Crossing Boundaries - Eden Espinosa's Revelation

Sometimes when I watch X-factor I think to myself, "that would make a good stage voice". But then is it really anything to do with the voice, or is it entirely the style of the song? Are there that many artists that have moved from stage to solo rock or pop, or in the opposite direction?

[What about from music to film, or music to art (or vice versa?) - just throwing out some new ideas for the blog Eddy. Ed.]

Like Bowie, Sting, Depp, Sutherland, Capt. Beefheart? [Indeed, you could easily think of 6.]

Johnny being Johnny

Can you be both? Both an artist and a musician for instance? I don't see why not although apparently Capt. Beefheart was told he'd never be taken seriously in the art world unless he gave up music (and reverted back to his regular Don Van Vliet nomenclature) - the world lost an unique musician and gained a so so artist.

One of Don's pieces

Many musicians have been pilloried for their acting performances but I actually think most do an excellent job (how hard can it be? *) and I've always enjoyed spotting the odd Dylan, Jagger or Waits cameo.

* well not, apparently, that hard (until you see a bad one) ...

Tom being Tom

Then there is the Musical crossover too - singers acting (Cher, Streisland, Madonna, Diamond, Gaga etc), actors singing (Brosnan, Streep, Crowe, Jackman) or playing (Douglas, Gosling).

I don't think Crowe was too bad at all in Les Mis
 but have you heard Peter Mullan in Sunshine on Leith?

And the transfer between film and stage - many an actor successfully moves from stage to film (Olivier, McKellen, etc - practically any of those old school Shakespearian thesp types), but not so much the other way round (I saw a famous film star in a stage play once and he just did not have the projection to fill a theatre).

Sir Larry hamming it up in Marathon Man

How about Rock to Jazz? Classical to Pop? I know Robert Fripp for instance was a classical guitarist before Jimi Hendrix inspired him to form King Crimson. Not easy to venture successfully across these boundaries (despite the boundaries I'd suggest being in many cases artificially erected by music snobs who would argue one form of music is more difficult to master than another - but wouldn't you defend your position if you'd spent a lifetime reaching the heights on a particular instrument only to be confronted by an example of someone reaching apparent similar heights, at least to a lay listener, after only 3 or 4 months intensive training).

This dude clearly never took guitar lessons

"Serious" classical musicians often dismiss "popular" classical musicians (James Galway, Nigel Kennedy, the guy in Shine: David Helfgott) or pop stars who have attempted classical works (McCartney, Zappa, Greenwood).

"We hope you enjoy our new direction" - Spinal Tap go jazz odyssey to mixed reviews

Enter stage left singer-songwriter Eden Espinosa who hot foots over from Broadway with her (proper) debut album of original songs Revelation (an earlier album of Broadway songs was released in 2012). Proving that the move in this direction is probably easier than the opposite way. And why not, a powerful voice with range and projection can only be an advantage and it is indeed immediately apparent that Espinosa's voice packs a presence. She hits those high notes, and then when she reaches the top she goes a little bit higher.

[Like Nigel Tufnell when he gets to 10 and just needs that little extra push over the edge to 11? Ed.]

Exactly. A voice that goes up to 11.

And she manages this without the shout and bombast which mars many an X-factor audition.

Opening up the album one is struck at first by an 80s synth feel this correspondent was not expecting but then again it was very much evident in many critics' "Albums of 2018" where colleagues Robyn, Christine, Mitski, Cardi B, and Janelle Monáe were frequent nominations: First track Deadly Sin has that electronic snare beat from the classic Vienna and a deep bass drone.

Then kick back and enjoy the rollicking jumping rock of Easy which would be an obvious single with it's choppy guitar riffing and a great chorus:

I don't want to say goodbye
Told you time after time
We needed to make a change, yeah!
I don't want to walk away
There's nothing left to say
'Cos oh you make it easy, you make it easy!

... then the pace slows in the ballad Master Of My Life characterised by lovely reverb guitar and Eden pushing 11 again.

Three songs in and three styles covered. Eden and her backing band of accomplished musicians continue to ring the changes through ten original songs mixing up the big anthems with some gentle numbers.

Superman closes the first half and is the closest to her stage style I'd imagine. Slow mournful and dark with wavering synthesizer backing which builds to a stirring crescendo. It's like the one before the intermission. A short intermission is appropriate at this point indeed as after the break Eden will return with a different feel.

[Don't forget to test the fire curtain. Ed]

~

The second half of the album shelves the 80s feel and goes more organic with some alternate rock and acoustic numbers.

The Answer is closer to the sort of music that frequents itself on this blog. A circular acoustic guitar pattern like Tracy Chapman's Fast Car hit, it's the most stripped back music on the album with the guitar joined only by a piano.

The masterpiece of the album for me is the next track Ready which also starts with a repeating guitar arpeggio, this time on electric. This is a powerful rock anthem with a Gilmouresque guitar break. It's a track where the backing band are really let loose with space to show off their chops. The sort of accomplished pop-rock song Aimee Mann perfected on her brilliant No. 2 Bachelor album.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6OnFIB95RqvwwbKcRdISce

Keep On sounds so familiar it could be a cover. But no, it's just a nicely crafted pop song on solo piano with Eden proclaiming she will keep on fighting to the end. In an album containing a clew of earworms this one burrows the deepest.

The Night is another highlight being a thoroughly modern rock song with guitar arpeggios and rumbling tom tom and cymbals a la Radiohead. It trundles along until Eden sings an acapella chorus:

When all else fails and there are no words to say
The child in me comes out to play
I kick and scream to be heard
But that is not what you deserve

Finally the album fades away nicely on a bed of gentle acoustic guitar slap reminding me of the final track on Neil Young's searing Zuma album which heralded the unplugged reunion of CSNY after an album of scorching electric workouts. Just tipping 5 minutes Fireworks and Stars is the longest track on the album ending the album on another high.

[Through My Sails? Where did that come from? Ed.]

I have no idea Ed, it surprised me too.

So many records take you on an unexpected journey and what a journey. From Ultravox to Neil Young via Spinal Tap! I wasn't expecting that when I set out this morning.

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The Magic Lives On - Mark Hollis and Talk Talk

Sadly Mark Hollis, leader of the visionary Talk Talk, died earlier this week. Eddy revisits a review of the bands 2013 retrospective by Jude Rogers from the BBC archives.

