Week 5/52

Factory Star/Enter Castle Perilous (last12mths)
Bob Dylan/Bringing It All Back Home
Georgia Anne Muldrow as Jyoti/Ocotea
Aretha Franklin/Live At The Fillmore West
Rosanne Cash/The List (new2me)

Time to expand one's horizons I think, bringing in a significant female based element to the music along with some R n B, soul and country. Plus Dylan goes electric! And a former member of The Fall makes a return with a new band. This...is gonna be a good week.

Eric Dolphy/Out To Lunch

So thanks heavens for this beauty, rescuing the week. It is known as quite an “out there” piece of modern jazz music, and indeed when I first heard it, 7 year ago or so, it did hurt my ears at times. But clearly filling the interim period with lots of Ornette Coleman and Impulse! period Coltrane has done me the world of good. Out To Lunch now sounds inspired. It is full of humour as well. Based around Dolphy’s bass clarinet and Bobby Hutcherson’s vibes it makes some great noises, often delicate, occasionally jarring.  Album of the week, by a street. The question is…what other Dolphy do I need to hear?

Out To Lunch

PS It has a ridiculously cool sleeve as well. Thus I need a vinyl copy. Now!

Warpaint/The Fool

I caught bits of these at last year’s Glastonbury (I went, you know). And they sounded very promising, as every all-girl indie band I hear about does at first. Some interesting noises in the dark and brooding way of things, but ultimately they mess it up by not having any real songs. Quite dull.

The Fool

Gershwin/Rhapsody In Blue+An American In Paris - Steinberg/Pittsburgh SymphOrch/Sanroma

First became aware of this in CSE music lessons when I was about 14. Fell in love with it. I now possess 8 different performances of it by different orchestras/soloists. This is the latest one I have picked up. And unfortunately it is by far the least good. Rhapsody In Blue is a piece that transverses the genres of classical and jazz and as such needs to be played with an understanding of both musical forms, but here the musicians have clearly never been near a jazz performance in their lives. It is very staid and ultimately just doesn’t swing. Cuh.

This one with Andrew Preview is far better.

Bob Dylan/Another Side Of

Bob not being a protest singer. Bit of a relief really. I love it but didn’t have much time for it. I will come back to it as I have done many times before.

Yo La Tengo/I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

Not a great week musically. Partly due to not having as much listening time as usual, and partly because the week’s choices were on the whole a tad disappointing. And thus I got a bit sidetracked with some other music. Which cut down on the listening time for the week’s choices. I felt like Richard Briers. Ever decreasing circles…

Anyway to Yo La Tengo. I like them. They remind of the Velvets and some other stuff. They don’t do anything wrong. They just don’t inspire me. 5/10.

I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One 

Midweek cheat

Oh heck - am finding it increasingly difficult to stick to the 5 on the weekly list. Had some quite wonderful distractions so far this week including a new Georgia Anne Muldrow album, some Scars session tracks, Misty In Roots and lots of Rolling Stones due to being in the midst of Keef's autobiog. Oh well...

Week 4/52

Yo La Tengo/I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (new2me)
Bob Dylan/Another Side Of
Gershwin/Rhapsody In Blue+An American In Paris - Steinberg/Pittsburgh SymphOrch/Sanroma
Eric Dolphy/Out To Lunch
Warpaint/The Fool (12months - ish)

More Dylan; more jazz (of a more extreme type); a YLT album I really should know; a new all-girl indie band; and a classical work that I have loved forever, albeit never heard this performance till now.

Meanwhile am doing some cheating on a Saturday night with some A Saucerful Of Secrets, Some Girls and some of The Daintees live 1990.

Lou Reed & Metallica/Lulu

I have to confess I struggled with this one. It is extreme. In the extreme. Best thing I can do is quote my friend Ian Farrow’s thoughts on it. “I came home one night from work after calling at the pub for a couple and listened to the first disc in the dark by myself. Afterwards I felt like I had been in the most bruising football match. I was battered and exhausted. Musically and lyrically there is no rest. I have been listening to David Gates ever since.” Uncle Lou of course does have history with extreme stuff e.g. Metal Machine Music. I will probably play this about as often as MMM. Not very.

