Out on Sup Pop a couple of months ago. A new project from Shearwater's Jonathan Melburg from a self-titled album, also just out.
Monday, March 12, 2018
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 280 The Beat
Anything from the pretty much flawless first Beat album, I Just Can't Stop It, sounds pretty good to me. Like this, on a sunny Sunday afternoon at Rosie's.
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 28 Kenneth Gamble & Leon A. Huff
Pioneers of The Philadelphia Sound. Produced The O'Jays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, The Jacksons, Teddy Pendergrass and Lou Rawls among many others.
Song of the Day # 1,513 Math & Physics Club
As definitively Indie as you could possibly want, bespectacled Seattle trio put out their latest album Lived Here Before this January. Here's something from it.
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Whyte Horses - Empty Words
Rough Trade Shop's recommendations are generally a useful barometer to direct you to something new and interesting. Their Record of the Week currently is Empty Words, the mammoth second album from Manchester's Whyte Horses and they're quite right to push it forward. Whyte Horses are the brainchild of Dom Thomas, also co-founder of the classic re-issue label Finder's Keepers. Empty Words is an enveloping, fascinating record and a huge step forward from their debut, 2016's Pop or Not.
This is music made by people with a better record collection then you have but also know how to use them in a genuinely innovative and fresh way, no mean feat in 2018. Tracks here melt into one another in the most sublime and impressive ways. Naive female vocals on top of a dreamlike symphonic production. Sixteen tracks long, but easily and perhaps best experienced at a single sitting. I've done so twice up to now and will be back for more.
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 27 Jim Dickinson
And the man who produced Big Star's third album. In addition to The Cramps, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Alex Chilton, The Replacements and all kinds of other great stuff, in addition to his own considerable achievements as a recording artist.
Song of the Day # 1,512 The Hanging Stars
London band come up with a wonderful approximation of Gram Parson fronting Big Star from their recent album Songs For Somewhere Else.
Saturday, March 10, 2018
Nap Eyes - I'm Bad Now
Halifax, Novia Scotia's Nap Eyes return with their third album I'm Bad Now, and it's a triumph. Both of their previous records were excellent too but here there's a sense of things falling into place and the a proper definitive statement being made here. The band draw unmistakably on the lineage of great alternative Rock and Roll. The record overflows with reminders of The Velvet Underground, Modern Lovers, Television and Pavement but I'm Bad Now does their legacy proud and is overflowing with wonderful moments of slacker epiphany.
Most of all Nap Eyes remind me in the best possibly way of the Velvets of Reed, Morrison, Yule and Tucker and the fluid brilliance of '69 Live. Lead singer Nigel Chapman plays a leading role in terms of providing a drole voice and identity to proceedings but it would be unfair not to credit the band as a unit for what is on show. A series of eleven tracks that knit together seamlessly and will thrill devotees of the proud tradition listed above. The songs are classically crafted and constantly surprise with their flowing warmth and invention. All in all a record that seems sure to offer up further rewards on each successive play. A wonderful achievement!
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 26 Richard Gottehrer
Producer and writer of My Boyfriend's Back, I Want Candy and Hang on Sloopy in the Sixties. Co-founder of Sire Records with Seymour Stein. In the Seventies he also worked with Blondie, The Go-Gos and Richard Hell.
Song of the Day # 1,511 Jim Dale
Jim Dale, best known as an actor in the British Carry On films, was also a songwriter and singer, most famously as the lyricist for The Seekers Georgy Girl. He also wrote this, covered by Des O'Connor among others. This was brought to my attention by Lawrence of Felt, Denim and Go-Kart Mozart, a collector and champion of such kitsch treasures.
Friday, March 9, 2018
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 25 Jimmy Miller
Producer of the classic run of Stones albums from Beggar's Banquet to Goat's Head Soup. Had a hugely notable career in addition to that, where he also worked with Traffic, Spooky Tooth and Primal Scream among others.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,510 Helta Skelta
'Nightclubbin' I'm alright. And I'm working on my exit strategy...'
