In Brazil it's considered bad luck to turn down an artistic collaboration. Here you have a song called 'Tudo que você podia ser' which Lô Borges wrote for Milton Nascimento to sing on Clube Da Esquinha. That same year it's taken up by Quarteto Em Cy, former backing singers for Chico Buarque amongst others. Their version is produced and arranged by Edu Lobo. Confused yet? All you need to do is listen to those unique close harmonies. That should do it. Quarteto em cy is a quartet of 4 female singers whose names begin with Cy (it's true, I swear). Ain't that something?
It's on this self-titled 1972 album, which is a groovy, easy-on-the-ears collection of melodic, kinda folky covers, all sung to perfection by the quartet, who sound like they're born to sing together.
It's a conundrum that Aguilera's most indulgent (from a very indulgent artist) is also her best. Sure, if she doesn't get her coffee in the morning, life's still 'impossible'. She 'broke the mold' that way, I guess. Sure, there's an interminable string of ballads at the halfway point of a long record. But it's filled with moments that work ('Can't hold us down', 'Walk away', 'Fighter', 'Beautiful', 'Dirrrty' and more). One question: what happened to her feet on the cover picture? She doesn't have any? That's indulgence, I guess.
A little later that same year, Lô released his self-titled debut solo album. Push come to shove, I think it's the best Brazilian album I've ever heard. It's ever very far from my record player. Everything I liked about his work on Clube Da Esquinha is here, even more so. 15 songs in half an hour – this is intricate stuff. It blends together in a patchwork masterpiece of concentrated compositions, fragments (but always perfectly realized) and a couple of freewheeling improvisations. You have to keep on your toes, there's always something happening.
Listen to this 1'50” song. A very short piano verse, followed by this loping percussion driven flute workout, repeat at 0'27”. A 0'42” a whole new section – wonderful acoustic guitar descending riff. Back into the verse at 1'03” followed by 20 seconds of extemporization. And that's it.
Or 2 minute ballad 'Homem da rua'. A moody verse goes into a lovely chorus, at 0'35” a new riff bursts in with more singing, it breaks down, at 1'05” back into the verse and chorus. The last half minute is repeat and fade.
Country: UK Artist: Duo Career: debut Language: English Genre: Electronica / Pop
In truth Alison had never felt comfortable with the humans. Maybe it was the fact that she was a two-headed woman. Maybe it was cause she lived way high on a secluded mountain range and only ventured down for festivities in the local pig farmers’ village, dancing to the ancient oompa music till she convulsed in seizures or the natives brought her sacramental flower offerings, whichever arrived first. For years she felt no strong connection to the species, the constant chatter between her two brains enough distraction from the eternal snow way up on the mountain. On one dance festival, however, she noticed a small boy crying. It set off a complicated series of philosophical discussions between her brains, each amazingly advanced in the fields of logic and analysis, but entirely lost in the field of emotions. As the winter progressed, all roads and communication lines to the world below were severed and Alison’s only occupation was playing a droning harmonium accompaniment to the ever more puzzled attempts of the two brains to explain the young child’s tears. She almost understood, she felt, but in understanding she was forced to grasp outside of her own identity to such an extent that she soon lost herself and in truth, never regained her grip on reality, but roamed the hills like a mad two-headed babbling phantom. To the villagers there was no difference, they simply stopped going up there.
For once, the cover (front and back) is exactly right – it sounds like a two-headed woman having a quiet nervous breakdown on a secluded mountain peak. Totally alien, and totally amazing. Of course you can tear it apart all you like: spy movies, ‘50s sci-fi, Dr Who theme tunes, Wicker Man folk, short wave pops and crackles, trip hop, a very British translation of continental arty detachment, big band ballad singers. But it doesn’t really matter. Goldfrapp aren’t just the sum of their influences. I totally believe this is who they are – why would anyone artificially induce themselves to sound like this?
I had the pleasure of submitting myself to the Goldfrapp live experience a couple years later (around ‘Supernatural’ I’d think), but I never imagined they’d come from this eerie, cold blooded landscape. There’s something quizzical at the heart of it, like some otherworldly entity puzzling over human emotions and losing the plot. She’s tripping.