Download from Amazon - I dare you!

Bob Dylan/The Times They Are A-Changin’

Of the early Dylan albums I think this one is the hardest to love when viewed from errr now. It is an album of protest songs. There are no love songs, no witty moments or any of the less serious bits that you usually get at least some of on a Dylan album. Just protest songs. Some of the finest protest songs of course. The title track and The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll being two of the greatest. But you can see why he softened things on his next album Another Side Of. Even Bob was getting a bit down on the earnestness of it all.

Herbie Hancock/Speak Like A Child

I can go for weeks and weeks playing nothing but really ace jazz from about 1957 through to the early 70’s. There is masses of it and if you stick to certain artists and labels you generally speaking can’t go wrong. So Herbie Hancock on Blue Note. Perfect. This is actually far less challenging than some of its ilk, Herbie and his combo are in a somewhat laid back and  incredibly “cool” frame of mind on this album from 1968. At the time the main man was playing in Miles Davis’ quintet along with Wayne Shorter, at a point when Miles was starting to push the boundaries of jazz into new areas that would ultimately result in In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew etc. I think Herbie possibly fancied a chill out session when he recorded Speak Like A Child. And that’s what you get. Chilled. Baby.

Speak Like A Child

Robert Wyatt/Rock Bottom

This reminds me of John Peel. I first listened to Peel in the early 70’s when I was about 12 or 13. A rare treat to stay up late and listen to some frankly weird music that was nothing like what was in the charts. It was around the same time I first watched the early Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV series. Something about the silliness, wackiness, just “differentness” of it all really appealed to me.

As well as music Peel would play spoken word stuff by Viv Stanshall and Ivor Cutler that perhaps made sense of the Python link. Ivor appears on this album; and I am damn sure I would have first heard songs from it on the great man’s radio show. I picked it up about 10 years later as a “twofer” double album with Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard.

Rock Bottom is a beautiful thing. Wyatt sings like no-one else and he and the musicians just seem to let the songs flow of their own accord until they are done. It is impossible to compare to anything else really. Nothing like The Soft Machine that preceded it that’s for sure. It’s just different, but makes it’s own perfect logic after a while.

Rock Bottom

Siouxsie & The Banshees/The Scream

Via the medium of my original LP purchased in the week it was released in 1978. After the gradual building of atmospherics on the opener Pure, the 2^nd song Jigsaw Feeling is jaw-droppingly brilliant. All that bottled up aggression of being the last of the “punk” bands to get signed, finally let loose in the studio. What follows is just as wonderful. And I can’t think of any precedents to the sound they created; John McKay’s guitar playing in particular, is totally original. Just listen to those creeping guitar chords on Overground or the sheer sonic violence of Suburban Relapse.

A band at their absolute peak, they would never sound as vital and essential as this again. “Be limblessly in love”.

The Scream - with assorted session/demo extras

Week 3/52

Robert Wyatt/Rock Bottom
Bob Dylan/The Times They Are A Changin'
Herbie Hancock/Speak Like A Child (new2me)
Siouxsie & The Banshees/The Scream
Lou Reed & Metallica/Lulu (last 12 months)

About time I had some jazz. Also a natural follow on from The Soft Machine with Mr Wyatt. Dylan #3. A classic punk (or is it post-punk?) album. And a recent album that seems to have divided the fans/critics. Bring on the week...
PS Am cheating by listening to REM's Up and Pink Floyd's The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn tonight. Ha!

