Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,775 Anthrax - Among The Living

 

Um pass.

..

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 66 Friko - For Ella

 

Get your Friko on. A poor attempt at a gag perhaps . But there are clearly worse things you could do on a dark Tuesday moving towards the end of February than listen to the new album by said band. Whar else have you got planned? Cupping your ears to the latest IDLES album. Personally I haven't summoned the courage for that yet. Are they still angry about everything.

Friko, artisticyoung  Chaicagoans with slightly unkempt hair are clearly foals of a different colour. Their new album Where We've Been, Where We Go From Here, concerns itself with precisely that and I found it invigorating watching them getting agitated and passionate. They're young. And they're good at it.

The album, I'm sorry I'm not about to repeat its title, (it's listed above), reminded myself of the first time I heard The Waterboys and James when they themselves were young and so was I. It was a bracing exercise spending half an hour with Friko. They have artistic urges and credentials. Watching them hurl themselves into the 9 songs here like inmates bouncing in straightjackets around padded cells was infectious.

  Friko are complaining about something. That's always a good start. There's always plenty to complain about. They're embroiled in the melodrama of their own youth which is great. I still remember mine. Importantly, they're also are aware of beauty. Listen to For Ella. The standout here for me.Another one to watch. Another fine record. They're everywhere I look. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,891 Tim Heidecker

 

If in doubt and the world seems a bad and dangerousr place. And that seems to be the case more than it's ever been right now. Retreat to your living room. Batten down the hatches. Put your feet on a footstool, your shades and  headphones on and listen to a laid back hood time lt C& W album and rest your weary soul.

There are a few to choose from right now. The fabulous current M K Lenderman record comes tom ind. I must get round to writing about that. But in the meantime I'd direct you to this Tim Heidecker's Slopping Away. It's like fun's come back in fashion.

It;s not as if Heidecker doesn't have form. He's a comedian and singer sougwriter and alround cool soul in the Father John Misty vein, This is what you need this Sunday morning, 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,776 Blind Melon - Blind Melon

 

Fairly ghastly also runts of the Grunge pack. Lots of fairly horrific jamming that would have been pretty annoying in 1972. Never mind 1992, the year this came out. Made Pearl Jam seem heavenly because those guy could really play and had a decent singer. The influences were pretty similar. 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 215 Tom Waits - Frank's Wild Years

 

Tom Waits was a key formative inspirational influence on me when I came upon him in my late teens on  the early Eighties. He spoke of a reckless Bohemian spirit an embrace of mad craving, recklesness and enquiry, With age he sounds better and more cherishable than he did back then. 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 67 German Error Message - German Error Message

 

 German Error Message. I like a good band or artist name. The obscurer, and more literary the better. The Velvet Underground  The Doors, Steely Dan, Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Mission of Burma, Josef K. Bands who would look as good on your bookshelf as on your record player.

So German Error Message immediately attracted my interest when I came across it yesterday. It's a name that sounds as if it might have gone through Google Translate. Deutsche Fehlermeldung.

Even better when a bit of rudimentary research told me that they're not even German and so perhaps aren't mistaken either. They're a gateway for expression for Paul Kintzing, an engineer and producer from Nashville, Tennessee. Tor Zum Ausdruck. Ok I'll stop...

 The record itself more than lived up to expectations.  Their latest eponymous album (not their first), sets off with one of the best opening songs I've heard on any record this year but also gives no end of reasons to keep listening for anyone looking for the kind of slightly morose and certainly oblique outsider excellence celebrated on blogs like It Starts.

The record proceeds to plant itself firmly in the tradition of great American mumbling, downcast introvert artists of the last thirty years. Elliott Smith, East River Pipe, Red House Painters, Marmoset, Grandaddy, Bonnie Prince, Bill Callahan and so forth. The Outsider Tribe. The quiet, interesting kid in every classroom. The one that fascinates the engaged teacher. The one plotting escape.