Country: US Artist: Male solo artist Career: recording since 1955 Language: English Genre: Texas country’n’rock’n’roll
The last recordings Doug Sahm made in 1999 before his passing, they were released in 2000 as this posthumous album. He sings a couple of old ones with real feeling, he wrote a couple beautiful new ones, he takes the opportunity to do a final Dylan song (‘Love minus zero/No limit’), and he tells a story about Leon Payne, the blind balladeer.
I’m no expert on Sahm’s later years – I feel ‘Border wave’, his comeback Sir Douglas Quintet album, is very underrated, but that was 1981, 20 years ago. Listening I get the impression that with time he found a way to reign in his indulgences – you know those hippie Sir Douglas records are great because the whole thing can fall apart at any time and it frequently does. That’s not what this record is about. With time and experience he zoomed in on the heart of what he does, and that is, of course, the Texan tradition. And that’s what you get here, a real Texan country record. The Texan part is not just in the frequent name checks of the state, Dallas, Austin etc. It’s in the taste of the music, the way the fiddles intersect with the pedal steel, it sounds like sun fried tears on a cactus (forgive these stereotypes, all my best friends are Texans etc.).
Well, anyway, this is not a record about dying. Far from it, it’s about really living. Sahm’s summing the whole thing up, what it’s all about. So he’s not dancing on the wire anymore, this time with concentration he’s sending us a beautiful message in a language that we know. As I said, I don’t know much about his later years. I don’t know if he’d been working towards this or if it was the pure concentration of knowing it was his last message. But I’m happy I heard the message. It’s about living –living with pleasure, living with pain, living with others- and with any luck the listener can carry it around with him a little while and put it to good use.
At its best: Beautiful Texas sunshine, Cowboy Peyton place, Yesterday got in the way, Dallas Alice, Texas me
Country: US Artist: Band Career: recording since 1994 Language: English Genre: Indie Rock
In retrospect, Modest Mouse and Neutral Milk Hotel are the bridge between American indie generations – they seemed like the first bands who’d grown up on indie and were ready to take it one step further, but in a closed off bubble from the rest of the musical universe (unless it was something really inappropriate like African highlife, say, something really forced, that was still okay). In practice it was still indie rock but everything more hyper – not as hyper as Animal Collective (that’s 3rd generation – they were just debuting in 2000), but certainly on the way there. Oh yeah, and with a fondness for 80s UK indie too (why and what’s the reason for , I’ll never know). That always left me non-plussed when it came to Modest Mouse, even though people loaned me albums and talked them up, but I just wasn’t having it. Bunch of posers, the indie whiners now all wearing attention deficit badges.
So what’s this doing so high up? Well, you know, I had to force myself to listen to it three times, but then I started looking forward to at least the first half of it (this is a long record and it gets more idiosyncratic as it goes along – when he starts shouting down at people in wells so as they don’t have be down there alone and singing about members of his family being eaten by wolves you know you’ve crossed some kind of line), and so on… I still can’t relate in a rational way why it’s a good record, but leaving your critical sense at the door, surely the sign of a good record is not whether it fits into a preconceived set of values, but whether you feel good playing it again and getting to know it and marveling how much of it there is to get to know, how deep the well goes. Oh yeah, and there is some excellent, non-conformist guitar playing on this album.
At its best: Gravity rides everything, Dark center of the universe, Perfect disguise, Tiny cities made of ashes, A different city, The cold part, Paper thin walls
Country: Brazil Artist: Male solo artist Career: recording since 1996 Language: Instrumental Genre: Electronica
I’d like to say this record is a monster. Now I only have to describe what kind of monster. It’s not human, that’s a given – no psychopath, no face of evil tormented loner, nothing as comforting as that. This is nature, baby, a cold, unflinching force which will swallow you without prejudice. It could be a field of tropical flesh-eating plants feasting on a man in a psychedelic suit. It could be a shape shifting chameleon-like lizard snaring you in its tongue. It could be a virus, ripe with heat emitting molecules ululating under a microscope’s eye (what a sound!). Anyway, this monster operates either on no intelligence at all or on a plane of intelligence we can never attain – the difference is purely theoretical. Either way we can only steer clear or submit.
