Monday, September 30, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,795 Digable Planes - Blowout Comb
There's not mych better than waking from siseta and preparing emotionall for a night out. Than this ...
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 86 Rosali - Bite Down
There are no end of fantastic new records being released at the moment and coming down the pike in the coming weeks and months. It's a welcome refuge from the heinous state of the world outside our windows. I don't shy away from political comment. But I'm inclined to choose my company and conversations these days. I don't care to waste my breath, Cause agitation to others or invite it upon myself.
As an alternative to such wasted endeavour, you might choose to spend some time with Rosali. She's a North Carolina based singer songwriter. Her new album Bite Down has just been released and in short I think it's excellent.
Rosali is probably an Americana artist if you want to file herself somewhere in the Record Shop you no doubt have located somehwere in your head. Bite Down is further testimony to her fantastic gifts.
She's an artist who generally deals in aesthetic pastoral loveliness. In the way that Monet did for much of his artistic career. If you're after musical comparisons, some of her songs sound not unlike Christine and Stevie harmonising together. The Weather Station or Joan Shelley if they were more inclined to rock out and let their hair down.
Anyway the record is further evidence that she's an artist worth investing your time in. And making an effort to go out and see her live is she happens to play a venue near you. I have a good friend who loves her truly and should really write his own testimony. Mine is brief. This is great. Maybe he'd care to expand.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 234 Ian Hunter - Welcome To The Club
Ian Hunter having a good time with Mick Ronson and his band in the States.Fot fans it seems to me.There are lots of extended guitar solos. I think I'd prefer to listen to Mott.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,871 Neva Dinova
'It takes some time to change.'
Sun comes up. It's Monday morning. It's the last day of September . I'm in Sicily. And I'm going to Mount Etna.
I start the day listening to Neva Dinova's latest album Canary. It's a fine record. Plangent, slightly tear and regret stained There are worse ways to start the day.
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,796 Massive Attack - Heligoland
You can't lose with Massiv Attack. Their's is a magical spiritual quest which may not be over yet . 2010's Heligoland may not be the record you immediately think of when you think of them. But iy's bot plenty going for it. And people seriously listen to Oasis in 2024.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 235 Venom - Black Metal
Urgh! Not today. Or any other morning I supect !
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 87 Lunar Vacation - Everything Matters, Everythings's Fine.
A slinky bass run that might have been one of Krist Novolesic's on Nevermind , A lead voice from the Kim Deal school. That will do me amd I've gpy somehing to listento as I rise on Wednesday morning as we dive into the second half of September. Decatu, Georgia's Lunar Vacation's Everything Matters,Everythings's Fine.
I was also mided of Chicago's Rat Boys. A band that have done fine work in recent years for constituents that are prone to thes kunds of sinuous, narrative guitar driven narratives. Another band to watch.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,870 Mustafa
Waking up in the sun. In a beautiful Bed & Breakfast. In Bel Paeso, Sicily. A short but interesting car ride from Catania where I lived and worked twenty five years ago. I think I appreciate the beauty an freedom it offers more than I did twenty five years ago. In the words of someone, can't remember who, 'I was so much older then I'm young than that now. '
An appropriate album to listen to as I prepare for my shower. And breakfast. Mustafa's Dunya. A young man with a questing mind and a lonely, hunting but wise heart.
This is his first album. First album's are often the greatest. But judjing by Dunya he's got a lot more in the tank. It sounds great as the sun streams through my open window which leads onto the balocny. .
Saturday, September 28, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 236 Rain Parade - Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
An incredible record in many many respects that still has a considerable appeal
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 88 Conor Lynch - Slow Country
This looks like becoming Darren Jones week here on It Starts with a Birthstone.. I may not be entirely exaggerating. The last two Songs of the Days have been Darren suggestions.
This is the third in a row and the best so far as well as be one of the best albums I've heard all year . So we may well keep going until the man runs out of ideas. He doesn't seem to. Well it makes things very easy for me.
This. Michigan songwriter Conor Lynch's fourth album Slow Country is a record that attains classic status almost within the first five minutes of its run. Sometimes you just need the first song to know you're on a good road. .
This is a melifluous and relaxing Folk Rock record in the classic tradition. Think Nick Drake most obviously. But then think Midlake, Kevin Morby, Phosphorescent. Any of those people, R.E.M's Find The River. Conor Lynch is not an artist and this is not a record that is shamed by such esteemed company.
