To Pimp a Butterfly; quick review

Listening fairly obsessively to the new Kendrick Lamar LP at the moment. My last.fm tells me I've racked up 99 song plays in the last day or two - am sure that'll be many many more by the weekend. It's much too early to pass judgement on 'To Pimp A Butterfly' after only five or six listens, especially as I mistakenly underestimated 'Good Kid, Maad City' on release - and only latterly realised that how incredibly rich, complex, moving and clever it is.

Something that's broadly true of his whole back catalogue. At the moment it feels like all three of his albums are classics, which puts him ahead of so many of his peers and predecessors.

By my calculation the list of rap artists who managed three consecutive classics is staggeringly short - 2pac, A Tribe Called Quest, Ice Cube and Public Enemy. That puts him ahead of Biggie, Jay-Z, Nas, Snoop, Dre, Wu Tang (although RZA managed a hell of a run if you count the solo LPs - at one point he racked up 'Only Built 4 Cuban Linx', 'Liquid Swords' & 'Ironman' a mere matter of months apart).

Anyway - Kendrick is so profoundly ahead of everyone else making rap records at the moment. The sonic palette on his new one is a perfect and logical brew given his development as an artist and the growth of his themes. Gone are the colder, harsher tones of 'Good Kid, Maad City' and in comes a warmer, more soulful sound, more in the vein of 'Section.80' (which makes sense given that GKMC speaks of a darker, earlier time than his debut).

Along with the soul comes stunning jazz instrumentation and funk breaks, drawing on the conscious rap of Native Tongues as well as the gorgeous warmth of the g-funk pioneered by Dr Dre and DJ Quik. It's the celebration of the West Coast promised by 'Compton' at the end of Good Kid, but richly developed by a rejection of gang-oriented themes and a broader enunciation of Kendrick's black consciousness. There's a lot of spoken word on this LP, including a bravura 'conversation' with 2pac at the album's close which has left the hair standing up on the back of my neck each time I've heard it.

Lyrically, Kendrick sounds like he's on amazing form, but there's so much to decipher and enjoy, and I have literally only just got started on this one. It feels like a work of genius so far.

Currently listening, Jan 13

1. Matthew E White – Big Inner LP
The Guardian haven’t stopped praising Matthew E White since his debut record came out, and tempting though it is to be dismissive of such hype, it’s a really brilliant LP – a soulful and immaculate record with incredible arrangements and a near uncategorisable spectrum of influnces, from country, jazz, folk, gospel and soul to glimpses (if I’m right) of acid house. A genuine marvel.

2. Sexy Fi – Nunca Te Vi De Boa
I shan’t try too hard to categorise Sexy Fi either; weird, tropical, funky, jangly, noisy pop music from Brazil. No idea who they are but really like this record! Here it is on Spotify.

3. Traams – Peggy
Easily the best new band I saw last year, their live sets are dominated by long, heavy, teutonic jams – like Big Black channeling Neu. This song proves they can do short songs with brilliant ‘ooh-ooh’ choruses, too.

4. Yo La Tengo – Fade LP
I’ve never listened to any Yo La Tengo records. I’ve no idea why or how I’ve managed this. This is their new one. It suggests I’ve rather missed out – beautifully realised, fuzzy indie rock.

5/6. Kimbra – Vows LP / Dawn Richard – Goldenheart LP
Two records I discovered, again, through positive Guardian album reviews. Kimbra specialises in joyful electronic pop and Dawn Richard in stylish but unshowy r’n'b. Both are great.

7. Masta Killah – All Natural
Like most Wu-afilliated records these days, Masta Killah’s latest is a mixed bag, but it boasts a couple of decent songs – the best by far is this, which finds the rapper deconstructing his vegetarianism. Brilliant.

8. Gerry Read – Jummy LP
I’m always looking for house music which endures across a full LP, and Gerry Read’s subtle, shifting, four-to-the-floor house music is the closest I’ve found to what I like in a long time.

