Ten years of writing - and some thoughts on music

Having finally got something of the festive feeling, and also read the suggestion from one of my fellow bloggers that writing a blog displays a certain vanity, I thought I might indulge myself a little.
First things first and a very simple luxury - make a tartiflette and sit in front of a real fire to eat it, accompanied by some wine and recorded music.
This specific idea for this post actually came about as the result of a Spotify advertising link - “What did your 2014 sound like?”
My thought was "Why did my 2014 sound like it did?"

One thing I must say about 2014 is that without doubt I have listened to more music, both live and recorded, than in any previous year. I can't put numbers to that but, trust me, it is true and by some considerable margin. I'm not sure that eight years of writing a blog has done much, whether positive or negative, for my vanity. What it has certainly done is provide me with huge satisfaction and at times a sanctuary from the everyday and the mundane. Not just the writing that is, although it has; the live and recorded music that I have heard and all the people that I have met along the way and the ones that I anticipate meeting in the future. One thing is certain; it is both absorbing and time-consuming. It is also absolutely fascinating. I have spent a great deal of time mulling (perhaps I should have done that with the wine too) over the music of 2014 this last month or so. I suppose with good reason that my 2014 has been dominated by acoustic-folk-Americana-roots. I can see that trend continuing in 2015 but that's not all that I like by any means.

The first time I wrote about music in the public domain was some amazon.co.uk reviews in 2005. I was reminded of this the other day while reading reviews and suddenly finding myself confronted by one of my own - that for the LP 'Old World Underground Where Are You Now?' (2003) by Metric.
That I suppose, and then the desire for freedom to write just what I wanted, led to this blog starting in September 2006 if only by accident rather than design. In 2007 this led to my going to festivals although it had been on my mind for a while. This was hastened by the new-found need to have original material to write about. Then came photography to go with it because festivals are as much about watching as listening. This bare-bones timeline says nothing at all about the music that accompanied it .
This got me thinking about how my current tastes in music have evolved to the point at which they are now. That is proving a tricky thing to do and harder to explain, not least because of the self-analysis that it predicates.

This evening I decided to listen to absolutely any LPs that I thought inspired my, or the purchase of which was inspired by my, decision to start (and then continue) going to festivals back in 2007. Whilst my liking for acoustic folk goes way further back it would seem, on reflection, to have had nothing to do with this particular decision. It seems to have been largely indie-driven; my choice of Latitude Festival 2007 as a starting point was specifically because Arcade Fire was headlining the Sunday. One thing yesterday's playlist demonstrated was that I still like much of what attracted me then and not all of this indie in the period 2007-9 was indie-rock; that appellation doesn't apply to New Young Pony Club or Polly Scattergood, both of which I first became aware of by seeing them play live at Latitude Festivals. I then bought the LPs and indeed have continued to do so. Both have disco as a pulsing heart - the twisted nature of 'Bunny Club' (Polly Scattergood) and 'Ice Cream' (NYPC) have both stood the test of time I think. 

To use a geological analogy, the growth of my music collection in the last ten years has been a largely sedimentary (rather than volcanic) epoch. It does, however, include a couple of fault planes within it. The most obvious of these is connected with my decision to go to End Of The Road Festival for the first time in 2009. This decision was certainly responsible for stirring my interest in Americana and roots and (while I don't much care for the descriptor) 'alt-country' too.
This fed-back into a revived interest in UK folk music (both traditional and new) that served to fill the gaps in live music between festivals.  That is when things became really interesting. It gave me the idea to go looking for new music myself, be that local in origin or further afield, rather than just wait for it to come to a venue that I was at.

How do you solve a problem like ... Caroline's A Victim?

This clearly has nothing to do with the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of "The Sound Of Music", but it does concern the sound of music. The "problem", in so far as there is perceived to be one, concerns this single that is one side of a double 'A-side' on 7".
If you want the 7" you are going to have to search for a copy but you can also download it here.

A certain amount of effort has gone in to posts claiming that she is "this year's Lily Allen", and indeed she herself has given Kate Nash her full backing, but listen to Caroline's A Victim and you will likely be left wondering why this particular song has any relevance to anything on Alright, Still. You are forgiven that because the answer is that it doesn't!

This is exactly why this single is a double A-side and Birds will seem more accessible to those expecting a modern urban narrative largely backed by semi-acoustic sounds (which she mostly plays herself).
The choice of Caroline's A Victim as the lead single has been questioned by many a reviewer already. I like it and think that it may be a statement of intent given that this is her first commercial recording (it is released on independent label MoshiMoshi [MOMO4]), and it is also a very interesting development. The track itself consists almost entirely of thundering bass and heavy drum parts, plus of course the vocals, and beyond the obvious is heavily influenced by ska, post-punk and a great deal more besides. It is also very curiously addictive and the versatility that it demonstrates is alarming in the context of a 7" single, but the ambition to take such a strange course is actually quite explicable, and maybe even logical. The major labels are circling, but she is holding out and she recently said:

"I'm really stubborn... if I want to write an eight minute song then I'm gonna do it.
I want my album to be eclectic."
(The Fly - February 2007)

