Showing posts with label matthew e white. Show all posts
Showing posts with label matthew e white. Show all posts

Sunday 26 July 2020

Log #200 - Keep On Trekking For The People

Eddy Bamyasi


It took 200 blog posts to reach REM. I think they were the sort of band that suffered a bit from over familiarity, like U2 or Coldplay. They were also, allegedly, quite middle of the road and mainstream, certainly in their mid to latter period. I don't know much about them to be fair but know they hit the mainstream big around the time of this album (their 8th released in 1992), and the predecessor Out Of Time (1991). Prior to that they were more indie in that '80s guitar mumble rock sort of way.

In an aside I once went trekking in Nepal on my "gap year" (1992) as you do, with a Canadian gentlemen called Ray. He had 3 cassettes in his rucksack (and some speakers which he'd hook up each night at a guesthouse on the trail). One was Jimmy Buffett, one was Neil Young's Harvest Moon, and the third was Automatic For The People. We all got very familiar with those three records after a fortnight of repeat plays.

Will REM receive a reassessment at Bamyasi HQ, rather like post OK Computer Radiohead did? It is unlikely. Despite being moved to dig out this album after seeing an impressive Glastonbury rerun (like I did with Radiohead actually) I haven't got any other of their CDs as far as I know (I used to have Monster, and Out Of Time on cassette but they are long gone) and despite the top tunes on Automatic For The People, which most likely represent their peak, I'm not moved to delve further. Good on them for retiring early whilst still relatively near the top.

Matthew E White - Fresh Blood
War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding
Cocteau Twins - Treasure
Nick Cave - Abattoir Blues
REM - Automatic For The People
The Comet Is Coming - Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Great Mystery

Abattoir Blues is a very powerful and most excellent Nick Cave album. It may actually be my favourite. I'll give the sister album The Lyre Of Orpheus a spin too next time.

Sunday 19 July 2020

Log #199 - Discovering Daft Punk

Eddy Bamyasi
  


Matthew E White - Fresh Blood
War On Drugs - Slave Ambient
Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas
Alva Noto - Unieqav
Daft Punk - Discovery
Fennesz - Venice


I discovered Daft Punk through the animated film Interstellar 5555. The film tells the story of a band who are kidnapped by an evil dictator who wants to rule the world, or something. I'm not sure, but anyway, seeing this (or hearing this) in the cinema (with surround sound at earsplitting volume) was an invigorating experience. At the time I had no idea who did the music to the film, and little idea who Daft Punk were. It transpired that the whole film uses the Discovery album for its soundtrack. 

Not surprisingly neither the album, or the DVD of the film, are quite as mind blowing as that first cinematic experience. The latter, with its bright colours, would certainly benefit from some pharmaceutical enhancement. The album is however still a great piece of work and stands perfectly alone without its associated film.








Sunday 25 June 2017

Log #39 - A Rediscovery of Radiohead

Eddy Bamyasi


1. Matthew E White - Fresh Blood
2. David Bowie - Black Star
3. The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
4. Radiohead - Best Of
5. Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
6. Led Zeppelin - III

A rediscovery of Radiohead this week on account of their televised set at Glastonbury. I haven't heard them since the much acclaimed OK Computer which I didn't like much actually, but the set at Glastonbury showed they have matured very nicely over the years although I still struggle with Thom Yorke's very depressing wail.

Cover shot is from Matthew E White's second album with fave track Rock N Roll is Cold. He is appearing locally in a few months and a few months ago I would have jumped at the opportunity but having committed too early to a few recent gigs which have turned out to be slightly disappointing (Gilles Peterson, The Orb, Arbouretum) I'm keeping my powder dry.

Sunday 18 June 2017

Log #38 - Talk Talk - From Popstars to Jazz Proggers

Eddy Bamyasi



1. Matthew E White - Fresh Blood
2. Kings of Convenience - Quiet is the New Loud
3. The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
4. The Whitest Boy Alive - Rules
5. Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
6. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

Talk Talk did a sudden about turn with this album rather like David Sylvian did after leaving Japan, or Spinal Tap in their jazz fusion period! Having been Top of the Pops fodder in the early 80s this departure to an album of extended largely instrumental progressive jazz pieces was the last thing fans were expecting... and it's rather gorgeous!


Tuesday 25 October 2016

Log #4 - The Whitest Boy Alive - Odd Name / Tight Band

Eddy Bamyasi
A couple of new entries in the magazine this week. Firstly my new Whitest Boy Alive CD arrived and it's a corker - extremely catchy pop tunes with the funkiest bass lines and the sharpest of beats. A super little band now sadly defunct after only two albums but who live on in part through The Kings of Convenience (who are apparently recording a new album). I've played this album over and over this week, and in the car too on a long journey, so there hasn't been much look in for the rest. KOC retain their place of course and continuing my acoustic/americana/nu-folk mood I've slotted Fleet Foxes into hole number 2. Not too sure about the lead singer on their album any more but the harmonies are good.
  1. Bear's Den - Islands
  2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
  3. Matthew E. White - Fresh Blood
  4. Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street
  5. Afro Celt Sound System - Further in Time
  6. The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
Matthew E. White is a class act and Fresh Blood is an effortlessly soulful album. Bear's Den have a knack for some great tunes, lovely Crosby Nash Stills harmonies, and melancholic lyrics. I saw them at a local venue last year and for their encore they dismounted the stage and huddled unplugged in a circle in the crowd to sing an unplugged Bad Blood, the last track on the album. I highly recommend this talented young band.

