Log #66 - Christmas Cheese and Real Drugs

A #CheeseAlert apology to start. All Christmas music is tripe. This includes both the sickly pop songs we are battered with in all public places for at least two months before the big day (I'd be mightily relieved if I could be spared ever hearing The Fairytale of New York again, or anything by Slade or Wizard), and Christmas Carols with their piercing singing and questionable lyrics (give me some John Tavener choral songs any day). Is there any decent Christmas music out there? Please let me know! So apologies that I've had to have some topical fayre in the family player just for this week. Just for this week.

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1. Guildford Cathedral Choir - The Christmas Carol's Album

2. Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter

3. John Grant - Queen of Denmark

4. War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding

5. Various - Resident Sampler #10

6. The Felice Brothers - Tonight at the Arizona

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So on to the proper music:

Still loving Richard Hawley's Truelove's Gutter album. A true masterpiece of understated gorgeousness - probably his best album.

Four new albums this week courtesy of Santa (and Resident Music):

John Grant

Last May I was lucky enough to catch a surprise solo gig by John Grant at Brighton's intimate Sallis Benney Theatre as part of the 2017 Great Escape Festival. I knew about his lovely rich baritone voice but was unaware of his interesting piano playing with its skillful arpeggios and unexpected key changes.

Previously with alternative rock band The Czars, Queen of Denmark is his much vaunted solo debut. Most of the songs are fundamentally piano based but are fleshed out with orchestration or band. Several employ electronics (which become more prominent on his later albums) like the typically personal JC Hates Faggotts:

I've felt uncomfortable since the day that I was born

Since the day I glimpsed the black abyss in your eyes

There's no way you could make all of this shit up on your own

It could only come from the mastermind of lies

I can't believe that I've considered taking my own life

'Cause I believed the lies about me were the truth

It will be magic to watch your transformation when you realize that you've been had

It's enough to make a guy like me feel sad

'Cause you tell me that Jesus

He hates fruit loops, son

We told you that when you were young

Or pretty much anything you want him to

Like sitcoms, paedophiles and kangaroos

And you tell me that Jesus

He hates homos, son

We told you that when you were young

Or pretty much anything you want him to

Like Cocoa Puffs, red cars and Jews

Standouts include Marz and the moving title song:

The War on Drugs

An odd name for a band this. An odd name for a "war" too, as was the one on "terror". The original phrase was actually coined by Richard Nixon's government in the early 70s. I had assumed it was a much more recent thing.

Anyway the band The War on Drugs were formed in 2005 but this is only their fourth album. The format follows the basic 4 beat rock laid down so successfully in their tremendous Lost in the Dream outing (a great album for long car journeys). It's not too challenging - just good straight forward rock music done well.

Early listens to this new album, which features in many Best of 2017 lists, indicate some typically catchy riffs and extended guitar solos but don't immediately reveal any tracks quite as exciting as An Ocean in Between the Waves from Lost in the Dream but, as that one was, this will be a grower too. If you've got a good sound you don't have to change too much.

Neil Young, they say, only has one guitar solo, but it's a good one.

I really like the series of live sessions by Seattle radio station KEXP. The one below from War on Drugs showcases four tracks from the new album. I also recommend the previous session from the band when they were touring the Lost in the Dream album.

The Resident Sampler

This sampler CD from Brighton store, Resident Music, came free with the above purchase of the War on Drugs album.

These free sample CDs rarely stand up as independent standalone musical entities of course and this is no exception even though the varying styles are somewhat grouped and there is some logical sequencing, but they do serve to introduce new bands, which is the point after all.

Nearly all these bands are new to me. I only recognise one - No. 8, Broken Social Scene. 

Tracks that have jumped out initially (and it has to be only an initial impression to encourage further investigation as there are a lot of tracks here and I haven't got all week!) are one or two electronic ones around the middle of the set. Actually let's be more generous and take my role more seriously with a quick run through of each:

1 Zola Jesus - Exhumed

High ghostly girl vocals over a stirring string based riff which initially sounds like the CD is stuck.

2 Alice Coltrane - Rama Rama

A ghostly chant over more wavering string based electronics (some recalling Pink Floyd's Welcome to
the Machine! at least to my ears, would you believe) with a sitar and tabla. Unusual.

3 Big Thief  - Shark Smile

Pleasant Belle and Sebastian type pop. Not my favourite type of laid back/lazy singing.

4 Girl Ray - Stupid Things

60s flavoured piano pop. Velvet Underground gone soft.

5 Carmen Villain - Red Desert

What is this - Vienna? More breathy ghostly (dare I say laid back and lazy again) girl vocals? Come on guys. Whereas the over enunciation of news readers in the wake of the ridiculous Robert Peston annoys, the complete opposite by many singers these days, who barely move their lips, does the same (X-Factor anyone?). There is a fine line between being effortlessly great and effortlessly a bit rubbish. If you can sing like John Martyn slurring is fine but otherwise (call me old fashioned) I'd like to hear the words. Nice hook though.

