Monday, November 22, 2021
The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 473 Beastie Boys
'the Beasties are always at their best when they're being stupid...'
Song(s) of the Day # 2,857 Wednesday
It's Monday. No, It's Wednesday! Quite incredible what a long shelf life Shoegaze has proved to have. For a scene that was largely ridiculed in the Britishmusic press at the time, with the exception of My Bloody Valentine and Ride, (though they also got a fair bit of flack too), it seems to exert a particular spell on young bands, and particularly young American bands, almost thirty years on.
Asheville, North Carolina quintet Wednesday seem just the latest in line in this particular respect. Latest album, Twin Plagues, their second, is very happy to mine that particular sound and most particularly MBV's Isn't Anything. I certainly don't mind. It's one of my favourite records and musical moments, seeing the band at the peak of their powers just after the release of that record in '89.
Twin Plagues seems to draw from the well, rather more than breath fresh life into the things they love in the way that other young contemporary American bands such as Horesgirl and Dummy seem to be doing right now. Still there's a lot of good stuff on here. I was particularly taken by The Burned Down Dairy Queen, both song title and track. Another one I'll watch.
Sunday, November 21, 2021
Songs About People # 1,312 Romy Schneider
The most elegant of film actresses. Rather lovely song too and you get someone hooping to it.
Horsegirl - Hey
Chicago's Horsegirl seem like a band to follow. Frighteningly young, coming essentially from a Shoegaze, Teenage Fanclub and Dinosaur Jr. angle but with plenty of fire of their own.They make very old things sound very, very fresh. Latest single Billy more than keeps up the fast opening pace that they've set for themselves. Their debut abum, which I hope will appear at some point in 2022 should be one to wait for with bated breath.
Albums of the Year # 35 Vanishing Twin - Ookie Gekkou
Vanishing Twi'n's The Age of Immunology was one of my favourite albums of 2019. Squaring the circle between Stereolab, Broadcast, Kraftwerk and the occult it was something of a magical gift. I've been living with its successor, Ookie Gekkou for almost a fortnight now before posting judgement, but I'm pleased to report, it promises to be equally rewarding.
This new one is something of a slow burner in comparison with The Age of Immunology but sometimes good records need a little patience and Ookie Gekkou is certainly a very good record. Taking inspiration from similar sources but with slightly more liquid funk at play it improves with every listen.
Comparisons with the record before are specious frankly, just as it seems quite unecessary to compare Can's Seventies records to one another. They were all good in different ways. Ookie Gekkou is ever so slightly more obscure than The Age of Immunology, more nocturnal in terms of its charms, but those charms are just as prevalent, if perhaps requiring slightly more encouragement to surface.
The only record of precisely this type that's really held my fancy apart from this one in 2021 is Jane Weaver's Flock which appeared early on in the year. It's great to see Ookie Gekkou come and keep it company so late in the day.
Certainly one for the cool crowd, I imagine this one will be in constant rotation in Rough Trade Shops up and down the land for a while. Put on your black polo neck and shades and make your way to the heart of the alternative dancefloor.
The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 472 Fatboy Slim
'surely the most fun you can have with machines...'
Song(s) of the Day # 2,856 Lily Konisberg
Darren Jones is a consistent and very welcome contributer to this blog, and I'm always grateful for his tips relating to things which I might like, he's almost always right as we seem to have quite similar tastes in these things.
Here's his latest advice. Lily Konisberg's recently released album Lily, We Need To Talk Now. Konisberg is also in New York's Palberta, a band who I suspect Darren also directed me towards. But Lily, We Need To Talk Now sounds absolutely nothing like Palberta, who toe a more Post Punk or purely Punk line than anything going on here.
This is neither of those things. Essentially it feels like a Pop record, (albeit one that's coming in from leftfield), and one you could certainly could dance to at times should you choose to do so. It's a lot of fun and Konisberg is cleary a notable talent. Thanks again Darren!
Saturday, November 20, 2021
Cate Le Bon - Moderation
Cate Le Bon is back. Always happy to be able to write those words.With a couple of new singles and an album. Pompeii due to arrive next February. Her latest, Moderation, is one of the best things she's ever done and it has a fabulous promo to match, with Cate showing off a rather fetching set of coloured tights and striking some inimitable poses behind a Venus De Milo type bust and flying a kite in a thunderstorm, as you do. It's all rather Lady MacbethThe song is quite immediate and boasts some Andy McKay type early Roxy Music sax flourishes. She's altogether a treasure.