The reinvention of our most precious past continues. And some people know very much what they're doing and are undergoing a glorious process of reinvention and self-discovery, while others are content to merely ape. Perth, Autralia's Helta Skelta belong very much in the former category. Clearly in the mold of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, they already have an album behind them and this superb EP Nightclubbin' from last year. On it they fuse the spirit of that band with that of their two core inspirations, The Stooges and The Saints, and the lead singer drawls in an accent that is wonderfully located somewhere between Estuary English and Bondai Beach. On opening track he sings about the politics of the dancefloor, (children's tears rhymes with arrears, hysteria with the Ministry of the Interior). Elsewhere they keep the pace and velocity full and things are by turn thrilling and funny. Outstanding!
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Song(s) of the Day # 1,509 Amaya Laucirica
The astonishingly named Australian artist Amaya Laucirica has a new album called Rituals, just out, her fifth in all, but her first international release. It's pretty much fascinated me since I listened to it first a couple of days ago. Mostly because of the things it reminded me of and the way it fits so snugly within the traditions it establishes for itself. It's a great record!
Laucirica was brought up in the Australian outback, and somehow, listening to Rituals and following the clues it lays down, that fact makes perfect sense. First track Little Clouds opens up in a manner highly reminiscent of The Triffids Wide Open Road, all wide eyed transcendental awe at this phenomenal space. Elsewhere, the record sounds like the one that Grant McLennan might have come up with on the original break up of The Go Betweens at the end of the Eighties, had he decided to produce and write for band member Amanda Brown, (the woman he loved at that point in time), rather than go off to record his own solo stuff.
High praise indeed and Rituals is well worthy of it. It evokes the space and sound of Born Sandy Devotional and 16 Lovers Lane without ever encroaching on their territory. There are definitely some eighties production values and sounds on the record, (a huge part of its appeal), and all the while Laucirica's voice floats effortlessly across the spaces established by them. While not an exceptional voice in itself, it's effectively used to add to a considerable mood which becomes more compelling with every play of the album.
Rituals comes up with one or two barnstorming moments on an album of solid songs which although it might occasionally feel as if you've been served up a bit too much Angel's Delight for dessert, generally stands it ground. In addition to All of our Time which Grant himself would have been proud of, I'd single out Endangered Man, which sounds like Serge Gainsbourg, Mick Harvey and Jane Birkin meeting up in a dream. One of the very best songs I've heard this year.
A couple of tracks on comes Could This Be which sounds like the song that David Lynch forgot to include on the original Twin Peaks soundtrack. Minutes later the album comes to an end and you really begin to think, 'should I just play the whole thing over again?' Rituals has considerable merits which I hope I've sold successfully to you and you'll have a listen to discover its pleasurable depths for yourself. All in all a fine album which deserves to find a considerable appreciative audience.
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 23 Jerry Wexler
And from the man who produced that! Also produced Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and Dusty Springfield. And that's just for starters.
Song of the Day # 1,508 Barbagallo
Julien Barbagallo, drummer of Tame Impala, has his second solo album, Danse Dans Les Ailleurs, just out. Here's the lead off track and 'single', L'echappe. It sounds like a French Gilbert O'Sullivan, not a bad idea in this case though the promo of a girl wandering around, finding herself in a multicoloured soft-play costume and then dance around in it on a landscape is a bit too French for words. Elsewhere, the record takes more risks, drawing on more disparate influences and is certainly worth a listen.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
The Hold Steady
'Here's the church, here's the steeple. I like the party favourites, but I hate the party people...'
New from The Hold Steady ahead of their next album. Difficult from a band like them at their point of their career but they still evidently have plenty of fire in their belly. Craig Finn does his best Dork Springsteen routine and the band sound trim and primed. The song itself is a fine one, talking of all things most American and bodes well for what's coming next...
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 279 Louis Armstrong
Because it is. Or at least it can be. And sometimes that needs celebrating late at night on a partial Monday night lock in at Rosie's.
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 22 Brian Eno
Work, (though not production), with Bowie from the mid to late Seventies. Talking Heads, Devo, John Cale, Ultravox and his own pioneering records.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,507 Forever Pavot
The anxiety of influence. What to do about it? How many times have you seen a review of a new record over the past few years which cite Stereolab and Broadcast as prime influences. I've done it myself on here more than once, most recently in the case of the new Gwenno album Le Kov. I'm going to do so again now, talking about the latest record by French artist Emile Sornin under the moniker Forever Pavot, La Pantoufle which came out last year.