We get one muffled song after another all starting in the middle of nowhere and mumbling their way to undefined finishing posts without exactly uprooting any trees along the way. Songs from artists like these don't intend to uproot any trees. That would disturb the peace and who in their right mind would want to do that.

Instead this builds its game quietly and cleverly sets up a set of  pretty passing triangles in the opponents final third and grafts its way to a quiet but impressive away victory to pull itself clear of the relegation strugglers. My kind of record.  

Song(s) of the Day # 3,890 Dawes

 

What's the score George Dawes. No nothng to do with Jim Morrison. Or Shooting Stars fir that matter. Dawes are another Los Angeles band though frankly listening to their latest album Oh Brother, they could be from just about anywhere.It's a tight,contrilled and funky record from a couple of brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, their first for over a decade.

It's an earthy, thoughtful and notable record. Not one I see myself returning to. Its sincere and heartfelt but lacks the spark that would make me come back. What's the score George Dawes? It seems to work here.  I'd be tempted to give it a Pitchfork type grade, somewhere between 6 and 7. Though I'm essentially slightly mistrustful of the guiding procipal befind the Pitchfork guiding ethic, .

  

New York in 100 Songs - # 37 Judge

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 216 Griot Galaxy - Kins

 

Well this is a fantastic avant Jazz record and no mistake. Lovely way to get from 11 to 12 on a sunny Friday morning. 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,777 Spellling - The Turnng Wheel

 

With the kind of full on emotive bloodletting rarely seen outside of a Kate Bush album, the new Spellling record The Turning Wheel probably won't be for everyone. Chrystia Cabral truly pulls out all the stops in songs that sound either in turn or else at once like West End showstoppers and melodious and emotional pop songs from the leftfield.

It's a record that sounds more powerful with every play and I suspect a keeper, which will feature somewhere in my end of year chart. Where exactly, I'm still not entirely sure. Cabral's full on approach can sometimes grate a touch but the songs here are sturdy and adventurous constructions which allow her to take full flight without need for a safety net.

The record truly begins to come into its own towards the end of its run when the songs really start to take risks, match the ambitions of their author and steer fully away from the Radio 2 territory they flirt with early on. Particularly in the case of the albums heart, the seven minute tour de force Boys at School where Cabral truly shows what she can do.

So, something of a mixed bag perhaps, but certainly worthy of  play or two to see if it piques your interest. It certainly had some moments that hit just the right notes for me so I'm more than willing to give those that didn't impact on me to the same degree a get out of jail card.

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 68 The Mystery Lights - Purgatory

 

Hot on the heels of Black Ends wonderful debut, here are New Yorks's finest The Mystery Lights. Walking a similar walk. These guys should share a bill. The Mystery Lights are back at the Home Plate swinging freely and embarked on a gruelling European tour as we speak.

Formed in California but reared and unleashed on the unsuspecting wider world from Brooklyn in recent years. I've had something of  a history with this wonderful combo. A few years back I witnessed them in full tidal flow at The Cluny just down the road from me in Newcastle's Ouseburne Valley in support of 2019's Too Much Tension. Here's a spoiler. They were wonderful. 

That was a fasconatimg, gnarled and fiercesome record and I went down that night in excitement Ousebourne in   the Marquee Moon t shirt that coincidentally I'm wearing now as I write. Before, during and after the show I got involved in a fascinating discussion with the band's utterly charming  head honcho Mike Brandon about Television largely, still one of the most fascinating Rock & Roll outlaws ever to tread the boards.

Mystery Lights clearly haven't lost either their spark nor their wide eyed sense of wonder in the five tears since. New record Purgatory explores Televisions' Garage and Nugget roots. Punk in its Mid Sixtues incarnation.. 13th Floor Elevators, The Standells, The Electric Puines, The Sonics. Count Five. Those guys. 

Once more The Mystery Lights find themselves stalking the graveyards in their shrouds in the midnight hours. Clanking their chains and howling at the full moon with deranged abandon,. They're truly an awesome combo. Catch them if you can.In the meantime, track down their records. 