Albums of the Year # 36 The Telephone Numbers - The Ballad Of Doug
A really rather lovely bit of old school C-86 pop:
It's great to come across an album unexpectantly from someone you heard a song from a few months back, knew a long player was on the way but it slipped your mind hen exactly when it was scheduled. A case in point. San Francisco's The Telephone Numbers released the wonderful You're Nowhere some time in early 2021. As sweet and winsonme an old school Indie Pop song as you could want to hear this year or frankly any other year for that matter. Now they've come good on their promise of a full album, The Ballad of Doug and not a moment too soon.
This is music which sticks with almost religious purpose to its chosen peramaters. It is, as I've already state,d Indie Pop and its primary texts of inspiration and guidance were all recorded in the UK between 1984 and 1988. Felt, The Razorcuts, The Field Mice, Creation and Sarah Records. The C-86 compilation itself. Before My Bloody Valentine, one of the janglers original inner circle broke things wide open with You Made Me Realise and you could never with any creative integrity go back to doing the same thing, just as The Beatles changed forever the way people thought about and went about the album format.
The Telephone Numbers have somehow found their way back to The Garden before the fall. The Ballad of Doug might be by twee indie by numbers' but it's a .perfect pitch as to the validity of that approach. An altogether lovely record. Like finding yourself back in your bedroom in 1986 with your bowl headed pals, preparing to give Whole Wide World the debut single by The Soup Dragons a spin.
Diabetics and calorie fearers beware. This is highly sacharine from the off. Thomas Rubenstein, for he is the power behind The Telephone Numbers, has a voice that might make your toes curl if you're not pre-disposed towards this stuff. He's a master of his chosen form, like a maverick art forger who can dash off a Canaletto and a couple of Bellinis of your choice in an afternoon before knocking off for tea.
There's not a false note on the whole album. It does what you expect it to do, then continues to do what you expect it to do and gives anyone who still subscribes to this a warm and grateful glow before the needle clicks into the run out groove of Side B.. It's put me in a great mood for my Saturday. I'm going to sign off myself now. Make myself breakfast and watch Whistle Down The Wind, a film the makers of The Ballad of Doug would I'm sure wholly approve of. But I'll be back to this soon.
Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums - 816 The Streets - Original Pirate Material
A very, very English album.
The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 471 Jeff Buckley
'a handsome and uniquely talented singer-songwriter...'
Song(s) of the Day # 2,855 Gabriel Bernini
It's just about too late for any high late new entries in my own personal countowns for 2021. The votes, (well my votes, the only ones that count here), are all in and counted, and the final rundown is decided as we make our way down through the thirties to Christmas Day. But had this come to my attention You Got Me!earlier in the year, it might have been a contender.
It's You Got Me! the latest album by Western Massachusetts Gabriel Bernini, who's been around for a while. It dropped last month. His fourth in all, fifth if you include a live record. This one sounds a bit like a live album too. Certainly as if it was recorded mostly live in the studio. It sounds like it's made by a group of musicians and very good friends who know and like each other very much.
It's all very tasteful and instant reminders are evoked of some of the most tasteful artists in Rock and Roll. The title and opening track immediately foregrounded the warm swirly organ sound of The Band. Then I heard Dylan's lazy late Sixties drawl, early Van Morrison, Wilco, J.J.Cale. Second track sounds like a rurally raised Sweet Jane.
So none of this is exactly new, but that's not always necessary. Bernini knows what he's doing and does it very well. This is lovely, much welcome stuff. Highly recommended. The songs chug like a somewhat elderly train, taking you home,. It's all as familiar and lovely as the sepia tinted photograph, I assume of Bernini on its cover. Perhaps the album never quite kicks into the top gear that you might have hoped for but it's all as warm as an open fire.
Friday, November 19, 2021
Albums of the Year # 37 Hannah Peel - Fir Wave
Although not a huge fan of instrumental music, this year's Mercury Music Award has brought a record of this type that is very, very much to my liking. It's Fir Wave, by Hannah Peel, quite a stalwart in her particular chosen field and this is a quite entrancing album.
Working within the broad tradition of Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop the record creates a very special atmosphere for itself that is utterly spellbinding at times.
I find it almost impossible to describe it further except that it's very, very good, seems to summon up the elements at some points and comes across as glass half full music, which is the sort I'm drawn towards at the moment. I'd be perfectly happy if it won the Mercury, though I imagine that's a rather long shot.
Song of the Day # 2,854 Sonny Casey
Galway singer-songwriter with a sweet, reflective new single about the end of a relationship.
Thursday, November 18, 2021
Albums of the Year # 38 El Michels Affair - Yeti Season
Travel of the oddest but most tangible kind does strangely seem available to us in 2021. Virtual travel seemingly across both time and space. Certainly in terms of music. In all probability this will involve Spotify. There's plenty to disapprove of with Spotify of course, but it is at least it is and if you use it judiciously it can lead you to the most extraordinary listening experiences.