One to listen to with a cat on your lap. or else a blanket. This establishes and maintains a pace and momentum of its own that I suspect you might want to stay with it, Thanks Darren. This is a peach..
Friday, September 27, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,798 Lady Gaga - Born This Way
I had a friend who got very angry once about Lady Gaga. About how she was bettere than Madonna. I didn't get involved. To me they are bith Pop Stars. A lovely girl once sand I'm Crazy For You down the line for me down the line from Malaysia to me. So if pressed this gets my vote.
I don't listen to a lot of frontline Pop Music. I'm not counting the days to my next Swiftie encounter. I found this rather vulgar and garish. I did love the Lady at the Parisian Olympic Ceremony recently. I was watching with my parents in their living roomin Canterbury. It made my mum smile. As for this.
AU SUIVANT !!!
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 237 Robert Cray Band - False Accusations
Robert Cray is a very Eighties memory for me. Caught in time. Like flies in aspic. A sweet voice. An even sweeter guitar. Robert Cray is 71 now. I imagine both voice and guitar are functioning pretty well.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 89 True Green - My Lost Decade
Rising late on Saturay morning, it's nice to chance upon an unusual looking and sounding record to soundtrack my drawn out leisurely breakfast. It's why I do this and I'm glad and grateful that it continues to reap unexpected catches for me. Like a net bulging with glittering school of silver fish.
Today's prize a record with a classic DIY cover of front door keys and unappealing insect life. Minneapolis songwriter Dan Hornsby is at the heart of the True Green experience. My Lost Decade is their first album.
It's a slightly queasily recorded record focusing on lived experience. Reflecting on things that have happened as we look back on them. Hornsby has a style that serves reminders of Stephen Malkmus. My Peccadiloes conciously takes the rhyming slang of Squeeze's Up The Junction as its template. I've listende to it five times already this morning The result is one of the best songs I've heard this year. It's so good I think I'll listen to it again now.
Elsehwhere True Green take a generally wistful approach to things and consierable beauty is unmasked. This is a pretty wonderful record. Time for my morning bath.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,868 Otis Shanty
It's Friday. I'm in love! Apparently the Cure, who were responsible for that altogether lovely song, have another new one out. But that can wait. I have other things on my mind.
I'm waking up in a Chester hotel room with the sun rising in the heavens through my windows.What's on offer today. A flight into the sun. More on that in the coming days.
Another cool selection from Darren Jones, this blogs best friend. I often feel in the need of some Darren Jones aka Starbuck direction. He always comes up with arresting stuff.
Today Otis Shanty four college classmates who met at a liberal arts school in Upstate New York an came together. Their latest album Up On The Hill is awash with melody and dreaming. Verso l'onfinito e Oltre.
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,799 A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms
A band of Post Grunge, Art Rock and Metal angst utterings. Becomes a bit s gloomy samey and generic after a very short while.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 238 Felt -Let The Snakes Crinkle Themselves To Death
Felt dealt in a cool loser cultish unverse. Pop stars in their heads. Perhaps not in actuality. Let The Snakes Crinkle Themselves To Death came out in 1986, was an album that came out in 1986. Was full of slinky, Jazzy instrumentals.
But perhaps more than any of their records it resigned them to their fate. Labelled them as a cult concern. An indie niche. I enjoyed listening to it this morning. But then I am of Felt's constituenc. I recommend it to you.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 90 Wand - Vertigo
Wand, the Los Angeles, Alternative Noise sensation contunue to wave their magic and weave their spell. Vertigo their latest record does what they've being doing so well for over a decade now. In spades.
They're an odd band, as are so many from their contemporary West Coast family tree. See Ty Segall. See Oh Sees. I'm not quite sure what everyine is on exactly but Wand are always particularly welcome at my place whenever the return with fresh product.
Somewhere between Sabbath Sparks, Radiohead and theur own headspace. This is brimming with fanaticism. Inventive glee. The joy of being alive, In the words of another Angeleno, A man who may or may not have expired in a Parisian bathtub. 'Stoned. Immaculate.'