Buried deep in the glitzy narratives of 1980s pop lies the gentler, stranger story of Talk Talk.

Led by Mark Hollis, the group began the decade as a synth-pop stadium prospect. The theory goes that then they took a quieter, more ambient route, spurred by 1988’s astonishing fourth LP, Spirit of Eden.

In recent years, the likes of Graham Coxon, Wild Beasts and The Maccabees have held up Spirit of Eden like a totemic text; at the time, Record Mirror’s Mark Hooper called it “the kind of record which encourages marketing men to commit suicide”.

Twenty-three years on, Hollis returned with Natural Order, his “companion piece” to 1990’s million-selling Natural History best-of. He oversaw the track choices, the order, the mastering and the artwork.

For fans, this reappearance was like the second coming – but that wouldn’t impress the man himself, who told The Wire in 1998 that he never enjoyed the “f***ing glorification”.

Natural Order runs chronologically, from 1982’s Have You Heard the News to 1991’s Taphead, taking us through a dream-world of B sides and album tracks. And what an astonishingly intimate, humane and honest place it out turns to be, revealing that this woozier, weirder side of Talk Talk was ever-present.

Hollis’ uncompromising voice still strikes first, like hot steel. Stylised and nasal, it should distance the listener, but it acts upon the senses like a magnet, eerily drawing the ear in.

The music surrounding it should also sound oddly tasteful. Period electronic-drums and polite, minor-key chord changes are everywhere – but they come together to make something more spiritual, more spectral, more meaningful.

Natural Order also plays like a latter-day prog record, really, although it doesn’t exist completely outside its era. Echoes of early Tears for Fears emerge in slow, stunning epics like April 5th. Ghosts of Joy Division’s Closer – sparse sounds and dramatic silences – lurk in For What It’s Worth. And John Cope has a melodic structure that late-1980s R.E.M. would have loved to fit on darker moments of Document or Green.

Hollis’ lyrics are peculiar and abstract, often about seasons, darkness and changes. He uses them like a painter’s colour-washes rather than storytelling tools. They add even more texture to Talk Talk’s challenging work; but this is work that sinks in so easily, that sticks under the skin.

If magic in music exists, it is here, and never-ending.

Track listing courtesy https://musicbrainz.org/

Shared and reproduced under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

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Moist Green Gorgeousness from Edgar Froese

Odd sometimes to come across a record you haven't heard before that you think you should have done so by now. I've followed Tangerine Dream for a long time and am a particular fan of their early to mid 70s work. Odd then, that I've not heard Edgar Froese's Epsilon In Malaysian Pale album before, which was released in 1975. Much thanks to Brighton sequencer guru and world TD authority @TheElectricApe for rectifying this oversight and advises:

Turn down the lights, light up or crack open something suitable, and submerge yourself in this beauty.

Froese was the founder of Tangerine Dream (in 1967) and the band's mainstay throughout their career (until his death in 2015), and 1975 was, for many fans, the peak of TD's career smack bang in the middle of a run of albums starting with Phaedra (1974), through Ricochet and Rubycon (1975), then Stratosfear (1976), that represented not only some of the best music from Tangerine Dream themselves, but some of the best from the whole ambient/electronic/Berlin scene. So it stands to reason Epsilon In Malaysian Pale would present most likely more of the same.

The soundtrack of my life when I lived in Berlin.

David Bowie

And it does. It is a predictable (not in a bad way) extension of the bridge between Tangerine Dream's earliest ambient work (Zeit, Atem) and their later more pulsed sequencer work. A bridge that began on the phenomenal Phaedra album which developed melodic classical string ambience through Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares and made first moves towards gated rhythms through it's title track.

Epsilon continues that bridge. We have two tracks of approximately 15 minutes each (so pleasing the record company have not added superfluous dilutionary padding in the CD release). The first side (in old vinyl terms) is the title track and the second piece is entitled Maroubra Bay.

The titles, inspired by travels in Malaysia and Australia, are typically "TD exotic" (as is the gorgeous rain forest ferned cover - indeed the album begins with rain forest sounds which set a scene of lush green wetness from a land that time forgot - I imagine dinosaurs lurking in the undergrowth and pterodactyls flying overhead, and it's raining, heavily, of course). [That's enough now, Ed.]

It's all gorgeous and moist, like my other go to "green" albums - the "gardens wet with rain" Astral Weeks, and the "water slapping" The Meeting Pool.  The cover is important and part of the tangible overall aesthetic - a feeling lost on digital downloads of course, and a subject I've banged on about a lot at this website.

A gorgeous piece of impressionism.

Julian Cope

Side one begins with exotic jungle noise and then a gentle flute (synth) heralds in a beautiful Debussyesque / Vaughan Williams soundscape. It's all lovely and wet... nearly all. There are a couple of jolts which almost sound like sudden tape edits but on the other hand sound entirely deliberate. They keep your interest. At about 9 minutes in, the beauty, most reminiscent of the stringed parts of Phaedra, yet more melodic, gives way to some avant-garde sounds and the first gated synth pulse of the album, and it's actually a slight disappointment. Not that it spoils the piece at all (possibly the peace perhaps) - it's just a bit more "run of the mill" standard TD fayre and out of place for a moment. This section actually fades to silence completely before the padded strings and "flute" return for the conclusion of the track.

My only criticism of some of this type of ambient music is, paradoxically, sometimes the artists throw too much in. Does that make sense? So you'll have a pulsed hypnotic loop or you'll have luscious strings. But sometimes you'll have both, plus a relatively random keyboard solo over the top that sounds a bit like jamming. Some Klaus Schulze (ex-TD) stuff can veer off into such noodling. Set the controls for the heart of the moog and impro. over the top. Anyway, a minor issue, and not much leeway for excess in these two super tight tracks (I have a Schulze track that sprints at a pace for about 50 minutes - it's both amazing and exhausting).

The second half of the album completes the bridge. For the first 5 minutes we have some interesting improvisational chords cutting keen melodic lines like Kraftwerk's Autobahn. Then an insistent hypnotic circular bass synth kicks in. Quicker than most TD tracks the central section bubbles along inducing an almost transcendental state complete with involuntary head nodding and foot tapping. Modest horned synths from the first movement return to do their stuff over the top but this section is all about that gated rhythm. Similar in structure to the first piece, albeit more upbeat, the pulse eventually fades and a wash of broad synth brushstrokes sees out the gorgeous coda.