I would definitely suggest submitting. Parts of this album are plain uncomfortable, but you will experience something, some refraction of stereotypes you’re not even aware of through a prism of concentrated madness. This album could be the ‘Richard D. James album’ for the next generation, though replace Aphex Twin’s ambient influences with more noise and some warped jazz. The first half is like the album in miniature: it begins with two noisy, but surprisingly funky smashes (‘Get your snack on’, ‘Four ton Mantis’), settles down into a languid, jazzy, sun drenched stroll on ‘Slowly’, then scares the hell out of me (‘Marine Machines’, ‘Golfer vrs Boxer’ – that’s the monster taking over. ‘Marine machines’ begins like entering the jungle, it’s kinda idyllic though you can hear the animals chewing in the shadows, then it all turns upside down and they’re chewing on you) and finally performs some post-psychotic therapy (‘Deo') – I need it. At first that was all I needed (all I could take?). But, though the 2nd half runs through the basic emotions again, there’s subtle variations in there. It’s beginning to pull me in. Not like I can help it, I’m stuck inside the curve of a shape shifting lizard’s tongue. Recommended uncomfortable listening.
At its best: Get your snack on, Four ton Mantis, Slowly, Deo
All through this time the standard length for Brazilian records was very much set at half an hour, 35 minutes tops. So when this 21-track, 65 minute mammoth appeared it had tremendous impact. In a way it's the White album-successor to Tropicialia's Sgt Pepper's. Another multi-artist gathering. Milton Nascimento had achieved a fair level of success with his angelic singing and he used this as leverage to record this greeting card for his homeregion of Minas Gerais. The record broke the musical monopoly of the two big cities (Rio and San Paulo) and introduced a new regional music scene. Musically it cleers the board of the elaborate orchestrations and studio experiments of Tropicalia for a more rootsy, 'organic' (ugh) sound – you know what I mean, sounds like these musicians actually hung out together before recording. Except – and you know this is a big exception – no Brazilian record could ever sound brown.
For me, the biggest draw of the record is that Milton involved a roster of friends/musicians, but most of all Lô Borges, who I believe makes his debut here. If the cover picture is to be believed, Milton and Lô were childhood friends. Milton achieved success, but could never quite shake off the memory of the mercurial talent he had met – so he gave him a friendly push (yep, still making most of this up). Even though Lô is very much a junior partner on the record, his contributions stand out a mile away (and all of it is good, so that's something). This is one of my favorite records (like, ever, I guess).
Can't say why – the clippety cloppety rhyhtm – like Don Quichote galloping on his mule -, the spacious arrangement, but mostly the melody. He makes you wait for the chorus, but when it comes...
There's a lot to this album: 15-second fragments, multi-part epics, instrumentals, covers, returning melodies, different singers, different backing bands. I've listened to it for more than 10 years now, it seems bottomless.
Here's a great Milton piano ballad. Wait for the glorious piano & strings-section at the end!
Country: US Artist: Male solo artist Career: recording since 1986 Language: English Genre: Roots rock
This was the first Steve Earle I owned. As the years passed, four or five more passed through, but none of them are here still. ‘Transcendental blues’ is alone again – none of the others get halfway near what I’m getting from this one.
It feels like the songs are just tumbling out of him on this record. Fifteen of them pass by in quick succession on the album, all of them so different from each other, as compositions all of them sound completely natural, like they were just picked out of the air. You don’t get that feeling often. What I like about it, is it sounds like every track (or at least in groups of 2 or 3) was recorded as separate entities – arranged and produced according to its own internal logic and the circumstances of that particular moment in the studio – and Earle was taking some liberties with the roots rock he’s so familiar with (I think his Beatles albums got some regular spins around this time). The first half just flits from side to side. Opener ‘Transcendental blues’ drones in on tablas (uncredited but that’s what it sounds like), moogs and harmonium, and an Eastern scale on a distorted guitar. ‘Everyone’s in love with you’ is rocking pop with backwards solos. ‘I can wait’ is touching balladry, ‘The boy who never cried’ a parable for bouzouki and string quartet, ‘Steve’s last ramble’ Irish folk taped in Dublin with a local band etc. Roots rockers aren’t well known for experimentalism, it’s true, and this isn’t as far out as that, but he’s delving deep into his bag of musical tricks.
