It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 30 Bats - Good Game Baby

 

Bats. Not The Bats, This distinction is important to establish right from the off. The Bats were one of the original Flying Nun records roster which formed around the Dunedin, New Zealand music scene in the early Eighties. And a fine one at that. If you don't know their records, check them out.

Bats though is a different, but equally intriguing musical propostion. Jess Awh a wonderfully named, and wonderfully talented musician from Nashville, Tennessee, Her latest record Good Game Baby is a quite fabulous country tinged Indie record with a wonderful cover, which shows two animated yellow ping pong balls conferring on one side of a ping pong table's net.

The cover itself is interesting and encourages speculation as to its genesis and message. What are these ping pong balls talking about? Where are their opponents? The other side of the net is empty. A whole short story attempting to answer some of the wild speculation immediately arising from this animated image begins to gather in my poor, fevered and weary brain. I'll get back to  Good Game Baby before I become too distracted. 

It's a fab record. Pure and simple. Thanks again to First Mate Darren, my own doubles partner, (if he'll forgive me), in this blog endeavour. This one's simply brill Darren. Let me count the ways.

Jess's voice,  not a million miles away from Ratboy's Julia Steiner. Immediately calming and beguiling. Another inaginary girlfriend for you. If you're after one. I can never get enough myself.

Number Two - the songs. Indie, Country. A steel pedal to set the scene and then a steady hand on the tiller throughout, Well paced and effortlessly managed songs. Some of the best I've heard, or are likely to hear this year. Self depreciating humour. Heart. Soul.

Number three the mood. A less excitable and anxious American country cousin of Courtney Barnett. Good work Darren. Just what I was looking to hear without knowing it. RELEASE BATS! Apologies. But it had to be done. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,924 Roge

 

November and December increasingly become enormous mopping up operations on It Starts. Flicking through the November and December issues of Uncut and Mojo magazines. The end of year rundowns, finding tasty musical treats  that I need to shoehorn into my own list as December approaches.

This for example. Rio De Janeiro's Roge's a carioca merchant from Rio and his latest album Curyman II . swings with the flair, swerve and  verve that only Brazilian muic and football can, Like Tostao throwing a deft turn and flowing into space before breaking the offside trap with a neat ball and setting Jairzinho in on goal the crowd roaring in anticipation.. 

This is a wonderful record. Another one. They're flowing into It Starts With a Birthstone's nets with abandoned fishy joy and relish these days, But hold that relish. At least until we reach the Captain's Table. There's a particular happiness, a particular momentum which can only be described as Brazilain happiness and momentum. A spirit that can't be contained. Certainly not by nets. , 'Este album tem tuda de sobra. E coma uma festa em Copacabana,'

Monkees

 

New York in 100 Songs - # Nina Hagen

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,742 Kamasi Washington - Heaven & Earth

 

Two hours with Kamasi. Frim 2018. Two hours with Kamasi is always time well spent. Star Trek meets Sun Ra. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 180 Jacobites - Robespierre's Velvet Basement

 

Jacobites were a particularly Eighties phenomenon. 'It was different then.' as Michael Stipe intoned sadly in the same decade. 'Elegantly wasted..' There's beauty in every sig here and it takes me back. Years fall away..

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 31 Peter Perrett - The Cleansing

 

 'Just another dead survivor.'

Doing the best work of your careet at the end of your life in Rock & Roll. An interesting article that's yet to be written. Johnny Cash. Can't think of too many others off the top of my head. Here comes Peter Perrett.

A man who didn't look as if he was going to make it out of the Only Ones is now heading into his eighth decade and may have made the best record  of his lifetime.Well we've just had a fantastic Cure album. Wreckless Eric's last album was triff. Maybe the New Wavers cavalry is about to hit town. I must say I hope so. Who next Elvis Costello.

In the meantime the coolest and certainly the most wasted wastrel ever to come out of Catford. Now a cool kitty in shades and raging against the dying of the life with a magnificent rwenty minute and hour long album of lessons in life and love. Stunningly articulate. Wonderful tunes lyrics and attitude.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,923 Shovel Dance Collective

 

As the world spins and the years pass things change and so do we. This is not necessarily a sad process so much as an inevitable one that it's probably not advisable to resist. So it might be an idea to embrace change rather than surrender to despair.

Shovel Dance Collective  are one of those Folk Collectives that seem to be occupying a more central place in musical culture and consciousness now now. Groups of people carrying ancient and unwieldy instruments gather in pubs and small venues and engage in communal ritual. Magical.

