It's never too late to start a new, spurious series on this blog three and a half years in. This was playing on a Saturday morning in Beatdown the record shop opposite my flat just now. 2016 has been a strange year by whatever measure is applied to it but for many people it remains the year of David Bowie, Prince, Alan Vega and Leonard Cohen. Perhaps the guitar solos from this eight minute version of the track from Diamond Dogs on 1974's David Live are a little too shrill and long but when David is on the mic you kind of want it to go on even longer than it does!
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Albums of the Year # 37 The Coathangers
Another Atlanta band. Friends and associates of the Black Lips. Strictly Punk / Garage sensibility, their offering from this year is a wonderful set of rollercoaster rides that makes you wish they were playing in your town this week.
Songs About People # 246 Saul Bellow
So while we're here, some more Sufjan. As it says on the sleeve below, one of the outtakes from the Illinois album.
Things Found on my Local's Jukebox # 165 Sufjan Stevens
This has been Sufjan Stevens week musically in my small universe. Not that I've just discovered him, I've been aware of his stuff for years. But this has been the week when it all fell into place for me and I immersed myself in his work, starting with a Song of the Day and rising to a peak on Thursday when I went to a Record Player event at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle when the whole of his magical album of last year, Carrie & Lowell was played accompanied by a fine slideshow and in the company of good friends. It was a wonderful night. Meanwhile at Rosie's I've discovered there is a whole raft of his stuff on the jukebox. This was merely the first selection. Who says we have we have no geniuses in the here and now to match up against the greats of the past. Here's one!
Song of the Day # 1,035 StarBenders
Directed here by a magazine recommendation from Blondie's Chris Stein who can probably be relied on to spot a good pop band. They're from Atlanta which seems to be responsible for so much great music at the moment. They put out a good album, Heavy Petting, which rifles through the last six decades really cleverly and this song, which doesn't feature on the album, is a more recent release.
Friday, November 18, 2016
Albums of the Year # 38 Teleman
'The great records keep coming up the pike this year. This one's just the latest. Two years back English band Teleman, included an extra track on their debut album Breakfast. Called Not In Control and the best thing they'd done up to this point, it laid down the template for this, their second. Sleek and Germanic, with a better adjusted Ian Curtis at the mic it offered a polished promise that they've fulfilled almost wholly here.
The keyword is clearly Germanic, for Teleman, like Franz Ferdinand ten years before them look towards all things Teutonic as the source in their search for a holy pop grail. On Brilliant Sanity they nail it on several occasions. Most obviously on opening salvos Dussledorf, (see what I mean?) Fall In Time and Glory Hallelujah a set of songs so assured and inspired that they set the bar almost impossibly high for themselves to sustain for the rest of the course of the record.
'Put on, put on your favourite song...'
The album dips for a couple of tracks but then steers itself back on course with slower number Canvas Shoe which restores a glacial calm and thereafter the record picks up a speedy pace again that it maintains until arrival. Tangerine has an inspired oriental back-melody. English Architecturegives you the sense that you're speeding off in a state of the art car with someone you love. Melrose, oddly reminded me of Cat Stevens's Wild World, but in a good way. Drop Out revisits Not In Control in terms of picking up on the basic fear we all have of losing the plot altogether. Fortunately they don't. Devil In My Shoe is as emotional as they get, gives you the greatest glimpse of the band's basic humanity and is a fitting and touching closer. There's more to say about the album but I'll leave it at that for now.
There's much to appreciate and relish here. Teleman are skilled pop practitioners, never quite giving of themselves, afraid of letting go altogether concerned as they are first and foremost with keeping the production line going. Nothing wrong with that. We've all got a job to do. Brilliant Sanity should sell much, much more and get more attention than it seems likely to do given the current market and where most people seem to be looking. It's great nevertheless!'
 |
Song of the Day 1,034 John Moreland
An apt soundtrack for this moment in time. John Moreland's record from this year, High on Tulsa Heat, very much in the Springsteen mold and reflection all the contradictions of small-town American life.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Albums of the Year 2016 # 39 Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve
Rough Trade, publishing their list of a hundred best albums of the year a couple of days back has played gentle havoc with my own list, introducing me to all kinds of goodies late in the day. Still, that's fine, it helps things get more eclectic.
Here are Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve, 'part folk-astronauts. part neo-romancers,' Erol Alkan and Richard Norris, (of The Grid), with The Soft Bounce a set of diverse electro-dream tracks supplemented by star vocal turns.
It may not all be to your taste but there's likely to be something there to pique your interest. We've been here before, with The Chemical Brothers, Death in Vegas, UNKLE and others but it seems to be something that we British do particularly well. Here's a link to a Guardian article which tells a fuller tale.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,033 She-Devils
Montreal's She-Devils, sounding like Hope Sandoval backed by the Gun Club. Soundtracking the strange David Lynch-ian world we find ourselves in, late in 2016. Here's their recently released EP.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Albums of the Year 2016 # 40 Papooz
Paris based duo Papooz are a bulwark against darkening nights and winter drawing in. Their first album Green Juice, released a few months ago, is a beaut, cocktail lounge pop frothiness that might remind you of why you had a soft spot for The Cardigans when they pulled off similar tricks back in the day.
