Tim shifting from Folk towards Jazz. 'Float away. Like honey in the sun...'
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,883 Ozzy Osbourne - Diary Of A Madman
I'm sorry. I need to draw the line. I am not going to listen to an Ozzy Osbourne record before going to work.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 323 Arthur Russell - World Of Echo
Minimalist. Obscure. Quirky. What's not to like. Alright. It does go on a bit.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 176 Another Sky
I enjoy writing on here. It's a challenge I've set for myself on an almost daily basis now. The way that some people do crosswords or sudoku or wordle. To offset the threat of impending old age and dementia. To try and say something that others might enjoy reading.
So I try to find new records that have got something going for them. Usually things I like because that's more motivating than something I don't care for. It's not an impossible task. There are no end of interesting new records and the Internet means they're all fairly readily available. It's just a question of browsing.
In 2024 I find that not all the records I like are engagements in the new by any means. Ty Segall pretending he's a close contemporary of Bowie, Eno and Bolan in 1972. The Umbrellas that they're a C-86 band from Glasgow in 1986.
I like both of these artists and enjoy their records. But they're exercises in flight essentially. Flights into the past, partly driven I suspect by a fear or reluctance to live entirely in the presentt. In a world that's getting more frightening by the day frankly.
Today is something different from the usual. This is a modern Rock record which addresses the modern condition and all its contradictions full on and unapolagetically. Even aggressively on occasion. That doesn't make it any less bracing and invigorating,
Beach Day is London quartet's Another Day's second album and I find it fascinating. It's an austere record. Minimal and spare. Almost classical in its mien,
Every song offers a new take on living in the here and now. It's not afraid to say 'Fuck Off'' when it thinks it needs to. But it doesn't choose the same means as Johnny Rotten, Ian Curtis, Bobby Gillespie or Ian McKaye did to achieve this basic end. It has its own trappings. Excellent stuff.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,784 The Drin
The dark streets of Cincinnati, Ohio spawn an unholy monstrous noise. Jesus & Mary Chain meet early Pere Ubu in a messy bar in the midnight hour.
Latest album Elude The Touch stakes an instant claim for Outsider Boho Classic status. Dylan McCartney formerly of Mardou has been around the block a few times and he's earned his stripes in shades and leathers.Feater boas/
This is a record which buzzes hums and drones the nonconformist gospels. A fantastic counterculture scripture .that I'll namedrop again as the days grow shorter in my rundown for 2024.
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 324 Van Morrison - Beautiful Vision
My heart lifted slightly when I saw a Van album on my playlist just now. As the run rises in the heavens. This, from 1982, is not one of the go to albums but the mans sure tread, his reach, are immediately recognisable.There's not and there will never be, anyone like him.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,884 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mother's Milk
It;s Red Hot Chulu Peppers. You kind of know what they're going to do.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 177 Good Looks - Lived Here For a While
Good Looks aren't everything. But they're never a bad idea. Good Lucks are also a band as well as a physical attribute.
A slightly generic one it has to be said. But highly competent. You have to give them that. A five piece out of Austin Texas, who would clearly keep you happy and draw you in if you saw them plying their trade on a smaller stage at an outdoor festival somehwere.
New album Lived Here For a While finds them writing their own reviews for lazy music critics. Put them midway between War On Drugs and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. If that's what you like, that is exactly what you're going to get.
Good Looks are an ordinary band with an album with a sleeve that goes out of its way to be ordinary too. Occasionally their twin guitars ignite and fire off sparks. Then theur songs come to and end. This is music that does just exactly what it says it will on the tin.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,783 Milly
MILLY, Bristol Connecticut's finest are a rather enticing proposition. When you first dip your toe into latest album Your Own Becoming you might assume. 'Ah, deeply smitten at an early age by My Bloody Valentine.' You wouldn't be far wrong.
But they have broader tastes. More strings to their bow. They dip at the wells of Shoegaze and Grunge clearly. but they don't really sound retro. This is a terribly fresh and likeable sound and record evn if its contours and DNA are familiar.
Monday, July 1, 2024
Labelled With Love - A History of the World in Your Record Collection - # 27 Hut Records
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 325 Duran Duran - Duran Duran
I care not for Duran Dyran and their preening aspirational ways. But theur early singles have a perky, wannabe, charm. Simon's lyrics were odd and interesting and it bears repeating that they played their instruments. I still quite like the first two albyms even though I wonder whether they voted Conservative.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,885 Roger Waters - Amused To Death
I'm in a good mood and getting ready for my working week. So I refuse to listen to records by a neg head millionairre wishing to depress me for over an hour.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 178 The Decemberists - As It Was, So It Will Be Again
Sometimes Portland, Oregon Alternative collective The Decemberists grab me sometimes they don't. Sometimes their folk narratives seem a little contrived and sometimes they don't. I've taken an instant liking to their latest record As It Was, So It Will Be Again.
It jingles and jangles. It's warm and emotive. If The Decemberists take their emotional lead from anyone it's probably R.E.M. Anyone who reads this blog to any degree might have an idea of my fondness for R.E.M. This record feels as if it belongs somehwere on the R.E.M. family tree.
The songs of As It Were do not follow conventional roads. They twist and turn off into their own tracks, reel ocasionally, without ever losing their feet. Ot their way. This is tasteful, middle of the road Alternitavia for cosy couples with 2.4 who would never dream of voting Trump, Johnson or any of this looney egomaniacs looking to tip our dear world off its axis into mania and end days.This is a record that makes you feel that you're home .
Song(s) of the Day # 3,782 Zan & The Winter Folk
New Morse Code, the latest record from Zan & The Winter Folk an ensemble from Troy, New York. Led by Zan Strumfeld who has a warm, enveloping voice.
This is an Autumnal record I' say. But there'sno rule dictating that we need to listen to Autumnal records in Autumn. This made a promising start to my day as I prepared to run my bath.
The Winter Folk pitch their tent somehwere between The Decemberists an The Handsome Family in The Americana Forest of Whimasy. This is music that wants to come across as inc;usive and consolation rather than being confrontational. . A record than calms the ship rather than wishing to rattle its masts..
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