It's a wonder to discover this old album which comes upon me like a lost Tangerine Dream classic from their most important period. Epsilon In Malaysian Pale deserves its place in the TD pantheon alongside Ricochet and Phaedra.

Editor's note: It is important to seek out the original 1975 recording. A remixed version by Froese himself was released in 2004 to mixed reviews.

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In A Parallel Universe The UK's Miles Davis Invents Jazz Fusion

This release pairs two Nucleus dates from 1971 and 1982. Song For The Bearded Lady (a strangely whimsical title for such energetic music) begins with ninety seconds' worth of lovely, floating music left like vapour trails on a clear blue sky. Then, presaged by a unison line of sax and trumpet, the rhythm kicks in.

It's a tricky, groovy pulse redolent of the 60s, but it's so fleet, so energetic that its temporal specificity is forgotten almost as it is realised. The interaction between rhythm section and the rest of the group is beauteous to behold. Special mention to Chris Spedding who undertakes some wonderfully off the wall guitar runs.

Elastic Rock reins in the tempo, gives a wry melodic glance out at the world and proceeds with an enjoyable string of solos. The pace takes after the title, speeding up and slowing down, darting this way and that. Snakehips Dream follows; trumpeter and Nucleus boss Ian Carr plays with a soft, lithe tone; forceful when necessary, spilling notes out and juxtaposing them with spare, brilliantly placed ones.

In the liner notes Alyn Shipton states that the group had only heard Bitches Brew in 1970, by which time Nucleus had already established its own sound and approach to jazz rock. Of course In A Silent Way had appeared in 1969; Carr momentarily quotes from it in the prologue to Song for the Bearded Lady - and there had already been Miles In The Sky and E.S.P.'s Eighty One. But the energetic inventiveness and sheer pleasure of this group makes Shipton's argument redundant.

Nucleus was almost a different group by the time of the second session (only Carr and drummer John Marshall remained). If the cycle of fashion really is the 25 years of popular wisdom, there are still a few years until the 80's can become likeable again. Once revisited, does each era enter an ongoing public domain of acceptability? Whatever the truth, the repulsion felt at that decade can tar even the most innocent.

Whether it's the long shadow of free market greed or a reformed group's diminishing returns or who knows what else, there isn't the same vitality, playfulness or endearing innocence to this later version of Nucleus. It's enjoyable enough, but not a patch on the 1971 session which is without doubt worth the price of admission alone.


Review by Colin Buttimer gratefully reproduced under a Creative Commons licence at the BBC >> http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/fj63/

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Between The Concrete and The Kinetic - Glyphic Bloom by James Joys

For those who can't quite make out the characters on the classy looking cover the name of the album from Belfast musician and sound artist James Joys is Glyphic Bloom. I'm not sure what it means but it seems to be a perfect title; the music within starts out glyphic and litreally blooms before your ears into something of rare beauty.

In eight relatively short tracks Joys covers a huge amount of ground. The album ends up very different to how it starts, surprisingly so.  Beginning with ambient sound effects, moving through industrial dance beats and ending in song, it's no mean feat to pull off such a work of interesting sounds and apparently disparate styles whilst maintaining a thematic continuity.

Sound effects knit tracks together. So a child's voice ends one piece, and then reappears early in the next piece. Static and glitch are never far away, and the sound of rain adds atmosphere more than once. But the one constant thread throughout is the amazing sound production which renders Joys' vision in stunningly vivid audio clarity. Put this pot-pourri of sounds through some good speakers or earphones and the sonic depth is astounding. Each crack, snap and pop is audible such that even a pin drop can be heard over a background of industrial clattering.

It constantly makes you stop and ask "what's that?" - several times I'm startled and look around as I hear (or sense) something I'm unaccustomed to on a record, or anywhere else for that matter. In the end, like the best music or art generally, you just accept the overall aesthetic and let the experience wash over you - it becomes what you want it to be, and in my case it makes me feel like I'm being taken on a journey across a landscape under heavy grey skies, along rivers, into caves, through iron doors and concrete jungles.

I'm not quite sure how he did it but the instrument list reveals an array of field recordings and "found" sounds which give a clue:

James Joys: oboes, clarinets, pianos, synths, oscillator lunchbox, zither, recorders, guitars, laptops, body sounds, twigs, branches, bones, stones, bridges, rivers, rain, fire, mbira, vocals, percussion, bells, SU10, car parks, subways, and tunnels.

One more thing. It's important to note with music like this that the sound effects and samples can so easily overshadow everything else. Here Joys has brilliantly crafted a highly original album that combines amazing sound with beautiful music. Everything has been meticulously placed - there is n't too little, or, more importantly, too much. Every sound has its place yet fuses together to form something where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's an album that should be heard in one sitting from start to finish.

The album starts with heavily processed sawing strings that sound like bees. Then rips and tears echo through your head in sudden bursts of electricity. A new listener may assume (as I did) the whole album would be of such glyphic sound effects. But the avant garde soundscapes subtly settle into a form as beats gradually become more regular.

This blooming towards a recognisable structure occurs through standout track Land's End. An ominous organ hum builds over a slow beat which struggles to get going with thunderous rain in the background, ending with an empty eerie squeaky swing in an abandoned urban playground. The momentum has started to build and it's more fully realised in the following track which feels like the centrepiece of the album; Subterranean, which like Land's End builds its beats gradually, faster and faster, layer upon layer, louder and louder, eventually reaching full on rave mode. A 9-minute epic from the Autechre/Aphex Twin school, yet there is so much going on in this track that it seems longer.

Half way through the record the most surprising thing happens...  a stuttering guitar arpeggio ushers in lush mellotron chords, and a deep and sonorous vocal in the gorgeous The Face You Don't Recognise. The amazing thing to me is that it doesn't sound out of place.