This is an initially instrumental album that breaks into voice a couple of tracks in and a spark ignites and before oo long a full fire is raging . More than that. A forest fire.  It seems to owe as much to Bagpuss as diggers, levellers and the middle ages..Latest album The Shovel Dance has a purity and synergy which strikes a deep chord. 

This is magical stuff which personally I'd rather listen to than the records we are being directed to by End of Year lists being posted elsewhere, An incredible year that started for me at a wondrous and spectral l Lankum gig which was strange beyond perception is drawing to a close. Records like these are to be clutched to your heart  

New York in 100 Songs - # Moldy Peaches

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,743 The Vaccines - What Did You Expect From The Vaccines

 

Well what Did You Expect From The Vaccines? A very good question. The Ramones go to Posh Art School if this was anything to go by.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 181 The Waterboys - This Is The Sea

 

The Waterboys. Ragged mariners. Navigating the waves of great oceans avross the Eighties. To fine effect. Certainly here.

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 32 Mabe Fratti - Sentir Que No Sabes

 

Otherwordly avant garde from Guatamalan pop cellist and baroque expressionist Mabe Fratti. Latest album  Sentir Que No Sabes pulls no punches..A fantastic atmosphere that weaves an increasingly tighter mesh and spell with each passing track.  

If you don't like Art with a capital A chanted in Spanish with a weird, constantly shifting disorientating backdrop, you should probably give this a wide berth. .Pushing the borders of pretension like there's no manana. 

Incredibly theatrical right from the off.. All the way to the puesto de acabado. That's finishing post for those without immediate access to Google Translate. Fratte's vocals have a tightly meshed, lyrical power and resonance and the instrumentation dots the ''i in intensity.. 

Serving up reminders of Scott Walker, Okkyung Lee and Arthur Russell along the way. What d'you mean who ?  This is truly out there. Am extraordinary journey. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,91 # 3,922 Kim Deal

 

Round about this time, It always happens. Round about this time every year,  Spectres turn up late to the feast and mess up the best aid plans of man, beast and sad blokes like me who are onlytrying to compile End of Year Albums of the Year that no one else is particulaly interested in. Probably not even other sad blokes who are too busy compliling their own.

This year Kim Deal is in front of the latecomers queue. She's always been trouble that Kim. Since Pixies turned up decades ago to kick start the Nineties and wake up David Bowie and make him realise he wasn't dead yet and might have something else to offer.

Kim always had that surly look about her. As if she's just turned up half anhour at detention hall in some Eighties Brat Pack movie. Chewing gum. Flicking V signs at the man.Now in 2025 I imagine she probably does less drugs. But she was always the tough chick with the tender soul. The one that was going to break your heart,

But you wouldn't know it from a cursory listen to her new album Nobody Loves You More. It's seven shades of the kind of fun you thought had been made illegal by now. Fortunately Kim as ever evaded the sentences, This is wonderful stuff, Destined for countless hearts 

New York in 100 Songs - # Mobb Deep

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,744 Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In The End

 

I guess what you think about this album might depend on what you think about Weezer and where they come from. Amiable and whacky but lacking in emotional engagement. I find ut diffucilt to get through a full album

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 182 The Wedding Present - Bizarro

 

The Wedding Present are one of those bands that for me are always in a particular time and place. An inarticuate age when you can never quite say what you want to the one you love, And it's always cold and dark out

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 33 Dialup Ghost - May You Live Forever in Cowboy Heaven'

 

Six on Tuesday morning. Bath had. Lessons planned. An hour to kill before heading to the fitness centre. Just time to listen though to First Mate Darren 'Starbuck' Jones latest tip. May You Live Forever in Cowboy Heaven'. From Nashville's finest Dialup Ghost.

Just my cup of sick if you'll pardon the expression. From the sleeve of skeletal gun toting desperadoes onwards. .American Bohemian Weirdo Expressionism for forty minutes. My run down charts are full of these kind of nutty statements these days and may the well never run dry.

 

Thes people can't really sing and the playing is basic but consistently heartfelt and utterly committed. Som emight tellyou that love is allyou do. Ifficial rundowns might consistently tell you that Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are in terms of the new conformity of grief and despair. Here is another record

Song(s) of the Day # 3,91 # 3,921 DUNUMS

 

More smalltown American , madcap visionary tumult. Inspiring given the age we're living in. This morning North Carolina's  DUNUMS. 'Arty and noisy Post-Rock; nostalgic bedroom fake Jazz for a free Palestine.'

That's what it says on the tin. Or the Spotify bio if you prefer. 'I wasn't that though.' All lower case wonky carm and misrule goes off in umpteen directions, each track zanier and more unconstrained than the last.