Tom Waits/Bad As Me

Aha, something I understand. Tom’s first proper studio album in 7 years. I wasn’t a big fan of the last one, Real Gone. It seemed to stretch out into some challenging areas sonically that didn’t really hang together for me. This one however is a return to 3 to 4 minute songs that show the great man’s talents are still very much with him. Raunchy bluesy belters, slow boozy songs of regret, and a guest appearance from Keith Richards. Oh and a reworking of Auld Lang Syne that doesn’t sound crap. Excellent stuff. This goes on the “I need to play it a lot more” pile.

Bad As Me at Amazon

Destroyer/Kaputt

Right this is the “album of the week that I just cannot nail down”. I picked it as it featured in plenty of end of year lists for 2011 so I thought I would give it a go. For the first few plays all I wanted to do was list down who it reminded me of. But it kept changing. A chord sequence from a Go-Betweens song; a song that sounds like something off a late period Prefab Sprout album; the singer doing a Stuart Murdoch of Belle And Sebastian impersonation...and so it went on. I reckon there is some New Order (not just the lyrical reference), Japan and Roxy Music in there as well. But then there are songs that don’t sound like anything I have just written.

What it is, though, is very well put together and some of the lyrics are excellent. But some are shite. I really have no idea whether I like it or not. But it has left a very strong impression on me either way. Interested in opinions here. Help me out!


Destroyer – Kaputt 

The Soft Machine/The Soft Machine

Ok this my kind of prog, if that’s what it is. See I don’t think it is “prog” in the Yes, Tull, ELP sense of the word. This is far closer to some of the great psych pop singles of early Syd-era Floyd and stuff on the Lenny Kaye curated Nuggets compilation. But with longer solos. And weird English singing. It really is very strange but very, very good. At times it reminds me of early Can as well. What’s not to like? I have the Softs albums from 2 through 7 and like them all really. Although they changed a heck of a lot on the way ending up as a real jazz rock fusion band. Oddly though I had never heard this, their 1968 debut, the only album to feature Daevid Allen and Kevin Ayers. What a miss. Album of the week! (CD issue also features both sides of the delightful pre-album single Love Makes Sweet Music, classic 60s pop!)


The Soft Machine – The Soft Machine

Bob Dylan/The Freewheelin'

I said last week that I wasn’t going to specifically review the song content of the Dylan albums, due to them being so well known, but I have to with this one. Mainly because of the quite amazing step change from the first album, which saw Bobby Z mixing a bunch of trad arr. tunes with a few originals while starting to make his mark on the musical world. The difference in this album, released just over a year later is all about the  fully formed originals that in the main make up Freewheelin’. The trio of Blowin’ In The Wind, Masters Of War and A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall for example, are impossible to beat in terms of social commentary and delivered with real venom and anger. And sounding more relevant today than they have for years.

The mono mastering only adds to the directness of the delivery. A real classic.

John Martyn/The Church With One Bell

Hmmm, sadly not a great choice. I chose it as I heard a track or two a few years ago and was suitably intrigued but never got round to listening to it properly. It is an album of cover versions, mainly in a bluesy style but with a wide range of source material from Portishead to Billie Holiday.

The problem is that the backing band are pretty dull. Mr Martyn throws himself into the performances, but there is something about the production and playing that just makes it all fade into the background after a couple of songs. And that is something you don’t want to find yourself saying with regard to a John Martyn album. But there we go – I said it.


John Martyn – The Church With One Bell 

More Discovery

A brief interlude in the weekly routine to mention an excellent music blog by Kevin Pearce called Your Heart Out. Prepare to realise that there is a huge amount of music out there that you don't have the first clue about. The way Kevin links the strands of known/unknown stuff together is amazing.

Take some serious time out - and delve in; and yes, you need the accompanying pdf files.

http://yrheartout.blogspot.com/

Week 2/52

John Martyn/The Church With One Bell
Bob Dylan/The Freewheelin'
The Soft Machine/The Soft Machine
Destroyer/Kaputt (new2me & last 12 months)
Tom Waits/Bad As Me (last 12 months)

Crikey - two from the last 12 months, such a modern guy. And another prog attempt. Wish me luck.

