Log #157 - Another Indie Folk Rock Band - Eddy Hears The Decemberists For The First Time

Two exciting new entries this week in The Decemberists and The Felice Brothers, plus a return to two artists I tend to group together for some reason although their albums are not necessarily similar: Scott Matthews and James Morrison. Bringing up the rear we take a listen to John Legend's debut album and revisit a perennial favourite - Gram Parson's two on one solo collection GP/Grievous Angel.

The Decemberists Picaresque

 Scott Matthews Passing Stranger

Gram Parsons GP/Grievous Angel
John Legend Get Lifted

James Morrison Undisclosed

Felice Brothers Yonder Is The Clock

Very grateful for the introduction to the The Decemberists. A friend told me they were his favourite band. I asked which album was the best to get (there are 8) and he said "all of them". I don't get all of anybody these days (once in the past I would collect everything by one artist but nowadays, like reading books, there is only so much time so I try and limit myself to the best). 

Anyway after a little bit of perfunctory investigation I decided to go for the band's third album Picaresque and what a stonker it is - packed to the hilt with dramatic songs of cow punk and indie folk - a mash of Fairport Convention, The Waterboys, Belle and Sebastian, REM, Tom Waits, The Tiger Lillies and The Felice Brothers.

Hear The Decemberists at their most theatrical here:

I won't be getting all 8 but can see me investing in at least half of them.

It's a short leap from The Decemberists to the fantastic Felice Brothers. There are many similarities - lyrical story based songs, fiddles and accordions, ramshackle arrangements, and a charismatic front man with a voice of gravel. If I was pushed to highlight a difference I'd say The Felice Brothers are more roughly hewn diamonds.

Yonder Is The Clock (already their 6th as early as 2009) is another excellent album from the Felice Brothers' catalogue. There are plenty of down tempo ballads on this album but the brothers never fail to serve up a crowd pleasing stomp or two. Run Chicken Run fulfilling that role here:

Chickens get no life after death! Who knew?

Gram Parsons' two solo albums of melodic love songs and ballads are conveniently collected on this 2-CD set. Parsons almost invented country rock and the genre is amply demonstrated throughout these 20 tracks which maintain a remarkable standard throughout. For CD collectors this edition is essential for any rock fan, along with Capt. Beefheart's Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot 2-CD edition.

Great singers both, James Morrison and Scott Matthews. The former a bit more souly and the latter more rocky. Two excellent albums that I return to fairly frequently.

Lastly this week comes John Legend's 2004 debut album Get Lifted. As explained in Log #155 I was alerted to Legend through a track in the Tarrantino film Django Unchained, and purchased this record and the follow up Once Again. The latter record grew on me. This one not so much to date. It has a more gospel leaning. Neither records quite reach the peaks of the Django track Who Did That To You?

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Log #123 - Euphonic Electronica: Most Pleasing To The Ear

Euphony In Electronics - One Point One

Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim

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

Efterklang - Magic Chairs

Neil Young - After The Gold Rush

Gram Parsons - GP and Grievous Angel

Beginners start here with EFTERKLANG. They came from the electronica and glitchy camp (with Springer/Tripper in 2003), and they have now reached a strange classical/opera type place (with Leaves: The Colour of Falling in 2016). At their midpoint their (only) third album Magic Chairs from 2010 represented a peak of interesting, yet accessible, music.

The GRAM PARSONS double is straight up country music. It's not my usual sort of music, but these songs like Streets of Baltimore, She, Cry One More Time, Brass Buttons, $1000 Wedding, Love Hurts, and In My Hour Of Darkness, are so good as the melodies are so catchy. Superb songs. Every home should have this CD.

One of NEIL YOUNG's most famous albums Tonight's The Night was taken on the road two years before its release. Seen as a typical act of self sabotage after the success of Harvest had bored him, a live album of the tour has now emerged. The songs are great, the renditions are authentic, and the record represents an important document in Young's history. However the album is probably not different enough from the original studio version to warrant anyone apart from the purists and completists investing. To read more about Tonight's The Night Live At The Roxy read my review here.

I've had the LAURA MARLING in the player a few times now and it's an excellent grower. Slightly more upbeat than some of her later more solo work Alas I Cannot Swim was recorded when Marling was only 17 and became her debut album in 2008. The maturity is astounding.