Finally the Afro Celts hold on to a position largely due to plans to see them early next month. This week it is the turn of Further in Time which I think is one of their earlier albums (actually their 3rd - ed.) and features guest appearances from Peter Gabriel and Robert Plant.

Album of the week: Dreams

Sunday 16 October 2016

Log #3 - Who's That Girl?

Eddy Bamyasi


A few new entries in the box this week. First a word on a great young band I saw in Brighton last night. Sam Jordan and the Dead Buoys (nautical spelling deliberate after a clash with a US band of the same name). I told them afterwards they sounded like Bear's Den which they took as a compliment, hence the new entry in the player. Both bands specialise in beautiful sensitive acoustic melodies and gorgeous vocal harmonies, the right side of the Mumfords.

1. Bear's Den - Islands
2. Various - Trojan Dub 3 CD Box Set - CD no. 1
3. Matthew E. White - Fresh Blood
4. Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street
5. Wilco - Being There
6. Afro Celt Sound System - Anatomic (vol. 5)

Matthew E. White I first heard on seeing his stunning Rock and Roll is Cold video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co4krl2xge0

The Wilco album I once saw in one of those Top 50 lists. It sounds a bit dated now, and the vocal delivery is rather relentlessly depressing. I think the later Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is probably the better album. But its a double CD with alot of material so probably requires some more listening.

Cover art this week is from the lovely Kings of Convenience album. I have always been fascinated by album cover art - how a design captures an imaginary world or a grainy photo a moment in time. I love the retro feel of this cover with the brown shades, the turntable, the intellectual chess playing boys and the beautiful bookish girl with the mysterious glance. The boys are band members Erlend Øye (left) and Eirik Glambek Bøe (right). But who is that girl? Is she a model, or a real person, or possibly the guest singer Feist?

So I googled "who is the girl on the cover of riot on an empty street" and would you believe it google knew!

The following article by Clarissa Oon is reproduced from the band's website via my google search http://www.kingsofconvenience.org/strait.html :

Boe's Liv Tyler-lookalike girlfriend is on the cover of Riot On An Empty Street, the recent sophomore major-label release from him and bandmate Erlend Oye [I look forward to spinning a Whitest Boy Alive CD I've just ordered - Oye's side project - hopefully in issue #4 if it arrives in time].

Boe gazes at the camera, looking slightly grim as she and geeky bespectacled Oye eye each other suggestively. She was also with them on the cover of their 2001 breakthrough album Quiet Is The New Loud, says 28-year-old Boe, whose stubbled good looks remind one of a younger Viggo Mortensen. Speaking via a temperamental mobile-phone connection from Palermo, Italy, where the duo is playing a gig, Boe says his medical student girlfriend - whose name he mumbles and is lost in waves of static - was initially not meant to be in the picture. Recalling the day they shot the Quiet album cover four years ago back home in Bergen, Norway, psychology student and part-time musician Boe said he and Oye had been driving around getting lots of photos taken.

For the last picture of the day, we said to my girlfriend: 'Come on, you be in the picture with us to remember this day.' 
The shot ended up on the album cover 'because it reminded us of a series of paintings by Norwegian painter Munch, with one person in the foreground and a couple in the background, called Jealousy'.

The reference to Edvard Munch's paintings tells you two things about the Kings of Convenience, whose pensive acoustic harmonies and intelligently laconic lyrics earned them the label 'the thinking girl's boyband' from a Guardian reviewer: One is that Boe, who reads psychoanalyst Carl Jung's writings for work and semiotician Umberto Eco's essays for fun, thinks really deep thoughts. The other, that he and his songwriting band mate - who have been compared to a hip, latter-day version of 1960s troubadours Simon & Garfunkel - lead separate and somewhat competitive lives.

Friends of 12 years who played together in a now-defunct rock band Skog (Norwegian for 'forest'), they called themselves Kings of Convenience as a shorthand for 'the convenience of two people playing guitars together, instead of all the hassle travelling around with a big band'.

They have lived in different countries for the past six years: Boe in their rainy coastal hometown of Bergen, and Oye as a deejay in Berlin. The latter released his solo dance album Unrest early last year. Suggest that it might be more convenient for the two to live in the same country, and Boe explains, in his low gentle voice that 'my life choice and his life choice are different'.
The band is not the reason we live in different countries. The band still exists in spite of the fact that we live in different countries.
Recorded early this year over a six-month period in Bergen, with periodic visits from Oye, Riot has a more evolved sound than its predecessor album, with a few whimsical, dancy tracks amid slow, autumnal numbers. Boe says they take turns to sing lead, and argue a lot. 'We each think each one's voice is better,' he adds, followed by a rustle like a smile at the other end of the line. Still, they are committed to writing songs together, frequently exchanging ideas over the phone.

'Maybe every second month, I'll go to Berlin, or he comes to Norway.'

Sounds like a long-distance relationship. 'Exactly.'

Album of the Week: A toss up between Riot and Islands

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