Furthermore the album finishes with an ingenious off beat slow waltz with beautiful singing that gives a hint of Joys' new choral work about to be released. The deceptively simple structure belies the depth in the mix - off beat rhythms, children crying, cracks and hums, and that rain again. Who's That Creeping Overhead? is an almost religious experience, like the best of John Tavener's works. It's one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long while - a stunning and unexpected end to an early contender for my album of the year.

https://jamesjoys.bandcamp.com/album/glyphic-bloom

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Neil Young - Tonight's The Night Live At The Roxy

We really knew the Tonight’s the Night songs so we just played them again, the album, top to bottom, two sets a night for a few days.

As his fans will know Neil Young has been releasing loads of live recordings from the vaults over the last few years. Some of these had previously become quite well known on the bootleg circuit.

One of the most eagerly awaited was a recording from his fabled Tonight's The Night tour in 1973. Here Young, in the wake of a cathartic songwriting burst following the drug deaths of roadie Bruce Berry and Crazy Horse member Danny Whitten, infamously showcased new songs that no one had heard before - in fact the actual "studio" album Tonight's The Night, initially deemed too rough around the edges for public consumption, was not released until 1975.

Actually Young had done something similar with his Time Fades Away album which was also a live recording of new songs made the year before. Although made with a different backing band (The Stray Gators who had guested on the much more commercial Harvest) the rough and ready raucous performance on Time Fades Away is very similar to what we hear here. If you are familiar with Harvest think of the electric tracks on that album: Words and Alabama.

The backing band, dubbed the Santa Monica Flyers, did have some overlap with Ben Keith on pedal steel and slide guitar, but otherwise was pretty much the Nils Lofgren version of Crazy Horse (which is actually also the latest incarnation Young is touring with now, 45 years later!). 

There are several extra tracks on the "studio" version - Borrowed Tune, Downtown, and Lookout Joe. Walk On, albeit not from Tonight's The Night, is added as an encore on the Roxy album.

Apparently in response to calls to "play something we know" Young would tell the crowd they'd now play "an old one" and then repeat the track Tonight's The Night again (sometimes three or four times in the same set!). Here the promised "old one" ironically turns out to be Walk On from the also yet to be released On The Beach album!

My main criticism of the Roxy live release is that, like Young says himself, the band just run through the album pretty much and as such it's hardly any different from the regular album - also recorded live (albeit in the studio).

Nevertheless there are subtle differences to be enjoyed, and some particular highlights. Speakin' Out has quite a jazzy groove - the guitar is high in the mix and there is excellent solo work (Nils Lofgren) I wasn't so aware of on the studio record.

I'll be watching my TV, and it'll be watching you.

New Mama is given a very percussive treatment on acoustic guitar with some new piano, but the singing is off kilter.

A slow drawn out version of Tired Eyes is a triumph. Here the languid guitar playing is like the gorgeous lines Young would develop a couple of years later on Zuma.

Please take my advice
Please take my advice

The band charge through a storming version of Tonight's The Night Part 2, and I love the upbeat and heavy Walk On version.

The album is like meeting an old friend. Slightly changed but very familiar. The set is enthusiastically received by a crowd who, presumably unaware of Young's new demons sending him towards "the ditch", were no doubt hoping for something from Harvest (witness the whoops of excitement on being told they were going to hear an old one).

In any case the Roxy tracks remain great songs, faithfully reproduced by a great bar room band familiar with the material and each other, and interspersed with some of Young's most bizarre and amusing commentaries:

Welcome to Miami Beach, everything's cheaper than it looks ... 

... but if you have the original classic album there isn't a lot of need for this too, and if you don't have either yet I'd still recommend getting the studio version.

Track listing original album:

Tonight's the Night
Speakin' Out
World on a String
Borrowed Tune
Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown
Mellow My Mind 
Roll Another Number (For the Road)
Albuquerque
New Mama
Lookout Joe
Tired Eyes
Tonight's the Night (Part II)

Track listing Roxy:

Tonight's the Night
Mellow My Mind
World on a String
Speakin' Out
Albuquerque
New Mama
Roll Another Number (For the Road)
Tired Eyes
Tonight's the Night (Part II)
Walk On

[bold titles unique to each album]

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An Album Of Contemplative And Meditative Pleasures - Bowmboi by Rokia Traore

On paper Rokia Traore is a bit of a radical. She's one of Mali's leading new singers, although she's not a traditional griot musician. She tries new ideas, combining traditional instruments that aren't usually brought together, and on this album works with the classical musicians, the Kronos Quartet.To my untrained ear her experiments are entirely successful.

The daughter of a Malian diplomat she built her career in France before returning to Mali and is only now becoming a star there.On this, her third album, she sounds right at the heart of the traditions of West African music.

Rokia's vocal style is very much her own. She doesn't have the high pitched, keening, attack of Oumou Sangare, or the rougher, deeper tang of Kandia Kouyate, both of them great female artists from Mali. Her voice is quavery and bird-like, soft, fragile and attractive. Curiously, it reminds me a little of Ethiopian and even Asian vocal styles. But it has an inner power, and on the faster paced songs she sings with impressive authority. Mariama is a passionate, intense duet with male griot singer Ousame Sacko, and one of the album's highlights.

The gentleness of Rokia's voice means this album is a reflective, subtle experience even on the faster songs like Sara or Kote Don. And the two collaborations with The Kronos Quartet work extremely well. The strings lay down a pulsing layer of shifting tones and Rokia murmurs and declaims over them, and on the lovely Manian there's a little vocal part that sounds like Laurie Anderson's O Superman. These tracks don't feel like experiments at all; they sound like something that could have been created in West Africa anytime in the last thousand years.

This is an album full of contemplative and meditative pleasures. If you love Malian music you will probably already have heard of Rokia. If you haven't Bowmboi is certainly worth adding to your collection.

Rokia Traore is Director of this year's Brighton Festival.



Review by Nick Reynolds at http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/xwmq/ licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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Greil Marcus Listens To Van Morrison and Astral Weeks In Particular

Listening To Van Morrison by Greil Marcus

This is obviously not a comprehensive review of all Van Morrison's output, nor a biography (no need to repeat other books already out there). Rather it is a series of essays on particular aspects that have struck the writer personally, rather like Bob Dylan's Chronicles which only focuses on 3 particular albums as I recall.

Astral Weeks (and Madame George in particular) is most prominent and 15 years and as many albums are dismissed within a few paragraphs. But this is fair enough; Astral Weeks is much quoted as Morrison's greatest work and I expect many listeners would agree that his output had less impact in the 80s and 90s.

