2 great artists, 6 great albums: 3 from Richard Hawley who I saw last week, and 3 from The Felice Brothers who I am seeing in January. If there was a Desert Island Discs for albums I'd be happy for many months marooned with these six. If I had to save one from the waves it would probably be the eponymously named The Felice Brothers album.
All these albums have featured in the blog before so this week Eddy has taken the unusual step of providing links to previous logs and reviews...
As for the live gigs: Hawley was great with a full on wall of sound guitar rock band. Much of the set was drawn from the psychedelic rock of Standing At The Sky's Edge, and also the new album Further which I have not heard yet but understand is similarly rock orientated.
Richard Hawley, The Dome, Brighton, 18/10/19
As for the Felices I am in slight trepidation as brothers Ian and James have formed a new band with a new direction. It will disappointing not to hear classic romps like Frankie's Gun and Whiskey In My Whiskey but I understand the new album Undress is great too - one due for a very overdue review at Bamyasi Towers.
In the early 80s Philip Glass attempted to go pop with his Glassworks album - an album deliberately designed for the Sony Walkman (invented in 1979). Two decades later German electronic composer Wolfgang Voight recorded an album of atmospheric drones under the name Gas and called it Pop.
Philip Glass Glassworks Tom Waits Foreign Affairs Thievery CorporationThe Mirror Conspiracy
Tangerine DreamRicochet
Gas Pop
Richard Hawley Truelove's Gutter
This week sees the first entry for 2 1/2 years from Washington DC electronica duo Thievery Corporation who make the most of their overdue reappearance with a typically classy set of down tempo swing and groove via The Mirror Conspiracy. The album, their second official studio release, came out in 2000, but I first became aware of them the year before through their excellent DJ Kicks compilation which must be one of the best of that series.
I'm really enjoying the Gas album POP. It almost goes without saying (almost) but this sort of music does require several hours of listening before the subtleties are absorbed. This is slow burning ambience, with some beats too (heartbeat pulses). It's much less dynamic than the Fennesz album I acquired at the same time (Endless Summer), but equally unique and original. The circular drones come at you in waves which have a wonderful lulling effect as you drift across the surface of the peaks and troughs of Wolfgang Voigt's oceanic soundscapes.
I'm pondering seeing Richard Hawley at a forthcoming concert in my area. I think I should go. I love his records. The thing that's holding me back is he is just about to bring a new album out and current set lists reveal he is playing practically the whole thing (obviously at the expense of much from the earlier albums I so love - in particular this one, Truelove's Guitar, which is an absolute masterpiece).
Have I missed his peak, or will the new album be equally as good (albeit less familiar even if I get it immediately)? I have a similar dilemma with the Felice Brothers who I was very sad to miss 2 years ago when they cancelled their UK tour. They are returning in the new year but with a new album and a new band. Will they be the same? I think I'll go to them too. Both of these artists have been favourites of mine for a while so even if I may have missed their absolute best I'll still regret passing up the opportunity.
In so much as this can be ever possible Philip GLASS attempted something more commercial with his 1982 Glassworks album. Temporarily putting aside his symphonic and operatic works:
Glassworks was intended to introduce my music to a more general audience than had been familiar with it up to then.
Through 6 relatively short pieces Glass takes us on a whistle top tour of the Glass that we feel that we know - we have the solo piano (Opening), the abrasive organ (Floe), the haunting pipes over minor chord string arpeggios (Island), the frenetic abrasive keyboard loops (Rubic), the beautiful clarinet melody over string loops (Facades), and the repeated embellished piano coda (Closing). Like a Russian doll the opening and closing pieces envelope the two alternating pairs - the beauty and the bombastic, or the order and the chaos if you like - bringing the album together as a satisfying whole.
It could be a greatest hits record, but serves more as an introductory compilation to Glass music. To call such music minimalist does it a disservice. There is a lot going on here and rather than being in any way generic, Philip Glass is unique and instantly recognisable.
Glass succeeded in his intention - Glassworks remains his most commercially successful record today.
A masterful album that seems to transcend all personal tastes - Al Stewart's 1976 masterpiece Year of the Cat is universally loved by all.
1. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 2
2. Richard Hawley - True Love's Gutter
3. Al Stewart - Year Of The Cat
4. Roni Size and Reprazent - New Forms
5. Other Lives - Tamer Animals
6. Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down In The Light
Just the one Black Sabbath CD retains its place this week - the second half of We Sold Our Soul... this covers tracks from all of their first six albums (strangely the first half of the partly chronological double album only covers their first two albums). Enough said on Black Sabbath for now pending release of my album ranking shortly for which this compilation has been good research
I recently read a review on Guardian Music for a Belle and Sebastian album. It was in a series on favourite albums from staff writers and possibly the public too at the time (the article seemed to suggest that, but on visiting the links the opportunity to write your own reviews had long disappeared - I think this review was posted in 2011). I did however discover Readers Recommend where readers can recommend tracks on a particular subject for potential inclusion on a playlist. This week's subject was "Obsolete Items". I nominated Triumph '73 by The Felice Brothers and Highwayman by Jimmy Reed but actually covered spectacularly by US grunge rockers Arbouretum. I also nominated (Straight to Your Heart) Like a Cannonball by Van Morrison but that offer was removed for some reason. I doubt either remaining nomination will make the shortlist. All 3 tracks are contained in this embedded mini playlist below. By the way most the obvious ones have gone before and you can't renominate any song that has appeared already in the series - this is known as a "zedded" song. What fun these private members' clubs have.
Anyway from that site I also discovered a parallel project at www.song-bar.com. Over there they were inviting nominations for songs of "Remaining or Staying". I nominated Stayin' Power by Neil Young and Soldier On by Richard Hawley. And that's how, to cut a long story a bit shorter, I came to have True Love's Gutter in the series this week. It's a beautiful record - possibly Hawley's most intense and atmospheric (this clip of the epic Soldier On also features a beautiful video):
On a morning from a Bogart movie In a country where they turn back time You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre Contemplating a crime She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running Like a watercolor in the rain Don't bother asking for explanations She'll just tell you that she came In the year of the cat
And that's how Al Stewart's great Year of the Cat track begins. This album was doing the rounds when I was a young student and was one of those soft pop records that seemed to transcend all personal tastes being universally loved by all.
It is simply a masterful collection of great songs - lovely melodies and excellent musicianship. But playing this again this week what struck me most were the lyrics. Each song tells an evocative story that takes you to a place and time.
Great lyrics of exotic escapism run like a thread through this album.
Lord Grenville:
Go and tell Lord Grenville that the tide is on the turn It's time to haul the anchor up and leave the land astern We'll be gone before the dawn returns Like voices on the wind
On The Border:
The fishing boats go out across the evening water Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border The wind whips up the waves so loud The ghost moon sails among the clouds Turns the rifles into silver on the border
If It Doesn't Come Naturally Leave It: Well I'm up to my neck in the crumbling wreckage Of all that I wanted from life When I looked for respect all I got was neglect Though I swallowed the line as a sign of the times But dealing a jack from the back of the pack They said - You lose again
Flying Sorcery: With your photographs of Kitty Hawk And the biplanes on your wall You were always Amy Johnson From the time that you were small
Broadway Hotel:
You told the man in the Broadway Hotel Nothing was stranger than being yourself And he replied, with a tear in his eye Love was a rollaway Just a cajole away
This album came out in 1976 and became Al Stewart's go to record. I don't know if he had much success elsewhere but is still touring today playing to dedicated fans in small venues. I saw an amusing clip of him at a backstage signing where a fan said he was surprised he was still going and doing "this". He quite rightly said, "Of course, what else would I be doing?". When you think about it that makes complete sense. It's not like he would decide to give up and become a plumber or school teacher.
One minor gripe on my CD reissue. It has a couple of live tracks, fine, but also an interview. This just disrupts the flow of the music and doesn't have a place here.
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
~
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:
1Zola Jesus - Exhumed
High ghostly girl vocals over a stirring string based riff which initially sounds like the CD is stuck. 2Alice 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. 3Big Thief - Shark Smile Pleasant Belle and Sebastian type pop. Not my favourite type of laid back/lazy singing. 4Girl Ray - Stupid Things 60s flavoured piano pop. Velvet Underground gone soft. 5Carmen 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.
6Ema - 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.
7Broken Social Scene - Hug Of Thunder Girl singer trying too hard this time.
8Sinkane - Telephone Pappy pop again. 9Kelly 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. 10Grandbrothers - 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. 11Barr 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
12Gulp - Search For Your Love This is fun. I like the underlying riff and foot tapping percussion. Sounds a bit like a more poppy Portishead. 13Physics 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.
14Blanck 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. 15Lower Slaughter - Bone Meal Punk. Girl shouter. Riff. 16Moon Duo - Creepin'
A little more focussed heavy pop Ramones style.
17Acid - 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.