The conclusion of the considerable influence of Stereolab and Broadcast on La Pantoufle is unmistakable. It swims in the lake of sound these two bands established the best part of two to three decades ago. It's not as if they didn't draw on things themselves too. Exotica, Philip Glass, Esquivel, The Velvets, Krautrock, Eno, Free Design, Gainsbourg, Film Soundtracks, blah, blah, blah. Sornin is quite upfront about the influence of both bands in interview he states, 'I feel a lot like Stereolab or Broadcast. These artists that draw on the past to do something new.'
So where does that leave us with La Pantoufle? Well it's great when it's not annoying. And when it's generally annoying is when it tries to be funny. In shorter tracks like The Most Expensive Chocolate Eggs which has a dreadfully irritating voiceover straight out of sixties kitsch culture and exploding machine noises of the kind you expect to hear only from children's toys. Or Jonathan et Rosalie where the two characters concerned appear to make love for the minute and a half that the track lasts.
Where they play things straighter, they're more successful. They've got language on their side of course. French is the natural habitat for this kind of artistic posing. Jean Cocteau was laying the foundations for this stuff more than a century back. Four or five tracks on here hit clear bullseyes. So while inspiration is immediately apparent, execution is often quite excellent. Though Forever Pavot never achieve the majestic victories achieved by the new Olden Yolk and Gwenno's albums just released, (both reviewed on here recently) who make the past work for them in the most successful ways imaginable (or Stereolab or Broadcast before them for that matter), they do hold on ultimately for an honorable draw.
Monday, March 5, 2018
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 21 Jerry Lieber & Mike Stoller
Right at the top of the tree. Produced and wrote for Elvis, Peggy Lee, The Drifters, The Coasters, Ben E. King and umpteen more. This was their last major production.
Song of the Day # 1,506 Harlem Gospel Travellers
Did Not Chart one of the most individual and interesting blogs listed on the right hand side of this page has led me once again to something interesting. A full blooded and glorious gospel song, just out on Colemine Records to follow up from My God Has a Telephone by The Flying Stars of Brooklyn, one of my favourite tracks of last year which Did Not Chart also directed me towards. I can only offer thanks. Dressed in old school paper sleeves, it offers the very best of yesterday for today.
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Songs About People # 564 William S. Harvey
With a mind to a longer post on Felt coming up shortly on here. Given that their first five albums have just been repackaged and re-released. It's so great to hear again, or hear for the first time, how many wonderful songs they were responsible for. In the meantime, here's the opening song from their instrumental Creation album, Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death, now renamed The Seventeenth Century. A song for William S. Harvey, the man responsible for the artwork on all of those timeless Elektra Records of the sixties.
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 20 Steve Albini
Provocateur, grouch and arch-contrarian. Regardless, the world is a better place for having Steve Albini in it. As The Breeders are just back with a new record, here's something from their first, which Albini produced.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,505 Tracey Thorn
Tracey Thorn is one of the most distinctive of all English voices. Moving on towards forty years from the point when she first appeared as one of Stern Bops and then The Marine Girls, that voice has thickened and deepened with time and experience but she maintains a specific strength and dignity. Now she sings with the determined but weary perspective middle age. As with so many records from those who first made their name in the eighties, Robert Forster, Pete Astor, Lloyd Cole, yes even Morrissey, it's interesting to hear how songwriters' preoccupations have moved on to tackle the concerns of dealing with being in the fifties
Tracey keeps things simple. Her new album is simply entitled Record and its songs and arrangements are plain and unadorned, underpinned by dance beats and instincts, informed by the great career sea change that Thorn's career with Everything but the Girl crucially took with Missing. Some of it sounds a bit ersatz and thin to my ears, but Thorn's magnificent voice is always there and these two songs definitely stand out from the pack on show on Record as new career milestones. She's still got lots to say.
Saturday, March 3, 2018
Gwenno - Le Kov
March sets off in splendid style with the cracking second album from Gwenno, Le Kov. A sparkling and highly original record, sung entirely in Cornish, a language which now has less than a thousand living speakers one of whom is the artist herself. Just this fact alone would make it worthy of attention, the added bonus being that it's also an incredibly distinguished and accessible album, despite the fact that the listener may not have the slightest idea what is actually being sung about, (translations are available and have been discussed in reviews), make it even more praiseworthy.