Sure it is personal, it is literally how Greil Marcus feels listening to Van Morrison and his personal ramblings sometimes don't make sense to an outsider, but as such it does what it says on the tin. Whatever its shortcomings I thoroughly enjoyed this short book and devoured it in a few sittings.

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Album Review - Zero F**ks! by The Wreks

A new CD landed on the post desk at Bamyasi Towers this week. Seeing the cover* and album title, and bearing in mind my less than supportive comments recently about Bristol punk-rock outfit Idles, it was with mixed emotions I loaded said disc into the magazine.

Apparently (no info. on the interweb anywhere**, but sourced through a reliable Content Editor contact) The Wreks have a history which takes in ex-Brighton bands The 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, Chungking, and Sam Sparrow. I've heard of two out of three of them, as Meatloaf would say, but little by any of them.

Let's check them out for some context, Matchbox B-Line first with the Music Map*** app:

Well look at that, why would Hugh Laurie be in there when I understand the B-Line were what some term psychobilly or cowpunk? The name does not appear to relate to any such real life disaster with highly combustible matchbox factories or train lines, unlike the Brian Jonestown Massacre for instance who ingeniously reference two real disasters in one name. Anyway the Matchboxes had a s**t hot reputation for incendiary live performances. The provenance for their offspring is encouraging.

Next, we turn to Chungking:

More bizarre comparisons here too with Dolly Parton, Nusrat Ali Khan, and ... Mozart! That's the first time I've ever seen a classical artist in the music map. Anyway I'm liking the electronica suggestions Zero 7, St. Germain and Air.

I do like the name Chungking too - I wonder if it was inspired by the infamous and legendary, and several times condemned, backpackers hostel Chungking Mansions in Hong K**g which is surprisingly still going. I had the pleasure myself of staying at this de-luxe residence for a month in the early 90s and had assumed, shocking fire hazard that it was, it had succumbed to its own matchbox disaster and been burnt to the ground years ago.

(I don't know who Sam Sparrow is but google thinks it could be Australian singer-songwriter Sam Sparro).

Does any of this help with The Wreks? Possibly - I get the feeling they would be an exciting band live with that pedigree. But what of the record - the catchily entitled mini-6-track EP Zero F**ks!?

I've said it before but it's easy and lazy to use the (x + y)c =  z equation.

In this case if x = Velvet Underground, and y = Patti Smith, and c is an unruly element (the c is an additional variable sometimes used to factor in an extra characteristic of time or place or person) then z (being the lovechild) = The Wreks, meaning The Wreks (z) would be the resulting unruly (c) lovechild if Lou Reed (x) and Patti Smith (y) got together. [Glad we cleared that up. Ed.]



Indeed I feel the record does draw upon a range of Velvet Underground influences. The opening track Glitterball could be off the celebrated debut "banana" album itself. It begins with a jolly N**o-like vocal over gentle twinkly vibes before the rest of the band strike in building towards an anthemic crescendo (all together now):

I love you
'Cos you're so wonderful
I hope you love me too
'Cos you're my dazzling Glitterball

Ah the Sunday Morning after the night before with my darling Glitterball.

Then it's all aboard The Bus, next stop the more sophisticated VU sound of Loaded - jangley guitars, breathy vocals and ba ba bah backing vocals. The brass refrain is an added and unexpected bonus. A lovely piece.

Miserable trundles along, less of a bus, more like a runaway train with a chugga chugga chugga acoustic guitar and a breezy harmony chorus. Does anyone remember The Men They Couldn't Hang? There's a Pogueish accordion too.

Two love songs, of sorts, follow - albeit tales of the unrequited variety imbued with the special Wreks seasonings.  Make Up is a catchy little number where the singer goes a bit Ian Curtis over a Joy Divisionish bass riff:

You look so perfect tonight
You look completely divine
I wish you were mine
You could pull anyone
Any man would take you home tonight.

(with your bright red lipstick on) #metoo

Then Don't Understand is probably the most straight forward punk rocker on the album. It's more what I was expecting and I can picture white suits and low slung guitars on a late 70s TOTP.  The song reveals more disappointment in the romance stakes for our Wreks spokesman:

I don't understand why you put me on the shelf.

P**k with a s**l.

Final track Dada bursts forth with an Un Deux Trois Quatre! It's a cracking tune with manic girl squawking over a driving one chord guitar rhythm and jungle drumming and rounds off my lovechild analogy nicely reminding me of one of Patti Smith's most urgent Horses songs.

Riding in on a current punk rock revival in the wake of bands like said Idles Zero F**ks!, with it's generous helpings of melodic pop and catchy choruses, offers the ear much more than initially meets the eye. Notwithstanding the 60s retro guitar jangle and unlikely indie pop pretensions I have no doubt The Wreks would go down a storm in a muddy festival field or dank Brighton basement, proving worthy successors to their trailblazing forefathers.

G**d stuff.

* I wonder why one of the folks on the minimalist cover art is inset? Perhaps he was not available for the shoot and had to be photo-shopped in later or is simply a little off frame for the selfie. It's another n**e touch.

** Since going to press The Wreks have embraced the digital age and can now be found at https://thewreks.bandzoogle.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/thewreks/ . Thank the l**d.

*** Find other stuff like stuff you like https://www.music-map.com/

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(Apparently) The Best Albums Of 2018

Many publications offer up a Best Of 2018 Album List. And nowadays when anyone can make a record or drop a track as they say, any genre can reach an audience, and anything goes, it is more and more difficult to reach any sort of consensus. Pitchfork summarised the situation nicely in their introduction to their own listing:

In 2018, it felt hard to reach consensus on anything—including music. The heavy-hitters of pop and hip-hop returned, but many disappointed; in fact, sometimes, they were just confounding. More than ever, music felt like a playing field where new, exciting artists were sharing the discussion with the veterans, if not taking it over outright. A sea change was underway, the borders eroded—and music was better for it.

In an attempt to bring together the disparate viewpoints across a multitude of sources I've taken the Top 10 from a number of lists (see sources at the bottom of this post) and averaged them into an overall correlation. This was done by scoring 10 points for 1st place down to 1 point for 10th place.  