9. Viv Albertine – The Vermilion Border LP
If I’d have listened to this a lot more in 2012 it would have featured quite highly in my records of the year list; it’s fucking brilliant – a smart, sassy, sexy LP from the former Slits guitarist. This should percolate far and wide, if there’s any justice.

10. Keel Her – You Would Be So Grossed Out If I Did That
Still not many official releases from the unbelievably prolific, and now Brighton-based, Keel Her (she releases new tracks online all the time); but her recent single ‘Riot Grrrl’ is her best release yet. A proper recording of this slightly wonky acoustic song is the (terrific) b-side.

11. Stealing Sheep – Into the Diamond Sun LP
I saw Stealing Sheep live loads in 2010 and 2011, and once last year, and while they were terrific every time, their sets seemed pretty similar, meaning that by the time their debut LP came out last year, I thought I had figured them out, and didn’t get round to buy a copy. Consequently, I didn’t spot how bloody great it is – much more joyful, tuneful and poppy than I remember them being live, and a really great summer record. Really glad I finally figured that out.

Max Richter recomposing Vivaldi

A quick music recommendation for you.

It’s a symptom of getting older that you begin becoming more and more interested in the ‘adult’ musical genres that appalled you in your youth, I think. I got my head around world music first, then classical, and then eventually jazz, and now genuinely love aspects of all three, although they’re far too huge in terms of depth for me to boast any expert knowledge.

Of the three, I know the least about classical music – or rather pre-20th century classical music. I used to work on the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians with some clever and very likeable musos, who convinced me of the merits of Glass, Part, Terry Riley, Messiaen etc, but I have utterly failed to dig deeper into the vast canon of classics represented by the likes of Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart, none of whom were played in the house when I grew up or anything like that. I’m aware that I should know their work more, respect it more, understand it better.

If you feel the same – inspired by the minimal textures of modern and contemporary classical music but intimidated by the old masters, you might want to check out this LP – a re-composing of Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’ by the German-born English musician Max Richter. It’s really incredible – a classical piece which takes Vivaldi as its starting point but strips back the orchestration and the familiar tropes to create something a bit more contemporary sounding. In a couple of places I’ve seen it compared rather sniffily to a film-score, or encountered dull curmudgeons who imagine something sacrilegious about Richter adopting this playful approach to Vivaldi’s score. But that’s probably to be expected.

Anyway, I absolutely love it. There are bits of ‘The Four Seasons’ that even I can recognise, and other bits which I couldn’t tell you who wrote them, Vivaldi or Richter. The latter has claimed that around 75% of the work is his – but the debt is huge. Either way, it’s a synthesis that works beautifully and a really lovely record.

Where are we now?

I’m a massive Bowie fan, so, transparently, today has been a ridiculously good day for me.

If you missed it – ten years after his last record and seven years after he last performed in public – this morning, entirely without fanfare or forewarning, David Bowie released a brand new song and announced a forthcoming LP. This is, in the world of pop, massive news, and judging by the fact that I heard about it on the Today programme on Radio 4, it’s presumably big news elsewhere too. The Guardian practically devoted their entire Arts team to covering it today (yielding good pieces from Michael Hann and Alexis Petridis), and my twitter feed was a pretty relentless stream of enthusiasm.

I’ve been in a good mood all day.

And amidst all the excitement, there’s a song, and you should listen to it.

It’s far too early for me to pass any real critical judgement, to declare it better than his 90s work or worse than the stuff on ‘Heathen’, and I’m too biased to be truly objective regardless – but the song matters to me because I find it thrilling to think that Bowie still digs making music (I thought he’d retired) and the song itself, regardless of its place in his canon, makes me happy – by chance it recalls much of Bowie’s music that I like best; the sombre, elegiac Bowie of the late ’70s, whose years in Berlin still seem to speak to him more powerfully than any others. To hear him singing in his own distinct, somewhat tremulous voice is, for all that it is aged, a great privilege.

