It Starts With a Birthstone...

Monday, March 8, 2021

Electric Eden # 21 Comus

Young wanders off the beaten track to some of the darker journeys of early Seventies Folk.

Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 208 Cornershp - When I was Born For the Seventh Time

'Tjinder Singer of Cornershop is one of many of us who don't quite know where we belong.'

This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 215 Robert Wyatt

'Robert Wyatt uniquely moving cockney choirboy tones were perfect.'

Song(s) of the Day # 2,601 POSTDATA

A rather exciting, personal musical discovery for me last week, (thanks Rod), was this one. Twin Flames, the latest from Canadiant outfit POSTDATA. Note the capitals. That's how they want to be presented. They're an Art Rock concern if you want labels, but not one that do what they do in conventional manners. There's plenty to explore and think about here. I'll do my best in the coming paragraphs.

First of all they remind me of the early Eighties, when I personally was first really starting to listen to music and read books and truly think about them alongside constructing my own adult identity. They sound like a lot of those early British synth bands who were starting to make their early waves then, weaved out of dreams, intuition and ambition.

What I like most about POSTDATA is their emotional attack. It's subtle but quite obviously heartfelt and nuanced. The band's singer and designated leader, Paul Murphy, (also of Wintersleep), is at the core of their sound. His voice is deeply warm and powerful and can affect the lstener, or at least it affected this one, in strange ways, with its quite palpable sincerity and intent.

Twin Flames is not an album that opens its petals all at once. It's clearly impacted by deep emotional intensity, thoughts and not always happy or easy ones but Murphy martials all that is going on with a quite courageous intent to make the record a glorious, immersive journey.

There's a thread going through this. The songs here are not melodically or structurally similar, there's a lot of variety here. But they're united by a core mission statement of commitment and bravery that is quite unusual in 2021. Twin Flames is one to return to and get to know. It's a brilliantly conceived and executed statement.

Sunday, March 7, 2021

Love Will Tear Us Apart

Songs Heard on the Radio # 392 Jeannie C. Riley

Nice to hear this on a Sunday morning.

Songs About People # 1,265 Walter Sickert

Rather odd sounding tribute to a great artist. Must say, I prefer the painter to the song.

Albums of the Year - 1972

Another wonderful year for music. Here are the Top Ten albums on the Best Ever Albums site.

1. David Bowie - The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars

2. The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

3. Nick Drake - Pink Moon

4. Yes - Close to the Edge

5. Neil Young - Harvest

6. Lou Reed - Transformer

7. Deep Purple - Machine Head

8. Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick

9. Can - Ege Bamyasi

10. Genesis - Foxtrot

Also my own personal list chosen from records that I own. Not I stress what I think the best records made in 1972, (the year my family came back from Africa to live in England), were. Just my own personal favourites. Bowie had to be Number One here too. One of the very best Pop records ever made. It has plenty of competition. I've just been listening to Talking Book just now and had to place it higher than I originally had, it's such a fabulous record. If I listen to the others I might want to change it again. Still. we'll leave it here. Ranking is frankly quite spurious when the albums concerned are as good as these.

1. David Bowie - The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars

2. Stevie Wonder - Talking Book

3. Lou Reed - Transformer

4. The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

5. Big Star - # 1 Record

6. Neil Young - Harvest

7. Roxy Music - Roxy Music

8. Nick Drake - Pink Moon

9. Can - Ege Bamyasi

10. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Clear Spot

Plenty else that deserves a mention. Ten is really not enough. Wishbone Ash, (yes, Argus is a very good record), Todd Rundgren, the Harder They Come Soundtrack, Family, Elton John, Nuggets. Also an honorary mention for Neu by Neu, which I don't own on vinyl, but would be in the Top Ten if I did.

Fruit Bats - The Pet Parade

The Fruit Bats new record, The Pet Parade is a very good album which will do nothing but remind you of other records in your collection. I have no problem at all with that, especially when the record that results is one as good as this one. It has a warm nostalgic glow and is full of happy memories.

Fruit Bats have been around in various guises since the late Nineties and so they ought to know what they're doing by now. On the evidence of the first few tracks of The Pet Parade, they clearly do. This warm, immersive record took me back to reflective Bob after his motorcyle accident, early Seventies Neil Young, the country leaning Triffids and more and more I found, as the record spun on Spotify, to one of my own particular favourites, John Lennon's Lost Weekend buddy, Harry Nilsson.

Eric D. Johnson, the main man behind the Fruit Bats collective, is clearly in the mood to kick back and relax at this point of his career and life. This makes for a gentle, undemanding listen not a million years away from some of the stuff that Kevin Morby has come up with in recent years, minus the residual anger and self-doubt.

Johnson seems in little doubt of where he's going. There's much staring at the heavens in wonder at where we stand in relation to the scheme of things we find ourselves in and Johnson provides a still centre to the turning world. These are utterly assured songs that burst into gorgeous flowing choruses, not one's that will disturb your universe but remind to stop worrying about wherever that might be.

