early pioneers of electronic music

- Bülent Arel
- François Bayle
- Johanna Magdalena Beyer
- Luciano Berio
- John Cage
- Tod Dockstader
- Morton Feldman
- Luc Ferrari
- Pietro Grossi
- Hugh Le Caine
- György Ligeti
- Jozef Malovec
- İlhan Mimaroğlu
- Daphne Oram
- Else Marie Pade
- John Pfeiffer
- Michel Phillipot
- Éliane Radigue
- Josef Anton Riedl
- Henri Sauguet
- Pierre Schaeffer
- Karlheinz Stockhausen
- Morton Subotnick
- Vladimir Ussachevsky
- Edgard Varèse
- Charles Wuorinen
- Iannis Xenakis

panorama

On the morning of 19 May 2023 we lost Andy Rourke, the great bass player from The Smiths. In the aftermath of his passing I started to revisit all of his band's catalogue, and I discovered songs that I had probably overlooked, and that had really cool bass lines (I'm a bass player too). "Barbarism Begins at Home" was one of those that really stood out so I decided to do a cover of it, but I wanted it to be different, so the main funky bass line became an acoustic guitar riff, and I added a new bass line, with more than a nod to Tony Levin's work with King Crimson on songs like Thela Hun Jinjeet, from the album Discipline.

Then I thought that the whole tune could've been rearranged in a Remain in Light/Talking Heads style, with percussions aplenty and traces of Byrne and Eno "My life in the bush of ghosts" too. I called my friend Zubi and asked him to sing the lead part and to play a solo Adrian Belew-style, and he promptly delivered with aplomb throughout. Kudos to that featous guy. Dominique D'Avanzo added her bright and charming backing vocals and soon started to conceive the brilliant video you can see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFUgK5WeXJ4 

What you're listening - and hopefully grooving to - is both an homage to a great musician and an attempt to give a different light to an already very poignant song. 
Enjoy!

Zubi Records - lead vocals, guitar solo
Dominique D'Avanzo - backing vocals
Emanuele Sterbini - bass, acoustic guitars, drums and percussion programming, mellotron
Andy Rourke - himself, from this interview here  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tMMOZKC9Og&t=8s  

Arranged, recorded and mixed by Emanuele Sterbini in three sessions with GarageBand between May 2023 and January 2024. 
Zubi Records recorded his parts at the Bibbirria in June 2023.
Mastered by Manuel Nash on the 1st of February 2024.

Barbarism Begins at Home (The Smiths cover) feat. Zubi Records

Meet Sterbus - a warm, enthusiastic soul who just might have been born in the wrong place; and who writes songs which sound as if they definitely belong in a different place. Although they're Italians and makes their home in Rome, their true musical spirit wanders much further westwards – to the rainy Portland of Elliott Smith; the pink-noise/scruff-tinted Glasgow of Teenage Fanclub; the joyful power-pop of Guided by Voices and The New Pornographers, Frank Zappa and Mike Keneally; perhaps the psychedelic Philly of Todd Rundgren; and most certainly the various London and English West Country ground-soils which nurtured (or spat out) King Crimson, XTC and Cardiacs.

"… In the end, two guys from Rome, Dominique D’Avanzo and Emanuele Sterbini,  under the Sterbus moniker, released one of the best pop records of the year; “Let Your Garden Sleep In” has one of the best setlists of 2021, if what you’re looking for are the melodies of Pastels and the gentle verve of Belle and Sebastian, but also those power-chords on steroids that for thirty years have strengthened the pop rhymes of Guided By Voices or the quick-setting melodies of They Might Be Giants." - Mason & Dixon

https://lineamasondixon.it/en/2021/11/17/sterbus-en/

I can't understand
why people are frightened on new ideas.
I frightened of the old ones.
● John Cage

New tracks tagged #Past Masters