Like this for example. The kind of sleeve that would probably lead you to take it out for a closer look when skimming through racks in a shop for a closer look. But then probably put it back where you picked it out from rather than risking a purchase you'd regret. In this case you'd probably be making a mistake. Because this is an album well worth buying.
I've listened to this record quite a lot in the last few weeks. I read it as I made my way through The Confedaracy of Dunces for my Book Club this Tuesday, (virtual of course). It made a perfect soundtrack. Not distracting but complementary, its nooks and crannies every bit as strange and peculiar as the book I was reading.
El Michels Affair are an American cinematic soul group. Amazing, you can get any genre you could possibly wish for these days.They've been making records for many years and Yeti Season is their latest. Ot takes you to quite wonderful places.
The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 469 Aretha Franklin
'a maternal feminist love song...'
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Albums of the Year # 39 Spirit Of The Beehive - ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH
Philadelphia's Psychedlicists Spirit of the Beehive don't make it particularly easy for the listener. They are either an incredibly interesting band or one that are probably not worth bothering with at all, depending on where you stand on these things. They certainly don't conform to standard conventions.
On latest album ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH, they insist on playing something like fifteen songs every time rather than just one like most people would. I'm not at all sure how they manage to remember how to play these things live.
Listening to the record is not an unpleasant experience as there is plenty of melody and intrigue in what they do. Though this may not be a record to play to your mother.
The likes of My Bloody Valentine, Flaming Lips, Brian Jonestown Massacre Olivia Tremor, Butthole Surfers and also oddly, at one moment, a screaming Kurt, seem to play some kind of formative influence on what's going down here. So does Alice In Wonderland and, dare I say it, psychedelic drugs.
I started off in terms of my listening experience to ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH in somewhat impatient mode but softened as the record played. I rn fact I ended up rather warmed by its refusal to sit still for a moment.
Disorientation is clearly a key ingredient of SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE's modus vivandi. This kind of approach has been at play sing Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters hit the road, and this is just one of its latest variants.
Anyhow, this gets the thumbs up for me. I think it's a very well realised record and it should find itself an appreciative audience. A trip for sure, and not one without its beauty spots and memorable detours.
Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums - 819 Buddy Holly - Buddy Holly
Buddy. One of the greatest 'What if...' stories in all Rock and Roll.
The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 468 Madonna
'only pop women seem to do the unbridled ecstasy thing.'
Song(s) of the Day # 2,852 Dummy
Late, high entry into my Top Hundred Albums of the Year. This will be posted on here again in that rundown in a few days. It's probably cheating as I only chanced on this record yesterday, but hey, I make the rules round here.
LAs Dummy do familiar things in a fresh way. Taking a quick glance at where they're coming from, on their playlist of influences for their debut album Mandatory Enjoyment on their Spotify page, is a good indication of what they're trying to do as anything else;
There you get, Silver Apples, Sun Ra, Stereolab, Psychedelic Byrds, Yo La Tengo, My Bloody Valentine. Just about enough for me, and Mandatory Enjoyment more than lives up to this exciting billing.
There's no evidence of anxiety of influence here.Just the sheer thrill of mixing up things that you love and spooling them out in a wondrous act of creation. Mandatory Enjoyment motors forward with wonderful carefree momentum.
Along with Jane Weaver's Flock, Golden Apples' Shadowland, Spirit of the Beehive's ENTERTAINMENT DEATH and Vanishing Twin's Ookie Gekkou, it's the best record of its sort I've heard this year and shows exactly what you're capable of if you use great taste and love and understanding of the things you love and are drawing from as your starting point. It also has the best actual song titles of pretty much any record I've heard this year. These things are important, at least to me.
Mandatory Enjoyment got an unusually enthusiastic response from Pitchfork when it came out at the beginning of the month. It's fairly rare for that august, self-regarding site to get hot under the collar about anything these days. But for once they get it entirely right about Dummy. They're an exciting band and a band to get excited about.
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Songs About People # 1,310 Lord Snowdon
They Might Be Giants, doing what They Might Be Giants do in 2021. Rather nicely here. One of Princess' Margaret's consort, Anthony Armstrong-Jones.
Penelope Isles - Which Way To Happy
One of the more interesting young, independent guitar bands to emerge from these islands in recent years, Brighton's Penelope Isles eschew the currently well trodden path for young bands of this stripe these days. Namely the Post Punk one of the likes of Squid, Dry Cleaning, Black Country New Road and Black Midi. Doffing their caps to The Fall, Gang of Four and Free Jazz.