I've been listen to this all day and frankly it's so more-ish I can't really do it justice.. Cacophonous, freeform and genuinely riotous... 

New York in 100 Songs - # Misterwives

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,745 Chromatics - Kill For Me

 

I likes me a bit of Chromatics. o this will take me from 11.00 to my 11.30 in a freezing flat. New Wave Retro Pop out of Portland Oregon.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 183 Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard Of Oz

 

I;m not listening to this crap !

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 35 Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan - Your Community Hub

 

The latest Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan record sounds much like previous installments on this remarkable set of musical conceits and journeys have.

This is not so much a development as a refinement,. Variations on a theme. Records that sound like a member of Kraftwerk's dreams if the member of Kraftwerk had been raised in Lancashire in the fifties and Sixties rather than the Ruhr gebeit.

I hope this series runs and runs. I'm not going to compare this with previous Warrington- Runcorn records. That would be missing the point. Anither excellent exercise in atmosphere. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,91 # 3,920 Green Child

 

Nothing immediate on the horizon. So I'll tuck into the fish that Darren Jone , AKA Starbuck, brought to his Captains table a couple of das back as the sun was setting on the watery horizon at the Peqod's brow.

This morning's fishy treat. And its immediately something to tuck into and no mistake.Green Child's Look Familiar. Warm and bubbly.Sensual. 'Lush analog synths' 

Vocals reminiscent of Jane Weaver breaking in and out of the mix. Jane Weaver joins OMD Splendid. A life on the ocean waves, More Starbucks more ! Extra grog rations,

 

New York in 100 Songs - # Mell Tillis

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 184 The Creatures - Boomerang

 

Siouxsie and Budgie's ryhthmic, percussive love affair.. A bit claustrophobic for me after a while. But impressive for sure.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,746 Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music ... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop

 

I rather enjoyed listening to this. Between my lessons. It takes Nevermind an runs with it towards large arenas and quite right too. Not everyone got to see Nirvana STP wasn't a shabby second best. 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 36 Amelia Coburn - Between The Moon & The Milkman

 

Browsing through the postings in social media yesterday afternoon, I came upon one from Shinding which directed me to Amelia Coburn. A remarkable young artist with a distinctive Northern brogue and a vivid and thrilling vision. 

Listen to her debut album  Between The Moon & The Milkman. I did yesterday..First drawn in by the Shindig prod to a couple of tracks. Later in the same evening. not convinced by a Netflix film that had toyed with my affections but not won me over  I went back to my desk, put my headphones back on and dove deeper into the album.

It's a fascinating record and she's a brilliant artist. She plays a ukulele and let's face it, this has hardly been an in vogue musical instrument since George Formby put his own down several decades ago and  probably was hardly all the rage even back then.

Coburn's a performer with a touching emotive voice with thoughtful intonation patterns. This is a record that an enormous amount of wor./ Care  and love are key ingredients. I love stumbling across artistic endeavours such as this one, I get the impression that she knows her Jacques Brel and her Jake Thakray. Her Disney and Hollywood musicals.. Her  Scott Walker. David Bowie and Edith Piaf. Also crucially herself.

She knows what she loves. She has her own guiding stars. But she's not for a moment overawed by them. This is a fantastic first step on what could be a Fantastic Voyage . It will be wonderful watching wherever she goes next. In the meantime this is one of the most exceptional and inspiring records I've heard this year,

Song(s) of the Day # 3,91 # 3,919 Euphoria Again

 

'A man needs a maid' wailed Neil Young in the song of the same name on the evergreen Harvest Back in 1972. Fine song. But the sentiment. Are you sure Neil ? What you mean someone to shop an dcook and clean after you. And then perhaps lie back and think of Tennessee. Stretch her legs when you're so inclined. It seems clear he hadn't been reading Susan Sontag, Joan Didion,. Germaine Greer. Or Simone De Beauvoir. Let's put it that way.

But sometimes the Captain of a blog like It Starts needs a Mate. First Mate Starbucks aka Darren Jones in this case. He turns up just when he's needed on the Captain's Table with a fishy on a litte dishy for my Song(s) of the Day. I'm most grateful.

In a world that's gone mad for ticking boxes Euphoria Again's Waiting On Time To Fly ticks all of the ones I'll need this Tuesday morning as the sun rises in the Newcastle heavens and I make my way towards my half eight with Dussledorf businesspeople.

Gentle Americana with a yearning heart and a dreaming consciousness. Songs that ache and tremble with soul and heart. Thanks Darren Another winner. 