Gwenno, (Saunders), previously in Pipettes, has been putting out records for a number of years but Le Kov is definitely a step into a new space, even from her fine solo debut Y Dydd Olaf, released in 2015. That was sung in Welsh, Saunders was brought up by a Cornish speaking father and Welsh speaking mother. Le Kov, (which translates as Place of Memory) is a defiant and determined sounding record, touching on Brexit, displacement and struggle to express identity in an increasingly uniform and often oppressive mainstream culture. But there's still much opposition and resistance. evident in the margins as this album attests
In terms of its musical palette the record melds Krautrock, Folk, artists like Stereolab, Broadcast, Super Furry Animals and Serge Gainsbourg into fascinating, captured woven textures that are the stuff of dream. Cornish is such an evocative, mythic sounding language that the sense of spell that results from all this is quite captivating, and can't help but mind me of the rich and ancient historical and cultural legacy of Arthurian legend.
What I find particularly admirable about Le Kov is its pure power as artistic statement in a historical and political moment when we are most in need of them. Just singing in this dying language (sadly a conclusion that must be drawn), Gwenno potentially limits the audience for a record that in terms of its sound is more accessible to a greater audience than the one it might actually reach, but is determined to stick to its own resolve, and that determination should be respected. So a record that could easily take the path of Jane Weaver's highly successful and lauded Modern Kosmology which featured highly in virtually every end of year chart in 2017 probably won't, because of its own unshakeable principle.
Le Kov may not ultimately achieve such success and acclaim in 2018 as Modern Kosmology did last year but this would be a shame because its an equally, and possibly (based on my initial listenings to it), an even more accomplished record. Myth, memory and melody come together to conjure up what will surely be one of my very favourite albums of this year.
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 278 Al Green
On a highly enjoyable drink fuelled Friday evening at Rosie's, the mid-evening mood was very much Soul driven and I very much enjoyed putting on and hearing the Reverend Al's second-best known 'Let's' song.
Thirty Days & Thirty Studio Producers # 19 Shel Talmy
Celebrated on here with a small series of his own a while back. Producer of The Who, The Kinks, Cat Stevens, Pentangle and other sixties notables.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,504 Imarhan
Leaders of the 'New Wave of Tuareg' Algerian band Imarhan have just released their second album Temet. It's a sweeping, glorious statement, combing the best traditions of the music, laid down in recent years by the likes of Tinariwen and Tamikrest with plenty of their own fire and joy.
In some ways Imarhan are fuelled by the same kind of instincts as British blues bands of the late sixties and early seventies, and reinvigorate the tired aspects of that sound with their own cultural vigour. Temet is a notable album, with a shifting set of moods and tones, pushing forward a loose movement of nomadic groups onward and upward. Listening to it on headphones at work at my desk this week, I couldn't sit still, rocking backwards and forwards in my seat to its inescapable rhythms and energy.
Friday, March 2, 2018
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 277 Bill Ryder-Jones
Delighted to see that the splendid Bill Ryder-Jones album West Kirby County Primary from a couple of years back, has appeared on the jukebox at Rosie's. It's a small, and very English masterpiece.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,503 Firestations
Two songs from young London band Firestations ahead of their second album, The Year Dot, coming in April. On the basis of these, it should be well worth a listen.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Song(s) of the Day # 1,502 The Green Child
The eponymous, debut album from The Green Child, just out, is a ghostly affair. The product of a union between Grass Widow's Raven Mahon and Total Control's Mikey Young, it takes the best aspects of these two wonderful bands, (two of the very best alternative bands of the last ten years I reckon), and comes up with something that's not quite like either of them but fit for comparison with both .
By turns unnerving and elevating, on the surface it's reminiscent of all of those synth duos of the early eighties, except that it's positively eldritch in a way that none of them were. Majesty II is a Top Five single hit in an alternative and better universe. Elsewhere, there's much more to savour. Taking their name from Herbert Read's 1935 utopian sci-fi novel The Green World explore brave new worlds and glassy liquid depths and are well worthy of investigation.
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