He’s written so many wonderful wonderful songs, but there’s a category that I hold particularly close to my heart, and that’s the smallish number of songs where it sounds like Bowie is singing from deep within his true self – not channeling Anthony Newley, or Lou, or Iggy, or Dylan, or even James Brown (I love it when he channels James Brown). The best example is, I think, ‘Wild Is The Wind‘, which Bowie himself has described as his finest vocal performance. There are shades of that song here – or shades of the truthfulness it evinces. And something very vulnerable too.

What a joy it is to hear, and to have him back.

If you like it too – or, failing that, like David generally – then we can be friends.

Albums of the year 2012

Here we go!

10. Foxes – Foxes
The indie-pop contingent in this year’s list gets the nod courtesy of being fractionally more fun than the other bands who might have made the list (Allo Darlin’, The Twerps, Exlovers), and their debut LP is bursting with offbeat, tongue-in-cheek moments, combined with moments of piercing fragility. A really lovely record full of winning melodies, lines and ideas.

9. Matthew Dear – Beams
Matthew Dear’s ‘Black City’ was one of my favourite records of 2010 so it’s not really a surprise that I loved this too – if anything it’s a more organic, coherent work, a lovely, Bowie/Eno/Byrne indebted collage of techno and art-pop. ‘Beams’ is the first record that Dear has recorded since he moved to the countryside, but it still resonates with the sounds of the big, sinister city. Great stuff.

8. Soko – I Wish I Was An Alien
Listened to this a lot this year, puzzling over Soko’s fragile lack of self-esteem and her storytelling ability. I’m not quite sure if she’s really as unhappy as she makes out on this record, but it leads to some great, underworked, bruised French pop-folk. It’s become a bit of a joke in our house; ‘how’s Soko feeling today?’. ‘It’s not good, I’m afraid’.

7. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill
Far far better than it has the right to be after a few years of interesting but not exactly vital records; this new effort – a double LP of straight, Crazy Horse riffing – genuinely sounds like Neil is back to his best. Only the first song, which finds him whinging about mp3s, disappoints, with the rest a wonderful, winding celebration of rock and roll.

6. Darren Hayman & The Long Parliament – The Violence
The best record of Darren’s career by some distance, this marvellous LP feels somehow like his most heartfelt despite it being a meditation on the seventeenth century Essex witch trials. Magnificently arranged and full of lovely, if sometimes disturbing imagery, this is a display of artistic ambition realised.

5. Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas
The music of Leonard Cohen is very important to me, as his records were played constantly at home when I was a child, and I actually went some time ignoring this new record, fearing that I’d be let down by what I assumed was inevitable disappointment. It wasn’t until I saw Cohen play in Berlin in the late summer that I realised how superb his songwriting continues to be, leaving me doing some rather shame-faced catching up. This may arrive very late in Leonard’s career, but it’s a hugely important part of his body of work. And hopefully not his last LP.

4. Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny – Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose
Delighted by this one, not least because I watched Beth do a series of gigs throughout 2009, 10 and 11 where she somehow seemed to be enjoying each show less and less and sounding more and more tired of the songs she’d been playing for a few years. In fact, much of ‘Yours Truly…’ had been long recorded by that stage, but somehow its release galvanised the band and they’ve been better and better every time I’ve seen them since. And this record is far far better than any debut LP has the right to be – confident, intelligent, daring and gloriously canorous. Beth’s recording the follow up in LA at the moment and I think it’ll be even better.

3. First Aid Kit – The Lion’s Roar
This one, from early 2012, feels like it came out aaages ago, but it still sounds incredibly fresh when I put it on; a lovely slice of warm Americana by two Swedes who allowed their obsession with Emmylou, June, Gram and Johnny to shine through on every song. A lovely listen every time.

2. Tim Burgess – Oh No I Love You
Easily the biggest surprise of the year for me was the depth and quality of Tim Burgess’s second solo LP. The words were written by Kurt Wagner of Lambchop and the record produced in his Nashville studio (meaning the luxuriant country-soul sound of Wagner’s band is present throughout), but much of the joy is found in Burgess’s clean, pretty songwriting (he penned the tunes) and in his delightful voice, which is often as boyish as ever it was and yet sometimes a cracked, deep whisper. His switch to falsetto in ‘The Economy’ is one of my favourite musical moments of 2012.