Occasionally there's a blissful swoon, and Johnson points out that ultimately we're all on our own, but he does so in such a flippant, throwaway manner that you know that this bleak conclusion is not the absolute truth either. There all kinds of glass half empty musings on this record but the Fruit Bats musical recipe is such a sugared pill that you barely notice.

Apparently Supertramp are also on Johnson's influence list, and I can believe that listening to this, and actually don't mind it at all given that Fruit Bats are clearly emotionally and lyrically a great deal more enlightened than that particular band. No 'take a look at my girlfriend,' nonsense here.

This is a peach of a record, coming out on the first weekend of March, which frankly had no end of them. Open your arms to the warm loving embrace of The Pet Parade. You won't regret it.

Electric Eden # 20 David Bowie

The advent of the Free Hippie Festivals. Mentions of Isle of Wight, Phun City, Hampstead Heath and inevitably Glastonbury. This is as good a soundtrack as any. Bowie was a Hippie and a Folky too once.

Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 207 Missy Elliott - Supa Dupa Fly

'Melissa Elliott came bounding out of Portsmouth, Virginia...'

This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 214 Gregory Isaacs

'Night Nurse was everywhere in the late aummer of ' 82.'

Song(s) of the Day # 2,600 Elizabeth & the Catapult

I was always likely to be taken and drawn towards an artist called Elizabeth & the Catapult. I'm generally attracted to those who choose interesting monikers to embark upon pop careers under, and this one is particularly curious and eccentric. Sounds like the follow up to James & the Giant Peach to me.

I only became aware of Elizabeth and her catapult earlier on this week. On Monday to be precise, when I went to Metacritic to find out what was coming out on Friday. The name appealed to me and so I did some initial research during the week into the Elizabethan back catalogue. My interest increased appreciably.

So now the new record sincerely, e is here and it's a wonderful thing. Freewheeling, inventive, playful and lyrical, the work primarily of Elizabeth Ziman, a New York musician and artist who's been plying her art and putting out records for over ten years before she came to my attention. My loss.

The music here is reflective and meandering, working within singer songwriting conventions but digressing delightfully into jazzy side street inflections that reminded me of Ricky Lee Jones. But the person that came to my mind most forcefully was Regina Spektor, one of my very favourite musicians of all.

On thirsty Ziman utterly inhabits Spektor Land. Quirky, carefree and full of the joys of spring, riding a wave of funky finger clicks, joy and Doo Wop. But sincerely, e is thoughtful and reflective too. In many ways a record for Covid-19, a time of dread and fear in many respects but at least an opportunity to think and compose our thoughts and creative endeavour.

Ziman exists in a tradition. Not just that of Ricky Lee and Regina but also that of Joni, Laura Nyro and often here of Carole King the original Brill Building dreamer. These influences and reminders by no means diminish the impact of this quite lovely record. Don't make the mistake I made. Discover Elizabeth and her catapult now. It made me wish I could still do cartwheels. But then again come to think of it, I never could.

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Dave Clark 5

Songs About People # 1,264 Dudley Moore

Dudley Moore says keep going. Always a good idea to do as Dudley Moore suggests.

Songs Heard on the Radio # 391 Etta James

Huey Morgan doing the right thing on Saturday morning radio.

Electric Eden # 19 Tyrrannosaurus Rex

Young goes back to The Summer of Love and onward from there to the early Seventies. But his narrative thread is seamless.

Song(s) of the Day # 2,599 Model Village

Yesterday was a truly wonderful one for new record releases, which I hope I'll be able to do some justice to over the coming days. Not least of these wonderful things is World of Carp, the sparkling new album from south-ish east-ish indie combo Model Village.

This is familiar fare for those of us who have been prone to this kind of stuff for the best part of almost forty years now. The kind of thing that John Peel particularly, made ample space for on his late night shows back in the day next to the more outre. Jaunty, well-scrubbed, purposesful, independent guitar pop, made for, and by those who understand the small joys of these things.

A few pointers. The Housemartins, The Popguns, the way Johnny Marr used to embroider early Smith songs. C-86, Sarah Records, Heavenly Records, Tracy Thorn. The promise of another English spring. Model Village demonstrate again and again their mastery of their chosen form.

World of Carp is not an album that strikes out for fresh, experimental ground, but that's not necessarily either what you want or expect from a record like this. Instead it burrows its way into the essence of this particular lane of music and is consistently inventive melodically and lyrically. I found it very good company.

Model Village strike me as a band who know exactly where they're from and what they wish to be. In the words of their Spotify bio, they're 'purveyors of sophisticated commuter pop.' Like The Sundays before them. Not the most heady of ambitions perhaps, but we're pretty much all obliged to do the nine to five thing to some degree or other and here is a record that allows us to dream at least while we're at it.

The band also has a couple of moments mid-way through the record where they stretch themselves and show their more reflective side on a couple of longer numbers Roles and Sunbur,n that hint at longing for the weekend and the opportunity to step into their own clothes.