   

Song(s) of the Day # 3,889 Black Ends

 

Black Ends are out of Seattle, Washington and from what I can detect Psychotic Spew is their first album. They describe theselves as Gunk Pop on their merchandising and whatever that might be this record is one of the most fascinating Garage Rock records you might wish to come across. If that's your particular cup of sick.It's certainly one of my prescribed.

Let me throw a few key ingrediemts at you to clarify things further if waters seems slighty murky. Sixties Garage, Nuggets Rock. Television, The Cramps, Gun Club, Throwing Muses, Babes In Toyland Riot Gurl, Sleater Kinnet. Right down my alleyway anyhow.  

This is a terrific record. Hot on the heels of The Hunter's Moon which rose in the heavens in these parts just last night, This is a wonderful album it really is. Melodrama of the most fantastic kind There's a good moon on the rise!

New York in 100 Songs - # 38 Nada Surf

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 217 The Gun Club - Miami

 

From King Crimson to The Gun Club. Much more down my personal cul de sac really. Gun Club are desperation. Wanton abandon. Encouraging would be music journalists like me to throw open their synonym thesaurus. Miani did exactly what Jeffrey Lee craved. It tapped into the Blues.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,778 King Crimson - Starless & Bible Black

 

King Crimson for muchof the time is far too fussy for my tastes. This seems to be a band that are fed by urgent, spectrum impulses.With this 1974 record I found myself wanting to listen to something else five minutes in. I perservered toother tracks and other vistas, more to my tastes opened. But this was all rather 'curate's egg' for me..Rather too inclined to showing off.

 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 69 Varsity - Souvenirs

 

Chicago's Varsity have been round the block a few times. Playing the circuit and putting out records for over a decade now, becoming the Windy City's 'leading indie pop band' according to their Bandcamp page. No mean claim.

I'm not even going to dispute it. I'm in a liaidback mood these days. Varsity have a lean and measured sound. You'll find them in  Alvvays, 10. Maniacs and Fleetwood Mac's neighbourhood.. Latest record Souvenirs is a measured and confident record that wins you over within a couple of minutes and maintains good relations from thereon.

Not a startling album but a very likeable on. It's worth perservering if you make an early assumption that this is going to be rather generic. They know how to vary their serve and there are some interesting song structures and interesting twists and turns as the record progressed which def

Song(s) of the Day # 3,888 Cast Of Thousands

 

The latest tip from Darren Jones for It Starts and an instant winner.. Third House, the latest album from Austin Texas quintet,  Cast Of Thousands's a sparky and rebarbative reconstructed New Wave guitar and farfisa organ driven record,

This is a Rock & Roll record that knows its ? & The Mysterons, Modern Lovers. Swimming Pool Q and Flying Nun. It has a real sense of those cusp emotions and feelings that I associate with the late teen and early twenties rites of passage emotions and experiences.

Whether Cast Of Thousands have actually tapped  into these actual sources us actually neither here nor there.Cast Of Thousands feeds on these needs. Wonderful record. Cheers once more Darren. 

New York in 100 Songs - # 39 mxtmtoon

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,779 The Sisters Of Mercy - First & Last & Always.

 

The Sisters of Mercy mastered the immaculate chilled Goth sound.as well as anybody ever did.

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 218 The Lilac Time - Paradise Eyes

 

Stephen Duffy decide he didn't particularly want to be in Duran Duran. He decided he'd rather focus his energies on jangling, bucolic folk music instead. Sensible fellow. Excellent record with more poetry in most songs than Simon managed in thrty years,

Song(s) of the Day # 3,887 Inga McDaniel

 

A 63 year old Grandma living on the Northeast side of Indianopolis. Delving into R&B, Funk and Spiritual Soul on latest album Double Mug,

This is a strange record. And certainly not one that sounds like it was made by a 63 year old Grandma living on the Northeast side of Indianopolis. It's sparky, incredibly varied and very eclectic. Give it a spin. 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 70 Loma - How Will I Live Without You

 

How Will I Live Without You A quite outstanding new album from Loma a trio on Sub Pop Records A record which I started listening to yesterday evening and was idly taken by initially and then began to draw me in completely as it ran its course until I was deeply taken by the time I did and promptly put it on again.