1. Field Music – Plumb
I couldn’t quite get my head around Field Music’s 2009 double LP ‘Measure’, which was a real surprise after having often claimed that their ‘Tones of Town’, from four years earlier, is my favourite record of the 21st Century so far. ‘Plumb’, happily, fixes all of the problems I had with its predecessor, coming in at a gloriously concise 35 minutes but crammed with more twists, turns and segues than you could shake a stick at. Like much of Field Music’s best work, there’s a kind of symphonic consistency and coherence to the album which makes me think of it in terms of movements rather than the songs. Allowing me that, the final movement, comprising the last five songs, is the sound of 2012 for me.

Honorable mentions:
Allo Darlin’, Oddisee, The Wave Pictures, Kimbra, Viv Albertine, The Twerps, Damon Albarn, Brother Ali, Cabaret Scene, Actress, Moritz Von Oswald, Blu & Exile, Taylor Swift, Mac Demarco, Friends, La Sera, Parquet Courts, Josephine Foster, Quakers, John Cale, Ab-Soul, Brian Eno, Milk Music.

Last year’s Top 10.
1. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
2. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
3. Destroyer – Kaputt
4. Stricken City – Losing Colour
5. Veronica Falls – s/t
6. Nick Lowe – The Old Magic
7. Gorillaz – The Fall
8. Real Estate – Days
9. Little Dragon – Ritual Union
10. The Fall – Ersatz GB

field music at resident records

For my money, Sunderland's amazing Field Music remain the best band in Britain at the moment. I can't think of a better LP released in the 2000s than their 'Tones of Town' (closest competitors; PJ Harvey's 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea', Gorillaz' 'Demon Days') and their new record, 'Measure', is terrific too. The other day I wrote a preview for a local show over at the Bored of Brighton blog, where I described them thus:

Their sound is intensely musical; gorgeous North Eastern harmonies, abrupt tempo-changes and unusual time signatures, with orchestration which varies from lush and pastoral to aggressive and loose.

Not at all surprisingly, their set - they played an instore at Brighton's Resident Records - was every bit as brilliant as I thought it would be. I didn't exactly have the best position in the world, for the shop was crowded, but the following video does I hope do justice to their wonderful sound, if not their stage presence.



Here's the entire set in mp3 form. Hope no-one minds me posting these.

Field Music
live at Resident Records, Brighton
Friday 19th February, 2010
(right click and 'save target as' to download)

1. Measure
2. Them That Do Nothing
3. Pieces
4. Rockist
5. Clear Water
6. Tones of Town
7. If Only The Moon Were Up
8. Effortlessly
9. Tell Me Keep Me

If anyone from Resident, or anyone associated with Field Music, minds me sharing this, let me know.

[edited for geographical accuracy; see comments]

spoon plaudits

According to the Guardian, today, Metacritic have trawled through all of their data (they collate reviews of music, films, games etc) and have identified Spoon as the most critically acclaimed band of the 2000s. I'm not really surprised by that - it was always going to be them, Wilco or Radiohead; consistent, worthy bands who are all loved by critics, who take adventurous steps without alienating their fanbase. And, y'know, you can't argue they're a good band. There must be songwriters, though - like Lambchop's Kurt Wagner, or Mark Everett of Eels - who look on at Britt Daniel and think, um, yeah, but I'm better. Still.

What this does mean, of course, is we have an opportunity to appreciate once again the brilliance that is Adam Buxton's video to Spoon's 'Don't Make Me a Target'. Wonderful.

at least one thoughtful letter

Over on the Faber & Faber blog, The Thought Fox, Faber's Editorial Director, Lee Blackstone, has penned a rather curious, slightly sweet and more than a little embarrasing open letter to Morrissey, in which he asks Moz to consider f&f as the publisher for his much-rumoured memoirs. Its high-level of obsequious fawning demands attention.

