Somewhere between the wilfullness of Giant sand and the desolate Neil Young-vibe of Songs: Ohia. Maybe this is the album I wanted Jason Molina to make in 2000. It’s one of those albums that gets better as it goes along – just zip right past the first two (short) track into the hopeless splendor of ‘To accompany’ and from then on it’s an intense ride. Anyway, you may not agree with me, but any band that can make a distorted violin sound like a gigantic tuneless mooing cow is doing something right (on ‘Innocence kindly waits’).
At its best: To accompany, The fireworks treatment, Innocence kindly waits, Destroyer
139. Ramsay Midwood: Shoot out at the OK Chinese restaurant
I’ve heard of people playing homemade cigar box / hubcap guitars, but Ramsay Midwood never even got off the tractor. Well, that’s what he doesn’t want you to believe. All over this record are the hints (starting with the splendid title) that Midwood isn’t exactly the moonshine drinking, tobacco chewing cantankerous hillbilly son of Lightnin’ Hopkins (-‘Iaiai…’ve got ramblin’ monologues on my mind’-) you hear on this album. In fact, Midwood is a travellin’ actor with existential absurdity on his mind. As far as I know he dropped this album out of the blue and just as promptly disappeared again. He’s just a mask. Nothing is as it seems.
None of which would mean a thing if the country-blues grooves weren’t played just on the right side of collapse. If he didn’t sound like he’d just woken up and found himself in the creek again. There are no songs, just rambling monologues. But the dusty corners are fascinating, and I can’t figure it out. I love that.
At its best: Monster truck, Feed my monkey, Grass’ll grow
138. Bent: Programmed to love
I’ve been thinking long and hard about what it is I like about Bent and it comes down to: they respect the cheese.
Bent is a British electronica duo – there were so many of them at the turn of the century it seems. Is it a male bonding thing? Like so many British electronica duo’s they searched high and low, but mostly in record stores, for the most unhip records possible: language instruction records, singers with toupees, singers with Nana Mouskouri glasses, Nana Mouskouri records… You know the type. And then for some unfathomable reason they decided, like so many, that out of all these old things must come something new. Something unheard of. Something chilled with beats.
Like so many Bent try to be ironic about it, but unlike so many they’re really bad at being ironic. They respect the cheese. They may sample Nana Mouskouri records but they place her in new surroundings she might even appreciate herself, such are the easy listening pleasures and the sentimental emotional triggers in Bent’s songs. A different kind of cheese. You know, I think Bent may be the only British electronica duo where you could imagine that they actually bought the Nana Mouskouri album because they wanted to listen to it, rather than just to ironically quote it.
At its best: Cylons in love, I love my man, Swollen, A ribbon for my hair
137. Matt Deighton: You are the healer
Matt Deighton finally got to release these 1996 recordings in 2000. It’s easy to see why he spent the intervening years playing in Paul Weller’s band. These gentle, hippie-esque acoustic songs are delivered in true Traffic-style. At least for the first half of the record it holds up well – Deighton isn’t the greatest writer in the world, but it’s all in the arrangements, the chords and harmonies, the feeling for lack of a better word. It loses itself at some point -2 songs with misjudged lead singing by the woman singing backing, some lesser songs… but where it hits it’s real good, and different from any other record in this list with its gentle, graceful, musically rich sound. Almost good enough for the top 100.
At its best: 5 years in pieces, Twisted wheel, Lay down your weary light, 72 minutes to Switzerland, Next year
136. Swearing at motorists: Number 7 uptown
The Guided by Voices of pain. This rushes past 15 songs in 26 minutes, and it’s not because of punk’s rush for speed. But if you want to hear songs with beginnings, verses, choruses and endings, you’ve come to the wrong place. Some of this isn’t more than a few notes. Some is longer but barely more coherent. The first words on the first song sum up these guys’ relationship with melody: ‘On the way downtown I saw you / looking real good / looking the other way / I was hoping that you would not see me’. Then there’s some songs that could be pop songs, but how would I know? ‘Calgon take me away’, ‘Talking pictures’, they’ve been rushed onto tape barely written, falling apart every step of the way. As for the production? I listened to this record on one ear of a busted headphone just cause it felt right. (I’m not selling this record very well, am I?) And yet, and yet… there’s something that communicates. On songs like ‘Numbers have too many meanings to me’ and ‘Dog with the lampshade head’ these guys radiate pain. Wronged relationships, doing wrong in relationships, losing yourself in a cloud of drugs, it’s all there. To say it’s beautiful, is off mark. I find this record fascinating, and I’ve been playing it a lot. On my favorites it really comes together – just barely, of course.
At its best: Flying pizza (two versions), The man from North Main, Bullet, One more next time
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