I'm indebted to Raymond Gorman, guitarist of That Petrol Emotion and a friend on Social Media for guiding me this way. The record's a slow burner but draw's you in like Ariadnne's thread tugging you towards the solution of a dilemma with every passing moment..

Loma are a thrieepiece with an intense gift of the kind that fans of Portishead. Radiohead and Broadcast might appreciate. Their songs have an intense stillness and poise that make How Will I Live Without You a deeply affecting ride. Turn off your mind. Relax..

New York in 100 Songs - # 40 Mott The Hoople

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 219 The Fall - Perverted By Language

 

I have friends who concern themselves with debating about what the finest Fall albums are. I'm not sure I can be bothered with all that. Isn't it a lot simpler than that. Aren't some Fall albums excellent beyond description and some slightly uninspired and repetitive. This is one of the very good ones.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,780 Caribou - Our Love

 

Utopian dancefloor vibes. Speckled with samples and orgasmic ecstasy. If that's your bag. And there are worse things. 2015's One Love  Henerally consudered top of Caribou's tree. Though from what I've heard they're all minor variations on a theme. That guy's good at what he does. Slightlynumbing after a while but after all that's what this stuff was always all about. It put me in a great mood for my breakfast and the resy of my day. 

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 71 Mercury Rev - Born Horses

 

Mercury Rev's Born Horses. A late career classc from a band of American dreamers. They're a band I have been able to take and leave at times but here they've truly pulled out a plum.

Poetic, dreaming and I would say Beatnik at heart. It makes a strong case for being bohemian and becoming a muician rather than letting your heart and soul be isphoned away by getting a dull nine to five and marrying the wrong person at 18.  

This gets an astonihingly low 4.5 from Pitchfork, which to the likes of me recommends Born Horses even higher. Snotty, priggish dullards.I think this is a wonderful album.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,886 Gut Health

 

Always searching for something. Gut Health's Stiletto should more than do the trick as we make our way into Tuesday morning and my 8.15 with Dussledorf Insurance people.

This is a record that pretty much ahow its stripes, sensibility and intentions on Side One Track one. Urgent, unreconstructed Post Punk pop of the kind Girls At Their Best, The Modettes and Pylon specialised in way back in the day.

This is really just preicated on fun first. Hypnotic Dance Punk from Naarm , Melbourne. They're certainly haveing all the fun down there those guys.

.

New York in 100 Songs - # 41 Joni Mitchell

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 220 Au Pairs - Playing With a Different Sex

 

Au Pairs are a band that seem as elevant as thet evr were. Gender issues, assettion, stridency, drawing of lines where it's required. Nothing changes. This is as urgent and essntial to the cutticulum as ti ever was. Pay attention. You don't want to fall behind.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,781 Paul Weller - Wild Wood

 

If I'm asked to choose later period Paul Weller. Paul Weller discovering thejoys of walking in the Surrey Hills and discovering the joys of Nick Drake is robably where I'd place my chips.

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 72 Seafarers - Another State

 

London's Seafarers are story tellers and I'm always eager to endorse that basic guiding principle. Latest album Another State is a dreamers paradise. 

The A Pessimst is Never Disappointed website, always an invaluable point of reference, listed the finest monebts of Florence & The Machi8ne and Elbow as  signposts. I'm happy to go with that.

The songs here take flight, which is all you can ask from music. Like that moment when a large plane leaves the runway and is airborn. Floating on banks of clouds. That happ

Song(s) of the Day # 3,885 Current Joys

 

Hey I don't mind a bit of introverted Rock earnestness. R.E.M.. as this blog attests were one of my formative and enduring joys.. They could be earnest. And weren't ashamed to be so.

