East Brunswick All Girls Choir

This is pretty fearsome. From East Brunswick All Girls Choir whose debut album Seven Drummers on Melbourne's Milk! Records, I was rather taken with back in 2014. They've taken their time following that up but here they are again and this bodes extremely well for their forthcoming record Teddywaddy, due at the end of the month.

This is Australia at its most brutally extreme. It was a frontier society once of course and Essendon 1986 plays on and bleeds from the tradition of the outback, Ned Kelly, The Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party, The Scientists and The Triffids at their most uncompromising. With a gloriously cinematic promo, featuring label boss Courtney Barnett taking an atypically poker faced cameo as a barmaid and the archetypal brooding stranger entering the hall where the band are playing. Highly promising!

Songs About People # 632 Sonny Bono

Cher had her moment on this particular series a few days back. Now it's Sonny's turn.

Thirty Days of Sun # 6 The Doobie Brothers

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 221 Chuck Berry

Song of the Day # 1,599 Shirley Ellis

Roxy Music

Thirty Days of Sun # 5 The Kinks

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 222 Jerry Butler with The Impressions

Song of the Day # 1,598 Leci Brandao

A bit of Brazil. From 1975.

Thirty Days of Sun # 4 Nick Drake

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 223 James Brown

Song of the Day # 1,597 Deeper

Chicago's Deeper, and the opening song from their self-titled debut. It chimes!

Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 298 The Style Council

I was never very keen about this song at the time but now I'm coming round to it. Paul Weller keeping up the spirit and intelligence of The Jam onto the next staging post. This video was on Top of the Pops for ages with the bunch of them ducking below branches on the top of the bus. Sense of humour was never Weller's strongest point which he didn't realise, but this is a very fine record indeed.

Thirty Days of Sun # 3 The Rivieras

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 224 Aretha Franklin

Song(s) of the Day # 1,596 Holy Now

The second Holy band in a few days following Holy Tunics on Friday. Gothenberg, Sweden's Holy Now are similarly Indiepop and their new record I Think I Need the Light is a humdinger. Full of light as a feather melodies that draw on their homeland's tradition in these kind of things,other touchstones, (The Sundays for starters),  but also crucially on their greatest ever pop export, ABBA.

There's a wilful innocence and naivety here which recall Agnetha and Anna-Frid.  Their videos play on the same flawless two girls, two boys formula. At only nine tracks long the album is perhaps slightly short of true classic status but it's a very good record indeed. Brimful of songs about broken or breaking hearts, never a bad starting point. It never did Benny and Bjorn any harm.

It Starts With a Birthstone

This blog turns five today! It started of as one thing and has become something else over time. I plan to keep going with it as it gives me a huge amount of personal satisfaction and has led me towards an enormous amount of quite wonderful music. It's something that's well worth doing.

Songs About People # 631 Billy Mackenzie

Still very much missed.

Thirty Days of Sun # 2 The Byrds

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 225 The Rolling Stones

Song(s) of the Day # 1,595 Tracy Anne & Danny

Well trodden territory of course. But these three are from a rather lovely new album from Tracy Anne Campbell of Camera Obscura and Danny Coughlan of Crybaby. Very Nancy & Lee and there's nothing at all wrong with that.

Breathy and melodic, sometimes reminiscent of Everything But the Girl too, no longer in its early twenties but remembering how it felt to be that way.

Songs About People # 630 Tom Waits

Tom Waits for no man apparently. And why on earth should he?

Thirty Days of Sun # 1 The Beatles

Wishful thinking perhaps!

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 226 The MC5

Song of the Day # 1,594 Holy Tunics

It's gratifying to see so many bands exploring the possibilities of  melodic Eighties Indie guitars and plaintive, lovelorn vocals. It's one of the decades' finest musical legacies after all. So whether the starting point is The Feelies, Orange Juice, Smiths, Miracle Legion, R.E.M, Paisley Underground, Flying Nun or C-86 it's great that this moment and the wonderful records it produced is still seen as offering a treasure trove of pleasures and opportunities thirty years on.

The latest kids on this particular block are Brooklyn's Holy Tunics who released their debut album Butter Dish about a month back. It jangles, it chimes, it yearns, it makes you feel that you still have a decent fringe again and have just turned eighteen. It's altogether rather lovely. Coming hot on the heels of the fabulous Lawn debut Blood On The Tracks which I've been singing the praises of  over the last couple of days, it's another sign if one is needed that 2018 has no end of wonderful guitar bands to enjoy if you just scratch beneath the surface. I give you Lawn, Say Sue Me, Olden Yolk Salad Boys and Nap Eyes. And now Holy Tunics. And that's just for starters.