Of course it wouldn’t work without songs of quality, and he’s got them in spades. As the title says, it’s all in a roundabout way tied to transcendence. ‘I have spent most of my life (like most people) avoiding transcendence at all costs, mainly because the shit hurts,’ he writes in the liner notes. It’s good he took the trouble. There isn’t a songwriter out there who shouldn’t feel lucky to see the likes of ‘I can wait’, ‘Lonelier than this’ or ‘Over yonder’ materialize.
By the next album he was back on the political horse – I wish him luck with that.
At its best: Transcendental blues, I can wait, Lonelier than this, When I fall, Over yonder (Jonathan’s song)
Country: US Artist: Trio Career: recording since 1992 Language: English Genre: Rock
By the time of their last album (released after Mark Sandman’s death), Morphine had left their minimalist attitude from the mid-90s far behind. This is a lush, rich and very deep sound, made up out of 50s jazz drumming, New Orleans percussion, low tuned bass, organs (lots), and saxophones (even more), some slide guitar and Sandman speaking his haiku lines on top. By the time of the third track you’re either wishing them to go a little faster, just a little faster, or you’re into their narcotic spell and you’re just floating on the low, low tones (bass, bass sax, low pianos) – this is some bottom end. If you listen to one track from this album, make it ‘The night’ – it’s not really representative, but damn if it isn’t the most beautiful thing.
At its best: The night, Top floor bottom buzzer, Rope on fire, Take me with you
Country: Belgium Artist: Male solo artist Career: debut Language: English Genre: Pop / Rock
This was an absolute smash in Belgium in 2000, the debut of Novastar, our hope in barren song-days. Finally we were going to stop being difficult (dEUS, Evil Superstars etc) and Joost Zweegers turned up, writing effortless, undeniable melodies. The truth is never so simple. In fact it took him 4 years since surfacing with his effortless first single ‘Wrong’, to finish his first album of ten songs and 35 minutes, and ‘Wrong’ was still the most undeniable melody on it. Half of it was filled with forgettable filler like ‘Smooth flavours’, ‘E’ and ‘Do run’. I liked the difficult bands that Belgium had specialized in during the ‘90s, so I was never taken in.
But after all these years, there are some highlights here, some effortless and undeniable melodies. They remind me of the Chris Bell solo songs after Big Star: lost, they sound a bit faded like they’ve been recorded onto tape and been endlessly recorded over, scrapped overdub after overdub, in search of sonic perfection. You can hear the desperation that he’s not living up to his own ideals. I kinda like that. If you’re interested, try ‘Caramia’ or ‘Lost and blown away’ –almost as good as some of the songs on ‘I am the cosmos’. He didn’t get there, but he tried. After all these years, I’m there with him.
Edit: Still growing. Damn, I’ve got to give him his due. It’s excellent.
At its best: Wrong, Caramia, The best is yet to come, Lost and blown away
Edu Lobo got his break in 1971 with the fun Sergio Mendes presents Edu Lobo LP – for years my go-to Edu album. It's filled with jazz tinged earwurms, lots of hooks and catchy rhythms and basslines. So catchy that sometimes they lyrics are just scatted accompaniment to the melodies, you don't need more.
A while ago I came across his Missa Breve album, which has now overtaken the other record. It's still jazz tinged, catchy (but slightly less so). Edu's going for something a little deeper here. Side B is an imagination of the Latin Catholic mass – you see what I mean. That side is like a suite, sections segueing into one another. But he pulls it off. It's evocative music. I can see images accompanying the music. Not images of sitting in catholic mass either, which is a plus. Nature, flying, mountains... (you know, all the clichés that signify freedom).
