Top Whatevers

Sorry about the couple of days delay: Christmas-related busying I suppose. Anyway, review of the year is to make up for it with a bunch of stuff you don't care about, rambling on for far too long. Enjoy!

Song Of The Year

(photo be joshc)

If I was going to pick a song that I've discovered this year as the soundtrack to my life, then it would certainly be Clue To Kalo's As Tommy Fixes Fights. But my life is nothing without arbitrary rules, and technically that song was released last year. So the award for 2006 goes to one of the more disappointing bands of the year, Band Of Horses. Most peoples' first encounter with BOH was via their single The Funeral, a frankly astonishingly great song, incendiary in the heights it soars to - Ben Bridwell's voice flies high over a dynamic backdrop that threatened to breathe new life into the somewhat lacklustre American indie-rock output of the year. But aside from The Funeral, Band Of Horses only scraped along for the rest of their releases, their patchy and occasionally annoying debut (Everything All The Time) exemplifying this, a particularly sad case in point.
In general chaps, must try harder, must write more songs that are as good as The Funeral.

The Music
Band Of Horses - The Funeral (mp3)
Band Of Horses - The Funeral (video)

The 'fo
Band Of Horses/buy

Guilty Pleasure Of The Year

(photo by rustovision)

I hadn't had a guilty pleasure all year, really, hence the hanging onto the last vestiges of the Natasha Bedingfield bandwagon, the shame only really starting to tell towards the end of this year. Apparently there's a yet younger Bedingfield in the pipeline, something to look forward to. Anyway, NB's place has been taken by the almost terrifyingly mental Amy Winehouse, a local girl (you can kind of tell, if you know Southgate - Amy looks very Southgate, maybe with all the characteristics exaggerated to charicature), with her - admittedly not as guilty as Natasha - song, Rehab.
All ba-woop horns and big band chorus, this is singalong, it's funky and it's great, and it'll get so firmly ensconced into your head that an army of claw hammers won't be able to prise it out from there.

The Music
Amy Winehouse - Rehab

The 'fo
Amy Winehouse/buy

Live Show Of The Year

(photo by distantbombs)

Every inch of my body is telling me to put Mogwai in this award, for their ICA residency in January. And they were mindblowing, incredibly loud and opening up all sorts of experiences I didn't know existed. Certainly the support for this show (Gruff Rhys) was better than that of the show I've actually picked (which was Bat For Lashes), but still... The winner is Low. I love Low almost as much as Mogwai, but I think the gig just pipped it. For fantastic as the 'gwai were, Low's extra special show at Koko playing back the whole of what is a contender for my favourite album of all time (Things We Lost In The Fire) held me awestruck. At the time I think I wrote that Low were one of the few bands that allowed their music the space so few bands dare to produce, and their show only amplified this feeling. I could stand and watch Alan Sparhawk wait and wait to play a chord for ages and ages, and it would always, always be exactly perfect, exactly on the button. The harmonies, oh, the rapturous harmonies, the songs, the playing. Yes, I have no qualms picking Low.

The Music
Low - (That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace

The 'fo
Low/buy

Label Of The Year

(photo by japanese_forms)

There's but one record company that's been at the top of my list this year, only one contender. Last year it would've been Leaf with their volley of big hitters, but this year no label has consistently impressed me so much as the revitalised 4AD. From celebrating their 25 th anniversary last year, they've gone on to have one of their strongest years in an age, releasing several big, big albums, and signing a slew of great acts that manage to fit in with the label ethic and style while retaining their own originality. They've got a good 2007 coming, with Kristin hersh pencilled in early on, but for 2006 how about some of the following:
TV On The Radio - having settled into the label for their first album, TVOTR's follow-up was one of the records of the year, a devastating and fascinating rock album.
M Ward - another contender for record of the year, Matt Ward's warm rock'n'roll acousticana impressed me much.
Beirut - beloved by blogs in general rather than by me, but at least an album of poise and individuality.
Add to that Scott Walker's dense The Drift, and great releases by Cocteau Twins, Johann Johannssen and Mountain Goats, that's a fancy roster right there.

The Music
TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me (video)
M Ward - Chinese Translation (video)
Beirut - Postcards From Italy (mp3)

The 'fo
TV On The Radio/buy/M Ward/buy/Beirut/buy

Prospect Of The Year

(photo by l fletcher)

You know what I'm going to say, it's undoubtedly Kristin Hersh. Kristin's solo albums are invariably amazing, whether they're the incredibly sparse, almost bleak, snow-capped feel of The Grotto, or whether they're the fuller, luxurious arrangements of Sunny Border Blue. The woman is a genius, and not only that but hellbent on giving away as much of her music as she can for free, as evidenced by 50 Foot Wave's method of distribution. Learn How To Sing Like A Star is bound to be just ace, and may the first lady of heart-on-sleeve alt.rock ever reign supreme.

The Music
Kristin Hersh - Snake Oil
The 'fo
Kristin Hersh/buy

Artist Of The Year

(photo by Toni Blay)

Despite being pipped at the post for best live show, Mogwai still manage to capture the glory with best artist, simply because they are one of the best bands in the world. It sounds so passé to describe Mogwai as noise terrorists these days - that era was c.1997, with Young Team just out and audiences' ears being shredded by the likes of Like Herod and Tracy. But 2006 was the year when Mogwai set out to recapture The Rock from the dreamy, ethereal (if still excessively wonderful) stylings of Happy Songs For Happy People. Mr Beast was the Ronseal of Mogwai albums, it was exactly that: a hurtling, raging monster of a record with some of Mogwai's biggest riffs ever, and the occasional heart-stoppingly huge drumbeat. All that being said, Mr Beast sees the band distilling its expertise into some of their more accessible numbers - Friend Of The Night, Acid Food, Auto-Rock...
But then, of course, Mogwai released two records this year - taking a look a little down the line at the monstrous rock of Mr Beast, Stuart Braithwaite et al took the band's more eery, atmospheric side and made a soundtrack to the artisan film about the inimitable Zinedine Zidane. So whichever Mogwai you prefer you've been satisfied this year, whether it was kicking the year off with that ICA residency, or releasing a contender for best album of the year in January, or fostering their football side with a pet project commission. Good job dudes.