Cirrent Joys work this seam on current album East My Love. They owe as much to Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Pearl Jam and all those other studious Rock students as Michael and the lads. 

This is rather lacking in the playfullness that made me love R.E.M. so. I'll dock a point for undue gravity and write should smile more on the termly report. But iverall, great start to the week. 

New York in 100 Songs - # 43 Jonahan Richman

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 221 Keith Richard - Talk Is Cheap

 

I mean seriously. The Stones have been washed u as a serious musical force since 1982. This is from 1988. Alright if you like old blues licks. But best to play the old records and wait to hear the old hits when you go to see them live. Going through the motions for the most point.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,782 Beirut - The Flying Club Cup

 

Forty minutes with Beiruit is always a pleasure. Particularly on a Sunday morning as I prepare myself for church. They have a unique schtick. Tap into an ancient and romantic sensibility of folk traditions and beauty that predated Ro ck & Role. Post Millenial consciousness.

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 73 Fred Thomas - Window In The Rhythm

 

Good to travel. Good to be home. Odysseus. Someone like that. Waking up in Newcastle after a big adventure in Sicily. Home from the sea.

And listening to Window In The Rhythm by Fred Thomas. An American somgwriter, producer and general audio alchemist Fred Thomas. A philosopher.

This is neat and lovingly assembled. It observes the world and crafts its reponse. A good soundtrack to watching the sun rise in the Newcastle heavens.  

Song(s) of the Day # 3,884 J W Francis

 

This will do. A good tempered and jolly album called SUNSHINE from a cuddly ball of facial hear and positive intention from the American road. Just what the doctor ordered. 

J W Francis is just what the doctor ordered as the actual sun starts its so climb in the Newcastle heavens as October works its way towards its second phase.Songs called things like Turtleneck Weather

This is good time twiddly guitar and vibes. Make ot one of your vitamin intakes this morning. Not world changing but highly likeable. 

New York in 100 Songs - # 44 Joey Bada$$

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 222 Keijo Haino - Watashi Dake

 

What d'you mean never heard of him? The ultimate go to record for cooler than thou types. Good luck with actually listening to it mind. Wear shades.

 

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,783 Buzzcocks - Another Music In Another Kitchen

 

Buzzcocks in 78. It didn't get much better. I was 13 and they probably described my state better than anyone else in the world that year. Jagged, articulate, confused. It still doesn't get much better and we're almost fifty years on.

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 74 Horse Jumper of Love - Disaster Trick

 

HEY EVERYBODY! THERE'S A GREAT NEW HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE ALBUM OUT ! IT'S CALLED DISASTER TRICK !!! The wotld gives an incoherent shrug. Refuses to spin off it's axis. Life goes on.

But it's made It Starts With a Birthstone's day. I've just given it a listen and I think it's great. The guys who sat in the middle of class huddled in a chat and no one really notice. The Post Grunge guys. Buffalo Tom and Sebadoh's sulky nephews. Not as if Uncle Buffalo Tom and Auntie Sebadoh weren't sulky enough anyhow !

Boston Ma. half glass empty guys in ragged, hole ridden sweaters. They've been doing this for years and albums. I never tire of their schtick. It has Slowcore DNA and is distinctly Grunge lite. But they have good hearts and a way with melancholic melody I'm sure those who settle down with these guts won't regret it for a moment. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,883 Famous

 

The ludicrously hyperbolic nature of Spotify bios is an ongoing source of frustration for me when trying to write about recotds I come across.

London outfit Famous's latest Party Album is a case in point. An album on engaging youthful introversion and noise. I quite like it.

But going to their bio in search of or basic biographical information is a fool's'errand. It's all total gibberish. Oh well. The record's worth a spin even if the overriddung impression is confusion. .  