One of the joys of writing this blog are the unexpected rediscoveries of artists in my collection. Playing his classic Coles Corner album a month ago led me to expand my Richard Hawley catalogue with two more purchases both featured at the top of my 6 cd changer this week.
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1. Richard Hawley - Standing at the Sky's Edge
2. Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter
3. Tim Buckley - Happy Sad
4. The Felice Brothers - The Felice Brothers
5. Nick Cave - The Lyre of Orpheus
6. Nick Cave - Abattoir Blues
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After being nominated for the Mercury Prize for Coles Corner in 2006 Hawley was nominated again in 2012 for a very different album - Standing at the Sky's Edge is a powerful rock album with mixed down vocals, heavy bass, thumping drums, and distorted guitars. Sounding more like The Stone Roses or Jimi Hendrix, releasing this was a brave move being such a departure from his regular sound.
Hawley's 2009 LP, Truelove's Gutter, is more in the vein of Coles Corner but I'd say even more lush and also darker with some very long slow tracks and sad lyrics highlighted by sparse string arrangements (look at that dark cover too). The writing is stripped back both lyrically and musically - with the emphasis on space and atmosphere - with a voice like his you don't have to try to too hard - less is more. The eight (only, yay!) songs work perfectly with Hawley's baritone and retro guitar and this album is truly addictive - the one I've had on pretty constant repeat this week. Actually more worthy of the Mercury nomination than the other two I'd say.
As the Dawn Breaks begins with atmospheric bird song. Open Up Your Door and Ashes on the Fire are beautiful waltz-like ballads with brushed drum strokes and echoey 50s style Gretsch guitar. The former has the distinction of being used in adverts for both Haagen Dazs and Renault.
It was the one time I was persuaded to do an advert and the kids went: 'Dad, do we get any free Häagen-Dazs?' So I rang up and asked. Then this massive articulated lorry turned up...this big, tattooed bloke pulled out this freezer thing. When he opened it up there were these four tiny tubs.
The lengthy Remorse Code is hypnotic with it's acoustic guitar arpeggios. The soothing Don't Get Hung Up in Your Soul features haunting saw. Soldier On is a masterpiece of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb like proportions which builds from tabla backed sustained guitar notes to a crashing crescendo - the only loud section in the album and possibly anticipating the Standing at the Sky's Edge sound.
We then return to another mournful love song where Hawley implores: For Your Lover Give Some Time backed by plucked Spanish guitar and strings:
I will give up these cigarettes Stay at home and watch you mend the tears in your dress Have your name in a rose tattooed across my chest And be your lover for all time Maybe I will drink a little less Come home early and not complain about the day And give you flowers from the graveyard now and then And for my lover give some time
Heartbreaking.
The last track is the 10 minute Don't You Cry which is more fleshed out than most of the other arrangements. Underpinned by another repeating acoustic guitar arpeggio the track features a symphony of interesting sounds played on lyre, glockenspiel, harpsichord, cristal baschet, celeste, tibetan singing bowls, waterphone, and saw again.
What on Earth is a waterphone? I've never seen or heard one before but this sounds amazing (and a little eerie).
What on Earth is a cristal baschet? I've never seen or heard one before but this sounds amazing (and a little eerie).
These sound clips give an indication of the atmosphere of this amazing album. I thought Coles Corner gave me all I needed from Richard Hawley but I'm so pleased I ventured deeper and discovered this one. For beginners I'd still recommend the lighter Coles Corner but if you like that also take a walk on the dark side with Truelove's Gutter.
Regular fans of Richard Hawley, the easy listening crooner, should be wary of his Standing at the Sky's Edge album. However I expect this album of heavy psychedelic trippy rock (don't you just love that cover?) will have won Hawley many new fans and the less sensitive of his existing fans would have nevertheless grown appreciative of this temporary transformation, it being underpinned fundamentally by typically excellent songs albeit in an unfamiliar setting.
Guitar is my first love... I'd done the orchestral thing pretty much... enough to warrant a big change for me.
For this outing, his seventh, the guitars are turned up to 11 and the drums and bass pound away providing a tremendous wall of sound, and the celebrated Hawley voice is distorted and mixed down low sounding like Jim Morrison particularly on the slow paced title track. Aside from the Doors, think Hawkwind, Neil Young (with Crazy Horse of course), Jimi Hendrix, Stone Roses, Ride, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, or any other number of shoe-gazing guitar bands of the 90s.
Songs like the 7 minute opener She Brings the Sunlight with it's sustained power chords and distorted electric guitar solos are indicative of this new towering sound.