The Music
Mogwai - Glasgow Mega-Snake

The 'fo
Mogwai/buy

Albums Of The Year

This is it, the big rundown. If you've waded through the rest of it to reach this bloggers' staple, then thanks, and hope you enjoy the music.

10. Amy Millan - Honey From The Tombs

Loads of new music came to my ears this year, and I hadn't been familiar with Stars, or Amy Millan or any of the Arts & Crafts stable until this year. To be brutally honest, I'm still not, but this is an album worthy of inclusion on a top ten anyway, and I don't think I've seen it anywhere else yet. Honey From The Tombs is an album positively dripping with Millan's warm, sensuous yet comforting voice, the same one that made Stars so inviting. The songs are pretty much pop.alt.country in basis, but with a few more uptempo numbers, taking a similar sort of approach to the two as M Ward has this year. Not all of the songs are as memorable as Skinny Boy or Losin' You, but they are all a pleasant enough listen and really lower you into a calmed-down mode, so for that one can be ever thankful.

Amy Millan - Skinny Boy
Amy Millan/MySpace/buy

9. Arab Strap - Ten Years Of Tears

I kind of surprise myself with this inclusion, but the fact of the matter is that Arab Strap had more of an impact on my life this year than the vast majority of other bands and musicians that I heard. I discovered (sadly belatedly) that Arab Strap have a knack for creating music that's emotionally resonant but not sappy, heartbreaking but certainly not emo, indie but by no means stagnant. From the classic The First Big Weekend to the x-rated folk of Packs Of Three to the thrashy punk stomp of Islands, this breaks my rule of not including compilations because it's so lovingly compiled - it's not just hits (what hits?) but it's demos, alternate takes, songs that mean something to the band. Interesting things. It's a great document, and a great listen in itself quite aside from anything associative.

Arab Strap - Preface: Set The Scene
Arab Strap/buy

8. Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - Etiquette

One of the few albums from the earlier part of the year that has retained my attention, Owen Ashworth's one-man-band (minus drum on back and cymbals between knees) has got sophisticated. The days of extremely minimalist Casio-tickling have been replaced by bigger arrangements, and bigger songs to warrant them. That's not to say anything on this album has had the MTV treatment, it doesn't sound like Queen just yet, but these are songs which are crying out for a wider audience. Which is ironic given the extreme introspection and self-loathing going on throughout. Etiquette would certainly make any random emo kid's dreams come true, but would also introduce them to a world of quality and class that Panic At The Disco will never be able to give them. Plus, y'know, CFTPA has one extra word so he's obviously better.

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - I Love Creedence
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone/buy

7. Daedelus - Denies The Day's Demise

Another one I ummed and aahed about, because this was a very late addition to the year's best. But I think it certainly warrants its place here - in a year where I spent a disproportionate amount of time listening to electronica, this was the pick. Herbert, Adem, Triosk, these were all excellent albums but they didn't grab me so immediately, nor move me in the same as Alfred Weisberg-Roberts' did. There was a real warmth about this record when I first listened, whether it's from the banks of synths on Like Clockwork Springs or the oboe on Viva Vida (a track which, on first listening, grabbed me gently by the throat and refused to let go), and if you add to that sultry samba beats and the odd blast of glitch-hop, this is a great record.

Daedelus - Samba Legrand
Daedelus/buy

6. Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country

Camera Obscura were introduced, in a haze of blog buzz, as a band that sounded like Belle & Sebastian. As a new found devotee of those most literate of Scots indie-poppers, I thought great, and found another bunch of literate Scots indie-poppers, this time with the pretty, affecting, female vocals at the front. So yes, Camera Obscura don't really win any prizes for groundbreaking originality, but when you kick off an album with a heartbreaking ode to Lloyd Cole that's a serious contender for song of the year, who really cares? Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken is sad but sweet and gorgeous, and so is the majority of the rest of the album. In a year spent trying to be avant garde, this album feels like a step back for me, but really, what does that matter? Music's in the heart, not the head.

Camera Obscura - I Need All The Friends I Can Get
Camera Obscura/buy

5. Steve Adey - All Things Real

Out of the blue is how I'd describe this. I get so so many random, mostly awful, acts trying it on in MySpace World, that it really took me by surprise when I heard Adey's rich baritone fully nailing the beautiful Find The Way for the first time when Grand Harmonium Records sought me out. Mr Adey is a very talented man indeed and has created an album of warm, beautiful songsmithery to go with his wonderful voice. Great combination, great result.

Steve Adey - Tonight
Steve Adey/buy

4. Mogwai - Mr Beast

It's the top four that has been set almost as soon as I heard the records, but it's also given me a lot of trouble. Mogwai are, by default, the best band in the world (see above) and since Alan McGee's outburst that Mr Beast would be the best thing since Loveless, I was expecting monster things from Mr Beast. And in some ways, I got that. In some ways. Because where Mr Beast worked (Glasgow Mega-Snake, We're No Horses, Auto-Rock) it was beyond incredible, but there just wasn't the usual connection. Sure, there was plenty of Rock, and this is a good thing, but it didn't at the heartstrings as well like it's predecessor. I think maybe if Mogwai had combined elements of this record, the huge riffs, the unbelievable volume, with the tact, restraint and explorations of this year's other release, the Zidane soundtrack, then they would have had a hit on their hands. As it is, Mogwai are still top four material despite this not being their strongest record, which says a lot about them - although I'd love to put them top, I just wouldn't be being honest to myself, so. Number four.