Country: US Artist: Duo Career: recording since 1995 Language: English Genre: Acoustic indiepop
The hardest artifice is to sound artless. In the wrong hands it sounds like not just the music but anyone involved in getting it out in the world is guilty of unspeakable crimes of pretention and fakery. But oh, the rewards are high when it works.
This is a Portland duo of Rose Melberg (vocals, guitar, piano, drums, xylophone, keyboards) and Jennifer Sbragia (vocals, guitar, bass, xylophone, keyboards) who play the simplest songs and melodies and feelings that I could’ve never come up with. It’s got a definite naïve charm, but it’s never clumsy. It’s got a lot of strummed and fingerpicked guitar, but the performances are straight from the heart. I can hear it. And these are pop melodies, not some inscrutable vague meandering. Their major asset though: harmonies that drip with reveries of love and longing. The kind of harmonies that make a simple verse like ‘I have a yellow and navy sundress / Maybe I’ll wear it today / It reminds me of you’ fill up with memories of summer and long distant feelings.
Somewhere in there, in the most artless poetry they get the rush of new love and the disappointment of lost love just right:
Did you find a four leaf clover
Did you hope that I’d come over
Here I am and I might never leave again
But then:
Your kiss was sweet like an apricot
I guess I’m not the girl you thought
When you said this would never be undone
Your heart was pure like youth and all its charms
Now my empty arms are of no use
To me or anyone
(Eat your heart out, Aimee Mann)
At its best: Sleep away your troubles, The places we go, Me and the bees, You and only you, If you stayed
Country: US Artist: Band Career: debut Language: English Genre: Rock
The Czars are far from John Grant’s Heatmiser, though he seems to talk them down these days – then again, he can talk down the first birds of spring. On the contrary, they may have more of a rock band sound compared to Grant’s solo work, but it’s a rock band that can capture and deepen every nuance in the songs, they don’t plow over them with a truck. It’s a taut, highly disciplined band. They strip the arrangements down to just the necessary parts from each player, and weave them around Grant’s vocals, always the focal point. Superficially these songs may seem straightforward, but they twist and double back on you before you know it. The band not only deliver all that stuff well, they contribute to the music’s power. Indeed, some of my favorites here are the bass player’s and the drummer’s co-writes.
As for the songs… It took Grant the better part of a decade to get from this Czars debut and the resultant obscurity to cult artist status. But it’s not down to quality. On the basis of this, I’d say he arrived fully formed. Grant deals in the messiness of life, the complexities and contradictions, the dark clouds behind every silver lining, and the silver lining on every dark cloud – even if it’s mostly just so your misery can be other people’s amusement. But he knows it’s in the mess that life can find meaning, like in ‘What can I do for you’ where two unhappy people lean on each other for a while.
And basically, he sings everything like a motherfucker.
At its best: Val, Concentrate, Gangrene, Stay, Zippermouth
Country: UK Artist: Band Career: debut Language: English Genre: Electronica
I’m still not sure what to make of the ‘Pet sounds’ comparisons that pepper contemporary reviews of this album. I don’t hear it – maybe a bass line here or there which vaguely remembers one of the sort of melodic bass playing that you can hear in some Beach boys backing tracks. Broadcast is a very different sort of band, one for whom the charm is in how cold surfaces break up now and again under the attack of human emotions, only to close again almost instantly and leave you wondering if that was really a moment of humanity shining through or if it was just a mirage. It’s real, and the more you listen the wider the cracks show: it’s in Keenan’s vocals, it’s in how the repetitive riffs break up in a sudden beautiful chord change, it’s truly an evocative noise and it’s truly made by people.
At its best: Unchanging window, Come on let’s go, Echo’s answer, City in progress
This is going to sound like a backhanded compliment, but what I love most about the Association, is that by rights it seems almost like it shouldn't have happened at all. I mean, look at these guys. These guys were never hip. From the mid-sixties onto the early '70s they were hanging in there, caught in the slipstream of musical tides changing at the hands of artists far freakier than them, trying to make sense of it all. And yes, the four massive singles that bankrolled their career are amazing, but, besides that, to be honest, they just weren't talented enough (that's not even a backhanded compliment, I know!) . Listen to their albums and sometimes you get this impression, well, you know, maybe those hits belong to another band, and there's been a case of mistaken identity.