Obviously publications have their own preferences and concentrations of genres. I've therefore taken  a wide spread of publications from both sides of the Atlantic to overcome that possible bias.

Lists that published a group of Best Ofs which did not actually order the albums did not fit into my points scoring system and were therefore excluded.

So here goes. This is the definitive list of The Best Albums Of 2018 apparently as voted for across a sample that may be statistically valid. There's no guarantee you'd enjoy any of these and as you will read Eddy didn't think much of many of them.

10. Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino

The Guardian said: Conceived intimately, on a piano received for his birthday, Alex Turner’s would-be solo album was significantly fleshed out by the rest of the band so the seams became invisible. Guitarist Jamie Cook slots inventively into the strange new shapes these songs took. Matt Helders caresses the drum kit with jazzbo sensitivity instead of pummelling it. The band’s collective backing falsettos never sounded so pitch- perfect. 

Eddy says: A change of direction for the Monkeys which hints at being a bit lightweight at first but is a potential grower. The band confidently embrace keyboards and vibes all at a much slower pace than their frenetic early work.

9. Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth

FOPP said: The most striking jazz album of 2018 is undoubtedly Heaven and Earth, the second proper full-length from LA’s Kamasi Washington. A 144-minute opus, it’s split into two halves, each of which would work as their own standalone album, and makes jazz accessible and inviting again even while it dishes out 12-minute detours into interstellar psychedelia. There are many influences at work: the massed percussion of Afro-Latin music, the clipped funk of early ’70s Miles, the spacey synth experimentation of Weather Report, the lush choirs and strings of vintage Hollywood and the pioneering sound of classic bebop. All these are threaded together by Washington and his crack band to create a new, decade-straddling sound.

Eddy says: Epic latin jazz rock funk fusion recalling the likes of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew.

8. Low - Double Negative

Resident said: The complexity lies not in the song structure or melody but in the production and the treatments. The balance between brutal and gentle, punishing and absorbing is what Low have built their career on but here they’ve pushed it to the extreme. With crushing electronics and feedback ridden guitar providing counterpoint to their gentler moments, they sound more vital than ever.

Eddy says: An album of interesting crackles, hums and distortions that creates an eerie doom laden soundscape.

Ok, the 3 albums above represent the usual sort of listening we have come to expect at 6 Album Sunday. Prepare now to enter uncharted territory.

7. Cardi B - Invasion of Privacy

Line Of Best Fit said: We probably all assumed this debut would be an out-and-out hip-hop album. But with its dallies into multiple beats and backgrounds, not to mention the laid bare lyricism, Cardi B’s Invasion conquers over any naysayers.

Eddy says: I quite like this. It's on the grime side of the rap road with hard bass (and lyrics), sharp beats and interesting keys. 

6. Robyn - Honey

NPR said: Honey is Robyn's first full-length solo album in eight years, made after the end of a long-term relationship and the death of a friend and long-time collaborator. Robyn's musical antidote to grief involves avoiding clutter or drama and instead dipping into appealing sounds of gentle beauty that encourage movement without forcing it. Bass lines walk to meet starburst synthesizers, melodies unfold without fuss. There is tremendous warmth and no sharp edges. It's energized but never overwhelming. Robyn's voice is sincere and emotional, but never affected.

Eddy says: You what? I'm wondering if this listing was a good idea. This is most things I don't like about pop music in one summary package. I couldn't listen to that fey voice for more than a couple of tracks.

5. Christine and the Queens - Chris

The Independent said: Héloïse Letissier makes her vintage synths snap, crackle, pop, fizz, freeze, squelch, shimmer and soar. There’s even a shattered glass effect (on Stranger) to complete the Old Skool Electronica bingo card. Treble notes bounce from air-cushioned soles. Bass lines lasso your hips. Chiffon layers of Letissier’s Anglo-French vocals glide around your neck and shoulders and roll them back. It’s ridiculously danceable.

Eddy says: I've dismissed listening to Christine since seeing a snippet on Jools Holland one night but perhaps she deserves another visit. Well, I've given her another visit and I was right. I don't need to hear this banal Wham! like synth pop from the 80s.  Shattered glass effects? So what. The accompanying official videos tell you everything you need to know, even with the sound down. Very average album cover too which, along with the Robyn album, surely proves my Better Artwork = Better Music theory?

4. Idles - Joy As An Act Of Resistance

NME said: Toxic masculinity, Brexit, thug culture, xenophobia – Joe Talbot kicked back against society’s copious modern ills with a passion, power and exuberance that shot Idles’ second album straight to the frontline of the new punk fightback. From the brutalism of Colossus and Samaritans to the emotional hardcore of Cry To Me and pop pogo Danny Nedelko, Joy as an Act of Resistance proved that, in a world of sonic artifice and stylish disguise, a record this raw, righteous and honest could still hit home as hard as a bloke with a perm. 

Eddy says: A couple of things I've noticed about the Best Of lists this year is that they had a very strong showing from two categories: jazz and punk (before a third revealed itself here - solo female pop). The Idles have been making waves this last year I hear, possibly on account of live performances? The album is fast shouty punk rock where The Fall meet the Clash via early Arctic Monkeys, which doesn't do too much for me except dilute this list of mostly insipid pop.

3. Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer

NPR said: Pulling inspiration from radical predecessors — Josephine Baker, Stevie Wonder, James Baldwin, Grace Jones, David Bowie and most prevalently her late mentor, Prince — Monáe speaks her truth to power across a funk pop soundscape. The album feels like a rose opening to meet the sun, each petal containing a different message. Monáe captures the bliss of sexual fluidity, the eloquent anger and spirituality of black feminism, the temporary high of nihilism, the sandbagged weight of self-doubt and finally the euphoric reckoning of learning who you are. She switches from hummingbird harmonies and sugary pop hooks to fire 16s to denounce haters from every facet of her life.

Eddy says:Mostly on the pappy side of over produced synthetic pop albeit with some luscious moments. A little bit of added edge emerges with some rap (including the lyrical content you expect from the genre) but ultimately sounds like The Spice Girls. Not really my tea.

2. Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour

Pitchfork said: Her inviting outlook is wrought through the record: softly strummed acoustic guitars that blur into sepia haze; boundless pedal steel as conduit for eternity, communing so effortlessly with touches of space-age funk that you wonder why nobody ever did it before.