Mogwai - I Chose Horses
Mogwai/buy

3. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

A record that keeps on getting better with every listen is an album that's worth listening to. And when you listen to Return To Cookie Mountain, you'll start to appreciate the delicacy and intricacies within such a complex, yet feral-sounding album. The band manage to fill every space with a rushing noise that's not really there, and for all the joy minimalism gives, this is extremely exciting. Live, the band are a sexy beast, and on record, they're no less so. Highlights like Province, Wolf Like Me and I Was A Lover sound like nothing that was released this, or any other year. A one off band.

TV On The Radio - I Was A Lover
TV On The Radio/buy

2. M Ward - Post-War

Our number two record is the most old-fashionedy on the list. Post-War revels in it's retrospectivity (a new word?), bringing to mind massive radios, big radio microphones, band's playing all at once to record, for a change, good ol' fashioned rock'n'roll. When Matt rocks it up, the sound is a joyous boogie, a record chockful of singalongs and 5th-6th chord progressions. But it's not just that, it's more diverse, with songs like Chinese Translation playing foil to Magic Trick's life-affirming groove. Maybe life-affirming would sum up the whole album pretty well actually - you certainly end up in a better mood at the end of it, having had great fun along the way. I don't suppose you can ask for much more out of an album than this.

M Ward - Magic Trick
M Ward/buy

1. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit

I've since come to realise that I did know one Belle & Sebastian track before I heard The Blues Are Still Blue on the radio, maybe even at the end of last year. The Boy With The Arab Strap is actually that nagging, familiar melody that's been at the back of my mind all year. But anyway, I was under the impression for the most part that despite B&S having been within my wider conciousness for maybe ten years, I didn't really know their material. In fact, I dismissed them as fey, twee, any weak adjective you care to mention.
But in the rare event of a single that makes you go and buy an album, The Blues Are Still Blue got stuck in my head. Then after that, Jeff goes and picks Sukie In The Graveyard as his perfect three-minute pop song on the Contrast Podcast and the wheels are set in motion. The album is purchased and the songs are absorbed, and blow me if I didn't know right then that it would have to take something incredibly special to knock this off it's best-of-the-year podium. And nothing was that special. I don't think 2006 was the greatest year for new music, to be honest, and although there was some good bands around there wasn't anything that came out of nowhere and rocked everybody's socks. So this little Scottish band, eleven years after their debut, and perceived to have their best days behind, proceed to put out an album that's potentially the best of their career. To me, it's more focused than If You're Feeling Sinister, less patchy than Tigermilk (obviously, I've gone on to explore the catalogue) - it's simply one of the best pop albums to have been released in a good few years. Nearly perfect in every way, it's witty, classy, extremely tight and immensely good fun. It's heart and head music, which ticks all my boxes.

Belle & Sebastian - Sukie In The Graveyard
Belle & Sebastian/buy

Remix Me. I'm Going In...#5: Bloc Party

(photo by Shane Bee)

Bloc Party are big news these days. Their latest album has leaked around various blogs, and I'm sure if you knock up SoulSeek or the Hype Machine, you'll be able to find some tracks. I haven't listened myself. Silent Alarm is a good album, but certainly not flawless, and I'm not sure it warrants the excessive hype that surrounds it.

That said, the album captured what I think a lot of bands were going for a couple of years ago a lot better than most of those bands; when it gets it right, it's urgent, spiky, joyous; when it doesn't it grates horribly and leaves you wondering what all the fuss is about. I never expected Bloc Party to get quite as big as they are: why, when I first knew of them they were friends of a friend. Check me out, I saw one at a party once. If I bribe the right person, I could probably offer the guitarist's school shirt as a competition prize. But big they got, and fair play to them I suppose. At least they're aiming for a slightly higher intellectual level than most of their lowest-common-denominator peers, for which they have my respect.

You can tell a band is kind of pretentious when they release a remix album. For an indie band, at least. Silent Alarm Remixed came and went with, as usual, just a handful of decent versions. Four Tet's was (for me) the highlight, pouring on the gorgeous to a sublime rendering of So Here We Are, really the track that interested me about Bloc Party in the first place. I'll stick the original up here and another track from the remixes record, and another from the less frenetic facet of the Party, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner's take on Compliments.

The Music
Bloc Party - So Here We Are
Bloc Party - Compliments (Shibuyaaka Remix by Nick Zinner)

The 'fo
Artist: Bloc Party
Website: blocparty.com
Recommended: Silent Alarm
Label: Wichita
Buy: Amazon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
If you like this you might like: Editors - The Back Room
Tags: Bloc Party; remix; Four Tet; Nick Zinner; Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Bird Fruit Flower Fish

This is a great game, this, and perfect for a rainy Friday afternoon. It's a distraction. Seeing as I'm not going to get around to submitting for next weeks Contrast Podcast, on the theme of chickens and other birds, I thought I might as well do a bird-fruit-flower-fish for today's post. And why not? It's an easy game to play, just pick a bunch of categories then a random letter and get 10 points for a unique answer, 5 points if shared with one of the other players.

Work is really productive at the moment.

Note to colleagues: we didn't actually play this. Today.

Bird

A Hawk & A Hacksaw - In The River

Resisting the urge to post either Charlie Parker (good) or They Might Be Giants (horrible), I find myself asking: why on earth I haven't posted about these so far? I've had the mp3 in my inbox from Leaf for weeks, so sorry about that. Anyway: A Hawk & A Hacksaw have been on the road with Beirut recently, a pairing that works pretty well. While Zach Condon's efforts have failed to impact my life in the way I'd hoped (though there's still time), his collaborators on Gulag Orkestar seem to have gone that little further in the Eastern Europea gypsy-folk-indie hybrid.