New York in 100 Songs - # Marianne Faithful

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,747 Perfume Genius - Too Bright

 

Perfume Genius consistently says what it says on the tin. All you can ask of a modern artiste !

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 37 Joan As Police Woman - Lemons, Limes & Orchids

 

'I know you got soul ! If you didn't you wouldn't be in here.'  Joan As Police Woman got soul, Alwys have done. Latest album Lemons, Limes & Orchids. is only the latest evidence.

.

Jan Wasser has an original sctick. She doesn't hark back to Dylan. Or Joni. Or Beatles. Tim Buckley perhaps. But primarily we're talking Stax and Funk. Al Green. War. Labelle. Soul sirens.

Lemons, Limes & Orchids unwraps with languid grace. Like waking up in the morning with a sensual body on the sheets to embrace and cherish. Lips to kiss. It's altigether wondrous. It has wings. And it flas them to wonderful effect.  

Song(s) of the Day # 3,918 The Painted Ceilings

 

Yeah! The Painted Ceilings. What a nice way to start the week.Their debut gambit,Maybe There's a Difference  a seven song mini album sets out its stall with a song called You're 23 !

I don't know how to tell you Painted Ceilings but I'm not. I'm fast approaching 60. But I feel like I'm 23 sometimes. And I know what I like.

I like this. Urgent melodic indie guitar from New Brighton that feels like it knows its Orange Juice. Irs Modern Lovers. It's Beatles. This will do. Infinity and beyond. Well New Brighton at the very least. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 185 The Clash - Combat Rock

 

Ooh I like Combat Rock. But then I like The C;ash. They weren't huge at my secondary school. The Stranglers I remember. My best friend at Secondaty School said they were huge at Latymer. 

A great bloke I knew said the Dickies were preferable to the Clash. He knew a lot about life. Less about music. 

New York in 100 Songs - # Magnetic Fields

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,748 The Beach Boys - Friends

 

This came out in 1968 and sunk like a stone commercially. Failing to get anyway near The Billboard Top 100. It fared far better in the UK. It's a brief, melancholic and excellent record that I imagine obsessive fans of the band adore.This needs tempering with the realisation that soothing as this all is nothing on here would have made it onto Pet Sounds in all likelihood.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 186 XTC - Black Sea

 

One of the first albums I bought. An indicatorof me being to discover my own taste. I still think Black Sea is great. Looking back to The Kinks. And forwards to Blur. 

So much going on. On every track. It's Pop. But awkward geeky Pop by a buch of oiks from Swindon. We live in a different world and it's difficult not to get a little dewy eyed and nostalgic listening to this now. 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 38Jake Xerxes Fussell - When I'm Called

 

Jake Xerxes Fussell is one of the finest old school folk practitioners there is. Reared in Georgia and working out of North Carolina his work is unfailingly spare and heartfelt.

Never more so than in this year's offering When I'm Called.. It took me from half six to half seven this morning with languid grace and dignity,

This kind of music takes you out of yourself and makes you feel a part of something greater than yourself. It has a serene beauty. You couldn't really want anything more than what albums like this offer.  

Song(s) of the Day # 3,918 The Lost Notes

 

I don't generally like this time of year. It's cold and dark it's a time of year that reminds me of people I love who have died. And generally I experience money difficulties. moments of loneliness and tend to feel rather bleak in one way or another. But this year I'm feeling different as November winds down to December. This year I'm feeling positive and hopeful and full of energy and fight.

No better way to spend the remaining days as we count down to Christmas and 2025 than scooping up albums I've missed. The Lost Notes Good Luck Shoes is frankly rather Mumford & Sons lite and I never could stand that band. So I only got as far as the second song nefore I decided. 'This is fairly frightful and went on to something that was more to my taste. Still, it was alright I suppose. If you like that sort of tat. Onwards and upwards! 

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 187 The Television Personalities - The Painted Word

 

The Television Personalities had a particular vision which endures. Mental health and furs. 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,749 Elastica- Elastica

 

I still have enormousfun with Elastica's Elastica and always will. It's the sound of being young and shameless. Shameless in its plagiarism. Flawless in its taste and spite. These aren't love songs as such but sum up the times they were written, recorded and released perfectly. 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 39 Fievel Is Glauque - Rong Wieicknes

 

Ihaven't been gigging tis year as much as I would have liked owing to monetary and working concuderations. But I have been to The Lubber Fiend a fantastic new cooperative venue just aroud the corner from me a coulple of times.

I managed to catch Fievel Is Glauque there a couple of months back. One of my most treasured discoveries of recent years. 

