I'm always grateful for helpful tips of what to listen to next. This one comes from comedian Stewart Lee and his monthly music column in The Idler magazine, something which I've started buying recently. Stewart generally knows what he's talking about and he certainly does here.
In fact he's excelled himself with this particular selection. Naomi Yang was born in Beijing but grew up in Manchester. She became a founding member of Galaxie 500 in the late Eighties and started wearing cool black outfits and spangly earrings onstage while playing bass guitar for them. This would suffice to give her a lifetime's supply of credibility should she choose to do nothing ever again. But if that was still in doubt, she's just released a great new album which Stewart and I are both currently enjoying and you can too if you'd care to.
It's an instrumental soundtrack for a documentary about her local gym in Brooklyn called Never Be a Punchbag for Nobody which despite the slightly dubious syntax of its title is clearly a contender for original soundtrack of the year in my eyes.
It has space, and sadness. And poignancy. And great titles. How I Started Boxing, East Boston is not an Airport, Maverick Street Mothers. In fact it has the best titles you're likely to see on any record release this year. It has plenty of theremin on it I suspect. I like theremin. It's warmed me up nicely for my morning bath. I suspect it works for morning showers too. The documentary I suspect is probably worth hunting down,
* P.S. I think Stew's review is slightly more self-consciously pretentious than mine. You can buy this months Idler for £9.50 if you don't believe me and care to check it out. The magazine also has Irvine Welsh on the cover, wielding a large kitchen chopping knife. Personally, I think it's worth every penny..
No comments:
Post a Comment