Jeremy Barnes was, of course, drummer in Neutral Milk Hotel, an extremely credible addition to any resumé. Aside from violinist Heather Trost, Barnes plays most of the instruments himself, creating something of a madcap one-man-band image, which can't fail to be great, despite lacking the traditional three-legged dog in support. Their latest record, The Way The Wind Blows, has been garnering much critical acclaim and automatically interests me given their position on one of my favourite labels, Leaf (who've been kind of quiet on my radar this year, unlike Beirut's UK label 4AD who've had a quite genuinely barnstorming annum). So please enjoy the offering, and investigate Leaf further. Please.

Fruit

Apples In Stereo? The Lemon Song? No... How about some Belafonte? Yes... Who doesn't love the soft lilt of calypso's biggest star, and the gentle Banana Boat Song is one of the most famous. It's a work song at heart, originally sung by Jamaican dock workers lifting crates of bananas onto the banana boat (duh...) at night, hence "daylight come, and me wan' go home."

Of course, such is the media-saturated modern mind that I can't listen to "Hide the deadly black tarantula!" without thinking of Ubiquitous Teen Movie Grown-Up Jeffrey Jones making like a possessed spider in Beetle Juice.

Harry Belafonte - Banana Boat Song

Flower

Public Image Ltd. - Flowers Of Romance (album version)

PiL were great. I mean really good, have a listen to Metal Box and tell me that's not innovative, fascinating music. In a cool tin. John Lydon is clearly a joke these days, and kind of was in the Sex Pistols. Being born well after the implosion myself, I find it hard to judge but my feeling is that I would have found it hard to take him seriously even then, certainly not the threat to society as envisaged at the time. But Pil, those inbetween years? Those are great. Even if you just know Rise, surely that's enough to tell you how great they were, a monster of a song with falls and rises, and Lydon's inimitable hectoring, his oblique railing at the world, or anyone who would listen.

Photo by s76fitz

Flowers Of Romance (from the album of the same name) is based on, or at least references the band of that name, featuring then-Pil guitar hero Keith Levene (who's sound defined Pil on a number of occasions) and one Simon Ritchie (Sid Vicious to his ma). It reached #24 in 1981.

Fish

If you were hoping I would post Fish or Phish, sorry, that's just not going to happen. Think it through. What I will post is Red Snapper. If you love you some fried fish (and who doesn't?) then red snapper is the route to go down. If you love you some dubbby, jazzy, breaky, millenial London beats then Red Snapper's for you. Free from the Matador website, Some Kind Of Kink is apt an introduction as you could hope to have to this often dizzying act, with it's large bassline and congas, and somewhat claustrophobic, unsettling fx.

Red Snapper - Some Kind Of Kink

The 'fo
Artists: A Hawk & A Hacksaw/Harry Belafonte/PiL/Red Snapper
Websites: brokenheartfoundation.org.uk/wikipedia/johnlydon.com/matador.com
Recommended: The Way The Wind Blows/The Essential.../Metal Box/Prince Blimey
Label: Leaf/RCA/Virgin/Warp & Matador
Buy: Amazon AH&AH/HB/PiL/RS
More: Hype Machine AH&AH/HB/PiL/RS; elbo.ws AH&AH/HB/PiL/RS
If you like this you might like: anything...
Tags: bird; fruit; flower; fish; A Hawk & A Hacksaw; Leaf; Beirut; Harry Belafonte; calypso; Jamaica; John Lydon; Public Image Limited; Red Snapper; Matador; Warp

Smother me with words

I tend to appraoch deciding what I'm going to write about in a fairly roundabout manner. So today, when I heard the comment, when discussing Haruki Marukami (whose Kafka On The Shore I've just completed), that Marukami does what David Lynch does just not quite so well, my mind went reeling. I'm not sure I agree with that statement: I can't really call myself an expert on either, but from my experience Marukami's work - while retaining the looping, bizarre themes of Lynch's work - is much gentler, much less demanding, much less specifically art - not to say that Marukami doesn't write works of art of course, Kafka... was quite beautiful, but I think they're not so selfconsciously so.

I digress. I got to thinking of David Lynch, wondering if maybe I could post a soundtrack piece. Then having a look I came across the name Angelo Badalamenti, and aha! My inspiration was found. Angelo Badalamenti's an interesting character - I never knew, until Wikipedia generously helped me out - that he'd done quite so many interesting collaborations, and quite so diverse. One tends to associate the man with David Lynch alone, but this would be to fall short of the full breadth of Badalamenti's work.

He started working with Lynch right back on Blue Velvet in 1986, and has collaborated on a number of others, including Wild At Heart, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. He's also worked with a fairly dizzying spectrum of other musicians, including:
Pet Shop Boys
Anthrax
Marianne Faithfull
Dolores O'Riordan (of Cranberries fame)

And Tim Booth, which, to be honest, is how I know him best. Namely for one single, I Believe - yet another Evening Session classic - I must be going through a nostalgic period... I remember being asked at school once if I liked James. I responded, he's alright, he's a bit weird. And he was, James had many rumours following him around, and used to come into school having scratched his face up. He made home-produced horror movies. I wonder what's become of him... Of course, this wasn't the right answer, I was being asked if I liked James the band, of Laid, and more notably Sit Down fame. I probably also answered, s'alright.

Sit Down is a great song obviously, but is a bit ubiquitous - it's an overplayed number without a doubt. James were a decent, although for me not life-changing band, but Tim Booth was an excellent singer, you had to admit that. So it's kind of cool that he'd collaborate with Angelo Badalamenti - I wouldn't neccessarily equate James' style of indie/guitar-based pop with the dramatic and dark scores of a David Lynch film, but nonetheless: Booth & The Bad Angel were formed to at least a little bit of acclaim.

I Believe - now this is a classic song. This carried me through many mixtapes on long, silent country nights, and has been redownloaded and lost several times over, when I get a hankering for some slightly grand indie-pop. It's got Booth's soaring voice, like a less whiny Brett Anderson taking things seriously. Somewhere on the album it's even got Bernard Butler, although I don't think so on this track. It's got AB's big old scores and arrangements, and all in all, it's as good a mid-nineties indie song as you'll hear.