Holy Tunics can stand pretty much shoulder to shoulder with any one of them. They take familiar ingredients but are no mere imitators, there's real lyrical guile and melodic muscle and to every track on Butter Dish. This may well serve as a tasty entree for the much-awaited Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever album which comes into port in a couple of weeks and draws on a similar musical heritage. June it seems is busting out all over!!!

Songs About People # 629 Franz Beckenbauer

Polish Pop song from a rather lairy looking  artist named BOWNIK. Song is fine mind.

The Action

1967

It Starts With a Birthstone - Songs For May

Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 297 Coldplay

I'm no Coldplay fan but did like A Rush of Blood to the Head when it came out in 2002. Early the following year it also provided the soundtrack to one of the most unforgettable roadtrips I ever experienced. From Katowice to Krakow and back in a day with a wonderful person. And this is the song I remember playing. Memory is such a thing!

It Starts With a Birthstone - Albums For May

After a quiet beginning, May became a bumper month for albums with some splendid records crowding round for attention, particularly during its last few days. Of course I had Courtney's Tell Me How You Feel to look forward and then savor. It didn't disappoint, was packed with excellent songs and lyrics, bringing back some of the simplicity that she's lost sight of on occasion on Sometimes I Sit. It was altogether very welcome and I feel fairly sure that her star will continue to ascend.

It wasn't my favourite album of the month though. New Orleans duo Lawn trumped her in that respect a couple of days back when I heard their barnstorming debut album Blood On The Tracks. Barely noticed by many others I imagine, (at least yet), it's nevertheless been taken to the heart by It Starts With a Birthstone and I'll continue to sing its praises whenever the opportunity arises over the coming months.

Apart from these two there was plenty else worthy of note. Two fine albums from another two unheralded American outfits Hussy and Cloud were quite wonderful in different ways and Eleanor Friedberger released yet another wonderful solo record. The Wooden Shjips album V, which I talk about in the Song of the Day slot today is a trip.

There were also records by artists with greater profile, Parquet Courts, Beach House and Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, all of which I listened to a number of times, liked in parts but which ultimately dipped below my expectations for them. As for Arctic Monkeys. They dropped out of my Top Ten altogether. Better luck next time boys!

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 227 Prince

Song of the Day # 1,593 Wooden Shjips

Far out! San Francisco Psychedelicists Wooden Shjips take their time. Both between albums, recently released V, (yes it's their fifth), is their first since 2013's Back To The Land, and also during them. There's only one song on V shorter than five minutes, (it's the one posted here Already Gone), and that's all just as it should be.

V is probably a good record to take drugs to, though I'm not going to road-test that theory. It brings to mind the line in the Chambers Brothers timeless 1967 single Time Has Come Today, 'And my soul has been psychedelicised..' You suspect this happened long ago to Wooden Shjips.

That's not meant as a criticism. Quite the opposite. The band take most spaced out, improvisatory elements of late Sixties West Coast Rock, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Grateful Dead, Santana, fuse them with more disciplined Spacemen 3 and Spiritualised drones, and set the controls for the heart of the sun. From the get go, you feel as if you're in very safe hands. There's not much variety on here, and you may take some time to tell individual tracks apart, but that's very much the point. the band have trimmed back the more punky aspects of their sound from previous records and gone for full beatitude mode without ever losing their distinctive sound, it's quite clear who this is. And I'd say the whole exercise has been highly successful.

Songs About People # 628 Frank Zappa

As promised, another track from Chickn's new record. And for those who don't like Frank Zappa be warned. It sounds like, err Frank Zappa...

Big Thief

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 228 Sonny & Cher

Song of the Day # 1,592 Lawn

This is surely destined to be one of my favourite records of the year. Blood On The Tracks, the debut album from New Orleans duo Lawn released a couple of weeks back. I'm sorry that I can only post one track here, opener 2000 Boy, because given a chance I assure you I'd post the whole damned thing.

It's full of instant pop inspiration and small moments of genius. Taking The Kinks as a starting point, then leaping forward fifteen years to bands like Wire, Gang of Four, Pylon, Minutemen, The Clean and The Bats, on from there to Fugazi and Deerhunter and fast forward to the present to like-minded contemporaries Hoops, Warehouse and Omni.

But Lawn deserve a lawn or even perhaps a small field all to themselves because Blood On The Tracks is a remarkably accomplished record. Nothing to do with the Dylan classic as far as I can tell. Lawn's, two partners Mac Folger and Rui De Magalahes trade songs back and forth and the mood shifts magically from track to track. Each song wrestles to tear your love away from the last. It's melodic, concise, considered and cool, reminiscent of things you love but carving its own space in the scheme of things. And that's no mean feat!

Twelve songs of restless vigour and invention, just like my favourite album of all, R.E.M's Murmur which changed my life way back in 1983, Lawn's Blood On The Tracks deserves a sizeable, appreciative audience because it's an altogether wonderful statement. Discover its glorious thirty eight minute burst for yourselves and I hope to return to it in my end of year Album List, be able to post more from it for you, and where it seems utterly sure to figure very high in the Top Ten.