Obvious single Leave Your Body Behind You with it's descending bass line would make a great Bond theme:
Child of Eden your time is short You can't leave with more than you've brought Love given lightly can never be owned A thing we feel but can never hold You leave your body behind you When you leave this place You leave your body behind you And you make a space
However it's not all monumental rock and there are a couple of more typical gentle ballads mid album in Seek It and Don't Stare at the Sun although the latter also ends with a searing guitar solo.
A departure then for Hawley, but a very successful one leading to a hugely powerful album that I think will stand the test of time. Take it in the car on a long drive and play it loud!
First up this week we have Sheffield crooner Richard Hawley. Hawley was a member of 90s Britpop band The Long Pigs who I know absolutely nothing about. I think his greater claim to pre-solo fame may have been his subsequent stint in Pulp. For both bands he was on guitar duties. I wonder if his lovely baritone voice lay undiscovered until he branched out as a solo artist in 2001 with debut Late Night Final. I also wonder how many other bands have failed to unearth vocalists within their ranks that could possibly have been better than their chosen lead singers - Jarvis Cocker was undoubtedly a great front man but was he the best singer?
Richard Hawley with Jarvis Cocker playing for Pulp
Such comparisons are at best unfair and at worse irrelevant. I argue the singer is the most important component of a band's character, and therefore the most irreplaceable. Could Led Zeppelin or the Arctic Monkeys for example have continued without Robert Plant or Alex Turner respectively? What about drummers John Bonham and Matt Helders, or bass players John Paul Jones and Nick O'Malley? Sure the musicians have their own characters and styles and are essential components of the group, but a different singer is more immediately noticeable than a different drummer or bass player. Take Black Sabbath - when Ozzy left them they pretty much became reincarnations of the Ian Gillan Band and the Ronnie James Dio Band playing Sabbath covers. When the original band reformed with Ozzy, but minus drummer Bill Ward, they sounded like Black Sabbath again.
Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley are different types of singers fronting bands playing different types of music.
Richard Hawley in his more natural habitat
Coles Corner is a real place as pictured on our head album cover above. In a bygone era courting couples would meet on the corner outside the old Coles Bros department store in Sheffield. Here we see Richard waiting with a bouquet of flowers below his own name in lights. Today the actual corner building houses a very unromantic HSBC bank and Starbucks. I don't think Richard Hawley, or Coles Corner, is famous enough to warrant fan pilgrimages to the location like a Ziggy Stardust or Freewheelin'!
Coles Corner, Sheffield, yesteryear and today
I know what it's like to live here in Sheffield and therefore it seems perfectly logical to write about it.
The music is old time romantic - rich velvety vocals, reverberating Gretsch guitar, and lush strings. Check out The Ocean. Lovely. A pop star, like many, not accustomed to modesty, the aforementioned Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, on acceptance of the 2006 Mercury Prize for best album, stated that Hawley, whose album was also shortlisted, had been robbed. Hawley would be nominated again 6 years later for his atypical electric guitar freakout Standing at the Sky's Edge album. I would have felt sorry for folks attending gigs during that tour expecting Coles Corner!
~ 1. Beck -Guero
2. Beck - Mutations
3. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
4. Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
5. Nick Cave - The Lyre of Orpheus
6. Autechre - Untilted
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In a similar vein to Coles Corner we have Marvin Gaye's classic album What's Going On. (By the way shouldn't that be a question? Maybe not). It took me years to get this and a few more years to get it, literally. It's nice background music, easy listening. More depths to be discovered over the years no doubt. Rarely does an out and out classic fail to deliver in the long run.
Marvin Gaye and that raincoat
A few more plays of the Autechre album and it starts to make a bit more sense. I'm still trapped in the metal shipping container but I can get some sleep despite the chill as my mind locks into some semblance of repetitive beats and patterns.
Relief this time comes in the unlikely form of The King of Goth and Doom, The Prince of Darkness, Nick Cave - a possessor, like Hawley, of another deep baritone, but somehow very different, voice. But this album is anything but depressing... surely one of Cave's most accessible and pleasing albums and representing (along with its twin release Abattoir Blues) a high watermark in his creativity. Great songs with brilliant melodies including pop songs like Breathless, piano ballads like Easy Money, bloody narratives like the title track The Lyre of Orpheus,rock anthems like Supernaturally, and banked choir epics like Carry Me and O Children. This album pretty much has it all. In fact I can't get over how good this is - is there any other songwriter of Cave's equivalent working today? Get yourself a copy right now!
, but a very successful one leading to a hugely powerful album that I think will stand the test of time. Take it in the car on a long drive and play it loud!