Which makes it all the more frustrating that I can't find it anywhere. If anyone can point me to a copy, I'd be the happiest man alive. Even Soulseek has failed me. But if you ever see it in a charity shop or a bargain bin, snap it up, you shan't regret it.

EDIT 22/11/06: I have it! This is starting to sound like the journal of a mad scientist bent on life, but this evening, by golly, I've got it! I'll post it.

The Music

Booth & The Bad Angel - I Believe

The 'fo

Artist: Booth & The Bad Angel

Website: bio

Recommended: s/t

Label: Fontana

Buy: Amazon

More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws

If you like this you might like: James - The Collection

Tags: Tim Booth; Angelo Badalamenti; David Lynch; Bad Angel; James

Random Play All: Mezzanine Floor

(photo by cmcentral)

So, am going to see TV On The Radio tomorrow. Pretty nice. I like the venue (Koko, aka Camden Palace), I like the band (obviously), it's all good. I don't know who's supporting them: on the band's US tour it was hype-magnets Grizzly Bear who I confess to having completely ignored up to now.

I'm not going to make any exception here, don't worry, despite the fact that I started writing this post without really knowing what I was going to talk about. Much akin to my everyday life where I often embark on ambitious and lengthy sentences without any clear conclusion in mind. It's fun to speculate and plan things better than others, in your mind, as there's no chance of having to deal with the conclusions. Therefore I'm automatically a better referee than any in the Premiership, I'm definitely a better editor than anyone at the NME, etc., etc., blah blah blah.

So what am I going to talk about today? How about a Random Play All? Sweet!

Today's random track is Mezzanine Floor by Delirious? Yes, that's with an intentional question mark, Therapy? style, and no, I couldn't tell you why. Delirious? are a Christian band from Brighton whose album I bought to try and impress a girl in sixth-form. Needless to say she broke my heart and chose another fella, probably after seeing that I'd stooped low enough trying to ingratiate myself to literally scrape my record-buying knuckles along the ground. The music itself, while it doesn't suck, isn't really to my tastes these days: seeing as the album was new in my upper sixth, it's a pre-millenial stadium-soft-rock kind of thing, lots of U2 kind of choruses, some fancy mild electronics, some lighter-waving acoustic anthems.

Actually, some of them are quite good. Having put the album on my mp3 player in a fit of nostalgia earlier this year, I will quite happily listen to It's OK - relatively speaking, the big single - even now. The band approached commercial success outside of the Christian market with this record, although I believe they've since gone on to even more: big in the States, apparently. I remember seeing the song on MTV in the canteen, so they can't have been too minimal, and it's become one of those from that era which make me think of this girl everytime I hear it. She clearly did a number on me, as one of the others is Robbie Williams...

I don't have many songs which remind me of girls, fortunately, my life isn't that Hornby-esque, and again fortunately today's actual song isn't one (not nearly so much as It's OK). It's a fairly upbeat but still kind of downbeat track (I can't really explain why that makes sense), and is one of the more religious on the album: "I'll get to heaven through the sinners' door." It's worth a listen if you like that big ballad American rock sort of thing, Dave Matthews, U2 and the like (yes, I know U2 are Irish, pedant, you know exactly what I mean). It has an interesting stop-start bit at the beginning (on which note: I was flicking through t'interweb for inspiration, and I heard it described, like so much music, as having a "stop-start dynamic." Scuse my ignorance, aren't dynamics volume-related rather than timing? Loud-silent dynamic would make sense...). It actually does have a stop-start section at the start of this track. The huge strings and Martin Smith's soaring near-falsetto come in later and make it a fairly typical-of-the-album song. I recommend downloading It's OK if you're only going to listen to one.

The Music
Delirious? - Mezzanine Floor
Delirious? - It's OK

The 'fo
Artist: Delirious?
Website: delirious.co.uk
Recommended: Mezzamorphis
Label: Furious?
Buy: Amazon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
If you like this you might like: U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind
Tags: Random Play All; Delirious?; U2

Lots of hugging, lots of dancing etc. etc.

(Arab Strap, by Tim Broddin)

Arab Strap have been following me around today, like night follows day, like I follow Natasha Bedingfield. Maybe not quite like that, but you get the idea. They were on Phil Jupitus' morning show on BBC6 this morning, a station that's rapidly solving my woes and worries with finding a broad-appeal-but-still-decent radio show to have on in the office. Arab Strap are splitting up, you see, or at least waving farewell, a fact which saddens me without my knowing quite why. For I never really knew much of their music, only the one song, another intrinsically linked to long hours spent dusting and emptying smelly bins back in the mid-nineties. But just from that song I associate wistful realism, the kind of frank dissection of days spent doing ordinary things with a hint of heartbreak, a soupçon, if you will, of regret.

The Last Big Weekend, from the accompanying debut album The Weekend Never Starts Around Here, is Life, with the capital L. Check the lyrics, they're as manly as you can get: not for Moffat and Middleton the macho posturing of Durst or Fiddy, though, but for the exact representation of how us menfolk will say everything we want to say, and everything that needs to be said, without needing to talk about our own feelings at all. The First Big Weekend is a little film, a little play that depicts the first big weekend of the summer in all it's highs and lows, with everything that happens muttered with pathos and concealed romance. It's lovely, sad, beautiful all in one.

Musically, it fills a hole for me between Mogwai's downtempo arpeggios (see their new Zidane soundtrack for example) and Belle & Sebastian's small-town pop character studies - verging much more on the slower pace of some of the 'gwai's earlier pieces (remember the aching guitar lines in Christmas Steps?), yet with the propulsive beat, and almost singalong chorus, it takes on an existence in an introvert hinterland of it's own.

I picked this all up from one song, and yet never explored any further. At the time when this was all over the Evening Session, I was but a whelp, and my mass record buying days were afar off. Not only that, but it's on listening to this again now that the subtleties and nuances come out of the duo's Falkirk brogue - then, it's just a nice, unusual song.

