The Art of Dory Previn (Zonophone Compilation, 2007)
I’ll start with a small confession: I knew next to nothing about Dory Previn before I heard the marvellous Camera Obscura song that takes her name. She’s perhaps more famous for being Andre Previn’s psychologically troubled ex-wife than she is for her bizarre and fascinating songs. This excellent compilation gathers together material from her years with United Artists records in the early 70s, a period in which she underwent psychiatric treatment and was encouraged to write about her experiences in poems and songs.
These songs cover themes and subjects that most writers of the period would have considered taboo and her lyrics still sound fearless and audacious even today. Her voice has a deceptive lightness of touch (with an understatement and crisp phrasing totally absent among the current breed of reality-show tutored singers) which belies her subject matter. At times she is raucously comic, at others she is consumed by a dark sexuality and psychological trauma.
I don’t have enough contextual knowledge to assess how shrewd a selection this compilation contains – but it certainly includes some of her most nakedly personal works. Coming from a strict Catholic background and having a complicated relationship with her father, who suffered severe bouts of depression following a gas attack during the war, there’s an intricate undertow of guilt and rebellion in many of these songs. ‘Esther’s First Communion’ opens the set on an appropriate note then, making the profane sacred and the sacred profane, with a young girl instructed by her parents to ‘marry Jesus’, then fantasising about him sexually (to her parents’ unrestrained horror), before embarking on a sexual odyssey with numerous men when this proves unfulfilling. To many people, this would probably still prove breathtakingly offensive, as would the album’s closing track (‘Jesus Was A Androgyne’), which brings us neatly full circle after a world of confusion and pain in between.
There’s ‘Twenty Mile Zone’, which would resemble a children’s folk tune were it not for its self-mocking tone in dealing with insanity. Previn’s protagonist is approached by a policeman on a motorcycle having been witnessed screaming from the window of her car for no other reason than to let off steam. Eventually, they end up delightfully screaming in unison as he escorts her to a police station in convoy. ‘Mythical Kings and Iguanas’ is every bit as fantastical as its title suggests, but it’s a mesmerising and compelling fantasy.
Things get nastier with the deliciously vengeful ‘Beware of Young Girls’, presumably addressed to Mia Farrow, to whom Previn famously lost her husband. The lyrics are splendidly poetic, complete with alliteration and internal rhyming (‘I thought her motives were sincere/Oh yes I did/But this lass, it came to pass/Had a dark and different plan….She admired my own sweet man.’). The spindly melody helps to emphasise the song’s sinister tone. Even more disconcerting is the terrifying ‘Doppelganger’, a vivid portrait of an evil character lurking throughout history and across geographical locations. The final lines are devastating, hinting again at Previn’s own mental torment – having seen her character’s obscenities scrawled on her wall, Previn then notices ‘his handwriting was identical with mine’, the snarl in her voice on the final note emphasising the horrifying nature of this revelation.
Already we seem to be in entirely unique and unusual territory, and that’s before we’ve even mentioned the ‘dark attraction’ of ‘With My Daddy In The Attic’, or the spine-tingling ‘Angels and Devils The Following Day’. The latter is an absolute masterpiece with an uncomfortable and thought-provoking lyric. To a swirling and sensuous backing, Previn contrasts two lovers, one violent and brutal, the other sensitive and kind. Yet she concludes that the gentle man hurt her more because of the psychological impact of his constant guilt and uncertainty. It’s not an easy listen by any means. Similarly masterful is ‘Left Hand Lost’, which links depression to being retrained to write right-handed rather than with the devil’s left side.
The musical accompaniments are rich and varied, from the bare piano and acoustic guitar of ‘Perfect Man’, to the more elaborate strings of ‘Doppelganger’ Whatever the instrumentation or size of the ensemble, the music always seems to be meticulously arranged. Previn manages to juxtapose hints of show tunes, early jazz (with the occasional interjection of a Benny Goodman-inspired clarinet) and traditional folk music. It’s extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to categorise or pigeonhole her distinctive approach to songwriting. This compilation coheres chiefly through the stark and communicative qualities of her singing and the unrivalled candour of her words. One could perhaps find antecedents to Previn’s preoccupations with fantasy and sexuality in the work of Tori Amos or Kate Bush, but the former has been frustratingly wayward, whilst the latter often seems more mystical and estranged from reality. Previn really does stand alone in her unflinching confrontation of the darker aspects of human nature and the nuances of mental distress.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Sunday, January 06, 2008
A Gender Divide?