6 Ema - 7 Years

Same again. Some of these tracks could indeed be the same band. This one, with it's flangey guitar, has
that classic Cocteau Twins sound going for it.

7 Broken Social Scene - Hug Of Thunder

Girl singer trying too hard this time.

8 Sinkane - Telephone

Pappy pop again.

9 Kelly Lee Owens - Lucid

Come on guys. Where are you? Ditto. But wait, half way through the singing stops and the track changes
into a nice gated synth groove.

10 Grandbrothers - Bloodflow

Here things get more interesting. This is an excellent piano/electronic instrumental which builds very
gradually and then fades again, in the style of Hidden Orchestra. Will investigate this one further.

11 Barr Brothers - Defibrillation

This sort of music sounds a bit over produced to me with everything including the kitchen sink
thrown in and there is so much of it about now. Similar to Phosphorescent / Sigur Ros. It's just
occurred to me - ethereal, that's the word I've been looking for throughout this CD.

An ethereal singer

12 Gulp - Search For Your Love 

This is fun. I like the underlying riff and foot tapping percussion. Sounds a bit like a more poppy Portishead.

13 Physics House Band - Calypso

Not sure what this is. It sounds like heavy rock jazz prog electronica. I can hear a 100 bands in this but it's
consequently a bit all over the place. I have to turn this CD off at this point if my wife walks into the room.

14 Blanck Mass - The Rat

This continues from the previous track. Heavy electronic dance music. The only thing I can think of in my
collection that this reminds me of is Death in Vegas.

15 Lower Slaughter - Bone Meal

Punk. Girl shouter. Riff.

16 Moon Duo - Creepin'

A little more focussed heavy pop Ramones style.

17 Acid - Acid

The heavy theme continues with a bass riff themed track with a very heavy metal style singer who reminds me of Rainbow, Whitesnake or The Darkness. In contrast to the very smooth orchestrated pop tracks above this one actually sounds very under produced.

Ok, thanks Resident. That's probably enough of all that for now. Initial impressions are confirmed with favourite track no. 10 and honourable mentions for nos. 2 and 12, with not a lot else to follow up with urgency. So putting my links where my mouth is let's see who Grandbrothers are >>

The Felice Brothers

Much of the above CD may be described as ethereal. The Felice Brothers' lose the ethe and can be described as just plain real.

As regular readers will know I really rate this band of brothers mostly on account of exciting live performances I've seen on Youtube. Unfortunately I've yet to catch them live myself; a UK tour last year was cancelled on account of leader Ian Felice's health. Since then however he has managed to release a solo album and has made some limited UK appearances to promote it, so I guess he is ok for now. But will we see the full Felice Brothers band in the UK again soon, and will they still be at the peak of their powers as demonstrated by the songs on their raw, ramshackle and invigorating 2016 album Life in the Dark? I hope the moment hasn't passed.

Hailing from the romantically sounding Catskills Mountains region of upstate New York (it sounds romantic but is probably pretty grim) The Felice Brothers channel The Band and Bob Dylan. The Woodstock Festival was held just down the road and The Band's famous Big Pink House, where they wrote much of Music From Big Pink and recorded Dylan's Basement Tapes, was located in Saugerties on the Hudson River. Dylan was a famous resident of the area in the 60s but grew tired when it became overcrowded with “dropouts, druggies, moochers and goons". Van Morrison was a near neighbour but apparently never met Dylan much to his disappointment. This did not stop him celebrating his new found domestic rural bliss with "Brown Eyed Girl" wife Janet Planet on his Tupelo Honey album. Of course it wasn't all that and they separated in 1973:

I had this album cover years ago, Tupelo Honey, where there was a horse in it. So the myth then was that I was living on a ranch and had horses on that ranch. I didn't have a ranch; I didn't have a horse. I don't have a farm, and I never will. I mean, this is all part of the f**king mythology.

Three iconic albums synonymous with Woodstock

Fast forward nearly 40 years to Tonight at the Arizona and the cover of the Felice Brothers' second proper album finds them walking across the Catskills in the snow dressed as The Band.

The Felice Brothers in full Band garb

This is mostly acoustic and closer to another solo Ian Felice album than some of their more recent full band outings. I bought it on the strength of the first two tracks: Roll on Arte, and The Ballad of Lou the Welterweight. Two of the Felice's greatest ever songs. The first is heartbreaking...

...the second starts with one of the best opening lines ever:

Powder your nose, pull off your pantyhose
Let me love you from behind, my Darling

Barnstorming live favourite T for Texas is also in the collection.

Perhaps I was too hasty condemning all Christmas music - I've only just noticed there is a track entitled Christmas Song on this album! And, of course... it's good.