Courtney Barnett

Courtney is in England and playing in Leeds tonight, despite the wrong date being supplied for the concert poster.

Songs About People # 627 Cher

Something from Greek Freaks Chickn's new album WOWSERS. In the tradition of the great jokester experimenters Gong, Beefheart, Bonzo Dog, Red Crayola, Pink Fairies and so on. It's all fairly unrelenting. Another track tomorrow.

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 229 The Spaniels

Song of the Day # 1,591 Cullen Omori

Promising young singer-songwriter on Sub Pop.

Songs About People # 626 Joni Mitchell

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 230 Lloyd Prince

Song of the Day # 1,590 Mazzy Star

Mazzy Star, who have had an intermittent career of almost thirty years now of putting out special, resonant collections of songs, have a new four track EP out shortly. Fittingly, it's called Still, as good a description of what they do as any, and here's the lead off track, Quiet, The Winter Harbor and its wonderful. Absolute grace under no pressure!

Songs About People # 625 Ray Bradbury

Some proper Stoner Rock for the great Science Fiction writer.

Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 296 Dionne Warwick

One for James the barman who has romantic tastes. He likes The Carpenters, Nat King Cole, Roger Miller and Dionne among other things. Good for him!

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 231 Cyndi Lauper

Song(s) of the Day # 1,589 Wussy

There's a good reason why critics darlings bands are critics darlings bands. Because if the public don't notice how good something is someone has to be there to tell the tale and it might as well be those who write about music for a living. So for Big Star and The Go Betweens before them now we have Cincinnati band Wussy and their new album, (their seventh in all), What Heaven Is Like, just out, a record of blazing, ragged glory that Neil himself might appreciate.

Fronted by Lisa Walker and Chuck Cleaver Wussy are a band in the line of X, Madder Rose and Houndstooth all wailing guitars and keening vocals, the sound of the road, the prairies, late night neon lit bars, cigarettes, plaid shirts, beers and bourbon. You paint your own picture. Walker's evocative voice gives them another dimension, she has something of the trembling quality of Kristen Hersh and as a result the songs here achieve something of the  haunted strangeness of that wonderful, first Throwing Muses album.

Remarkably the band still has nine to five jobs to manage the trajectory of Wussy around. This is remarkable and remarkably wrong. They're currently in the middle of a short tour of small UK venues and I envy those who are getting to see them because sadly they're not coming anywhere close to me. What Heaven Is Like is a thing of wonder. Stalwart critic Robert Christgau has called them the best band in America and it's clear to see where he's coming from. I've struggled with the new Arctic Monkeys album over the last couple of weeks, a record that has neither melodies nor choruses, (and seems strangely proud of the lack of either), but I think I'll stop struggling. Wussy answer all my immediate needs.

Songs About People # 624 Buzz Aldrin

A song for the second man on the moon from rapper Curtis Williams. Why it's titled after Buzz is unclear from the lyrics which seem like common bravado but have an uneasy edge that hint that empty bravado is all it is.

The Heart of Rock and Soul # 232 Barrett Strong

Song(s) of the Day # 1,588 Cloud

Cloud was until recently an untaken name in the rapidly diminishing set of choices for band and artists sixty years down the line of Rock and Roll. Now it's been taken. By a young New Yorker named Tyler Taormina, (sometimes joined by co-vocalist Marie Ebacher), who's just released his third and probably last album under the Cloud moniker Plays With Fire. 

It all sounds rather like Galaxie 500. Coming to this conclusion is inevitable as you immerse yourself in the record but that's not a criticism by any means. I very much like Galaxie 500 and Plays With Fire is utterly faithful to their spectral qualities. The record is layered with melody and soft texture and comes on to the listener like the best kind of dream.

Other comparison points are also almost as automatic as the Galaxie 500 one. Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3. Low, Yo La Tengo, Mazzy Star, Red House Painters. You know, that lot! The bunch who always understood that it was sometimes more effective to whisper than to scream. That sometimes it's time to dim the lights and just listen.

You get the feeling that the heroine from Juno would probably love the record. It conforms utterly to the sensibilities of innocent but principled and knowing youth laid out in that film. But the fact that Plays With Fire is inescapably reminiscent of other glorious things doesn't for a moment diminish its own glory. And that of course is down to the quality of the songs. Because here is a set of songs as good as any you are likely to hear this year.

So listening to it at work yesterday made me happy. And not just because it was Friday afternoon ahead of a Bank Holiday weekend. But because Plays With Fire is really some achievement. One that I'll be coming back to again and again over the coming months. If it is the last album to be released under the Cloud banner then this is some way to go!