Anti That (Rock Version)

Not sure where to begin with this. Perhaps in April 2009, when Anne Bacheley and I collaborated on a track, ‘Anti That’, named after Stephen Pastel’s review of her album Headquarters:

Another record that we’re loving is Anne Bacheley’s Headquarters, a self released CD-R. From Poitiers, France, Anne looks like the secret third member of Melody Dog, and makes winning old-school indie music that lands somewhere between Holly Golightly and a less chaotic Comet Gain. Anne’s voice is perfect and imperfect, her playing primitive and gallant, her melodies true. It would be so great to see Anne get a record label to help out but maybe she’s anti-that.

It was finished but untitled when I heard the demo, and I suggested that title, but it could well have been written as a riposte to the very idea of getting help from a record label. I thought I heard something of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ in it, a certain worthy strumminess, that I set about unpicking with a beat pinched from Can and some very un-strummy Spanish guitar lines. And then, at the climax of the song, which literally cries out for power chords, I cut away almost everything but the drums, and let the vocal do the talking. Which it did, easily: it’s a great tune, and a great chord sequence, which only needs a light touch to do its work. It turned out really well, with this weird, lean, pop sound (like something on Morr Music, Anne always says). It didn’t rock though.

So anyway, I sent her my Morsels set towards the end of last year, which was not a little inspired by the playful hyperactivity of her anneemall EPs, and we – finally – ended up collaborating on more of her songs. It’s been worth the long wait, they’re so good I can’t tell you. And the reason I can’t tell you is that we’re looking for a record label to release the album we made of them, because they deserve to be heard. Don’t worry, when it’s time to decide we won’t compromise. And we probably won’t even find one. But! In the meantime, here is the opposite of that first version, played almost entirely with power chords. Rockism / Poptimism – who cares anymore, why not be both?