In some ways this reminds me of the devil-may-care attitude to music genres that (2007 Brit Award Winner for Best Foreign Female) Nelly Furtado has deployed across her three albums to date. Don't worry if it's folk, funk or whatever else; if it works use it and if it doesn't then consider adapting it so that it does - just as she did quite spectacularly for the 2006 single Maneater, which sampled the Hall and Oates 1982 disco "classic" of the same name taken from the album H2O.
It was a huge hit - including four weeks as UK #1- but it could hardly have been predicted given the content of her second album Folklore, released in late 2003, which somehow managed to split opinions all ways: some people thought it was too folky and not enough pop, while others argued that it was not folky enough to be credible - but even so it has now sold to the tune of 2½ million copies, and counting, worldwide.

The problem is that to do this successfully requires a wide spectrum of musical influences but, based only on these two tracks, it would be unwise to rule Kate Nash out of any equation. Apparently still unsigned, she is currently recording her début album and it could just be very interesting indeed - with or without that eight minute song.

Goodbye, 2006!

Everyone has their own view of the music that made 2006 unique - these are my first thoughts and I hope they look forward as much as back. In some ways I think that 2006 was the year that proved that 2004 and 2005 weren't simply some fluke of nature!
It is not generally disputed that the music industry entered the new millennium in a state of largely self-inflicted malaise - having convinced itself that managing its own gradual decline was the best that could be hoped for. I'm afraid that the principal blame here must go to the major labels in the US as they duly responded - in perhaps the worst way possible - by axing most of their promising, but as yet unprofitable, artists mostly in favour of aging "bankers".

It was a veritable "Night of Long Knives" and the repercussions were also felt across Britain and Europe as those same labels also controlled most artists here too. It was the best thing happen in a very long time - BUT the commercial ineptitude that it displayed simply beggars belief! With new technologies making recording, releasing and promoting music ever easier, surely the last thing to do is to release all your carefully signed, nurtured and contract-bound new talent as free agents on a ready and willing market?

Too right - and that is why we are where we are now! Why not add a comment or criticism now? ~R

Those 2005 albums... (part 1)

Well I said I'd get back about this subject sooner or later...

I have finally got around to thinking about the 2005 albums that I still listen to on a regular basis. This is no order of merit - it is just what comes to mind here and now - but 'Sons and Daughters' 2005 album The Repulsion Box remains right up at the top of the listening list.
Why this band has not been more successful beats me; their 2004 EP Love The Cup was almost as good too. They are signed to Domino Records and both the EP and LP mentioned above are readily available on CD and also, with a little bit of searching, on quality vinyl. So are the singles - the pick of which is probably Dance Me In c/w Drunk Medicine - but without a moment of doubt 'Sons and Daughters' is truly an "album band".

They fuse elements of punk and folk with dark and often quite surprisingly brutal lyrics and all accompanied by some seriously martial percussion. The vocals are never less than fantastic - Scott Paterson has a great Glaswegian growl - and when Adele Bethel is angry, as she often seems to be, there is no mistaking it!
If you want to try the slightly less intense, lyrically somewhat more ambiguous, side of 'Sons and Daughters' then I recommend starting with the Love The Cup EP and it is never better demonstrated than on the closing track Awkward Duet.

Behave

I'm supposed to be telling you about the albums of 2005 that I still frequently listen to, and in a bit I will do so, but I have just been reminded of a splendid solo album from 2004, Grey Will Fade by Charlotte Hatherley. She was then still lead guitarist with Ash, but as of early 2006 she has been a solo artist. Her first new release, on 'Little Sister Records', is out on Monday 17th December. There is a four-track download EP and also an extremely limited 7" release of first single Behave.

Luckily I already have the vinyl version on pre-release and a fine thing it is too. Just like Grey Will Fade it is full of strange twists: some are lyrical but most are musical. Grey Will Fade is still one of my favourite albums of 2004 - and few would attempt the kind of key and time changes to be found on it.
The 'B' side of the 7" is a remix of Behave and I generally have rather mixed feelings about such things. This particular one I really like however - I'm not sure quite why but it just "works". It presages her second solo album The Deep Blue, which is due to be released in March 2007.

Another week, another cover version.

Lily Allen has been big news in 2006; recently her third single 'Littlest Things' appeared. There is a limited vinyl 7" release of this single and the 'B' side is a surprise, to say the least! It is a cover, largely played on guitar but also with keyboards, of Keane's Everybody's Changing from their first album. Keane memorably don't do guitars - it is their defining statement!
I think this works very well however - it is less gloomy than the original, but not by much - and her voice is actually not too far from that of Tom Chaplin and her vocals sound far less strained! Many myths surround Lily Allen's music on vinyl and are they often misleading:

The singles, excepting the 200 copies of 'LDN' c/w 'Knock Em Out' that accompanied the original "download only" release (below, bottom left), are not that rare. The vinyl single of its second release (below, bottom second from right) was c/w 'Nan, You're a Window Shopper'. The latest single 'The Littlest Things' (below, bottom right) has as its 'B-side' the cover mentioned above.