But as I said, Arab Strap are following me round - there was a slew of eulogies when the end was announced, plus the tie-in Best Of, now they're on the radio, then the ever-wonderful, and happily back in action To Die By Your Side goes and posts a Four Tet remix. Obviously going to make me excited, this is a different take on the track, and fun to listen to.

The Music
Arab Strap - The First Big Weekend
Arab Strap - The First Big Weekend (Four Tet remix)
Bonus:
Arab Strap - Who Named The Days
Arab Strap - Love Detective

The 'fo
Artist: Arab Strap
Website: arabstrap.co.uk
Recommended: Ten Years Of Tears
Label: Chemikal Underground
Buy: Amazon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
If you like this you might like: Mogwai - Ten Rapid
Tags: Arab Strap; Scotland; Falkirk; acoustic; indie; Evening Session; Mogwai; Four Tet

Peace + Love + Empathy

One of my many virtual internet buddies sent me a mix cd. I will be sending him one in return/retaliation shortly, but that's another matter. This cd contained some Minutemen, some Wilco, some Duke Ellington and also some Imperial Teen, three tracks of which. So I thought, Imperial Teen, never heard of them. And I hadn't, unless it's filed in the Impenetrable Archive Room in my brain, like the one we have at work.

The first track passed in a kind of, ooh, that's quite nice way, but the second track breezed in with a summery line of little harmonies like something from Glasgow circa 1996. And I knew it! I knew the track but didn't know why. It sparked off one of those nostalgia trips that I couldn't place - you know how if you smell a certain smell it reminds you of, say, your first student house, or if you hear a particular song you're immediately relocated to another location of your youth?

That's what happened with You're One by Imperial Teen. I came to the conclusion that it must have been a Steve Lamacq staple on the Evening Session those ten long years ago. My mind relocated to my evening job when I was 14, cleaning offices that were on the location of my dad's former pig farm. I have my fat, ropey walkman strapped in and I'm listening to Lamacq and Wiley - Bis have just finished, I've been listening to Ash, Cast are still to come, Delgados are live later...

I would have just started my GCSE studies, year ten. I was spotty, but not hideously so, although my dress sense left something to be desired. I dressed pretty much as I attended a recent 90s-themed party, jeans which tapered slightly in at the ankle, big big shirts, white trainers. This was 1996, bear that in mind. I probably looked like a slightly smaller version of Chandler, in fact. I would go to school on the ten-to-eight bus each morning and come home in the afternoon - by this time, I'd graduated from taking the bus straight from school to walking into town (often via Games Workshop) and getting the quarter-past-four, following an incident with a sesame seed biscuit. And another, involving a football sock being thrown out of the window. I'll get you Graham Drew, when you least expect it...

My evening would involve playing some Master System (or maybe I had the SNES by then), then tea at six and onto piano practice and homework. I'm naturallly a creature of habit in many respects, and I've taken that into adulthood, to some extent. I wish more, sometimes, but it's rarely to be. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings were for cleaning though, plus two lots on a Saturday. I raked in £35 per week at the height of my powers, a not insubstantial sum in those days, and at that age, most of which (that which wasn't manhandled by my parents into a savings account (for which I later became very grateful)) went on football stickers, miniatures and tiny pots of paint. I had quite the Space Marine collection, I'll have you know, as well as smatterings of all sorts of others.

The Evening Session was where it was at in those days. It had the first play of Paranoid Android, herald of the Album That Changed Music. It was the bastion of those cool enough to not be listening to PJ & Duncan, but not really cool enough to listen to John Peel. It was where I spent those mid-week evenings and was where my fledgling music taste was nurtured. For example, much as the concept and principle of Kula Shaker represent both the zenith of my personal horror and the nadir of all music ever, and would probably feature in my hypothetical Room 101, I can't help but tap my foot to Hey Dude.

Aaaaand... back to the present, where Mr Roddy Bottum has his Imperial Teen. That freaked me out when I heard it. Roddy Bottum did You're One? Are you serious? Roddy "Faith No More keyboards" Bottum? Goodness me, didn't see that one coming. I was just getting into The Rock when FNM split, so I was able to catch up on the full gory history in one go in the pages of Kerrang!. Roddy Bottum? Blimey.

The Music

Imperial Teen - You're One

Bonus:

Faith No More - Epic

Bis - Candy Pop

The 'Fo

Artist: Imperial Teen

Website: imperialteen.com

Recommended: Seasick

Label: London

Buy: Amazon

More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws

If you like this you might like: Bis - New Transistor Heroes/Faith No More - The Real Thing

Tags: Imperial Teen; Faith No More; Roddy Bottum; You're One; Bis; Evening Session; youth; nostalgia

My Insect Life

(photo by annieA)

Suede. Ugh, right? People who were 18-20 when Dog Man Star came out eulogise the Butler/Anderson lineup and wet themselves when the Tears came out, despite their failing to live up to any expectations whatsoever. But Suede. Ugh. Suede was that band circa 1996 that had some OK singles, but when you bought the album (say, Coming Up) it was just rubbish. Brett Anderson's a whiny, annoying frontman, and the little bit that Bernard Butler did add soon vanished after his departure (partially recaptured in his interesting, if not utterly captivating solo work and with David McAlmont). The glam-tinged fuzz-indie of most of their sound was in actual fact considerably less interesting than they and the music press of the era believed it to be, leaving the band a failed dictatorship, in some ways.

And yet, every cloud. For this week's Contrast Podcast (subtitle: A Song You Love By A Band You Hate), I didn't contribute. If I had have, I would have picked Suede's Still Life, the closing track of the aforementioned Dog Man Star. It's one of those intensely ambitious, overwrought tracks that just shouldn't work from a mid-level, mid-nineties Britpop band. And yet it's so grandiose, so incredibly huge that by its own pomposity it pulls through to the other side, back to being beautiful.