But that's what I love about them. They, somehow, got the opportunity to follow through, album after album, single after single. Searching for song material, searching for producers, searching for a sound, any sound that could connect with the times. Just when they needed them the most those hits appeared (two at the start of their career, two more a good year later), and so they worked on, in their bubble, and they ended up with a fascinating body of work. It utterly fails as much as it near-hits, and in the end, it's often plain weird, the artistic decisions they made. You don't get that from just any talented artist.
Album-by-album it is.
Another thing about this band, is that I love the sleevenotes. This goes way back to the original albums. Their debut album proclaims: 'they can play bluer blues than the Rolling Stones, harder hard-rock than the Raiders, and put more folk into folk music than the Kingston Trio'. Uhm, there is no evidence of any of this on any of their albums. This is harmony soft pop.
But the notes on the series of Cherry Red reissues of their 6 albums are better. Not since the Dave Clark Five Greatest Hits notes have I read such exagerated claims to the greatness of the artist. Reading these, you get the impression that the entire world of music revolved around the Association.
The first Association single was a very limp Dylan cover.
The backing track has some momentum, but these guys have like 11 vocalists, and they all want to get heard. Too much harmonies!
Anyway, the single led to them meeting Dylan once - once! So of course, you know, they inspired Dylan to go electric and near-as backed him at Newport, according to the band interviews (I really can't blame the writer, it's all in the interviews). It's kinda pathetic, but endearing. They really were music fans, who accidentaly stumbled into the wrong door.
Then of course came the first two hits: 'Cherish' and 'Along comes Mary'.
Dig that pre-song sketch!
And of course the Curt 'Millenium' Boetcher produced debut album. Actually, besides the two hits, there's not much on there that catches my ear. Sounds like any mediocre '60s pop album.
But it was very succesful, so it was a gamble to ditch him for the sequel, the same year's 'Renaissance' - which has something of a Monkees-after-the-coup vibe. Taking things into their own hands. This is a weird little gem of a record. It's bathed in deeply Eastern mystically inspired waffle - great atmosphere. (Did you know one of them went to India, like, a year before the Beatles?! I did not know that.)
Of course there was a single. A long section of the sleeve notes of the reissue are devoted to -even 45 years later- the disbelief and shock that this flopped.
Uhm, guys, it's called 'Pandora's golden heebie jeebies'! No record with a name like that has ever been succesful. Apart from that, one of my favorites.
And another failed single:
For the next album they entrusted themselves to outside help again, producer Bones Howe, several professional songwriters. This time it turned out great. Two more massive hits (both superior to the earlier duo of hits) and a great album.
Just great, right? Beautifully covered by Stephen Malkmus during his early 2000s tours too. And 'Windy' too, of course.
Chico Buarque' another one of those big names. I've heard a couple albums, but the one I always come back to is the great Construçoa (1974). More traditional, maybe. It doesn't sound like Chico went through the same rebellious phase the others did. He comes straight from the bossa nova masters (that's how it feels to me anyway – I'm making half of this up, remember). But for songs as massive as opening track 'Deus lhe pague'
Dark and ominous, exciting, all those dissonant chords and piano bass notes creeping up on you. Sounds like tympanis pounding.
Or the epic, orchestral title track, which sounds like three different spy movie themes before it ends (at least). Dramatic and wonderful. It just picks you up and sweeps you along.
In my mind he is the great, somewhat sinister crooner of Brazil.
Country: UK Artist: Male solo artist Career: debut solo album Language: English Genre: Pop / Rock
What the songwriter from the Boo Radleys did next. This kind of disappeared in 2000. Too much ballads, limited vocal range, that’s what I read in reviews. I’m not much of a Boo Radleys fan, don’t know much about them, really, but this is just what I like, especially the ballads, and I grew into the vocals too. There’s always a little something extra in these compositions, something a little off which ends up being your favorite part. I think I will check his other stuff out.
