Old Git Blues

Thursday, November 04, 2010

So, call me an old git (the first part is accurate enough), but due to various circumstances which I suppose I shouldn’t go into on the interwebs, but involve a certain person acting like a spoilt child, my music soundtrack of the week has been heavily dominated by Supertramp (who funnily enough were the first live band I ever saw, back in Antwerpen when I was so much younger than today).

Anyway.

Obviously we all know the big hits, but Supertramp didn’t end with Breakfast in America, or indeed the fab Brother Where You Bound, but never actually stopped but swerved into much more Blues/Jazz territory. I finally got to listen to their most recent studio release, Slow Motion, last night, and, well, it’s pretty good.  The title song “Slow Motion” is great, and the closing “Dead Man’s Blues” is pretty much where I’m at, and sounds uncannily like something Neil Young or Dylan should have written.

Something of a list

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

One thing that I really hate about this time of year is newspapers, blogs and all other publishing outlets filling up with lists of the year’s best cat photos or whatever else.

So I’m going to do it to. Probably for the first time ever: here is the music I’ve been most taken by this (last) year (well I started writing it in December. Honest).

Overall Winner: Thin Air by Peter Hammill

This is really a big surprise for me. I’ve been a Peter Hammill fan for somewhere near 20 years, but recently my interest has tailed off and I’ve found his newer releases unengaging. But this year’s Thin Air is really something else.  Right up there with Bob Dylan’s “Time Out Of Mind”, this is a hard hitting collection of songs full of dread, fear, unease and awareness that life is running out.  With a strong sub-theme of time running out for all of us, referring to 9/11 and the collapse of dreams, this is not exactly easy listening. The counterpoints of grace and beauty which Hammill has always brought to his best work make it is absolutely addictive. There isn’t a weak song on the CD. I doubt it will get much better than this.

Runner up #1: “Untitled #23” by The Church

I picked up Untitled #23 in San Francisco back in June. This is totally irrelevant. The Church have been going for ages, and honestly, like with Peter Hammill, I didn’t really expect them to surprise again. Well they did. Untitled #23 (it isn’t their 23rd album, but that’s The Church for you) is the culmination of a slow return to peak form which started a good few years back. It features some superb songs, like Pangaea and Deadman’s Hand, an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous finale, “Operetta”, and a good dose of typical weirdness (“On Angel Street”). I played Untitled #23 pretty much all some, and got hooked on Steve Kilbey’s freeform stream-of-whatever blog. It wore off a bit, but ... hey, time to listen again.

Runner up #2: “Here Come the Vikings” by Astrid Williamson

I don’t have a lot to add to what I wrote back in October, but a glance at my latest Last.fm statistics will show that it hasn’t worn off yet. For a taste of Astrid (unplugged) check out this video.

Runner up #3: “Me and Armini” by Emiliana Torrini

Actually “Me and Armini” was released in September 2008, but it didn’t really take off until later this year, helped along by “Jungle Drum” being a huge hit single in Germany. Emiliana Torrini is of mixed Icelandic and Italian descent, and you can’t do much better than that! (well ok, you could mix in a bit of Romanian). I was introduced to her music by an Icelandic friend a few years back, and it will always remind me of coffee overdoses and strange journeys. Torrini has not had the smoothest of rides through life, and this shows through in her music, which although often quirky and humorous, has a dark edge lying just beneath the surface.

Discovery of the year: My Brightest Diamond

Ok, so this isn’t music from anywhere 2009, but I discovered it this year, and listened to it obsessively, so as far as I’m concerned it belongs in this list.

My Brightest Diamond is essentially Shara Worden, a musician and singer with an eclectic range of influences and a unique warm, expressive voice and style. My Brightest Diamond is impossible to classify but inhabits a space where people like Jane Siberry and Kate Bush might hang out. Songs like “Golden Star” and “Gone Away” from “Bring me the workhorse” or “Ice and the storm” and “Bass Player” from “A Thousand Shark’s Teeth” can stay on auto-repeat all afternoon as far as I’m concerned.

And that’s quite enough lists for now.

Here Come the Vikings

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

I’ve been a big fan of Astrid Williamson for a long time now. First, in her incarnation as the leader of the dark, gothic, romantic band Goya Dress. Next, as her first solo persona, “Astrid”, and finally as the fully fledged “Astrid Williamson”.

I thought her 2006 CD, “Day of the Lone Wolf” had to be her masterpiece. Songs like “True Romance” and “Heaven Only Knows” could hardly be surpassed, and if it lacked the commercial edges of her first two releases, well as far as I’m concerned, so much the better.

But earlier this year, she released “Here come the Vikings”, the title maybe alluding to her Orkney background. And, well, I think it might actually be better than “Lone Wolf”, albeit quite different. This latest collection of songs has a much more upbeat feel, and a more commercial sound, but what it gains over her earlier works is a really strong coherence and consistency. It manages to combine the more pop-oriented (well, relatively speaking) approach of “Boy For You” and “Astrid” with the deeply personal feel of “Lone Wolf”, and the results are outstanding. Astrid’s song writing just keeps getting better - I understand she participates in song writing workshops, which should be quite an experience. It kicks off with the very strong, upbeat “Store” (a complete reversal from Lone Wolf’s “Siamese”) and just keeps going.  Highlights, for me, include “Crashing Minis” and “Eve”, and the closing track, “The Stars Are Beautiful”, which vaguely reminds me of the Goya Dress song “The Maritime Waltz”

Sadly, there’s no way that “Here come the Vikings” is going to be heard by anywhere near as many people as it should be, but if you’re one of those that do, prepare to be captivated.

iTunes link

Isole che Parlano & Dodó

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Sometimes in life you just strike gold when least expecting it.  This last happened to me last week in Palau, Sardinia, where I was on vacation.  Palau is a small port town mainly given over to the tourist trade, and hosting the ferry link to the beautiful La Madalenna archipelago. It really isn’t the sort of place you expect to stumble across a free festival of radical, inventive, wonderful music. But the Isole che Parlano (“islands which speak”) arts festival is just that.

One of several acts which really knocked me sideways was Dodó. Dodó is a trio, composed of Ewa Wikström from Sweden, and Ivo Saint and Maru Di Pace from Argentina, and based in Barcelona.  It’s easy to say, but their music honestly sounds like practically nothing else I’ve ever heard. Billed as “immaginary folk music suspended between the warm nostalgia of South America and the introversion of Swedish winters” , their songs are bursts intricately arranged of melody, sudden lush orchestration, and as many unexpected twists and turns as old Barcelona. Tying all this together is Eva Wikström’s gorgeous voice, singing sometimes in English, sometimes Swedish, sometimes (I think) Catalan.  The only other artist I can think of who Dodó sort of remind me of is Emma Townshend, who released one, solitary, weird and wonderful CD back in the 90s. But that’s just me.

They’ve recently released their first, self-titled CD. And it’s on iTunes. The amazing thing is that live (with two guest musicians) they manage to recreate the same magic as in the recordings.

Dodó deserve to be huge. Or at the very least a cult hit.

I should also add that the fact that such a festival can work, and work very well, in a tourist seaside town in summer, speaks volumes of the open mindedness towards music so often shown by the Italian people. The atmosphere was just magical.

Things to do in Denver when you’re dead

Friday, June 26, 2009

Read Steve Kilbey’s blog.

There’s

nothing

like it

on the planet.

Makes me look forward to being 54