.As so often they seem to have hoovered up the choice drugs and spew them out here with glorious abandon. A splendid Freak Flag Feast,
Song(s) of the Day # 3,867 Charlie Megira
What I like most about this blog. What I like about life for that matter is the choice. Endless choices. Going from somewhere and towards something. Whether you want to do so or not. The best thing to do I'd say is recognise that fact and move towards something as consciously as you can.
Today I'm waking up in a hotel room in Chester and preparing to meet an old friend. I wonder if they will be pleased to see me.
As for my musical choice for the day. I'm grateful to Horsegirl. The coolest girls on the Chicago block. Geeky girls if their What In The Bag appearance here is anything to go for.
Geeky but cool. Their excuses are uniformly exquisite. Yhey've directed me here. So thank you Horsegirl. Cool Kitties. One of the best bands in the world.
As for Charlie Megira their first selection. He's pretty cool. A very modern phenomenon. An Israeli guitarist in eternal shades and a cool quiff. These are selections from his 2001 record The Abtomatic Miesterzinger Mambo Chic. It's weird and mysterious. Makes me want to investigate more.
So onwards and upwards. To infinity an beyond ! Thank you for the drummer who directed me here. It's always great to have a guide.
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,800 Wet Leg - Wet Leg
I'm sorry. It's just shite ! Throwaway stuff can be quite amusing . Buying it is a slightly odd response.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 239 Dire Straits - Making Movies
'She had a ticket for the races...'
Philip, my best friend from my teenage years, and still, and always, I owe him more than I'll ever be able to say, more interest than I'll ever be pay. Philip used to like Dire Straits. Boy did he like Dire Straits. It was the soundtrack to the numerous soirees he used to hold on Friday nights. In the latge, spacious upstairs bedroom of his family house near Kew Gardens station, which had a wonderful rainbow on the wall. It soundracked our dreams, more than anything, along with beers which went to our teenage heads. Scott Fitzgerald and Graham Greene. A beautiful family dog called Tara. Now sadly long gone. I'll never forget her.
Then later in the evening down the stairs, reling with the others, squares I thought mostly, I only found my real crowd when I got to university,Down the stairs anyhow to see his wonderful parents and try to pretend I wasn't reeling with the beer. I doubt if I ever fooled them. To their garden swimming pool. Gatsby and Nick. And the others.
I ised to grimace when Dire Straits came on, It sounded like music for estate agents to me. I knew I wasn't going to be an estate agent. I would have preferred R.E.M. The Smiths. The Go Betweens. Aztec Camera. Lloyd Cole & The Commotions. The boys with guitars and cool fringes. Literary types. Dreamers, with bookcases of cool paperbacks. 'I am the passenger. And I ride and I ride.'
The others. at thes esoirees They actually liked Dire Sraits too I suspect. They certainly loved Philip. You couldn't not love that guy. They pribably enjoyed those tedious and never ending guitar solos. While I was dreaming of Marquee Moon. Endless guitar solos that were more to my sensibilty. The path Iwas setout on..
At least they never complained. As I did. And have continued ro do. To Philip. Ever since. Old jokes are the best. Between family. and friends. The others. I'm not in touch with any of them anymore. I suspect Philip isn't either. I wonder if they became estate agents. Philip didn't. Neither did I.
Dire Straits sounds fine to me this morning.As I prepare for a bath. And a holiday. Every holiday is well deserved. 'You're a slave to the money then you die.' Oh no. That wasn't Mark Knopfler. That was someone else.
Now I'm listening to Making Movies, forty years or more onward, as Philip and I approach our sixties. I forgive him. It sounds like a pretty damed good record to me. 'You know the movies song It was just that the time was wrong.'
Now I'm listening to Making Movies, forty years or more onward, as Philip and I approach our sixties. I forgive him. It sounds like a pretty damed good record tome. 'You know the movoes song It was just that the time was wrong.'
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 91 Real Estate - Daniel
Talking of Estate Agents. I first connected with Real Estate and their records about ten years back in the early days of this blog. 2014, Ten years exactly. Atlas, their album from that year was the first I listened to. It highlighted precisely what I liked and what puzzled me about the band and what they did. Ten years down the line and a new album Daniel. Little it seems has changed either in terms of what the band do or my own reaction to it.
Real Estate hail from Ridgewood, New Jersey and everything about them screams leafy suburbia. This is not a crime nor a handicap by any means, Modern Lovers and The Feelies made the very same factor work in their favour in The States, The Cure and Ride and multiple others did precisely the same in different ways in the UK. Real Estate plot a less contentious but equally valid version of suburbia in terms of their output.