The album 'Alright, Still' is widely claimed, if one believes much that is written on the internet, not to exist. Exist it does, but I believe only to the extent of 800 copies worldwide; three of which are pictured above!

Ice Cream Is Nice (monsters are not)

For some reason the most wanted items always take the longest time to arrive and never has it been truer than with this CD. It has been several years in the making and then two different Amazon Marketplace sellers let me down on this one (the only two times this has ever happened to me and so I’m not planning to dwell on it). When it finally arrived this morning I hardly dared listen to it. I had high hopes based on the single ‘Tomoko’, (available on vinyl and which I have) but what if it was to prove an overall disappointment after all the waiting and the effort to get it? I can’t tell you what might have been but I can say that it is far better than I dared hope for.
This is an album that proves ‘pop’ is not a dirty word after all and also that the genre is far from exhausted! Better still, but rather unfairly as it deserves a wide audience, you’ll probably have this gem almost to yourself at least for now be that for your own listening or for confounding your friends.

Dirty Paper Cup is an odd name for an album but then its maker is called Hafdis Huld Thrastardottír, though she drops the last name for stage purposes. She is Icelandic, was formerly a singer with the nine-piece-collective Gus Gus, and that is probably all you need know about her back catalogue as this album is totally different. It is basically acoustic/electronic pop with more than the occasional strangely un-pop lyric (her shoes used to be a crocodile - Tomoko) all sung in a voice that ranges from a rather characteristic tuneful loud whisper to a sweet if slightly husky soprano. It is also much more than that for the arrangements are often as sparse as they are beautiful.

The ‘Dirty Paper Cup’ of the title is explained in track 7, in case you were wondering, and the very curious title for this review comes from track 8. I might be suffering from a case of track 6, but it is that kind of album: 13 tracks packed into 42 minutes and only one makes the four-minute mark. Not one even tempts me to make the effort of skipping it, which is the defining moment for a really good album. The final track, the short Sumri Hallar, is sung in Icelandic.

The penultimate track Who Loves The Sun? is indeed a cover of the Lou Reed song, which was the opening track on the 1970 album Loaded, the fourth studio album by the ‘The Velvet Underground’ but never before did it sound like this (this track in particular reminds me of Isobel Campbell's solo stuff) and I haven’t come across a cover of such an old track that really works since Vanessa Carlton covered 'The Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black on her 2002 début album Be Not Nobody but the same song was also covered (in Japanese) by Utada Hikaru on her 1999 album First Love.
That said Nothing Else Matters was ingeniously and quite shamelessly covered by Lucie Silvas and it appears - as a piano ballad - on her 2004 début album Breathe In. Many of her fans didn't even realise that it was a cover of a track originally written and recorded by 'Metallica' and taken from their eponymous first album that was released in 1991.

Negative reviews are fine, but...

As the title says negative reviews are fine by me although, mainly out of necessity, I tend to only review my likes.
Why however, and it is very evident on amazon.co.uk , are reviewers who post a negative review of something almost always disinclined to suggest things we might like instead (and thus make a really positive contribution), while reviewers posting a positive review seem far more likely to suggest other things we might like as well?

Coming soon, reviews of:
Imogen Heap - Speak For Yourself
Thea Gilmore - Harpo's Ghost

and perhaps things you can't even imagine! If you don't like this idea then you should send me some suggestions...

Amy, Amy, Amy!

It is Halloween and, perhaps appropriately, Amy Winehouse is Back To Black...

The album is out and it is amazingly good - as all top music reviewers have been saying - but what is it about this album that makes it so different to Frank in 2003? Yes it is slightly more polished, and it is certainly more consistent in style (but see below) and perhaps also better produced, but is it really such as a big departure from Frank?
I think not, and I'm rather pleased too. Frank was critically praised, nominated for a '2004 Brit Award' and even won her an 'Ivor Novello Award' for songwriting in 2004. It was regarded then as something slightly off the mainstream, and it didn't sell in vast quantities (though enough to have recently gone 'platinum' in the UK!), but the concept had much promise. Island Records clearly agreed and didn't attempt to fix anything that wasn't broken. In fact it seems they allowed the fixing of the few things that were, mostly by interfering less and in particular by not meddling with the album's production. This appears to have been a big issue with Frank and she claims that, although she loves to perform the tracks from it, she can't stand listening to the album. Having heard Amy perform live I can believe that; Back To Black sounds much more authentic and this may also account for it's consistency.

There is I suspect also a bit of duplicity involved. Popular taste has been moving in the direction of her music, indeed live music in general, in the intervening time and both the label and the magazine reviewers have responded accordingly:

The Voice of 2007. There's none better. - MOJO and Contender for 'Album of the Year' - NME.

That all seemed fairly obvious to me three years ago, hence my post last week that included my review of Frank from 2003, but what do I know? I feel vindicated as I have just had a look on amazon.co.uk to see how 'Back To Black' is selling.

Even I was shocked and stunned - Back To Black is currently #1 in Music! Here she is looking quite normal.