Now this is a record which is incredibly important and which I covet too and I could easily have had two entries for today on It Starts With a Birthstone. But this will do, 'It's a pilgrimage in which an American band asked direcions from English Folk, got lost and found themselves lighting campfires in an undiscovered land.'
There's something quite gripping about the first Fleet Foxes album. It harks back. To Laurel Canyon and Haight Ashbury, but further too.It heads forward from 2008 to a time when albums like this would become commonplace. It has a cover with an image of a Pieter Bruegel the Elder/ Pastoral Life. The album plants you directly into that existence. 'the sound of ancient voices ringing on your ear..'
It's November. It's a beautiful day where I am. I've got up and gone for a walk. The leaves are falling but the light is strong. I'm back and am breakfasting. Listening to a track called Grieving Figure from an album called Burning Song. I don't fancy its chances of the Christmas Number One slot let's put it that way.
What is the sound of one man clapping? Search me readers. Your guess is a good as mine. It Starts With a Birthstone doesn't really deal readily with the deep stuff. This is mainly just a bloke trying to write something worth reading about music on a daily basis.Still, here is a record I really like so here goes....
A couple of years ago I became deeply engrossed with Malone's album All Life Long. And now I'm undergoing a simlar spell, cast by her latest record. They're not the kind of thing I would have listened to ten years ago; never mind twenty, thirty or forty years back. But I suspect they're exactly the kind of records I'm going to find myself increasingly drawn to from now on.
You find yourself talking about 'The drone' and 'tonality'. Wondering whether you need to invest in a subscription to The Wire. This is a record which is not immediately accessible to those who like Rumours. I like Rumours as much as the next person but couldn't listen to it all day.
I've really been primarily guided by melody, by verse and chorus for most of my life but this is music to get lost in and get carried away by. The undertow. Here's a link if you're interested in a more considered and informed response. Otherwise just immerse.