The record is slightly uneven, I was rather alarmed to see the lead singer coming on like jazz phase Sting during Brother. But at its best, and I've tried to cherry pick the finest moments here, it's a splendid record that in addition to the Cardigans, might also recall Air, early Aztec Camera, the Marine Girls, Weekend and so forth. A light and lovely thing.
Twee # 90 Teenage Fanclub
'She wears denim wherever she goes. Says she's going to get some records by the Status Quo.'
Song(s) of the Day # 1,032 Nino Ferrer
Nino Ferrer was vaguely associated with the French Ye Ye movement in the sixties, when he started making records although already in his thirties, something of a poor man's Jacques Dutronc. Then he became something of a maverick. He quit the music scene in 1967 to move to Italy only to return a few years later having undergone something of a metamorphosis. This comes from his 'back to the land' 1972 album Nino & Radiah. A great record though I'm not at all sure about the wisdom of its album sleeve.
Still it's well worth unearthing. Much better known in its native France I imagine where Ferrer maintained his star status until his suicide in 1998, it's a proper pastoral curiosity, beautifully arranged and delivered.
Largely sung in English though this doesn't detract from its charms, in fact adding a layer of strangeness to proceedings. Supported throughout by Afro-American singer Radiah Frye and backed by the Lafayette Afro Rock Band who add considerable punch and muscle to proceedings. The royalties Ferrer earned from it allowed him to purchase a 15th century in the Quercy region and listening to this, you have to say it was well deserved.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Songs Heard on the Radio # 163 Richmond Fontaine
Richmond Fontaine are winding up operations round about now after years of noble service to words and to music. This comes from their final record.
Albums of the Year 2016 # 41 Cool Ghouls
Cool indeed. Taking the well trodden path of Byrdsian / Paisley Underground jingle-jangle and with the finest Rock and Roll song that I've heard this year as its title track, (Animal Races) and opener. Not available as an Internet link for me to post it but track it down! The whole album is brimful of Californian sunshine and good vibes.
Monday, November 14, 2016
Things Found on my Local's Jukebox # 164 Japan
A good Monday night at Rosie's. I put this on. Milli, who's pretty much the patron saint of that place didn't really approve of it. But he did put on plenty of other good stuff in response!
Albums of the Year 2016 # 42 Eleanor Friedberger
Written way back when 2016 was young. I haven't listened to it as much as I might have done but doing so again brought back all of its charms. Really a record that deserves to be listened through all the way through in one sitting!:
'Eleanor Friedberger's third album is the first new long playing record I've really fallen for this year, with the exception of Bowie's Blackstar which as events transpired seemed less a new record than an enormously loaded cultural statement of shared experience. New View, of course is a lesser record but it's still a very fine one, full of lovely moments and observations.
It seems to me to be a quite grown up album. Appropriately, as she is turning forty. Her work over many years with Fiery Furnaces was the very definition of the adjective 'quirky', with every song firing off in twenty directions at once. Some of it worked, some of course didn't. Her first two solo records were similarly offbeat and this one is too but it's also much more mature and considered and self-consciously so.
'Sweet girl with the broken heart. Stop crying so I don't start..'
The album reflects changes in Friedberger's own life. She's recently left her long time base in Brooklyn for a more suburban home upstate and its telling that the songs she's made for this record seem stiller and less frantic. There are still great lines thrown into the mix, 'Why would you want to take it slow....treat me like a tennis pro?' 'Why would you want to tell the truth? Or furnish me with mathematical proof. Or jump with me off of the roof?' from very wonderful fifth track Because I Asked You. But this time it seems that these moments all contribute towards a larger purpose rather than being thrown out without any greater intent. Towards the end of the song she drops the line 'Because I love you...' and it carries genuine weight because she's held back for so long before delivering it. She sings it just the once. It doesn't need to be repeated.She'll never be Carole King but this record seems an inspired move in that general direction. By letting more conventional song-craft into her writing the wackiness that once seemed slightly forced or at least overplayed now comes across as a beautiful and genuine expression of individuality.
Each song has a character of its own that unfolds and surprises and makes you want to know it better. Friedberger is backed by a band of young musicians who thicken out her sound considerably. There's the warm autumnal hum of an organ throughout, so reminiscent of Al Kooper's playing on Dylan's sixties records. There are occasionally forays of gently wailing guitars the kind of thing that you thought might actually have been outlawed at some time in the seventies but here sound just right.