Eddy says: The album gently rocks along in a modern country fashion. Nicely crafted pop songs fronted by Kacey's pleasant enough voice. Packed full of singles the album would make a decent road record but it's very middle of that road. 

1. Mitski - Be The Cowboy

The Guardian said: Mitski continues to disrupt and update the conventions of indie rock. Gnarly guitars contrast with her extraordinarily nimble, pure voice; there are upbeat disco numbers and delicate, ethereal piano ballads.

Eddy says: A short album of catchy punchy two minute pop tunes with interesting melodies which remind me of Aimee Mann (particularly her Batchelor No.2 album). Decent with fine vocals but I wouldn't generally think remarkable enough to be the album of a year.

Also Rans

The following albums featured in many lists but didn't make the Top 10:

Rosalia - El Mal Querer

Snail Mail - Lush

Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel

Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs

Noname - Room 25

Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile

The 1975 - A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!

Pusha T - Daytona

Conclusion

I have to say this isn't the most encouraging post I've ever made.  I know music and art appreciation  is personal but if this is the best 2018 had to offer in music then Brexit and Trump is only the start of our problems.

There are only two artists I have heard of before - Low and Arctic Monkeys. Female solo singers have stormed the listings with 6 entries in the top 7.

There seems to have been a trend back to the 80s with some very retro and bland pop. Are the likes of Madonna and Kylie, aka Robyn and Christine, going to be played by anyone next year? Have their albums any chance of making "Best Albums of All Time" charts in the future? Maybe this is the stuff that's filling up the dance floors in downtown New York these days, but it doesn't sit well on my hi-fi.

Around the edges of this soft core of a Top 10 there is a stronger showing bookended by the Arctic Monkeys (reviewed previously on this blog), a critically acclaimed jazz album which I will investigate further, and the Low album that I do have but have not fully absorbed yet, at one end, and, at the other, the Mitski which I will revisit and could catch on, and the Kacey Musgraves which is certainly an accomplished country/rock crossover album if you like that sort of thing.

Have I given all these records enough time? Maybe not. Sure repeated plays allow absorption, but like a good film or book, there has to be an initial way in, something to grab your interest in the early stages. Then again, once access is gained an album may hit the spot initially but then fade long term, or vice versa and be a slow burner.

Overall most of this list doesn't grab me. Maybe it's just personal or maybe in the face of such critical consensus I'm just plain wrong and am missing something; nevertheless I hope 2019 is better. Please comment below if you disagree or have a suggestion for your own particular favourite that should really be in the list. It is only opinion after all.

Sources

Pitchfork
Q
Line of Best Fit
BBC
Consequence of Sound
Rolling Stone
NPR
Vinyl Me
FOPP
Fact
Metacritic
Under The Radar
Uncut
Wire
Time
The Independent
The Guardian
Quietus
Resident
NME

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Fun Fun Fun On The Autobahn

Autobahn is an iconic record made up of several essential elements: the graphic motorway symbol on the cover, the slamming of a car door and starting of an engine that precede the music, the rasping vocals and the whoosh that imitates the approach and passing of cars. It’s a 22-minute synthetic symphony to the possibilities of road travel that combines seemingly innocent enthusiasm with a note of deep caution.

Its melodic progress and the sheer pleasure taken in exploring the sonic possibilities of the newly available synthesizer make it as accessible to an eight-year-old as the most wizened critic. Although the lyrics of the title track hint briefly at the presence of nature in the sun’s glittering rays and the green edge of the motorway, it’s roundly addressed by the suite on the original b side of the record. Although less familiar, the four instrumentals represent a counterbalance to the harsh industrial daylight of Autobahn. They trace a journey that takes in night-time comets, an eerie midnight and ends with a morning walk serenaded by flutes and acoustic piano.

The motorway is an all-too-familiar presence in our lives, but listen to parts of the title track – for example, the passage that begins 10 minutes in – and it’s clear that Kraftwerk are holding up a mirror to the world to reveal its strangeness. Although the group have occasionally been chastised for failing to present a more critical perspective, Autobahn’s deliberate ambiguity is an essential aspect of art and has ensured its longevity 35 years after its original release.

Autobahn is the first of eight albums that Kraftwerk have chosen to re-master and re-release. Although a controversial decision in some quarters, its predecessors Kraftwerk 1 and 2 are lesser works that lack the thematic unity and musical distinction of the rest of the group’s oeuvre. As with the other reissues, much effort has clearly been devoted to the remastering and presentation of the work and the uniting of Emil Schult’s illustrations with the UK motorway symbol is particularly satisfying. Absolutely essential.

The text is from a 2009 review by Colin Buttimer shared from http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/jzj9/ under Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

The scoring, borrowing from the Pitchfork system, is by E.B.

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Refuge - Griffin Anthony Harvests a Golden Seam of Nostalgic Country Rock

Oooo, may I offer you something nice and easy for the weekend here Sir? All this electro-ambience stuff Eddy has been purveying in recent logs certainly does something to your mind and it's not always good.

Only yesterday I was driving down our Route 23 (London to Brighton) watching a series of blue flashing lights pass me on the opposite carriageway presumably racing towards an incident. My long suffering family (especially on car journeys) refer to almost any music that's outside the usual four by four rock and pop beat (particularly hard edged electronic music or avant-garde classical with sudden dynamic changes) as "car-crash" music.

By this they mean the sound of screeching tyre rubber and crunching metal (in Log #61 Eddy likened listening to Autechre to being trapped inside a shipping container while being hit over the head with a metal baseball bat). In any case, the point is, it's an unpleasant experience.

Although, to be fair, at the time I had William Basinki's recent David Bowie tribute A Shadow In Time on the player. With it's soothing drones and loops (save for some odd discordant saxophone - referencing Black Star maybe? [actually Low. Ed]) the music was certainly not of the crashing industrial battering genre I'm prone to playing sometimes, but it does tend to induce a meditative state that is almost certainly not conducive to driving - music that doesn't sound so much like a car crash but equally is likely to cause one.

