Monthly Archives: December 2014

New Stuff – Sunken Foal Remix

I first saw Sunken Foal live in the Body and Soul Area at Electric Picnic in 2013. It was 3am, I was half cut, and my ears were still ringing from My Bloody Valentine on the Main Stage (Kevin, why SO loud?) but Sunken Foal’s set was one of the highlights of the festival. It was just so damn [insert superlative-heavy yet utterly insufficient description of his music here].

I’ve been a fan of Sunken Foal’s work since hearing his brilliant remix of RSAG’s ‘You Want More’ and thereafter, his ‘Friday Syndrome’ Albums. So I was delighted when he agreed to work his remix magic on ‘New Stuff’.

Sunken Foal’s remix of ‘New Stuff’ is bundled as a bonus track with a purchase of ‘Practical’ from Bandcamp (CD or Download). The album is available here.
‘Practical’ also comes with 2 great bonus remixes by Eomac.

The video, a big-budget affair featuring the life and times of a Renault 4 with 500,000 km on the clock, is here.

O how I love the new stuff/New stuff is so very new/I want to spend the rest of my life buying new stuff with you

‘Practical’ – which is available from Bandcamp – features a number of songs that could be described as work, protest or socially conscious songs (Note to self, copyright new genre: socially conscious-core). ‘New Stuff’ is an attempt at a critique of consumer culture done in the style of an ironic ode – I know, I can’t believe it hasn’t charted either!

New Stuff (original track)

Whilst working on the album I was really inspired by the work of Tim Jackson, Juliet Schor and Alain de Botton amongst others. In his TED talk Jackson analyses the “story” of consumer culture and its effect on economic and personal well being:

“This is people expanding debt, drawing down their savings, just to stay in the game. This is a strange, rather perverse, story,…it’s a story about us, people, being persuaded to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to create impressions that won’t last on people we don’t care about” – Tim Jackson

To paraphrase Juliet Schor, Why do we want so much more than we need? What is wrong with a Renault 4 with 500,000 kilometres on the clock? On the evidence of the remix video, absolutely nothing. ‘New Stuff’ is, in essence, an exploration of this.