Log #165 - Beauty, Happiness, Peace and Low

After The Gold Rush is one of those albums that I feel I know so well I hardly have to play it any more. What was nice hearing it again though is recalling the excitement on first hearing it all those years ago. For me NEIL YOUNG was one of the first singer-songwriter artists I discovered, along with Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, who took my listening experience to a new level following a diet of rock bands up until then. And After The Gold Rush is a perfect singer-songwriter album with its mix of rock numbers (actually only two - the searing Southern Man and the honky piano When You Dance placed midway through each side) and poignant acoustic love songs (with Young's lyrical prowess at its zenith). More on this album and Nils Lofgren's contribution at Log #122 from January this year (so actually it wasn't such a long time ago I last played it).

Neil Young After The Gold Rush

Ludovico Einaudi In A Time Lapse

Low Double Negative

Rokia Traore Beautiful Africa
The Lumineers The Lumineers

Peace Happy People

THE LUMINEERS is a new band on me. I discovered them through the passage ways of The Felice Brothers (via Simone Felice especially) and The Decemberists. This album (their 2012 debut) is nearly all acoustic. It contains a bunch of jaunty sing-a-long folk rock numbers including their big hit Ho Hey. More to hear here I'm sure but initial impressions are the band is slightly closer to the Mumford Sons end of the spectrum rather than the aforementioned The Felice Brothers and The Decemberists. 

I didn't really get on with the LUDOVICO EINAUDI album this time around - very easy listening in a Michael Nyman The Piano soundtrack sort of way, but with a lot more strings. Heck, they even look identical:

Separated at birth? Nyman and Einaudi

I love ROKIA TRAORE's wavery powerful voice. Some good rock and some trad. African stuff on this excellent album. Some songs in French. Africa is beautiful as is she.

PEACE are an indie guitar band hailing from Worcester, England. Happy People is their second (of currently 3) albums. I fleetingly liked an indie guitar pop band called Dodgy way back in the early 90s (they made a bit of a comeback recently). Their songs were very catchy but shone very briefly in my consciousness. I feel much the same about this music: Peace's decent throwaway pop is a throwback to Britpop but doesn't really leave a lasting impression. They're good and probably excellent live but don't seem quite to have the swagger and originality of say The Happy Mondays of that time, or contemporaries The Arctic Monkeys for example.

Last out the blocks this week is the album Double Negative by LOW. Much acclaimed this album appeared in many best of lists of 2018. But be warned, it's not an easy listen as demonstrated by a visitor to Bamyasi Towers this weekend who asked me to change the music as it was just too dark. Perhaps the band's distorted soundscapes are more for the critics than the listening public - I was surprised to see their appearance at Glastonbury so poorly attended, for a band who had just achieved such a critical breakthrough. Personally the album is not one that grabs me immediately, but is one that I will want to return to for a deeper dive (but it will have to be when I'm alone!).

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Log #90 - Tentative Excursions Into Grime

Bookends this week are two hip hop / rap / grime albums - well, the Wiley one is grime (being the British form of this sort of music). The other one, by LA based Earl Sweatshirt is more low fi. I really don't know what you'd call it actually.  It's very minimal, interesting and entirely original. There are some nice laid back grooves with phased keyboards / organ and killer bass... but parents beware, this is one record where a Parental Advisory sticker is wholly necessary.

The Wiley album is louder and faster. It's more in your face. There are some amazing tracks on this energetic album although personally I think I prefer the grooves on the Sweatshirt record. I think amongst the fans of this type of music some think Wiley (who I've heard referred to as the godfather of grunge) is a bit old hat compared to current flavour of the month Stormzy for instance. You can hear the differences in style in the clips below:

1. Earl Sweatshirt - I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside

2. Jamie T - Carry On The Grudge

3. Peace - Happy People

4. Catfish and the Bottlemen - The Balcony

5. Hozier - Hozier

6. Wiley - Snakes and Ladders

I'm not going to go into the other albums in much detail this week suffice to say I think Hozier is very talented. There's something about him that reminds me of a young, fellow countryman, Van Morrison. Jamie T is a bit rock and a bit indie in a Jam sort of way. As for Peace and Catfish I don't find this sort of guitar based power pop music too inspiring. It's very derivative reminding me of Britpop type bands, and Dodgy.

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