They choose never to go on about the books they've read or the films they've seen. They have precisely no interest in troubling you with their political preoccupations or blinding you with their intellect. They might be interested in romantic engagements but from the sound of their lyrics only the blandest most non committal ones. Filtered of passion and turbulent experience. Nothing wrong with that either.
I get the sense they like watching cloud formations and plotting their geometric patterns. I have no problem with any of these things but it does tend to banish actual excitement from the equation. Real Estate are like a Cameron Crowe film for better or for worse, Daniel is another Real Estate production featuring Cameron Crowe as Executive Producer and advisor. I'd say it's sure to do well at the Box Office, I enjoyed it actually. Contentment is much underrated.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,866 Nonpareils
I'm going on holiday today. The first for, god knows how long frankly. Forever maybe! While my bath runs, and the sun rises outside my window in the Newcastle sky, I search for something to listen to while the world turns. From one reality to the next..
This will do, as well as anything. Rhetoric & Terror the new album from Nonpareils. Aaron Hemphill, once of Liars, born and raised in Los Angeles but currently based in Berlin.
This is an artistic dream. In the traditon of Bowie and Reed. Brehct & Weil. Which are artistic dreams and visions that I try to adhere to as much as any..It's a creative questing and frankly a rather beautiful record. That will do. Onwards and upwards. You'd better believe it !
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 240 Kate Bush - Never For Ever
From Poly to Kate. There were no end of strong female role models/ Poly, Kate. Debbie. Siouxsie. Lene Lovich. Even Hazel O'Connor.They were everywher you looked. I worked my way to Patti later.
This has got Babooshka. Home Counties eritica. Like a Roald Dahl Unexpected Tale set to flight in glorious technicolour. Kate getting it on with a double bass.
As for the rest of it. Kate is just fantastic isn't she? When somebody says that they don't like Kate Bush/ I immediately think. Do I need to knowthis person?I'm not intolerant. But really.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,801 X Ray Spex - Germ Free Adolescents
Now this is one of the good ones. This reminds me of secondary school. Where Germ Free Adolescents was on Top Of The Pops every weekf or a couple of moonths. This has all you need by them really. I must track down a vinyl copy.
It does everything that a great album should do. Throw your arms in the air.Dance around frantically. Stop. Sit down and think. About the ideas and tunes that are spilling out of this. About the insane world we live in . Still. Listen.Think. Revolt !!!
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 92 Holiday Ghosts - Coat Of Arms
Brighton's Holiday Ghosts are back already. With their fifth album Coat of Arms. And they're coming back to my town and I'll see them again in less than a week.
They may will be the UK's hardest working band. They always seem to be on the road or in the studio. This is admirable dedication to the cause.
Coat of Arms finds them trying something old and something new. You could probably stretch the allusion and chuck in borrowed and blue while you're at it.
On the Rough Trade review of the record it's described as an album of resistance and protest, There's a lot to protest and resist and its good to see a band willing to do their bit.
They know what they do well. Chugging, rhythms Velvets, Modern Lovers, Stiff Records, Bo Diddley, early Sixties beat combos. There's more space towards the end of the record. They're a fine band and this is another winning album.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,865 Circus Trees
Trees? I love trees. I have a lovely Autumnal tree statnding on the corner outside my flat. It has a traffic cone in its branches . Thrown up there by some drunken lout. It's still there high in the branches five days after it was first chucked there. Like some sad modern metaphor of the utter uselessness and futuluty of modern human existence. Somebody should do something about iy.
Never mind. Here come Circus Trees to the rescue. With their poignant new album This makes me sad, and I miss you. It's all pangent guitars and wide eyed mournful emoting. Hey,we were all 17 once. I sometimes suspect some of us still are.
They are not Fake Plastic Trees. They are the real thing. Well Curcus Trees then. If they count as the real thing.
According to their Spotify bio Circus Trees 'make music that doesn't fit with their age,their gender, their living conditions; they are young, they spend their lives in the wastelands of suburbia.;
Hang on Circus Trees. Hold your collective horses. I think your being eerso slightly melodramatic about all this . I like your record a lot. But sit down and eat your breakfast. I'm sure it will all be alright.