Much more sensible to slot the new Griffin Anthony LP Refuge into the player. Right from the off when the drums thump in on that metronomic four beat the traffic parts and a figurative open road lies ahead. Proper song writing with soul and a real live band (guitar, bass, those drums, and a voice, and some subtle twiddly bits too, perfectly embedded in the mix to add interest along the route). I accelerate away like 2001's Bowman on his way to the event horizon [or Interstellar's Coop for our younger readers? Ed.], bare winter trees mottled by the late afternoon Californian sun race by on either side, and the family recede into the background. Perfect driving conditions.

1-2-3-4 / thud, thud, crack, tap! The opening track to Refuge has a quick acoustic guitar shuffle that drives the song along under thrusts of accented electric guitar but it's that sharp drum beat high in the mix that gives the song that rock edge.  Its inception surprises me like when I first heard Neil Young's Out On The Weekend - another classic album opener that infamously set that songwriter on an open road "down to L.A."

However, as we will see, it's not all middle of the road driving for Griffin Anthony's vividly painted "refugees". The Two Americans here are going to get on and live their lives, but separately even though it feels like they should have been together:

Washed up dreams and broken wings
They grew old so separately

It is remarkable how Anthony tells these two parallel life stories in only three short verses and two and a half minutes (I had to check) - seriously efficient songwriting. Perhaps the polar opposite of Dylan on Desire but with the same effect; both albums have 9 songs which feel like reading 9 novels.

There you go. I've said before it's hard to avoid these "if x met y, z would result" sort of descriptions of new music - one track in and I'm referencing Young and Dylan, but they ain't bad signposts for this journey.

We travel onwards with the similarly upbeat Love on Love which uses more of that subtle instrumentation I wasn't keenly aware of at first. Electric piano, wavering clarinet, and strings, jostle for position but just in the background; enough to embellish the infectious start and stop bass and drum groove, but always supplementary to, and never overshadowing, the song. A characteristic throughout this album being arrangements that provide added depth for the careful listener without detracting from the core.

[Go on, I know you want to. Ed.] Oh alright then - John Martyn meets Bonnie Prince Billy.

Evocative lyrics recall scenes both exotic yet familiar - here a man returns from the city to his love waiting on the steps with a smile and a bottle of wine. Life ain't too bad for this working man. It's a comforting picture.

Anthony's rich voice can stretch a word like "wine" into a whole scale. He has one of those effortlessly laid back drawls synonymous with easy going country music yet his soul is more John Martyn or Richard Hawley to my ears than Dylan, Young or our Bonnie Prince. His sound is country based for sure (with a generous sprinkling of contemporary Alt. and Americana) and the lyrics tread well worn country roads painting tales of god fearing, hard fighting, working men fallen on hard times:

Workin’ hard
Punchin’ time
Getting by

But Anthony isn't afraid to rock out too or even get funky in places. An obvious single in old money Only Hope Remains could be a stadium filling rock anthem (I can see cell phones held aloft at dusk in an English festival field) with its crashing electric guitar chords, a sing-a-long chorus and one of those modest and perfectly placed lead guitar solos country rock great Jerry Miller has perfected where the space is as important as the filled up bars. Then to end this opening four song suite of classy country rock comes On The Level which, with it's stuttering acoustic guitar strum, jazzy electric piano, and walking bass, sounds like Bill Withers. Nicely done.

Into the second half of the album and the pace slows as our Pick-up reaches the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee. Drawing into the dusty studio parking lot Anthony pulls the lap steel out of the back.

Are you ready for the country?  The record company has booked some crack Nashville players who lend a hand to the beautiful River which again recalls vintage Harvest era Young and The Stray Gators. I don't know, but I imagine Anthony plays a white Gretsch. He should do.

Griffin Anthony surveys his Country

Another keen snare snap announces 1954 - a heartbreaking slow waltz with mournful backing strings telling the story of a WWII war vet confused by the juxtaposition of simultaneous honour and emptiness:

Help me hold my head up high
Help me take it on the chin
My heart is breaking
And I feel like giving in

There is a brief respite in the form of the light hearted Milly punctuated with Hammond organ stabs. This track being most remarkable for being the second in this short album to refer to a southpaw boxer. One of the Two Americans was a tall southpaw with a golden arm but this time, bizarrely, Anthony makes acquaintance with a woman with a heavy hand haymaker of a swing!

More crushing sadness follows with the curiously entitled The Lucky Architect. I'm not sure about the architectual title or being lucky but the lyrics make me want to hug my children and phone my parents: it sounds like one or the other are dying and time is running out. A plaintive piano accompaniment adds to the mood.

I can see you are fading fast 
Faster than the day lasts 
I am your open hand 
And you are my strength 
I am your finish line 
And you are my race 
I am your quiet place 
And you are all my wild 
I am your parent 
You are my child

***

Now the studio time is up and it's getting late. The tracks are in the can and the boys did good. We load the Pick-up, turn the lights out and lock the doors.

After his success with Harvest Neil Young infamously headed his Pick-up towards the ditch.  Here Anthony and the boys head back in time; rolling one more number for the road this lucky passenger feels like he's hitched a midnight ride back to the 50s in Marty McFly's DeLorean.

With it's Spanish style guitar breaks and reverb production Coyote's Lullaby is one of the most traditional sounding songs on the album. Anthony's singing again reminds me of Richard Hawley's sumptuous baritone croon on his classic retro albums or even Elvis. A tale of a goldrush prospector [you did mean the 1950s? Ed.] seeking his fortune far from home under expansive Sedona skies perhaps reflecting the life of a modern day touring musician back on the road again.

Coyote's Lullaby yearns for a return to domestic bliss and a warming home fire.  Indeed as the album draws to a close the coyotes are howling in the hills under a harvest moon and we sight the lights of the old homestead. I bring the hay bales in from the barn, secure the gates, and tend the fireplace. A buffalo skull hangs above the mantelpiece.

The band set up and run through the album one more time. Further hidden delights are revealed second time around. The band sound so real and live it is like having them right there in your front room. When they've finished the listener is left feeling like they have enjoyed a personal audience with Anthony.

Refuge is a pure and simple album that takes aim at the heart of the American Dream - a dream which has failed many across the barren landscape of Trump's rust belt. Yet through the honesty of these tales and the organic authenticity to both the stories and the music the record provides a cosy nostalgic comfort, a hope, and indeed a refuge. Nicely done. Very nicely done.

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