- There are two ways of listening to Joe Mount of Metronomy's LateNightTales. In the first instance, you can barely help but mentally high-five yourself as you spot the original sources of the signature sounds which Metronomy employs so effectively. For instance, in Japan bassist Mick Karn's ethereal jazzy playing and in the sunny Sunday morning funk of OutKast's "Prototype," you can trace the origins of the unusually supple basslines (not to mention the earnest faith in eccentricity), that makes Metronomy much more than just another electro pop act.
In its skeletal minimalism, albeit then filtered through a diffident English aesthetic, Tweet's "Drunk" is a clear blueprint for many Metronomy tracks. Listen to Chick Corea's "El Bozo (Part 1)" and you'll begin to understand Mount's distinctive love of reedy synths. The Alessi Brothers' "Seabird," meanwhile, complete with cheap, chiming soft-focus keyboards, hissing drum machine and breezy folk rock vocal, could have been lifted from The English Riviera.
Mount completes this conversation across the ages by covering, brilliantly, Jean-Michel Jarre's "Hypnose." (Lindstrom, you imagine, will be gutted he didn't get there first.) Incidentally, this glimpse behind the curtain in no way diminishes Mount's talent. No magic is lost. Instead, you can only marvel at his magpie ear; his ability to pull together inspirational textures and sounds from such diverse source material.
The other way to listen is to embrace the LateNightTales ethos, and treat this as a drunken, 3 AM tunes session. One where a mate with extraordinarily broad taste is pulling out CDs, vinyl, clicking between tracks on YouTube and yelling: "You. Have. Got. To. Hear. This." The test in such a situation is "are you surprised?" And whether he's reminding you of lost classics (Dr Octagon's enduringly strange, "Blue Flowers"), or turning you on to things you've never heard (the ZE indebted punk-funk of Geneva Jacuzzi; the primordial synth scapes of Tonto's Expanding Headband), Joe Mount is full of surprises.
Tracklist 01. Outkast - Prototype
02. Tweet - Drunk
03. SA-RA Creative Partners - Cosmic Ball
04. Chick Corea - El Bozo (Part 1)
05. Dr. Octagon - Blue Flowers
06. Lonzo & The World Class Wreckin Cru - Cache Vocal
07. Metronomy - Hypnose (Exclusive Jean Michel Jarre Cover Version)
08. Alessi Brothers - Seabird
09. Autechre - Fold4,Wrap5
10. Mick Karn - Weather The Windmill
11. The Alan Parsons Project - Eye In The Sky
12. Geneva Jacuzzi - Love Caboose
13. The Lone Swordsmen - You Are...
14. Tonto's Expanding Head Band - Cybernaut
15. Pete Drake - Forever
16. Appaloosa - The Day (We Fell In Love)
17. Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Complainte Pour Ste Catherine
18. Herman Dune - Winners Lose
19. Cat Power - Werewolf
20. Paul Morley - Lost For Words Pt.4 (Exclusive Spoken Word Piece)