'There goes a rolling rise. There goes a dull afternoon.....' So opens Love Aggregates, the latest album from Evanston, Illinois cultural and musical phenomenon Asher White . Asher's prolific to say the least and has been releasing music since she was 14.
Love Aggregates, is consistently versatile, lilting and easy on the ear. Occasionally chintzy but with a refined Pop sensibility Imagination in flight. 'We're chasing every pigeon that we see.'
IAN Sweet continues to make the most fascinating, enigmatic reords on any block. A dollop of Jobriath. A twist of Sufjan. But brave, original and frequently deeply poignant. A match struck in the dark....
A Friday Morning and a sublime record to greet it. The Singer In My Band the third album from This Is Lorelei from Nate Amos of Water From Your Eyes. It's old school, guitar driven wonder.The great American songbook.'
This is firmly in a tradition, and it's not just an American one. Neil Finn, Jeff Tweedy. Andy Partridge, Roger McGuinn, Alex Chilton. Jangling literary and Folk wonder. But this feels fresh, flowing and pure. The good stuff.
Always one of the uneasy listens in The Beatles catalogue. Because you can sense that they are coming apart.
The album that's been on permanent rotation all day. It's my mother's ninety first birthday and I'm also doing a massive spring clean having taught my online classes . This record takes me back . To Katowice, Poland where I first bought it on CD just after it came out.
It's an innovative and celebrated record if course. Given that it's entirely composed of samples. Over 3,500 in all. Allo f which naturally had to be credited, But there's no need to worry yourself with the painful processes behind that anymore than it pays to think of the creative details of Morph or Wallace & Gromit when watching them.
It's poetry in motion frankly. A record that can easily be listened to on loop because it's not like Astral Weeks or Rubber Soul in that it's best surrendered to rather than broken down into individual moments.
I make no great claims for this blog as an act of cultural commentary and significance. It's just a way of marking the days. Olivia Rodrigo's you seem pretty sad for a girl in love is an album that's making a global splash and see,s like a pretty likeable Pop Record with vegue pretences of cultural edginess.
To my ears this is a preferable option. Sweet Thief is the easiest uneasy listening experience on the block. Soft and gentle with dark interiors and infinite depths. Nico and Simon & Garfunkel are listed on the Spotify bio and that generally works for me . This at the moment is my place of eternal stillness. The weekend beckons !
' Dopamine slot machine. Stole my baby.....' Luluc Dopamine Slot Machine,
'It's Ok to be different. It's OK to want to get free...' Luluc. Wanna Get Free
Mineapolis Jingle Jangle. Anglophile Indie that makes June Brides its Polar Star..
The Womack Sisters eponymous album hits the spot. It's not innovative so much as a confirmation. There's not a sequence or note out of place . It's state of the art Expressway To Your Soul !
Sioux Falls, South Dakota's finest's latest album Can You, (their third by my reckoning), draws an interesting line in the sand.
There's something quite special here. A sense of genuine engagement. Fervent, questing insurrectionary quality of Jane's Addiction.The Doors, Big Thief and Protomartyr . The way that only an American band at their best can sound and Off Contact sound like they're in line and urgent for their turn. .
I really believe that life matters and it's a test. I get the sense of that in good records and I get it here. Can You has a febrile, insolent quality. Ones to watch.
Eminem happened during my cd years. I bought a couple of cds but didn't listen to them much. It doesn't tell my story.
Exreme metal band out of Portland Oregon. I wondered how long I would last. It started promisingly with portentious major chords. The first track passed without vocals. I was a bit wary though. The next track was fifteen minutes long and called In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion . I rode The Spotify advert break. We sailed into The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion . I suspected it was by Styx. The first vocals came in. I was minded of Gollum. I ejected.
I noticed recently that these days I'm generally listening to young bands from Idaho that sound quite a bit like Pavement. There are worse things to do as you make your way into your sixties. As far as I know it's not an indictable offence. Though you can't be sure of anything these days.
Ultra Lights are the next best thing. They hail from Atlanta, Georgia and sound not unlike Kiwi Jr. Montreal's very own nephews of Pavement whose latest album Blowin' Up I eulogised on Wednesday.
Ultra Lights are definitely too cool for school and cast their net slightly wider. To err Parquet Courts, Teenage Fanclub , The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand and err Pavement on debut Pleasure's All Yours.as with Kiwi Jr' they keep it simple, avoid complications, are catchier than the Plague and have more hooks than Captain Hook. This seems to be a feature of this err Modern Age.
They're firing aces and tying laces for thirty minutes here. It's a formula sure. But pretty much Formula One, Certainly on the podium come the chequered flag. . Another near bullseye from Darren Jones, best friend and first mate of this blog. Many thanks Starbuck.
Red. Pinks & Blues are one of those bands that you know what their album sounds like before you've heard it. That is precisely their charm and appeal. Or perhaps if you weren't inclined why you wouldn't touch their records with a long bargepole.