Dear Morrissey,

In the hope that you might consider bringing your much-rumoured memoir to The House of Eliot, I am posting this letter on the Faber website. Forlorn as this hope may be, I can only fantasise that at least you might read my letter through and consider the pleasures and prestige of being an author at Faber, the last great family-owned independent publishing house in the western hemisphere.

I have been trying to persuade you of the virtues and wisdom of this for some years now. You probably won’t remember. We even corresponded at one point via a friend of yours, an author of mine, most famous for his biography of Roxy Music which ends just as the band are getting together. You see, we love the perverse and the contrary at Faber. And we also like to think we are the custodians of twentieth-century Modernist poetry. In fact we are. Our shelves groan and bulge and spill over under the weight of Ezra, Larkin, Hughes and Heaney. And that’s just the surface; deep as it may seem. We feel very strongly that you belong in this company. To me (and to many of my colleagues) you are already in this company. It would be the fulfilment of my most pressing and persistent publishing dream to see that ‘ff’ sewn into the spine of your Life. Just any other publisher won’t do. You deserve Faber and the love we can give you. History demands it; destiny commands it.

Etc.

I don't really get it. Morrissey has already created his great work - the lyrics he wrote in the 1980s. If Faber really feel that his work belongs in the company of Ezra Pound and Philip Larkin, they should just ask him if they can publish his best lyrics in their poetry imprint.

gorillaz, stylo review

If you've not heard it yet, 'Stylo', the new single by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's subversive, always-interesting pop project, Gorillaz, is all over the internet today, and you owe it to yourself to track it down forthwith. Whisperings about the forthcoming LP, 'Plastic Beach', imply it will be a typically dynamic, eclectic affair, boasting guest spots from Snoop Dogg, Mark E Smith, Lou Reed and many many more.

Albarn has dropped some interesting clues about where Gorillaz is headed over recent months, hinting that his new songs have roots in his abandoned stage project 'Carousel', and that the Blur gigs in the summer persuaded him to revisit his vocals for the LP and abandon his recent usage of guide vocals, preferring instead to sing more directly. The title of the LP suggests that, lyrically, a recurring theme will be the environment, one of Albarn's current passions (he recently told Paul Morley that the two things he is most passionate about are "the effects of our waste and the healing properties of Africa").

But for all that this is interesting, the most intriguing thing about the band - apart from Hewlett's wonderful drawings and Albarn's staggering musicality - remains the dichotomy between Damon's critique of manufactured chart music and his self-evident, not at all contradictory, love of pop.

'Stylo' expresses this perfectly - built on a platform of thudding beats and a persistent, electro bass line, it may feature a stunning, deeply pretty melodic line from Damon, but it also completely lacks a conventional chorus, providing instead a terrific, unhinged hook vocal from Bobby Womack. It sounds stranger, more challenging than previous Gorillaz records.

But it is also easily the most catchy thing Damon has done in years. The bass line alone is stunningly memorable, and the jewel may be Mos Def's short, rhythmically perfect verse in the closing stages. The whole thing swaggers and shines.

It's too early, of course, to say whether it'll engage daytime radio and the general populace in the same way as previous Gorillaz singles, but for me it's superior to every single from the last two LPs with the exception of 'Dare'. And if it IS successful, Damon's genius will have been to have crafted a perfect, vibrant pop single which harks back to the bassy, vibrant electro of early Compass Point (think Grace Jones or Tom Tom Club) and the euphoria of late 80s house music, but which is in no way nostalgic, formulaic or predictable.

In short, I think it's one of the best things he's ever done. And elsewhere? There's really no one, creatively, anywhere near him.

darren hayman on spanish tv

This is charming, although at times really hard to watch - Darren Hayman is asked a set of challenging questions live on Spanish television. It's funny to watch how a Spanish critic struggles with Darren's very English self-deprecation. There's clearly an expectation that music should be a flamboyant, romantic art, and an supposition that Darren will be able to talk fluently about it in that light. He does his best, but his face is a treat when he is asked "would you say that you had been unfaithful to music, or has music made a cuckold of you?".