Anderson's voice has never sounded so tender as when singing about his insect life over a full orchestra. The only other track in which I've ever heard that size of an orchestra work (outside of, y'know, Wagner, or Richard Strauss) is Mercury Rev's The Dark Is Rising, another symphonic, dynamic beauty. But Still Life sounds even more like an actual late Romantic symphony, even less like a string arrangement for a pop song. The timpanis, the tremendous bursts of the string section, wonderful. It's still Suede, but for a moment you forget that and move on, ignoring the fact that the rest of the band's output is woeful and irritating. You're caught in a moment, and it's worth putting aside preconceptions and bias, at least for the duration.

The Music
Suede - Still Life

The 'fo
Artists: Suede
Websites: essentialsuede.com
Recommended: Dog Man Star
Label: Nude
Buy: Amazon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
If you like this, you might like: Mercury Rev - All Is Dream
Tags: Suede; Contrast Podcast; Still Life; love; hate; symphony

You fly in thunderclouds

(photo by morethanreal)

Sometimes all it takes is for someone, somewhere to mention a band and your ear is immediately transported to a particular song, a particular sound. For instance, the minute a colleague refers to Big Red, a pub up the road from my workplace, I instantly break into a doo-doo-doo rendition of Frank Black's song of that name. You'll understand, if you know it.

Today, all it took was a controversial Pitchfork review. Some bloggers have had a whinge because the 'fork have taken a potshot, others don't really care. I'm in the latter camp. But this is all immaterial - the point is, they reference Neutral Milk Hotel in the review, and immediately my mind's ear was cast upon the beautiful Ghost, from In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.

She goes and now she knows she'll never be afraid

One gets the impression that everybody who reads a blog like this on purpose owns a copy of this album. And they all love it, and they all have their favourite parts, and they all treat it like a child. I know I do. I was first aware of NMH some years ago, but paid little attention, what with being distracted by Incubus, A and the like. I can't explain it either. Since then my palate has refined and 2005's reissue saw the record fall neatly into my lap, opening up a world of glorious noise, and an emotional connection with a vocalist that is unfeasibly rare. On first listen it's easy to dismiss NMH - clearly, I did. There's a lot of American indie bands, both pre- and post- this band, that have that lo-fi, fuzzy acoustic, whiny singer thing going on. If I wanted lo-fi I could pick up some Sebadoh, for whiny singers I could raid Zach Braff's iPod, and so on.

A hole where no one can escape

But Neutral Milk Hotel have something beyond the ordinary. They have a DIY sensibility that's evidenced in acoustic battering and the occasional massive whallop of fuzz, that's a given. They have quirky, oblique songs that probably have deeper meaning than we can understand. They have Jeff Mangum, a singer so untutored that it's at times painful to listen to him. But if you do, you come to realise that its probably painful for him too, and the fact that it's painful isn't related to his wailing, off-kilter vocal tone, but that he's boring into your very soul.

I know that she will live for ever

Alright, that's kind of dramatic. Let's not get carried away. But the truth of the matter is that Mangum's words and voice carry on into your soul like few other singers have ever done, and for that NMH are worth listening. Of course, this would mean little, Mangum would be one of a million struggling singer-songwriters if he didn't have the music to back it up, but the Spillane/Koster/Barnes arsenal produced a noise like nothing else has ever matched. Mangum's guitar at the beginning of Ghost thrums purposefully. The bass, when it enters, has far more distortion than a basically should really have, according to the rulebook, then the vocals enter and tenderly, but brutally, Jeff sings apparent nonsense, sweet nothings to a girl that only he knows if she's even there or no; the drums enter, they perpetuate the propulsive, rhythm that drones and bores into your head, the third chord seeming just on the right side of relevance in creating this driving, head-nodding track where full major chords replace the expected power chords to clash and whine against each other, where harmonics are created quite by accident, plucked out of the ether as note collides with note and Mangum soars and cries above the whole glorious din, as the huge bass frequencies threaten to overtake your every waking thought, as Mangum trails off into a slew of meaningless sounds that contain more meaning in themselves than most bands manage in a career...

Ahem.

To a far too large number of people, a segue is something with big wheels you ride about on and don't fall off. In theory. In reality, it's become one of those words (along with 'eponymous') that make perfect sense but are only used by music critics. Here is a fine segue: Ghost into the untitled instrumental that follows, a song very different but I think equally influential - a melodium, an organ, a trombone, these are all good. Wonderful, bouncy, chirpy music, set so unbelievably well against the bleakly romantic beauty of Ghost that really you imagine them to have been written at the same time, as a foil for each other, a few words of Ghost here, a few bars of Untitled's melody there, a thwacked chord here, a smiley organ trill there. Listen to the two together, no, I insist.

You know I don't think either is my favourite track on the album. That would probably be the title track, destined to be a deal-breaker if I ever take up busking. Maybe the painfully stark closer, Two-Headed Boy Pt.II. But this is an album apart, I get to post like this.

The Music
Neutral Milk Hotel - Ghost
Neutral Milk Hotel - untitled

The 'fo
Artists: Neutral Milk Hotel
Websites: neutralmilkhotel.net
Recommended: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Label: Domino
Buy: Amazon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws; Stylus' commentary
If you like this, you might like: The Essex Green - Cannibal Sea
Tags: Neutral Milk Hotel; Ghost; Jeff Mangum; untitled; In The Aeroplane Over The Sea; segue; fuzz bass

Looks Could Kill

(Camera Obscura @ Caberet Voltaire, Edinburgh by cryptdang)

At least two of Camera Obscura could have me in a fight. I didn't expect that. Reality check: probably the wee girl who sings could have me, I'm kind of a wimp, but I'm trying to make the point that Camera Obscura don't look as sensitive as they sound. In fact they're kind of glam, with pretty dresses and flat caps. Not glam as in The Sweet, obviously, but kind of dolled up anyway. They play a sweet, sensitive kind of music though, and seeing them at the Scala cemented that more than the humungous bass player could ever dent it.