New York in 100 Songs - # 45 Black Star

 

500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 223 Microdisney - 39 Minutes

 A repost for this: 

'(Cathal) Coughlan is that rare, arguably unique beast: a truly gifted satirist, plying his art in a rock'n'roll band.' Andrew Mueller

Mueller cheats here, for his second choice in this collection. He chooses two records. Both of them fronted and directed by Cathal Coughlan, one of the oddest and most specific figures on the Eighties and Nineties pop landscape. Mueller is fully entitled to his conceit though, because he makes an absolutely brilliantly argued case for the importance of figures such as Coughlan who do something that is essentially different from the rest of the pack regardless of the commercial endgame. Great writing like this encourages the previously neutral reader to investigate further, like me, I have one album and one single by Microdisney and nothing at all by Fatima Mansions). So, here we go...

In order to 'get' Microdisney, you have to listen and really listen to the lyrics. Otherwise the records often actually seem to veer towards the middle of the road and wouldn't sound completely out of place on Radio 2. But dig deeper and it becomes obvious that Coughlan's only real rivals for caustic sugaring of the pop pill are Elvis Costello and Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. He's more abstruse than any of them. And unlike them, he never had any proper hits.

He's a contrary character, that's for sure. As Mueller writes of him: ( Coughlan ) 'has eluded the recognition that has long been his due with a cunning blend of intransigence, bloody-mindedness, ill luck , an uncanny instinct for making the music at the wrong time, a perhaps unhelpful surfeit of intelligence and a rarefied sense of mischief often mistake for gratuitous belligerence.' I'd concur but add a small caveat. His true achilles heel was his failure to ever nail down the real killer tune which would take him from his existence as a cult hero to being a genuine chart contender. I'd say the same about his foil in Microdisney, Sean O'Hagen who went on to make loads of really great music with Stereolab and High Llamas, ( his own project), without ever grazing the significant areas of the char either. Probably also on account that neither of them ever cared overmuch.

39 Minutes is a perfectly acceptable record without ever threatening to be a great one to my ears. Mueller rates it so highly largely because of the sour cynicism of its lyrics which he suggests holds a pulse to the corrupt tenor of the times it was made during the late Eighties. I'm insufficiently able to decode more cryptically acute lyrics so I'm unfit to judge. The comparison with Costello holds up again. Compare 39 Minutes with Armed Forces for example. Which record has the cleverer set of lyrics. Hard to judge. Which has the better tunes? Armed Forces, hands down. Anyhow I'd take the one Microdisney album I do own, The Clock Comes Down the Stairs,over this. My couple of listens hasn't inspired me to go back very often in future 

So, to Fatima Mansions and a truly horrible album cover. They were the project Coughlan moved onto when Microdisney folded and he and O'Hagen parted directions. He chose at this point to shift towards a sound that reflected the generally unrelenting bile of his lyrics. I never really went for it apart from a couple of songs and I'm gritting my teeth as I listen it to this while writing. It verges on hardcore. The kind of thing Black Flag used to specialise in. Regardless of its lyrical merits, I doubt I'll get through it. I can't multitask and type and think while listening. I don't have the slightest urge to take up stage diving any moment soon.

That's probably because this is certainly not my kind of music as a cursory glance down this blog will vouch. I just find it mindless. I much prefer the Scott Walker records in Coughlan's collection to the Anthrax ones that this suggests he may have nestled alongside them. I just want it to stop. I've posted the quietest song on the record because I wouldn't want to inflict the pain I've experienced on others. Inevitably this turns into a thrash interspersed with the quieter bits. Seriously, don't bother.

As with 39 Minutes and Microdisney, this was Fatima Mansions last throw of the dice. It flopped both critically and commercially and judging by my personal listening terror deserved to. I will agree with Mueller's judgement that Coughlan is a definite if misdirected talent. Read his article if you can track it down. It's an object lesson in how to write music criticism. Meanwhile Fatima Mansions, R.I.P. but don't reform.

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,784 Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

 

Soul love. Bill Callahan is one of those artists who taps in to a hudden miraculous world of beauty and truth. He taps into it, opens a seam and it releases anima...