The Modern Lovers - Precise Modern Lovers Order

Only just bought this. On the playlist in honour of me going to see Jonathan in Leeds next month. I love the man’s work very much, both the early Modern Lovers stuff right up to his current solo work. This album is a bunch of fairly rough sounding, very early live recordings from 1971/1973… and shows what a very different venture this was to the later Ice Cream Man et al version of the band. A lot harder at times, but still with Jonathan having that endearing naivety that sometimes goes over the edge into mild embarrassment. Lovely stuff. 


Modern Lovers – Live At The Longbranch And More

Spotify link is an alternate but v similar release.

The Fall - The Infotainment Scan

…did you enjoy that totally uncontrived link (albeit Dylan got in the way so nowhere near as smooth as it should have been)? OK, I have been a Fall fan since 1978. I have all their 29 regular studio albums. However there have been times when I have not kept up with them as close as other times, the early 90’s being one period; from which this album originates. Hence my reason for re-evaluating it as I couldn’t remember a huge amount about it. It turns out that it is, to use a technical term, a belter. MES is on top form berating bald headed men, Suede, and paranoid businessmen. Backed by a pretty classic line up in Scanlon, Hanley (S), Wolstencroft and Dave Bush on keys. It also contains a cover of Sister Sledge’s Lost In Music, which is brilliant. I know, it seems ridiculous, but grab a listen. My only criticism is that occasionally a hint of early 90’s period dance music influence tends to creep in; the odd Italo house piano riff etc that makes you think it could drift into Ride On Time or something…but thankfully it never does. I guess even The Fall get swayed by the musical trends of the time. Anyway it mostly kicks ass.


The Fall – The Infotainment Scan

Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

Tracy bought me the Original Mono Recordings box set of Dylan’s first 8 albums for Christmas. Hence one a week for the next eight weeks. No need to review them as such as they are part of 20^th century music’s DNA. What does need pointing out though is that this is by far the cheapest way to hear them in their originally intended mono sound, way better than some of the terrible 60’s stereo mixes which found their way onto the 80’s/90’s CD issues. I have one of the eight on original US mono vinyl (cost about £25 and it took 3 copies to get one clean enough to be acceptable) and hence stand by for a nerdy comparison in a few weeks time.


Mono Box from Amazon

Jethro Tull - Aqualung

Well I tried. I actually like the bits where the band are riffing away, but as soon as Ian Anderson starts prattling on I’m afraid I lose it – apart from the title track which is far and away the best. If they skipped all the folky bits, flutey bits and the bits that contain the worst of Anderson’s lyrics it could have been edited down into a decent 20 minute 10” EP a bit like The Fall’s Slates…


Jethro Tull – Aqualung 40th Anniversary

Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow

I would appear to utterly love this album. Never been a big Kate Bush fan, rather a distant admirer than someone who loves all her work like some are. However I seem to have fallen head over heels for this one. You need to invest some time in getting into it and I probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been the festive season when I first played it (not that we had any snow, more that I had the time). It is made up of 7 long pieces (most over 8 mins). The piano based music is delightful and lyrically what at first can seem plain weird (sex with a snowman?)- becomes compelling and very emotional. Snowed In At Wheeler St (duet with Reg Dwight) is my favourite track overall, about a couple who have been in love forever but keep losing each other. Album of the week!

Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow

Week 1/52

In a bid to bring some sense to this musical madness, in 2012 I will have a different playlist each week. Each playlist will have 5 albums. 1 of the 5 must be completely new to me and another must have been released in the last 12 months. Sounds like a plan...
So 1/52. 
1. Kate Bush/50 Words For Snow (12 mths)
2. Jethro Tull/Aqualung (new2me)
3. Bob Dylan/Bob Dylan
4. The Fall/The Infotainment Scan
5. The Modern Lovers/Precise Modern Lovers Order.