I'll do a full review soon (probably for Don't Worry About The Government - how rock'n'roll am I, forgetting which site I'm writing for when picking up my ticket!), so hold your breath, but suffice to say it's a decent show. In the meantime, listen to some lovely music. Not just Camera Obscura even, but in what was surely a veiled nod to this very establishment, the band break into a chorus of Paul Simon's stone cold classic You Can Call Me Al at the end of Let's Get Out Of This Country. Download them both, play them back to back and try and spot the join.

The Music
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country
Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al

The 'fo
Artists: Camera Obscura/Paul Simon
Websites: camera-obscura.net, MySpace, blog/paulsimon.com
Recommended: Let's Get Out Of This Country (meta75); Gracelands
Label: Merge/Rhino
Buy: Amazon, Simbiotic (recommended)/Paul Simon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws; FiL's live review
Tags: Camera Obscura; indie; Merge; live; Paul Simon; Gracelands

I wish it could be October 10th, every daaaaay...

You know what's soon? Christmas. Christmas is soon. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know. All I know is that Ikea now stock straw goats, possibly trying to appeal to both the Christmas=hideous-tat brigade, and the Christmas-as-extension-of-pagan-festivities brigade. I think I fall more in the former rather than the latter, but even so I'm not a massive fan of hideous tat. Although, the glowing, dangling gnomes are quite ace...

So because there's no better way to prepare for the season by doing it unfeasibly early, let me be the first to wish you a Happy Christmas, with all the related meaningless greetings and accoutrements. Break out the egg nog, settle down in front of some Capra-originated feelgood schlock and waste some money on sending bits of card to people you see every day, in the words of a wise man, It's Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistmas!!!!!!

At least in 75 days.

In other news, I left my mobile phone at home today, and it was strangely liberating. I recommend trying it. Also, check out RadioBetty, the Hype Machine RealAudio stream of all tracks I've posted on here in (I think) the last 75 days. Kind of fun. It's on the right hand side under my profile. Celebrate with some bloggers' favourites, and then some, and watch my Hype Machine traffic shoot through the roof.

The Music
Low - Little Drummer Boy
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - Cold White Christmas

Louis Armstrong - 'Zat You, Santa Claus?

John Fahey - O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Pedro The Lion - O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Sufjan Stevens - O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Bright Eyes - Away In A Manger

The fo'

Artists: Low/Casiotone For The Painfully Alone/Sufjan Stevens/Louis Armstrong/John Fahey/Pedro The Lion/Bright Eyes

Website: chairkickers.com/cftpa.org/sufjan.com/johnfahey.com/pedrothelion.com/saddle-creek.com
Recommended: Low - Christmas/CFTPA - Etiquette/Sufjan - Michigan/Verve present Christmas Jazz/I Am The Resurrection - John Fahey tribute/Pedro The Lion - It's Hard To Find A Friend/Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
Label: Rough Trade/Tomlab/Asthmatic Kitty/Verve/Vanguard/Jade Tree/Saddle Creek
Buy: Low/CFTPA/Sufjan/Satchmo/John Fahey/Pedro The Lion/Bright Eyes
More: Hype Machine Low/CFTPA/SS/LA/JF/PtL/BE; elbo.ws Low/CFTPA/SS/LA/JF/PtL/BE
If you like this you might like: Slade - Crackers
Tags: Christmas; Low; Casiotone For The Painfully Alone; Sufjan Stevens; Louis Armstrong; John Fahey; Pedro The Lion; Bright Eyes; carols

That's it sir, I'm leaving

(image from radiohead.it)

I'm typing this at work. I'm so so bored. The speakers are playing up so we can't plug our iPods in, and it's either the radio or CD's we've listened to many, many times. Thus the music is switched off and the sole soundtrack is phone calls full of bleating morons that couldn't tell their backside from their elbow.

I need to do something, I need to have something to do thats not the meaningless, oppressively dull, menial labour that this time of year engenders for me. I need something to take my mind of advertising my spare room, off all the people bailing from the office, off the game of Scrabble I'm busy losing. I need distraction from the half-dozen separate heaps of yellow forms cluttering up my desk, from the half-eaten pork pie, from the pictures of Natasha Bedingfield stuck to my monitor. From the inevitability, the sinking realisation that these bleating morons won't go away, ever, whether they're idiots with an excuse, or idiots without an excuse. Maybe it's the general malaise that always creeps over the workplace at this time of year, but this is the time of year people always find new jobs...

So I'm going to make no excuses, and no apologies, and post a classic song. It's great, it's awesome, it singlehandedly revived interest - in the wider world - for progressive, non-lowest-common-denominator alternative music. I recall 1997. In 1997 I was listening to one band alone, and it was Radiohead. When Paranoid Android played on the radio the playground was abuzz the next day (at least between me and Nathan) with discussion, with rumour. When OK Computer was released, I had it on the first day, and brought the inlay to school the next day to show off. I had the t-shirt with the lyrics on. Paranoid Android is one of those songs capable of redefining one of the key bands of the mid-90's into one of the key bands in alternative music, full stop, with it's influence still being felt today. Thom Yorke's voice finds new depths and new heights, Johnny's guitar veers from riff to freak-out to menacing quiet, the whole dramatic arrangement, at a mere track two, is something incredible. No matter that it was just one of a number of genuinely great songs on the album, no matter that it's not even really my favourite. This is Radiohead's defining moment, and I'm posting it because writing about it cheers me up. Bye.

The Music
Radiohead - Paranoid Android

The 'fo
Artist: Radiohead
Website: radiohead.com
Recommended: OK Computer
Label: Parlophone
Buy: Amazon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
If you like this you might like: Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Tags: work; Radiohead; Paranoid Android; Thom Yorke; Eraser