As I write this I'm listening through to New View in full for the second time and just like the first, as it winds to its end I'm struck by just how very good it is. It feels like a record made the way that records used to be. Lovingly, and without an accountant peering over your shoulder. Friedberger in interviews recently has talked about the danger that she's becoming boring as if the very act of moving from the city to the suburbs makes your worldview less relevant or exciting. I think this is a long way from the truth. It's the best record of hers that I've heard. I've just spent an hour in its company and its calmed me, made me forget my worries and long to hear it again all at once. It does what music is supposed to do. It's a small but beautifully realised work of art.'
Song of the Day # 1,030 Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens is one of those strangely modern artists we should feel for grateful for. Pursuing a strange, individual vision. Joanna Newsom, John Grant, Regina Spektor, Frank Ocean, Courtney Barnett, Eleanor Friedberger, (of whom more shortly), are other names to mention here. Informed by different pasts but very much creating in the here and now. This comes from an album eleven years back where he briefly seemed intent on creating a set of albums each focused on a different American state. He seems to have given up on that particular venture and who can blame him! Any song named The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get us deserves some attention. The track itself lives up to its billing.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Covers # 66 Nouvelle Vague
I'm not always a fan of Nouvelle Vague, French ironists and their New Wave / Punk Lounge covers. But this version of Richard Hell & the Voidoids classic from their new album I Could Be Happy made me smile!
Songs (Tracks) Heard on the Radio # 162 Mulatu Astatke
There's a DJ on BBC's 6 Music called Ceys Matthews who knows instinctively what to play on a Sunday morning. Here's today's re-posted example.
Albums of the Year 2016 # 43 Alex Cameron
'Alex Cameron is your new favourite loser. Or, to put it more poetically he's music's rising connoissuer of failure. A character songwriter in the guise of a Lynchian cabaret act, he peoples his synthpop with stories more suited to AA meetings than song-and-dance routines. Meanwhile, his artistic persona embodies all the disappointment and desperation that showbusiness can foster. Dreams curdle over preppy drum machine beats. Spirits sink to soaring 80s melodies. His show is at once a deflation and a celebration of the idea of the entertainer.'
The album itself is called Jumping the Shark, from the infamous episode in Happy Days famously thought of as a nadir in popular TV history. The record would be higher, but it was actually originally released before 2016, (waiting for this year before an official label release), which leaves it languishing here in the high forties. It's nevertheless a very, very fine album that I've only just begun to listen to.
Another point of comparison from the Pitchfork review of the album where Cameron's sound is described as Nick Cave fronting Suicide. It's all there in closer Take Care of Business where a bank of synths bring things to a soaring close. Listen to it!
Song of the Day # 1,029 Tom Robinson Band
This blog isn't intended as polemic though occasionally it will become clear that I'm basically a libertarian in my attitudes to the world outside these virtual walls. This song comes from the deep, dark seventies when there was genuine talk about revolution from either the left or the right in the UK and both Europe and America were fermenting with social and underground unrest.It's strange and odd that it somehow seems relevant again, (even if the song itself may seem a bit naff), forty years on. A couple of decades on from the advent of the Internet it seems that the more knowledge we have access to the less we understand.
It also has very specific personal memories for me, reminding me of a very good German friend from my youth who I worked with in Switzerland when I was nineteen and who chose a few years later not to stay with us all. 'Power in the Darkness' Holger! This one's for you.
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Things Found on my Local's Jukebox # 163 Leonard Cohen
'I love you in the morning. Our kisses deep and warm.'
More Len. A jukebox farewell. This seemed appropriate. Though I doubt it's the last I'll play over the coming weeks.
Songs About People # 245 Joan of Arc
Leonard Cohen always did everything at his own, slow, measured pace. His parting was almost as graceful as everything else about him at a precise moment in history when the world seems to be plunging into an eerie, enveloping darkness. It's worth a reminder here with this song that Leonard knew very well that we'd all been here before.
Albums of the Year 2016 # 44 Angel Olsen
Like Cate le Bon and Steve Gunn lower down the list, Angel Olsen came out with a record this year that was not too dissimilar in tone and feel to her previous album. That doesn't in itself downplay the quality of the record, (My Woman). It's a very good one. The go to album every time you want an imaginary, vengeful girlfriend in the Bette Davis / Joan Crawford mold. It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it, and Olsen does it better than anybody else, though I suspect sometimes that it might all be a bit of a method exercise. Still, certainly in the Best Supporting Female Actress category in the award ceremony this year.
The Heart of Rock and Soul # 792 The Eurythmics
'Not just the smartest synth-pop riff: the smartest synth-pop song too. Annie Lennox doesn't seem to have intended it that way. Sweet Dreams is in fact a pointed critique of the commodity culture of late twentieth century capitalism, a description of its processes and seductions. That's not why it was a hit - it was a hit because Dave Stewart found a great riff and then rode it into the ground - but it's why the record outlasted its moment on the charts.'
Twee # 86 Josef K
'Paul Haig on the lyrics: 'The Charles Atlas reference is about me being thin and the whole song is about a relationship between two people who are disabled and the fun that they have together.'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)