Instead they take a more sunlit and altogether more pleasing path, at least to my ears. Second album Which Way To Happy, released recently, finds them evoking memories of the likes of Shoegaze, Sarah Records, Sixties Pop and Allvays and much else while all the while staying in their own lane. It's another well crafted and delightful record and a definite step onwards from 2019 debut, Until The Tide Creeps in, itself a fine album.
Too late to get any recognition in my own run down of favourite albums of 2021, it certainly would have done had it been released a couple of months earlier because, it's altogether dreamy. Quite special.
Penelope Isles don't conform to given rules. There are guitar solos that wouldn't have sounded out of place on some Prog record, by the likes of Hatfield of the North released in 1974, alongside more familiar moments that might remind you of early Saint Etienne and Lush. Delicious, and an album I'll be playing a lot in the coming weeks.
Albums of the Year # 40 The Killers - Pressure Machine
For a band this far into their careers, The Killers should definitely be in the 'has-been' categeory by this stage of the game. But remarkably they're not. They're very much a creative and commercial success still. Their latest album Pressure Machine, their seventh in all, is a pretty damned good one.
A concept album of sorts. Full of lovingly constructed portraits of singer Brandon Flowers' hometown of Nephi, Utah, population circa 5,300 during Lockdown. Between each song you hear interviews of the town's inhabitants. Smalltown tales of joy and woe. Mostly the latter.
The album itself is most obviously influenced by Springsteen. At some points to a ridiculous degree as with third track Terrible Thing which owes its existence almost entirely to The River, melodically and also rather thematically.
The Boss haunts several other tracks here, probably the whole record. Pressure Machine is a tough record generally. It doesn't paint a particularly pretty picture of Nephi and hearing it is not likely to make you want to move there.
This is the sound of hollowed out lives and thwarted dreams. Looking for a way out and never managing to find it. But the tunes are certainly up there with what you'd expect of a band of the quality of The Killers.
They've always a band who headed straight for the commercial lane of the highway, but also showed that it could be done impressively and with grace. Some of the tracks here achieve a genuine poignancy you wouldn't really quite expect of the band. There's something quite eerie about some of the songs here that hint of Steinbeck and The Last Picture Show yet willl still sound great in the stadiums. I'd say it's one of the best things the band have ever done.
The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 467 The Tamperer Featuring Maya
'How to cover and improve The Jacksons' Can you feel it?'
Song(s) of the Day # 2,851 Cathal Coughlan
Cathal Coughlan is a rather remarkable talent. For almost forty years the Cork raised talent has carved out a particular space forhim in the musical scheme of things. First with Microdisney, then Fatima Mansions. Wordy, furiously and righteously political, and astonishingly erudite, he spits out scores of words a minute as if he swallowed a dictionary in his youth and hasn't quite coughed it all up yet.
Latest album Song of Co-Aklan, from earlier this year, is the latest exhibit for his talent, devotees would say genius. In many ways he belongs to the Irish literary tradition as much as its musical hertage. His phenomenal verbiage the natural heir to the likes of James Joyce, Flann O'Brien and Brendan Behan.
It's a really great listen, you may not understand the whole tale he's telling, but you should enjoy his telling of it. Still raging against the dying of the light to a skilled, baroque musical backdrop.
Monday, November 15, 2021
Songs of the Year # 41 St. Vincent
Didn't really care for the St. Vincent album this year, which many others raved about. But I did like this.
Albums of the Year # 41 Orla Gartland - Women On The Internet
'Don't compare your face to the other faces. It's not worth it...'
I liked this record a lot. The debut album from Dublin native Orla Gartland Women on The Internet, a DIY statement that shakes its fist at the world defiantly about every subject you might possibly hope it will.
Immediate Pop songs that give reminders of Alanis, Billie, Lorde and others while carving out Gartland's own space. Insecurity, fear of love, the way that the internet can make women feel, the way that life can make you hurt. The moment that occurs sometimes when you just need to dance around your living room.
I really liked it mostly for its low fi charm and invention and the way it made familiar tropes seem fresh. In some ways coming across as an internet age Sinead, and that's not unjustified praise, Gartland has some voice when she really lets rip. A lot of these songs are so classy that they sound like hits to me though I confess I'm not sure how these things work these days.
An excellent exercise in the worth of exorcising chanelled rage, Women on The Internet does exactly what it aims to do. A statement of youtful expression and disquiet with wisdom beyond its years and not one that caves in to self pity, a finely realised album.
Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums - 821 The Beach Boys - Surf's Up
A slightly unexpected classic. The Beach Boys find their political conscience.
The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 466 Air
'one of the most irresistible songs in this book.'
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