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.