Final album here is a compilation of excellent electronica from local knob twiddling label Kin-Aesthetic Recordings. Here are the links to the tracks and some pleasing words of explanation from their website:

ELECTRIC APE

Opening with the uneasy heart-beating toll of Theme from The Infernal Machine, rising up with an inescapable stomp-march, its gloriously cold analogue bite might soundtrack a Zombie attack on the outskirts of Detroit.

INWARDS

Tentatively, Limbic System follows. Rebalancing to ambient calm with half-glanced shimmers and softly pulsing neuro-transmissions, the atmosphere breathes and lulls hypnotically, clicking, popping and geiger-counter ticking from within.

ALPHABETS HEAVEN

The intensity is ratcheted up with Amin, a quick-witted liquid beat that modulates, shifts and snaps, with a knowing nod, yet a fresh tenacity. Spacious, sharp, percussive; this circling groove deserves a jittering dancefloor.

ATOMICO

Re-doubling the energetic leap with this almost-lost production from 99', the taut electronic funk-beat of Forever brings an otherworldly depth, ghostly atmospherics and hot-footed drums serenade the divine closing quarter's molten synth-line.

SCARAMANGA SILK

Condensing into electrically charged cloud cover, the tropical ambience of Velvet Raindrops weighs heavy. The sultry electronic climate swells and swirls, threatening to explode, still the rich humidity reigns supreme.

PROPRIO

Finally, we stumble into the drowsy, drunken, distorted synth-groove of Columbo. Off-balance, world-worn, the excavated crooked beat rocks back and forth, strewn with end-of-night murmurs, yet crucially breaking into thumping coherence.

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Log #122 - Neil, Nils and Gram

A fairly quiet week at the Towers this week and a return to some basics with old stalwarts Neil Young (still top of the leaders' charts) and Gram Parsons (his first appearance at the blog!). 

Euphony In Electronics - One Point One

Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim

Fairport Convention - Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

Efterklang - Magic Chairs

Neil Young - After The Gold Rush

Gram Parsons - GP and Grievous Angel

I think After The Gold Rush was the first or second album of Neil Young's I heard. It's probably still one of his most famous along with Harvest and Harvest Moon I guess these days (the latter 1992 album pretty good in the context of much of his output in the previous decade but also very overrated in my opinion and not a patch on its namesake). I remember being fascinated by the minimalist black and white cover of After The Gold Rush, the chunky gold font of the title and the fish eye centre fold view of Young laid across a dressing room sofa in those jeans surrounded by guitars. 

There are some fascinating pictures of famous album cover shoots out there on the www. Here's one of this one with Graham Nash in the foreground, superimposed on the New York street as it is seen today.

Courtesy: http://www.popspotsnyc.com/

The music is an excellent introduction to the full range of Young for those who prefer the original albums over Greatest Hits compilations, with some heavy rock, acoustic guitar and piano (oddly a young Nils Lofgren, a great guitarist in his own right, guested on piano).

We need some simple parts and we’re confident that you’ll find them on the piano.

The Nils Lofgren one is an interesting story and just shows what can happen if you have a bit of front sometimes. Aged 18 he went to a Neil Young gig, blagged himself backstage, met Young, played him a couple of his own songs, got invited back to Young's Topanga Canyon ranch, ended up playing on After The Gold Rush, and having his own debut album produced by Young's producer David Briggs.

Lofgren went on to spend much of his career in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band but has recently returned to playing live with Young again as part of the latest Crazy Horse incarnation.

Gram Parsons of course had a much shorter career than either Young or Lofgren. Having started in The Byrds and then The Flying Burrito Brothers he had become a bit of a poster boy for the new Country Rock by the time of his first solo album GP in 1973. However he was also on a downward drugs and booze spiral (including hanging out with the Rolling Stones in the Mojave Desert and Nellcote) and his second album Grievous Angel was released posthumously the year after after his death in 1973. The two albums have long been available together on one CD.

Gram Parsons hanging out with Keith Richards at Nellcote, France, 1971

[Now is the first time ever I've noticed Gold Rush is two words - not only in this context but anywhere - it has never been one word!]

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