Elafonissi Blue - GUM

- Hey dude.
- Oh hey, thanks for checking out the blog, needs all the help it can get these days.
- Ye sure. You know that the single Elafonissi Blue was released on GUM's album Glamorous Damage, in like, November of last year!
- Um, ye I did, ye.
- But, I'm pretty sure that this whole "Irregular Rift" thing...
- It's The Irregular Riff actually...
- I'm pretty sure you said it's only to look at upcoming releases?
- I might have said...
- Ye, here it is, "All the releases must be not available at the time of writing".
- Oh lord, you've gone back to the archives.
- Dude, you've got like 3 blog posts, just scroll down and read it! 
- Ye, so I can see how this might look like I'm breaking my own rules, but actually GUM and the super cool label he's on, Spinning Top Music, released a music video for Elafonissi Blue only recently on the 28th of June. Check it out, it's pretty funky: 

- But that's still in the past you idiot! Not upcoming in the slightest. Why you calling GUM a "he" anyway?
- GUM's the name for Jay Watson's solo project. He's a regular member with the awesome, mental psych band POND and he's a live member with Tame Impala. He's a pretty cool dude I think. I've seen him live with Tame Impala and Pond and he can rip it up on guitar or bust some sweet keyboard grooves and I'm pretty sure I saw a video of him wacking a drum, so a solo project makes sense.
- Oooh, get you being all relevant and seeing Tame Impala live! GUM's a stupid name. Does he just blow raspberries and put it onto vinyl or something. What a joke.
- Actually there's a lot going on with Elafonissi Blue. There are huge '80s vibes - I'm talking Pet Shop Boys, Prince and that sort of disco-funk from the likes of Cameo.
- Oh God, is this some sort of gay propaganda? 
- I'm going to ignore that. There's also hints of Dam Funk, Boards of Canada, College and lo-fi synth rock. It's got a banging chorus and it's just funky man, with some sweet swooshing synths and a driving bass line - it reminds me a bit of the College soundtrack to the film Drive but with a bit more mental fun attached.
- So it's a good song which came out ages ago. Why do you not write about Yellow Submarine then? Ey? This blog has gone to the dogs already. Is it even getting a physical release? I thought that was one of the blog criteria too?
- Well, it's already out on the excellent Glamorous Damage LP...
- From November last year? Did you create your silly little "word-art" thing and then realise it was already out? You did didn't you.
- No, I just thought that with the recent release of the music video I could share this really good...
- That's it isn't it! You know nobody actually cares about those word things anyway? They think it's weird. 
- Well, I...
- You're a joke mate. 
- Cheers, bye then.

GUM
Elafonissi Blue
Spinning Top Music
Vinyl LP out: NOW at Spinning Top Music  

Introducing The Irregular Riff - A Riff To Get Stuck in Your Head

What makes a good old fashioned riff? Those few notes which whirl around your skull all day and put a big fat grin on your face. Notes which produce the sort of guitar line that you can almost chew a chunk out of. A good riff is almost something natural, as if hewn from a rock, harvested, foraged, fished for in the murky depths of the sea. It can seem impossible for that sound to have ever not existed, for it to have been made rather than just be. There's something primal about a good riff, as if it exists in all of us. I always think that a riff has similarities with the homing ability of birds, as if a killer riff is inherent in all of us even if we don't know how. How many times have you heard the opening riff to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and unconsciously started humming along, letting it fly you to the Wild West, before you realise that you have no idea which film it's from, who wrote it, or how you know the song at all? Those few wobbly notes, crafted by my hero Ennio Morricone, are now inbuilt in us all, like migrating swallows know to fly south for the winter, there's something in us which knows these few notes seemingly even before we've had a chance to discover them. The power of the riff is what brings stadiums of sweaty football fans together to chant the dark-electro opening of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by the Eurythmics and makes beer bellies bounce to The White Stripes and Seven Nation Army.

It is an earworm riff that can be that first introduction to the giddy joy you can get from a great tune, and The Irregular Riff is hopefully going to be the place to find more great, unusual, compelling and just damn fun songs and sounds. Here I am going to post a new release that I have found and I feel the need to share, shout about, wax lyrical about and all that. The only criteria is that these must be upcoming releases, something you can buy for yourselves in the coming days, weeks or months but is currently just a youtube video or a wiggly line on a soundcloud page. So none of ya Beatles, Kinks or Stones, I'm gonna be ploughing into the new stuff, although I will also highlight new reissues or compilations if I feel the music needs some attention. 

The Irregular bit? Hopefully not an indication of the frequency in which I post new music but rather of the types of music. No genre limits here. If it sounds good or interesting or just so damn strange that I need to share it, it'll make it onto The Irregular Riff. 

So check back as often as you fancy. I aim to make the blog something you can just dip into whenever you want for a browse, see what's what and hopefully find something new which gives you that bottom-lip-biting-feeling and happily rattles around your head for the next couple of days.