Great stuff.

currently listening

My listening habits for the first couple of weeks of this new decade are, frankly, more 1975 than 2010, but never mind. Here's what I've been listening to recently.

1. Townes Van Zandt, Live At The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas LP. Van Zandt may have been, in his doctor's words, "an acute manic-depressive who has made minimal adjustments to life", but it's the conventionality of his music that I love rather than its idiosyncrasy. On the face of it, he's an orthodox singer-songwriter in the country-folk mould. But his records have a wonderful mixture of gravity and humour. Wildly unappreciated, but I think this recording of a live set from 1977 is his very best record, and worth treasuring.
2. Big Star, 'The India Song'. As an Andy Hummel contribution, this is probably one of the least lauded Big Star numbers, but I think it's beautiful - Big Star were ace.
2. Gillian Welch, 'Elvis Presley Blues' (from her Time (The Revelator) LP). This is the song that launched me on this week's retro direction - a lovely, idiosyncratic bit of Americana I first heard on Jarvis Cocker's new 6 Music show.
4. Bobbie Gentry, Touch 'Em With Love LP. I was inspired to dig back to this late 70s country/soul hybrid courtesy of the lovely Beth Jeans Houghton, whose inspired folk reminds me much more of this than anything made in the 2000s.
5. Mary Hampton, 'Honey' (from her My Mother's Children LP). Creepy, quiet, Brighton folk. I saw Mary live a couple of months ago and she played a song to the percussive sound of the audience rattling their housekeys. Awesome.
6. The Dream Syndicate, The Days of Wine and Roses LP . Apparently this lot were part of LA's 'Paisley Underground' in the early 80s. That sounds awful, but the song is lovely, prefiguring the notion that one day Robyn Hitchcock and Peter Buck would hitch up and work together.
7. The Mantles, The Mantles LP - this is great stuff, just really simple, reverb-drenched indie, garage-formed psych. Good stuff.
8. Pérotin, Beata Viscera - caught a snippet of this amazing Gregorian choral music in Terence Davies' marvellous 'Of Time and The City' and had to seek it out. Beguiling stuff.
9. Lucinda Williams, 'Maria' (from the Happy Woman Blues LP). I know, more country-rock. But listen to it; it's gorgeous - "damn the pain and damn those restless days".
10. Younghusband, 'Younghusband Says Relax'. Still can't stop listening to this wonderful, post Lemonheads/Teenage Fanclub indie. My favourite single from 2009, by miles. A real slacker anthem, too - "Don't feel sad / I do / and I'm guilty of an anxiety relax".

OK, and I'm going to try to do Spotify playlists when I do this in future. Here we go then. Click to open:
Spotify playlist for my current listening, Jan 15th 2010.

I promise next week I'll listen to some hip hop or something.

strange curations

This blog - Stevie's Curiosity Cabinet - is the kind of thing that I love about blogging - the way that 'content' is democratized to the extent that esoteric interests can be published freely and accessed with as much ease as mainstream ones. If I'd never have stumbled onto Stevie's blog, I would never have needed to know about ANYTHING he writes about. But as it is, his posts regularly have me sitting up, interested, alert. Here he is on Dolly Parton.

Possibly the best known of all Dolly's compositions, Jolene is the lead track on a seven-inch maxi-single (RCA Victor RCA 2675) which was her breakthrough hit in the British market in 1976, reaching number seven in June of that year. Whilst there's nothing remotely unusual about this disc in itself, either musically or as an object (unless one views the value-for-money three-track maxi as a curious product of the 'seventies, like Dynaflex, say), it merits inclusion in this journal because of how Dolly was manipulated by John Oswald (link : http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/oswald_john/mystery_tapes/x1_version/ - it's number 13).

"Dolly Parton gets a sex change by slowing down the speed of one of her singles...", wrote Andrew Jones in his book Plunderphonics, 'Pataphysics + Pop Mechanics, which includes this quote from Oswald : "Although the idea of slowing down Dolly Parton was my idea, two separate Dolly Parton fans told me on two separate occasions that I should listen to Dolly Parton 45s at 33 RPM, because she sounded really great at that speed. And it's true."