Descibed by Uncut Magazine as a fascinating curveball. Second album Rong Wieicknes is precisely that. A transatantic duo Zach Ohullups and Ma Clement who shuttle from Brussels to New York and draw on Classical Jazz and Avant Garde sources.

This is a playful, souffle lite concoction. There's a lot of thought behind this in the same way that there always was with emotional and musical forbears. Stereolab and Broadcast. I have a  Fievel Is Glauque t shirt from that night. I think I need to wash and wear it again. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,917 Wallice

 

A slight lie in after a rare night out with a good friend. The sun is open in the Newcastle heavens and my bath is run. Wallice's The Jester playing on my headphones as I prepare myself for it.

It's a very 2024 product. Self examination and emotions. A young woman with a pout and long plaits. One that may find it difficult to differntate itself from the pack. But essentially likeable. 

New York in 100 Songs - # Lou Reed

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 188 Killing Joke - What's This For !

 A post from last year about this record. 

As general as Christmas approaches, there are musical departures to sour the mood and make us reflect. Just yeaterday Shane MacGowan. A few days back Geordie Walker of Killing Joke. A mighty musician and a mighty loss.

It was one of those deaths that made me think of my secondary school, forty years and more back now, and its rituals and practices. It's foibles. I went to a reasonable sized comprehensive called Grey Court in Petersham in South West London. An unremarkable place in most ways but the portal to crucial, personal memories.

As we moved up towards the fifth year the students of my year, and the boys particularly used to write the names of the artists and the bands they liked on their bags and pencil cases. I remember certain bands tallying highly. Cramps, Rezillos, DEVO were greatly liked. Killing Joke seeme to be rated and listened to more than anyone.

I didn't listen to them. I wasn't a John Peel listener crucially and primarily focused on what was in the charts an on Top of the Pops until I was in the fourth year and started to be fascinated by Echo & the Bunnymen who were still an underground concern largely at this point though not much discussed by my yearmates in Grey Court in the corridors or plaugrounds or celebrated on pencil or school bags.

Prompted by the news of Walker's death and the sad reaction of a schoolmate of mine for whom they'd meant a lot at the time, I listened to The Joke's second album What's This For! earlier this week. It's impressive first of all. Ritualistic, fierce and primitive. A set of pagan rites as much as songs; a set of circles around a campfire, all driven onward by Geordie's echoey and driving guitars.

Killing Edge were never the easiest of bands to listen to. They recollect the nihilistic and anarchistic spirits of their times as well as anybody, of squats and marches,  and would naturally appeal to the teenage boys that we were. It was around the time when you might think of reading Lord of The Flies.There's something almost fascistic and scary about its intensity.

Good as Killing Joke and Walker were it's still not really my thing. I'm glad the playground is far behind. Secondary School was never something I enjoyed. Ultimately I think I found the peer pressure which was king there stifling and claustrophobic. I was glad when I could leave in 1982 and start to develop my own tastes and interests. Construct my own identity  Still Killing Joke offer powerful reminders of those times and What's This For! is a fascinating and impressive record. 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 40 Laura Marling - Patterns in Repeat

 

Laura Marling to my mind is excellent. Consistently excellent. She works on the Folk Seam. Tended by the likes of Nick Drake, John Martyn and most obviously Joni Mitchell , which is the consistent, inevitable reference point.

She also sprinkles in the modern. She talks about aging, relationships. Sensitively, lovingly. Patterns in Repeat is another great Laura Marling album. Good for the soul. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,917 Mud Whale

 

It's mid November. It;s grey outside my window. Never mind Mud Whale are here to save us from misery with their melodic Grunge Lite album Humans Pretending To Be Human

To give them their full name Mud Whale are a Cleveland Emo Grung quartet. This album will not change your world. But there are worse ways of spending thirty one minutes of your life.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,750 Orange Juice - You Can't Hide Your Love Forever

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 189 Bauhaus - In The Flat Fields

 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 41 Bananagun - Why is the Colour of the Sky?

 

Why is the Colour of the Sky? Why indeed.Bananagun Australian furry freaks and Afrobeat enthusiasts are back. And that's always going to be something to celebrate,

This takes off wheer ehe band left off with 2020's The True Story of Bananagun. It might as well have been 1967 frankly. Because this is where this beauty and crazed intensity first springs from.

There's a joyous utopian energy here which cannot be stilled. A glorious thiry five minute and ten song run. The second dawning of the Age of Aqyarius. And not a moment too soon.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,916 Robin Guthrie

 

Tobin Guthrie's new album Astoria comes across as ambient classical music for elevators, Awash with synths and melody. I confess I didn't stay for too long.