Monday, September 23, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 241 Siouxsie & The Banshees - Peepshow
Past their Imperial Phase but still with fire in their fantastic imagination fuelled tank.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,802 Ride - Going Blank Again
I really love Ride. I liked them first time round when they were brillian youth blazing across the late Eighties and early Nineties, MAll fringes and feedback. My Bloody Valentine but with their wheel set for the charts as much as critical atention. I think they deserved both.
Going Blank Again their second album is actually rather magnificent. Flailing, melodic guitar powered statement. Before Oasis grabbed pretty much all of Alan McGee and the music papers attention and the Nineties turned to cocaine and heavier pursuits. Frankly I preferred Ride to all that and still do.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 93 Robber Robber - Wild Guess
Backwards drumming. I've always been a sucker for backwards drumming. I'm not a musician in case you cannot guess but that's how I'd describe some of the playing of two of my favourite drummers; Billy Ficca of Television and Jaki Liebezeit of Can. Uncanny and remarkable, But frequently appearing to drum backwards.
Backwards drumming was one of the main things that drew me immediately into the orbit of Intro (Letter From The Other Sue Of The Operation) the first track from Wild Guess by Robber Robber, a duo from Burlington, Vermont with clear and intense Punk intent.
'All movement, - and consequently a lot of art - is a product of tension and release.' So says the band's Bandcamp bio. Ir's an interesting openinb gambit. And Wild Guess meets and surpasses the band's premise.
This reminds me in turns of Television, Pixies, Breeders, Throwing Muses, Sleater Kinney and Wire. The good stuff. Urgent, uptight and fierce. Ferocious. Barely caged. A good way to start the working week and no mistake. Grr! Go get 'em tigers.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,864 Sunset Rubtown
'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starvung hysterical naked.;
Scrolling down a playlist of new releases on a Sunday evening I unexpectantly pulled out a plum, The modern condition is like that. Perhaps the human condition always was. But the Interner experience certainly adds another dimension. To what let's face it is the great spiritual voyage we're all embarked on. Whether we wish to be or not.
All aboard The Pequod.. Today Song(s) of the Day on It Starts Sunset Rubtown an American collective helmed by Spencer Krug.Their latest album Always Happy To Explode. A fabulous glittering artistic statement. A blistering album. Rake it frim me. This is a good one.
Imaginative franric, multi vistad. A wonderful record frankly..Like the best collectives. Name your own favourites but I thought of Radiohead and Arcade Fire as 'Always Happy To Explode. span, Like those two Sunset Rubtown dream collectuvely.A wonderfulpoetic universe to hurl yourself into.
Sunday, September 22, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 242 Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel IV
I've always liked Peter Gabriel. Apart from So. The album that broke him truly huge. It, and particularly Sledgehammer remind me of the night when I lost my virginity, so perhaps I should be eternally grateful to it and consider it My Tune.But I can't stand that song and don't care for the album.Gabriel though is generally qiote masterful.
I bought this when it came out. And I don't think I really went for it. I prefer the three that precede it even though it's rhymically and thematcially very strong. It lacks the melody of earlier work and a record generally needs melody to draw me in and hold my attention,
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,803 Twenty One Pilots - Trench
My lovely young niece used to be really into Twenty One Pilots. I suspect she has grown out of them now. But anyway I can appreciate and applaud her youthful taste, This is energestic, soulful and likeable.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 94 Chris Cohen - Paint a Room
It Starts With a Birthstone has previous with Chris Cohen.In 2016 the year I started doing this. As If Apart his record for that year featured at # 30 on the rundown of my own personal run down. There's somethung memorable about Chris Cohen records.
Here's another one from this year.. It's called Paint a Room. As is often but not always the case, the Spotify bio describes the record well. 'This is gently psychedelic music, rich with texture and unexpected turns.'.
The record is baroque and gentle and unwinds at an archaic pace. It lasts half an hour and is well worth an investment if you wish to unwind of an evening.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,863 Liquid Mike
Liquid Mike hail from Marquette, Michigan. They have a throwback sound.They are the geeky gang who hung around together at High School and just had fun.Nobody really rememebered them when it came to Reinions.
Now they're in a neat rocking band called Liqud Mike. A cool, silly name. Their album Paul Bunyan's Slingshot is the definition of lack of pretension and overwheening ambition. The are content to be fourth on the bill at a festival. Not on a main stage.
