of demos. This is one of those attempts.

Fortunately, Fuller was able to convince the powers that be that one of Andy’s strengths are his vocal elasticity and lyrical genius, so they ended up going with this as the final theme.

Unfortunately, Wonderfalls was cancelled after only 5 of the 13 episodes were aired. Damn FOX and damn idiot viewers.

So raise a glass to the short-lived collaboration of Partridge/Fuller and the small, but wonderful fruit it bore.

“The Great Rock and Roll Swingle.” Partridge calls it in the liner notes for Fuzzy Warbles Vol. 5.

Perfect Love - The Residents (1980)

Everybody’s favorite eyeball buddies have a kind of hate/hate relationship with pop music. In 1976, they released what could possibly be deemed the first punk record, a mangled and distorted version of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. Also in ‘76, they released The Third Reich N’ Roll, an album as devious and hellish as its title suggests. More pop songs from the 50s, 60s and 70s warped and twisted until nearly unintelligible — yet fascinating to listen to.

So time marches on and the Rez form some very compelling theories about pop music. They posited that essentially every pop song, when distilled of all its unnecessary baggage, such as repeated choruses and bridges, has about one minute of actual content to its name.

With that in mind, they set about writing and recording the wondrous Commercial Album. With help from avant-pop luminaries such as Andy Partridge, Lene Lovich and Fred Frith, they formed their very own Top 40 of one minute compositions.

Uncle Willie’s Highly Opinionated Guide To The Residents had this to say of the tunes:

Due to the self-imposed time limitations, the lyrics for each song usually consist of no more than two to three sentences and last about thirty seconds. In spite of this economy of words, bright, bizarre, disturbing, languid, sad, ethereal, and silly images abound. The ability to create such complete and compelling images with so few words is an extraordinary talent indeed.

Another innovation that accompanied the release of the album was the creation of One Minute Movies. The collaboration with filmmaker Graeme Whifler was some of the earliest programming on a fledgling MTV and is now part of the film/video collection at the MoMA in New York City.