Hard Hearted (Ode To Thoreau)

I love it when people ask about lyrics. It serves to remind me that I'm not the only one who thinks they matter, and who finds them fascinating, so thanks to whoever asked about this one...

... 'Hard Hearted (Ode To Thoreau)', which comes from Amy Millan's début solo album 'Honey From The Tombs'.

I think that they are thus:

Hard Hearted (Ode To Thoreau)

I have a hard hearted island
Where I live alone
I've seen my love grow big as a mountain
And scatter like ashes and bones
These things I have forgotten
Memory I've left behind
Something was always drifting away
So I'll stay.

It may be the night it might be the morning
Never again will I weep
Cos I've got the wind blowing beside me
And the water can sing me to sleep
That sky can do my crying
Seasons can have my goodbyes
The city can keep all its history
And leave me.

I have been beat, I'm not defeated
Not bitter, not bound and not meek.
When disappointment is a slow burning fire
Let it drown under the sound of my feet.

If you want other lyrics then just please ask and, if you haven't already done so, her recently released sophomore solo album, Masters Of The Burial, is well worth a listen and I have the lyrics for that too.

Long time, no post...

It is true that I haven't added a post since the middle of last week but I haven't been particularly idle either. I've been busy trying to persuade my parents that music has not changed that much!

Amy Winehouse is very doubtful for Glastonbury 2008, so it seemed a good excuse to play 'Back To Black' in full and from original vinyl.

Amy Millan has also recorded an album, released in 2006, that fits the theme of love and loss perfectly...

Catastrophe does not, however, become her.

It wasn't very well received critically but then it is not her day job; that is female vocalist in Stars. Neither is it her second job, which is as a member of Broken Social Scene. I, however, really like 'Honey from the Tombs' and not least for its surprises!
Yet another part of the great Canadian experiment...

I'm catching up; and so hopefully is Royal Mail...

It's taken me a long time to catch up after my unplanned absence and now there is so much new stuff that I want to get hold of to listen to, of which more below. To do that however I rely heavily on the services of Royal Mail, the UK Postal Service, to bring packages to my door and just recently this long standing organisation has been involved in protracted industrial action over the subject of changes demanded by the modern competitive environment. It is possible that, for all parties involved and not merely out of my self-interest, over the recent weekend a deal has been reached that will put all interested parties back on course.

Quite possibly the future of Royal Mail is at stake here and this kind of consideration somehow reminded me of the past, an increasing music collection, and then a 2003 album Give Up - The Postal Service.
I no longer even attempt to keep my CD and vinyl collections in any logical order and although this probably started as a matter of lassitude it has now become a quite deliberate policy.
By profession I'm a chemist, which seen in simple terms (that are almost always good) involves toxic cookery and, when things don't go quite so well, nu-alchemy! As an undergraduate therefore I had to go to lectures on quantum physics that left me cold and also seemed incredibly pointless and theoretical. The 'Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle' has few such simple and useful applications larger and thus more useful than the subatomic. Put very simplistically it states that it is fundamentally impossible to know "what some thing is and where it is simultaneously just so long as it is far too small to be useful in any sensible way" - but my life-enhancing discovery is that it also describes my music collection perfectly. By ensuring that remembered and sought for items regularly, but of course totally unpredictably, become mislaid a natural quid pro quo means that those which have genuinely become either forgotten or lost will inevitably come to light again!
Thus, while I was hunting for the CD Give Up, I preternaturally came across my CD of the (eponymous) 2000 album Saint Low. I had forgotten about it for several years and so I listened to that again too! In fact I found both and they are too good to be forgotten and so I'm planning to review both albums on here in the next week.

I've also got a whole list of things I want to find an excuse to order - enough to keep me out of mischief at least until Christmas - and the first few arrived on Saturday and this morning. Coming soon are my thoughts on:
iLiKETRAiNS - Elegies to Lessons Learnt
Maxïmo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures

Already on order are (yet) another two albums from the hot-bed that continues to be Montreal and they are...
Patrick Watson - Close To Paradise
Letters Letters - Letters Letters

... and that is not to mention the latest album from Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War, which I have already mentioned!
Last for now, but not least is Awyren - Cerys Matthews' first EP entirely in Welsh, which was released today on CD by Cardiff-based KungFu Records. Sorry about the poor representation of the cover art - I'll add better as soon as I can. (24 October - at least one job got done!)

Amazon.co.uk does not seem to know about this one, and I can't tell you quite what it sounds like yet either, but I have just ordered it regardless! It is available, worldwide, from sebon.co.uk; always a good place to search for all music Welsh! The price is GBP 5.50 (for guidance only - US$ 11.00, € 8.25) and this includes post and packing in the UK. For delivery abroad add GBP 1.00 (about US$ 2.00 or € 1.50).

2007 so far, and my "want to listen to" list (Part 4)

Lots of new items on my list - so no change there - and they are roughly divided into two categories:

• Those that are not new but I want to listen to.
• Those that are simply new.

Amongst the second category are:

• New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom. This is the début album from the London 5-piece, fronted by Tahita Bulmer, who are signed to the Australian indie label Modular. They are playing at Latitude next weekend, so lucky me. They are not really new-rave, as some of the reviews say, just new pop and all the better for it. It is available on vinyl too!
  

The album is out tomorrow, 9th July.

• Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War. The new album from one of Canada's finest bands and the follow up to their 2005 album 'Set Yourself On Fire'. Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan are something of a gold-standard when it comes to boy-girl vocals in my opinion.

It is due to be released in Canada, by Arts & Crafts, on 27th September.

You can download the track "The Night Starts Here" from the Arts & Crafts website. Click here to go straight to the link.

• The Go! Team - Proof Of Youth. The second album by the London & Brighton sextet is to be released in the UK by Memphis Industries (MI) on 10th September, and in America the following day by Seattle's Sub Pop Records. Their first LP, Thunder, Lightning, Strike (2005) was also released by MI in the UK but by Columbia in the US. If anyone could make the sun shine then The Go! Team would be my bet, with CSS (another SubPop signing and a Latitude Festival act) a very close second! The sleeve will probably look a bit like this and the CD will be MI099CD, but we can hope for a vinyl version too as MI are pretty sound in this regard.
  

• Ash - Twilight Of The Innocents. This is to be the last Ash album as they have decided that, with the advent of downloading, the return of the singles band is beckoning once again. That is how they feel and you can't fault them for their integrity - throughout vinyl's darkest hour they always released everything they did on vinyl - and there is no reason to think that they will not continue to do so. What they got in recognition is to become, arguably, one of the most under-rated bands of the last decade! During the writing of this album Charlotte Hatherley (the fourth member of Ash, as both a lead guitarist and vocalist, from 1997 -2006) left for a solo career. She released her début solo album Grey Will Fade (Double Dragon, 2005) , while still with Ash. In 2006 she quit and has since released her second solo album The Deep Blue (2007) on her own Little Sister Records label, including vinyl of course. She plays Latitude Festival next weekend, and also the Reading/Leeds Festival in late August, which also features Ash.