I'm in the former rather than the latter category. I listened to their latest record Acknowledge Kindness last night. it's a sound basic principle and the songs adhere to its principles. The songs unroll like a summer afternoon doing nothing in particular in grassy sunlit meadows. Being seeventeen forever, at least at heart There's something effortless about the atmosphere inetrwoven here. It's like staying seventeen forever.
Australians Peking Duk's awaited debut album strikes me as a branch on The Avalanches tree. All bound for Party Town. Many miles and hours away on The Good Ship Paradise !
'The only way to change things is to shoot men who arrange things of...' Dexys Midnight Runners have changed down the years. Ireland To Wolverhampton but dreaming of America. New album Love is rather lovely and unashamedly barmy. An inclusive, expansive dance. Towards the sunset.
The songs are less frantic and worked on than those of the early days . Searching For the Young Soul Rebels or Too Rye Aye. More akin to the slower pace the band have favoured since. But you get the sense that Kevin is more comfortable in his skin and wardrobe than he ever was.
There's very little here that is essential but it's all rather lovely and easy on the ear. Kevin has become a crooner. Everything has a race grace. ragged unashamed poise and beauty.For those who like a bit of ham with their ham. 'See you on the other side. '
Tricky is hardly a man with anything to prove. All these years on he works his way up and down his own uneasy slope in darkness. This is rewarding, challenging music and the man deserves respect.
I went to UEA in the Mid Eighties . Looking back I was in the right place at the right time. I started as a History Student using the common judgement of youth of my A Level Results but switched majors in the second term to Literature. It was the right thing to do.
The American & Literature faculty at U.E.A. at the time was unfeasibly strong. Critics, writers. Authorities on the subject. A strong Feminist reputation. Lorna Sage, Angela Carter. gossiping in the bar over cigarettes and shots. As good as it got. In a memorable lectore I attended a fresh faced young woman hasd the temerity to ask Carter if she was a feminist. The response was shrivelling and embarassing to witness.Carter cut her down. I wonder whether the girl concerned has ever forgotten it. We were all so young. Impressionable. Green.
Forty years down the line I'm listening to Paris Paloma's awaited second album, The Fatal Flaw and it's an incredible record. Most certainly Feminist and with an immpressive inventory of melodies and narrative. By turns celebratory and introspective. Joyous and defiant. They're songs which tackle issues.
Occasionally it's slightly pleased with itself and you wonder whether issues are being ticked off but that's not without reason or rhyme. These are the times. She's a brave artist who stands tall and makes artistic statements which are worthy of scrutiny. It's actually the stuff of master's theses which you wonder a little about.
But I grew up in an earnest age too. I just think with that without smartphones we were a little more carefree.Not needing to check the way we were feeling with The Internet prognosis on a constant basis. That's no real criticism of The Fatal Flaw. It's an incredible record I'll keep coming back to.
Sinead O'Connor was not like anyone else. An astonishing talent. She was raw on The Lion & The Cobra and more amenable for the pop market than she ever was therefter.
Margaret Glaspy is in Michigan and it's colder than she'd like. So she's here to sing you some songs. They're plucked, guitar songs of reflection and emotion. Of heartbreak and heartache. Like sitting down of an afternoon with a great novel. Recommended.
I like milestones and we're heading towards a notable summit on It Starts with a Birthstone.The arrival of an Allah Las album is always notable and worthy of recognition. But Sirenas, their sixth is different. It's a series of spaced and spooky instrumentals, and is really rather beautiful.
Reviews suggest it explores modern preoccupations, Liminal Spaces and the like. I leave discussion of such matters to others. It's certainlyplayful and elusive. You can hear the sound of lapping waves and imagine that they are Californian ones. That's where the quartet hail for. There's plenty of sunshine here and no little joy !
Cleo Sol's Gentlewoman is classic and rather lovely Soul of the loveliest stripe.
Black Marble's Life In Small Places an album of Synth Pop inflected tunes by a man named Chris Stewart sporting a moustache Peter Hook left on the shelf in 1980. Not lacking in garvitas. melody or shameful dancefloor moves.
The Jayhawks offer a very American, Literary Everyman experience. Picked songs in the tradition of The Byrds, Gram Parsons and Petty straight out of Minneapolis. On latest album Sanctuary Park it's best to pull up a pew with a brew on a placemat and let the record spin; let the melodies unwind and the songwriters within the band tell their tales.It's not a tough ask.
It's Americana mapped out on a fresh canvas. Deeply familiar but let's face it. The somgs we love most are the ones we're most familiar with. Song after song unfolds with uncanny wonder and wisdom. Quite devoid of cynicism and dread.These melodies are trustworthy and true
'I've been talking to stray dogs. And empty stools.'
Material Witness is a proper gem of the old school from William Matheny out of West Virginia. It's an album that speaks loud and clear about the story of life. The way we navigate the bends in the road as best we can,`
It's deteminedly glass half full and well adjusted. Full of good lines and good tunes. Worldly wisdom. Homely charm. Good Night Jim Bob. Good night Erin.
I've reviewed Secrets of the Beehive but given the chance to play it again, I'm not going to turn up by nose. He's an artist who works at his own pace and to his own dictates.
