Thinking about Thoughts on Music

Before thinking about today's big news, and the start of Glastonbury 2009, I'd already been thinking about the wider aspects of performance music thanks to two items that very recently came my way.
The first may seem almost inconsequential as it was just a flyer in an album I received...

You can probably see why this appealed to me - and what a great way of making buying physical music more appealing - though I had just bought this, Iamsound IAM024, and imported it from the US anyway unaware of this bonus. The album is Dance Mother - Telepathe on 12" vinyl and the best thing, apart from the fact it is available on vinyl at all, is that doing so is not prohibitively expensive.

I am also reading a book that is proving much more fascinating than I expected it would be. It is a question that lies behind all music, recorded music and live performance, although it is predominantly concerned with the former.
What do we mean when we say "That sounds really good." and why?

If anything that is only an easy question: Is it possible to find answers, or even gauge trends, in a topic so obviously fraught with individual tastes and tolerances?

How do I know if the CD I am listening to now even sounds the same to you as it does to me, regardless of whether it is to your liking or not? It could have been a book of untold ennui but, as I got a free copy to review, I decided to take the risk.
I have only read about half of it so far - at nearly four hundred pages it is no light-weight matter - and the further I get the harder it is to put down. It is factual and sometimes analytical but only because the topic requires it to be thus at times; at others it is reminiscent of a detective novel in search of those responsible for the way in which the story unfolded and what the influences and motives were, or in some cases, might have been.
I am finding it enlightening and simply fascinating. It is certainly not necessary to read it to enjoy recorded music but will it increase my enjoyment of recorded music?
My answer is that it is probably too early to tell really but it is unlikely to do any harm. It is already making me think about the whole process in a different light.

You can find many blogs that discuss the merit of Dave Sitek's production duties on various albums of late, and one of those is that by Telepathe that I mention above (and helpfully I've recently seen them play live, for comparison). Reading the book and listening to this and (other) albums might inspire some to write a PhD thesis. Count me out, I'm too old for that kind of thing now, but tell me about it and I'll gladly read yours.

New and recycled. New Music 2009 - Part 2

I'm not quite sure now why, when writing my post on that music I am looking forward in 2009, I decided to stop when I did. I intended to add some more soon but didn't intend to do it this promptly as I couldn't decide what direction to take first. This morning I woke up with a migraine - hence the title of the post - but as things go the odd such episode is hardy something to complain about and, like dreams, if it serves a purpose then it is one hard to define in importance. I mention that because I suspect that, being both brain-based phenomena, they may not be entirely unrelated and a sort of living version of a soft-reboot followed by a hard-disc defragmentation. One thing I have noticed is that if I have a few vivid dreams (that I can remember) in a couple of days then a migraine might well follow. I woke up on Saturday morning and was mystified to discover that I was not in a tent but at home instead! My dream of being at a festival, though no particular one, was reality at the moment I woke up... Having slept the worst of it off I started to spend the rest of the time this afternoon, that I would normally have spent at work, drinking weak tea with sugar (the best palliative that I have yet found) and thinking about the problem. I don't know if others find this but, in the immediate aftermath, I discover that I have a new perspective on the scheme of things and even a renewed optimism.
In 2008 I listened to a great deal of music from the US and it was more in quantity and far more varied that I could have anticipated.
New York is always a good bet and, while some are particularly championing Chairlift and the 2008 début album 'Does You Inspire You' and it is yet another album left hanging around in my wish list of 2008, I'm going with this one for now and it is the début full-length album from Telepathé who are now, mostly, a three-piece but with collaborators a-plenty.

'Dance Mother' has been long in the making but also preceded by several vinyl and/or CD EPs, commencing with 'Farewell Forest' in 2006. It is released in the UK on January 26, 2009.

This is just a temporary image of the album cover but, judging from the EPs, the whispers and the fact that production duties on the album were in the hands of Dave Sitek, this shouldn't disappoint in terms of off-kilter cheer.
From this side of the pond here is another band that, although also not new, for most of us might as well be so. In 2007 a band called 6 Day Riot released an album 'Folie à Deux' and it didn't click with me then either.

They are back in 2009 with a new album that may or may not be called 'Have a Plan', which is due out by the summer. You know, the long, hot one that we are going to have, and to think that the 'festival season' is only six months away. You see, I've cheered up already!