I like bands like these. They have modest but admirable and achievable aims. They are half an hour in a moshpit near you.
Saturday, September 21, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 243 Cyndi Lauper - She's So Unusual
Quite a phenomenon Cyndi Lauper. Not the kind of thing I wanted to listen to then or now. But you have to tip your hat to the woman's talent. Nevertheless I couldn't bring myself to listen to very much.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,804 Emerson, Lake & Palmer -Emerson, Lake & Palmer
I'm not listening to thus, I think I'm reasonably open minded. But no. You can listen to it if you want to,
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 95 Stereo Naked - Upside Down
Odd Couples. Don't you just love them . Lee & Nancy. Dean & Nancy. Frank & Nancy. And not just Nancy by any means. Johnny & June. Serge & Jane. Micky & Sylvia. Otis & Carla. Marvin & Tammy. The Fifties and Sixties were full of these Odd Couples. But they weren't just of their time. They laid down a lasting marker that endures. In any record collection worth its salt.
In the Eighties, the decade where I came of age and first started noticing these things Lee & Nancy or Nancy & Lee if you prefer, started make a re-emergence. Every cool Indie disco, or nightclub soiree you went to you heard Sand, Some Velvet Morning or another one of their classics. Among the rough stuff. The Leather Boys. Stooges, Suicide, Velvets and Heartbreakers.
Imitation tributes began to appear in that and later decades. Nick & Kylie. Nick & Polly. Mark & Isobel. Bobby Gillespie and every poor unfortunate he could persuade to share a mic or stage. The legacy and tradition endure. The records still sound cool even if you're instantly familiar with the tropes and it feels like you're eavesdropping on others most intimate foreplay. Let's face it. That's just fun anyhow.
Which brings us to Stereo Naked. And Cerys Matthews. Cerys is back . On 6 Music's Sunday morning Show. I always love listening to Gideon Coe sitting in for her when she takes a short break, he always plays a fascinating mix, but Cerys has become something of a small but treasured listening institution over the years.
Cerys understands Sunday Mornings and what we want to hear on them. Nina Simone. John Martyn. Soul, John Betjeman. Her own instantly recognisable Welsh tones. Comfort. Familiarity. And when she plays something new, something immediately comforting and familiar that fits instantly into our existing playlists and comfort zones..
On Sunday she played something off Stereo Naked's latest album and I sat up instantly careful to catch who I was listening to at the end of the track.I did some rudimentary research. Stereo Naked are essentially a guy in a bowler hat from New Zealand. A lady from Cologne with flowing locks and harmonising vocals.
They work out of Germany and Upside Down is their latest record. It's Americana essentially ad they're fluent in its tongues. At times they go all Appalachian. Elsewhere they veer into Nancy & Johnny territory. It's all immensely adept and pleasurable. And highly recommended.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,862 The Voidz
'I was saying let me out of here. Before I was even born..,'
Void is one of the best words and fantastic existentual concepts. It's a good desscription of life actually. In Nabokov's words, 'the cradle rocks above us and common sense tells us that our existence u but a brief crack between .two eternities of darkness.' Yeah !!! Vladimir rocks !
If only I could report that The Voidz new album Like All Before You ioened uo new vistas of emotional and spiritual existence, I'm afraid I can't. It's Julian Casablancas latest statement in hi side project of spiritual dreaming.
A vanity venture essentially. And for the most part a preposterous melange of AI imagining and linging. John Grant. But without John Grant's Soul. Worth a listen, but I umagine it will be just a listen for It Starts With a Birthstine. Ti bildly go where no blog has gone before. It's a bit crappy this Julian,
Friday, September 20, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 244 Sinead O'Connor - The Lion & The Cobra
More proper torch singer melodrama of the highest order.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,805 Angel Olson - Burn Your Fire For No Witness
Proper torch singer melodrama of the highest order.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 96 Workers Comp - Workers Comp
Darren Jones does it again. A man with a remarkable hitting average and capacity for sniffing out great new releases that have missed my own radar. I knew almost immediately that I was onto a winner here.
American refuseniks are one of my favourite causes You could write an excellent book about them, going back to when The Sonics first strutted onstage in Tacoma, Washington way back in the early Sixties and flipped the bird at mom, dad, the audience and the high school principal.