From http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xnotes.html: "Pretender (based on 'The Great Pretender' written by Buck Ram) features the opportunity for a dramatic gender change, suggesting a hypothesis concerning the singer, Ms.Parton, perhaps worthy of headlines in the National Enquirer. The first inklings of this story came from fans of Ms.Parton's earlier hit single 'Jolene'. As many consumers have inadvertently discovered, especially since the reemergence of 12' 45rpm records of which this present disc is a peculiar subset, it is not uncommon to find oneself playing 45rpm sides at the LP standard speed of 331/3. In this transposed tempo 'Jolene' reveals the singer to be a handsome tenor. Additional layers of homosexual longing, convoluted ménages à trois and double identities are revealed in a vortex of androgyny as one switches, verse to verse, between the two standard playback speeds."

Whilst to my ears the backing music does work extremely well, the reduced pace darkening the mood of the track wonderfully, I'm not sure I'm totally convinced that Dolly's voice resembles that of a male when heard at twelve revs fewer per minute - but if disbelief can be suspended briefly, one gets a whole new intriguing perspective on her lyric : a man worrying about losing his man to the song's female subject; the vulnerability of a male capable of being moved to tears by the potential situation.

Fantastic, odd, stuff.

eccentricity and spotify

I've been playing with Spotify a lot more recently, and naturally it's a dazzling tool - it's clearly going to revolutionise how we listen to music. As I get to grips with it, I've started playing with playlists - so here is one of my first attempts - a big, messy, odds and sods concoction.

It's drawn largely from releases on Trunk, Finders Keepers and Honest Jons, so what we have is (deep breath): Kids TV music (Clangers, Ivor The Engine), weird library music, found sounds, Sci-Fi soundtracks, eccentric funk interpretations of Christian hymns, unsettling Satanic folk music, Free Jazz & 1920s Afro 78s. The goal is basically ti cover all bases from 'The Wicker Man' to 'Bagpuss' through to Hammer Horror.

Odd things, basically. Here you go:
http://open.spotify.com/user/jonathas/playlist/4I4Ff3Uc0tHEonSENRhNTY

the lyrical genius of luke haines

I'm getting in a right muddle listening back to this year's records and trying to pick my favourites - increasingly I find that when I can't decide between a few LPs I end up plumping for the one with the best lyrics. Not really clear on what my top ten will be. Might have to be a top 15.

Anyway, talking of lyrics - there are some moments on Luke Haines' intermittently terrific 21st Century Man which are just sublime. I'm in raptures over 'Love Letter To London' at the moment:

"I'm not frightened, I'm no longer tired of life,
but the grass is greener in the English countryside.
A voice in the wilderness cries out from time to time,
and says "I'm off the dial, in my country pile".

Young couples with children leave the big city,
we'll not see them again.
It's just like the blitz. The countryside groans
with the stress and the strain.

So don't send us a postcard.
We like it here now that you're gone
They said that they loved you, but they used you as a playground,
when they were young".

early blur footage

Some early footage of Blur has turned up out of nowhere - brilliant. Unfortunately the embedding is turned off for this video, but it's essential viewing anyway, so you'll just have to follow the link below. Not quite sure where it came from all of a sudden - perhaps it was uncovered during the research for the new Blur documentary - but it's amazing - this is Seymour (the band that would become Blur) playing 'Superman' in Harlow, Essex in December 1989. Twenty years ago. God.

Wish the first Blur album had sounded all fuzzy and frenetic like this - we'd have realised how wonderful they were that bit earlier...

Seymour - Superman

UPDATE: Ah, Scimmy has obliged by sticking the mp3 version on divshare - great; still - you'll probably want to watch the vid, too.

the lists descend

What with it being both the end of the year and the end of decade, it's LISTMANIA on the internet, obviously. I've been reading lots of lists and, so far, disagreeing with lots of them. It seems to me that lots of very good albums are being overlooked in favour of a lot of pretty average ones (I'm looking at you, The Low Anthem, you, The Big Pink, and you, The Mountain Goats). But until I unveil my own list, I shan't moan too much - and I readily admit I look forward to the gnashing of teeth.