At its best: Tell her you want her, Hermit versus the world, Running off the ground, Go with yourself
Country: Ireland Artist: Female solo artist Career: recording since 1985 Language: English Genre: Jazz
And some people say Billie Holiday elevated disposable songs with her singing. Not going by these 21 examples. Let’s be honest, these are some amazing songs, wonderful words and melodies, cutting straight to the heart of it. I can’t say much about this: it’s a concert recording, which sets exactly the right mood – a studio record would’ve been too polished. The audience is with it the entire night, as I would have been. The singer is fine, she doesn’t have an amazing voice, but she feels the songs. Enough to let them go their way and not stand in their way, there’s hardly a melisma or vocal improvisation in sight. I like that. Plus, she’s got a slight lisp which is quite charming. But the real star is the band, and especially the pianist. I can hardly believe there’s someone out there still who’s got that touch.
Course, this is the easy listening, ‘reviving the oldies’ circuit of the ‘00s. I know we’re not supposed to condone that stuff, so hey, ignore me, but I’m right.
Not from the record, but the closest I could find:
At its best: They can’t take that away from me, God bless the child, I cover the waterfront, Good morning heartache, Porgy, Love for sale, You’ll be there, For all we know, I’ll be seeing you
Country: US Artist: Band Career: recording since 1999, 2nd album Language: instrumental Genre: Instrumental
A happy Godspeed you black emperor with pedal steel?
‘The sleepy strange’ is a well-chosen name for these 40 minutes of lovely, dreamy instrumentals. More post-rock? Up to a point – it’s slowly (very slowly) developing music, somewhere at the halfway point between ingeniously arranged and free flowing improvisation. But there is little music in post-rock so unafraid of beautiful melody and harmonic elegance. And with its layers of acoustic guitars, nimble drums, melodic basslines, ever present pedal steel, 70s synthesizer sounds and cello, it’s got a sound all its own. It’s not music that will knock you out (straight away or gradually), just some gorgeous and lush texture that might seep into your life. It did for me. Perfect for late night or early morning listening or just some background through your day.
Japancakes existed on the outskirts of Elephant 6, but don’t let that scare you off. They’ve got the friendly psychedelic vibe in common, but none of the lo-fi/home-recorded halfway in tune, in-need-of-editor problems that dog many of those bands. This is exactly what it should be.
At its best: Vanishing point, Soft n ez, Vinyl fever
Country: US Artist: Male solo artist Career: recording since 1976 Language: English Genre: Rock / Singer-songwriter This is one funny record. And you can tell Zevon means every word of it.
Sometimes I think they should make all the aging rockstars write records about death. It’s the only thing that gets ‘em hard (har har). But among all of them, Zevon is probably the only one who can take on death and come out on top, a pyrrhic victory for sure, but still a victory. He’s one nasty piece of work.
Lyrically, if you know Zevon (or his reputation) and you’re familiar with the concept of death – it’s exactly what you expect, something bitter and pessimistic and hard as nails and defiant and sly and ultimately aware of man’s knack for screwing up humankind’s possibilities, but that doesn’t mean the possibilities don’t exist. Musically he’s enough of an artist to know the hardest message doesn’t need the most radical music – he writes some shining melodies here. Sure, some sound like his old melodies. ‘For my next trick I’ll need a volunteer’ is a compound of one of his own ‘70s melodies with a Springsteen song (one of his anthems, maybe you can tell me which one). But they’re not less enjoyable here.
Zevon was all there when he made this, no doubt about it.
At its best: Life’ll kill ya, Porcelain monkey, Hostage-o, Back in the high life again, My shit’s fucked up, Fistful of rain, Ourselves to know
Briggs has a voice to alter the passage of time, but it's built for unaccompanied ballad singing. The acoustic guitar is expertly judged, but occasionaly overpowers. Still a much loved haven for quiet listening.