Since then, write your own list. Stooges, the Nuggets Garage Punks, MC5 and on towards Punk. Pere Ubu, Television, Jad Fair. Obvious suspects like Black Flag and Husker Du. But also more quirky candidates like Camper Van Beethoven, The Colorblind James Experience , Pavement, Lambchop. Silver Jews and onwards to this. My favourite record of today and one of the best I've heard all year, in any category.
A record predicated on primitive Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Velvet Underground riffs and the kind of attitude that fuelled Stiff Records in the Mid Seventies. Each track here is a different kind of joy. A different colour of the rainbow.
Coming out on ever / never records a quirky leftfield New York label that prides itself on 'putting out music for adults.' In their own words 'Workers Comp are doing their best to kick against the pricks.' In the wordsof Alan Freeman 'Not Arf !' All power to their elbows. This is as good as it gets.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,861 Nelly Furtado
I'm up with the larks on a Friday morning.So it seems is Nelly Furtado, the Grammy award winning dance siren, with her latest album 7. Is it her seventh LP Pop Pickers. I will leave it for you to discover , I thlnk it probably is.
Anyhow it's what you would imagine. Slinky, sex floor Latin dancefloor inuendo, It's cool Nelly. It speeds up and slows down. You could do far worse than give it a listen.
Thursday, September 19, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 246 The Plimsouls - The Plimsouls
Classic American High School early Eighties Power Pop. Neat three minute New Wave Pop songs. Difficult to beat.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,806 Midnight Oil - 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
Midnight Oil made some mileage ploughing forward in the md Eughties with an exceptionally intense and politically driven lead vocalist. I was driven to alternative Australian options. Notably Go Betweens and Triffids.I didn't really care for Peter Garrett's voice. But this is a cool New Wave record that's engaged and engaging.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 97 Dummy - Free Energy
And so we make our way out of summer and towards the darker and colder months. This countdown enters two digits and her's a review of LA band Dummy's latest Free Energy
Dummy have been players for a while and this is a record which pushes their prohect for deftly. I'd love to see them live an will keep my eyes peeled for the to me when they make their way to a local venue.
Dummy call themselves avant pop. That's as good a label as any to describe the simultaneously futuristic yet immediate and consistently melodic experience they present.
Stereolab, En Attendant Ana, Jane Weaver, Shoegaze, the stars. Reference point but they're charting bit they're a band plotting their own trajectory.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,860 Dora Jar
Dora Jar. Geddit ?!? An American Bedroom Pop artist from North Carolina with a couple of albums under the bed and approaching her thirtieth record.
Latest album No Way To Relax When You Are On Fire is an elfin exercise in self discovery and self assertion.File under Pop
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 247 The Psychedelic Furs - The Psychedelic Furs
Starts slow. Speeds up. Into an exciting, abrasive mass of relentless but subtle and yes Psychedelic pool of sound. Somewhere between the Velvet Underground. The Spiders from Mars. And erm Teddington
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 98 Lilacs & Champagne - Fantasy World
Starbuck is back. And not a moment too soon. Another post a few days back from Darren Jones, (AKA Starbuck) first mate of this Blog, pointed me into the orbit of new quarry just in time for Friday's breakfast.
Today we feast on Fantasy World by Lilacs & Champagne, a side project of Portland, Oregon experimentalists Grauls. This is a very modern sounding record though these kind of things have been being made for thirty years at least now so the expression 'Brand new - You're Retro comes to mind.
We're talking DJ Shadow and Avalanches territory. Sample heav sounding, shifting instrumentals to a film which may have been dreamed up, but not necessarily made yet. All highly atmospheric. With a slightly creepy dystopic record cover to boeat. Keep them coming Darren !
Song(s) of the Day # 3,859 Lunar Vacation
A slinky bass run that might have been one of Krist Novolesic's on Nevermind , A lead voice from the Kim Deal school. That will do me amd I've gpy somehing to listento as I rise on Wednesday morning as we dive into the second half of September. Decatu, Georgia's Lunar Vacation's Everything Matters,Everythings's Fine.
I was also mided of Chicago's Rat Boys. A band that have done fine work in recent years for constituents that are prone to thes kunds of sinuous, narrative guitar driven narratives. Another band to watch.