We're not particularly given glimpses of the souls and inner burdens of Model Village here, but you wouldn't want to listen to Scott, Leonard and Nick all time. Or at least I don't. Towards the end of the trip I was surprised to find Variety Box reminding me momentarily of Mamas & Papas before the next track clicked back into more conventional indie terrain.

There are ten tracks in all and not a duff one among them. I wonder whether this is an album that will continue to draw me back. Time will tell. It's too early to know at this stage. But the band and their latest are charming and diverting company, the brief encounter on the morning train that you find yourself coming back to many years later and wondering what became of them. Then coming back, to listen to the record again.

Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 206 Spiritualised - Ladies & Gentlemen we are Floating in Space

'When you get dumped you can reaffirm your love affair with heroin.'

This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 213 Rockers Revenge

'The Handclaps - Like Car Wash on the moon.'

Friday, March 5, 2021

Orange Juice

Songs About People # 1,263 Mabel Normand

Stevie Nicks plays tribute to Mabel Normand the rather tragic star of the silent screen.

Electric Eden # 18 The Albion Band

What Ashley Hutchings did after Fairport. Some of this band's music has the most fabulous undertow to it.

Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 205 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call

'An album made from a crisis in faith, in God, in people in love.'

This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 212 Afrika Bambataa & the Soul Sonic Force

Song of the Day # 2,598 Rachel Love

From former Dolly Mixture and her forthcoming album Primose Hill. Wistful is a word which comes to mind.

Thursday, March 4, 2021

The Beatles & Sylvie Vartan

Songs Heard on the Radio # 390 The Holiday Ghosts

The Holiday Ghosts, a band I've been much fond of over the last few years, are back. With a new album in the pipeline. Can't wait to hear it.

Electric Eden # 17 Magnet

Twenty Five pages that take in Led Zep and Black Sabbath's flirtation with Folk.Also the great British Horror films of the late Sixties and Seventies. Hammer Studios feature, as does The Whicker Man. Magnet was a group of musicians put together for the specific purposes of soundtracking the film. It's still a fabulous listen.

Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 206 Erykah Badu - Baduizm

'came off like Billie Holliday reborn as an Afro-American princess of the hip hop streets.'

Song(s) of the Day # 2,597 Cassandra Jenkins

New Yorker, Cassandra Jenkins is an artist who has been attracting a fair bit of notice of late. Features and reviews in the likes of Uncut Magazine ,glowing reviews and repeated plays from DJs such as 6 Music's Gideon Coe, who know their stuff.

Jenkins' latest record An Overview of Phenomenal Nature, from what I can gather, her second, has been out a couple of weeks and I've played it a few times and it's a very impressive album. Full of space and light and thought, reflection on life and loss, intoned with calm phrasing reminiscent of Laurie Anderson, Margo Timmins and Suzanne Vega.

Some background detail might be helpful with regards to getting a feel for this. Jenkins is a very close friend and musical associate of David Berman, Of Sikver Jews and Ourple Mountains), who lost his struggle with life and passed in dreadfully sad circumstances less than a couple of years back.

This was a death that affected a lot of people who had been moved and stirred by Berman's work over the years. But clearly it must have had a particularly unnerving impact on those who knew and worked with him.

An Overview is a record in gradual transition from pain to somewhere more hopeful. In short, a reflection on life.The grief, the mourning is palpable, but so too is the plapable resolve to push on to somewhere more positive.

Beauty is probably an overused and abused phrase but I find this a really beautiful record and one I suspect will endure. It's just seven tracks long but by no means insubstantial. One to return to and work out what you liked about it and why it resonated first time round.

This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 211 Explainer

'Probably the most intensely joyful record in these pages.'

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Songs Heard on the Radio # 389 Jim Ghedi

Thick, grained Folk. From an album In the Furrows of Common Place, released on January 22nd.

More Harvey...

Songs About People # 1,262 Harvey Pekar

One for an American Everyman eccentric. Comic artist Harvey Pekar.

Electric Eden # 16 Strawbs

In this section Young focuses on the British response to the remarkable revolution that occured in American Folk and Country music at this time particularly driven by the likes of The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and Gram Parsons. In doing so, he shines a light upon the phenomenal 1971 album from Strawbs, From The Witchwood.

Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 205 Blur - Blur

'Makes a great noise out of comedown...ennui.'

This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 210 Shalamar

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Song(s) of the Day # 2,596 UJU

It seems South Korea's remarkable Indie Spring continues. UJU are here to keep the stage warm while we await the return of Say Sue Me. They play Shoegaze cousins to Sue's C-86 jangle. Slowdive rather than The June Brides.

They're not quite as startling as Say Sue Me were, one of my favourite new bands of the last few years that lot. But UJU's latest Dream of Better Days is certainly a diverting and undemanding listen on familiar lines.

UJU's singer is your cute new girlfriend cajoling you to watch TV until the sun rises. I imagine plenty will jump at the chance. UJU never get particularly excited, but why should they, they seem to have come upon a groove that suits them fine. Clearly enamoured of Alvvays in addition to Ride and they maintain an Indie cool that is likeable if never Yellow Jersey material.. Dream of Better Days is aptly entitled for these days and should be just what some need.