Tom Zé – the cubist of Brazilian pop. You know those Picasso portraits that show all the angles of someone's head at the same time? That what Tom Zé does. You get all the elements that make up a pop song, but they're put together in the damnedest way. Tom was around during the Tropicalia heyday – his song 'Parque industrial' is covered on the Tropicalia album – but I can't get into his records from that time. His mid-'70s period on the other hand! This 1975 album Estudando do samba for instance (well, I haven't heard that much more). Though he sings about sadness a great deal, this is an uplifting record. Just the tracklisting makes me laugh. Has anyone ever had a tracklist like this?
"Mã" "A Felicidade" "Toc" "Tô" "Vai "Ui!
"Doi" "Mãe "Hein?" "Só "Se" "Índice"
Two examples of his unique sound – some of the more straightforward pop stuff to be honest, but there's always something a little off. See if you can spot it.
Country: US Artist: Trio Career: recording since 1995 Language: English Genre: Indierock
Searing righteous rock. I don’t usually hang out with post-punk records, but I’ll gladly make an exception for Sleater-Kinney’s personal twist on the Wire-template. They’ve got two great ballads in ‘Leave you behind’ and ‘The swimmer’ as well. The first half is ferocious. Right on.
At its best: All hands on the bad one, You’re no rock ‘n’ roll fun, #1 must have, Leave you behind, The swimmer
77. David Sylvian: Everything and nothing (1980-2000)
Country: UK Artist: Male solo artist Career: recording since 1978 Language: English Genre: Art singer-songwriter
Sylvian may just be the most elegant and stylish man working in music. He’s not recording in search of answers, he’s recording the answers. I’d like a suit and a guru just like him. Even on his outtakes (collected on this double disc anthology-style overview) he’s several miles more suave and sophisticated than we can ever hope to be.
But damn, he can take a soundscape and drape his voice over it like butter on a side of bread. This anthology serves as a great (alternative) introduction to the many phases of his career: Japan, his solo albums, collaborative albums, guest spots and unreleased material, remixes of some of his better known work. It’s all there, except for ‘Forbidden colours’ (arguably the highpoint of his career), but such is the overall quality that you hardly miss it.
At its best: Ghosts, Wanderlust, Let the happiness in, I surrender, The boy with the gun, Midnight sun, Orpheus, Godman
35 years on and he's still smarting over a failed Motown career. 'That could've been my guitar on the Temptations' 'My girl'!' Duck Dun dutifully reproduces that trademark bass motif on at least 4 of the tracks here.
Otherwise, the disappointment album. His. Mine.
Somewhere on this 3 hour testament Prince tells us that if you can describe it, it's not funky. So - moderately funky jams, it is.
Vocoder-ized bass voice delivers the words of God. What else is new? Well, this time the words are actually from the Bible. Oh.
Still the last time he wasn't reclaiming some lost past and that counts.
Soldiers of Fortune is a (deep breath) Oneida/Chavez/Endless Boogie/Interpol indie supergroup. They're releasing a 2015 album that's stuffed to the rafters with even more indie luminaries guesting. And so, Stephen sings/chants the stuffing out of one groove song 'Campus swagger'.
Truthfully, not much of a song. But Stephen is into it. It's a vocal register we might have feared he'd lost. It's been a while. Good to have him back.
20151104, Max Fish, New York Soldiers of fortune album release show Campus swagger
10 minute version of that same groove at the album release show, for which Stephen also turned up. Good luck trying to see / hear him in the eyewitness video though - it's not that easy.
Caetano Veloso had some great Tropicialia-era records, but the ones I keep returning to are the two early '70s records he recorded while in exile in the UK. Loose limbed, stripped back, improvisatory folk rock. These are long, long songs, stretched out and I can listen to them playing forever. I appreciate the space – there's just one or two percussionists (could be one guy, but he'd be damn good), a wonderfully busy stand-up bass player, Caetano playing acoustic in the background, sometimes a lead guitarist and Caetano singing.
There's a sad edge to it – he sings about homesickness, about the family he left behind, but it's also loose and free, he's lost in the moment. You can hear him fly back home inside his mind. Until the music fades out. Maybe that's why they play'em so long.