It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2024 # 75 dog eyes - holy friends

 

There are records that I immediately think of as Juno Culture as soon as I hear them.A couple of gloopy teenagers sat out on the porch strumming acoustic guitars like Juno and Paulie Bleeker in that movie. Staring into each others eyes and sharing orange tic tacs between kisses. Listening to Belle & Sebastian and Velvet Underground albums together. 

That's a conforting film and records that remind me of its sensibility are immediately comforting albums which I find myself clinging to. Like Linus and his blanket. Juno soundtrack for this year seems to be dog eyes holy friends.

It seems to tick all the requisite checklist boxes with astonishing efficiency given that a stand out quality of albums such as these is  lazy DNA. The songs here though are alert and keen even if they also project that contended snug lethargy.

dog eyes are David Leach and Hally Firstman. He sports a sloppy moustache. She has cute plaits. Nancy & Lee for millenial kids. These songs won't change your world so much as confirm to you that you have great taste. It's a new shade of fun !

  

Song(s) of the Day # 3,882 Hard Quartet

 

Towards the weekend and the fitness centre with Hard Quartet's eponymous album a fluid, uncompromisng alternative guitar album that makes me glad to be alive.

An Indie sypergroup of sorts. Featuring Stephen Malkmus once of Pavement, Silver Jews and The Jicks most obviously and prominently but also Matt Sweeney (Chavez), Jim White (Dirty Three) and Emmet Kelly (Ty Segall)..

This is fluid, literate joyous melodicism. A love of the past, Psychedelic San Francisco, Wire, Mission of Burma, Sonic Youth, Kraiutrock, Flying Nun and errm Pavement, If I'm being churlish perhaps a mute linger than it absolutely needs to be. A couple of tracks could be pruned.

But there's much to enjoy here. These guys know what theyre doing and love what they're doing. Middle aged comfortably heeled guys revelling in the company of other guys.

A tour has been set up and it prioritises Cult appeal. Hey this is Malkmus who is inevitably the most prominent player here. Hey, his talent is undeniable. Key American cities. A date at the Electric Camden with pricey tickets then a run of daes in Australia.

I'll content myself with the record which ticks a lot of my own pleasure principles bozes. This is stellar stuff from people who know exactly what they're doing.  .  

New York in 100 Songs - # 46 Joe Walsh

 

Naima Bock - Below A Massive Dark Land

 

Some people are prone to say that the best Rock music has already been made.Frankly I think it's  preposterous idea. Just as the idea that the old days were the best. Nostalgia's not whar it used to be.

I think it's pretty easy to look around and find music that compares with anything in the canon. Look ar Syfjan. Look at Kamasi Washington. Listen to the latest Mercury Rev or Grandaddy albums. They're music with the scope and grace of Van Morrison, David Bowie, The Band or Miles Davis records. 

They just draw on different sensibilities and modes of expression. They're every bit as much works of art as what came before them. Is there any need to say one is beter than another.This seems a strange way to appreciate good work

Listen to the new Naima Bock album Below A Massive Dark Land. It's very good work.I'm very taken by Naima. This is her second album. Her frst Giant Palm was an enormous favourite of mine when it came out 

 I've been listening to Below A Massive Dark Land on a daily basis this week. I went into RPM Records, a go to refuge from the travails of the modern world on Monday and Rich and Craig, the record shop guys who know were listening to it. It even got Craig's approval and that's saying something. Rich doesn't approve of much that didn't come out in 1967.

Parts of Below A Massive Dark Land sound like it might have come out n 1972. Echoes of Van Morrison, John Martyn and Richard Thompson. But this isn't retro. It's the joys of music refracted through a post millenial lens.

Naima has a lovely voice and a lovely soul. She's playing at The Cumberland Arms in November. I'll pop down and see her. Last time we metwe talked about Joni. I wonder what we'll talk about this time.  

Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,785 The Kinks - Kinks

 

The Kinks at their rawest in their infant days. Their are some Spinal Tap moments frankly. The hit singles that broke them You Really Got Me and All Day & All of The Night.. Elsewhere they#re nascent. In the act of becoming.