The Music Fix list isn't one I was looking out for, and sure enough it mixes the sublime (Darren Hayman's Pram Town) with a bunch of records I'd cross the road to avoid (The Airborne Toxic Event, Biffy Clyro, that surprisingly bad Florence & The Machine LP).

Anyway - one happy consequence of their list is that they've scrambled a set of mini-interviews with some of the winners, which provokes some interesting thoughts from the couple of artists on the list I'm interested in...

Luke Haines

Dear Music Fix, My heart brims with joy and seasonal good will on my inclusion in your list thingy. My heart brims with joy and seasonal good will anyway. You lot deserve my salutations because frankly I don't know how you found 40 albums of the year. Man, I can just about think of 40 albums from the last 40 years that get the old five star treatment. By the way is my 'record' in the Sounds best of the year list? Melody Maker? Who cares, I'm more of a Zig Zag man. BTW, what number am I? Actually it doesn't matter because I operate under a different numerical system to you lot. Anyway; to lists and my inclusion in them. Thank you.

For Xmas I would like a chisel.

Next year I intend to commence work on my replica scale model of the world.

Darren Hayman

Lists are infuriating, especially when you're not in them. But that's what they are there for, to encourage debate, to make people disagree. I'm not used to flattery. People say very nice things about my records and I know some people like them a lot but I don't usually find myself in end of year lists.

But I'll take a compliment! It's been a strange couple of years, the Hefner re-issues and related shows have made me aware how much my old band means to people but the honest truth is that I think I'm currently writing the best songs of my life. I tried hard to make Pram Town unusual, beautiful and intelligent. I hope I half succeeded.

I have no idea of how good I am compared to my contemporaries. I guess if you had to push me on it I would say I'm better then the guy out of Snow Patrol but not as good as Emmy the Great. If you say I wrote one of the 40 best albums of the year I'll think you're taking the piss.

But it does make me very happy.

I'm hoping for the Big Star box set in my Xmas stocking. I think I have dropped enough hints to my wife. I think I have a reasonable chance.

It looks like Pram Town may be part of a loose trilogy of albums about Essex. The second Essex Arms is another folk opera about love in the lawless countryside. We hope to have it out by the summer. There is talk of a Hefner Peel Sessions album.

Both Luke and Darren will be pleased to hear, I'm sure, that both are in the running for my top ten.

joy diversion

(via)

more video experiments

This afternoon myself and Dan went and had a burger and a beer at Brighton's lovely The Eagle. While we were eating, I set up my camera to do a time-lapse recording; which is presented here accompanied by some pleasing beeps and squiggles courtesy of Andrew - the track is his 'Succour & Liquor', credited to Bedsit Bomber.

ellie goulding, roscoe (midlake cover)

With the best will in the world, regardless of the fact that her stuff is pretty good, I'd kind of written Ellie Goulding off as superfluous; the kind of pop star we'd need if we didn't already have Bat For Lashes, and who is targeting a position in an intolerably crowded market. Well - that might well still be what I think. But I got a real surprise when I heard this, on Siobhan's recommendation - here's Ellie tackling, with very fine voice indeed, Midlake's wonderful 'Roscoe'. Vid courtesy of Dan.

nice ola podrida video

The Texan musician David Wingo is better known as a soundtrack composer than he is a conventional songwriter - his score for the magnificent David Gordon Green film 'All The Real Girls' is worth checking out - but it's telling to see that his work under the name Ola Podrida is increasingly gathering deserved plaudits. His new record, Belly Of The Lion, is out now. Dan has braved the wintery winds of the edge of England and made the following video to accompany one of Wingo's new tunes. Aside from its matching up nicely with the music, it makes me all sentimental for Brighton. Here it is.