Amidst all the usual venting of frustration on the MOJO letters page, one particular comment stands out this month. The appearance of Amy Winehouse on last month's end of year cover prompted one reader to highlight that she was the only woman to appear on the cover of the magazine in the whole of 2006-7. 24 months - and the editorial team could find no other female musician worthy of attention? If this means that the readership is predominantly male, as might reasonably be expected, why do men of a certain age not wish to read about female artistry?
I am not an avid fan of blind feminism, but then I am no patriarch either. Whilst neither gender has an innate claim to superiority, I have recently found myself increasingly drawn to the work of female songwriters. Indeed, the likes of Bjork, Feist, Marnie Stern, Susanna, Patricia Barber, Emmylou Harris, kd Lang, Bettye LaVette, Sharon Jones and Sylvie Lewis are among the most exciting singers and songwriters currently at work. Unfortunately, the latter seems to have been afforded next to no coverage in the UK press - even The Word magazine failing to follow the inclusion of one of her tracks on a covermount CD with anything more than a lukewarm review. She's playing at The Fly in London on Wednesday - and her songwriter meets stand-up comic routine is original and entertaining.
Surely the intuitive and sensitive qualities of a songwriter such as Leslie Feist are worthy of greater attention, particularly as she has now had a top ten hit in this country? Gazing into the past - Emmylou Harris is an artist in need of far greater appreciation in her own right - still she is constantly bombarded by questions about her relationship with Gram Parsons. There's recently been greater interest in the work of Vashti Bunyan and Karen Dalton. Also, an excellent compilation of the quite bizarre and unhinged work of Dory Previn is about to hit the stores - well worth a listen!
Perhaps a change will follow in 2008 - the most hyped 'breakthrough' artists this year would appear to be young women - Adele and Laura Marling. Whether or not they are the right examples remains to be seen.
I am not an avid fan of blind feminism, but then I am no patriarch either. Whilst neither gender has an innate claim to superiority, I have recently found myself increasingly drawn to the work of female songwriters. Indeed, the likes of Bjork, Feist, Marnie Stern, Susanna, Patricia Barber, Emmylou Harris, kd Lang, Bettye LaVette, Sharon Jones and Sylvie Lewis are among the most exciting singers and songwriters currently at work. Unfortunately, the latter seems to have been afforded next to no coverage in the UK press - even The Word magazine failing to follow the inclusion of one of her tracks on a covermount CD with anything more than a lukewarm review. She's playing at The Fly in London on Wednesday - and her songwriter meets stand-up comic routine is original and entertaining.
Surely the intuitive and sensitive qualities of a songwriter such as Leslie Feist are worthy of greater attention, particularly as she has now had a top ten hit in this country? Gazing into the past - Emmylou Harris is an artist in need of far greater appreciation in her own right - still she is constantly bombarded by questions about her relationship with Gram Parsons. There's recently been greater interest in the work of Vashti Bunyan and Karen Dalton. Also, an excellent compilation of the quite bizarre and unhinged work of Dory Previn is about to hit the stores - well worth a listen!
Perhaps a change will follow in 2008 - the most hyped 'breakthrough' artists this year would appear to be young women - Adele and Laura Marling. Whether or not they are the right examples remains to be seen.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Happy To Take The Bait
John Harris can be incredibly irritating sometimes. What exactly does he want to be? Political commentator with a diluted socialist angle? A cultural connoisseur? Or just a good old fashioned music hack?
He may have some good points in his lukewarm review of the new Magnetic Fields album for The Guardian (although his obvious contempt for Stephin Merritt's ironic approach to songwriting merely suggests that he lacks a sense of humour). Whilst I am an admirer of the group, my considered thoughts on that release will have to wait until I've heard the entire album. What has irked me more is the final paragraph: '...what might follow this? Merritt's next wheeze could find him mixing up any number of his previous releases - Sonny and Cher meets Randy Newman, perhaps, or maybe a fusion of Sinatra and Philip Glass. That would surely get him a load of five star internet reviews and drooling acclaim in the blogosphere.' Why does The Guardian, a paper with its very lifeblood currently dependant on its excellent website, still insist on printing this nonsense? Why can they not appreciate that a number of the people who read arts sections in newspapers are themselves bloggers? Why are all bloggers consistently tarred with the same brush, as if we're some kind of grand cult of ineptitude? Is it because the blogosphere has become something of which mainstream papers like The Guardian are increasingly wary - something that is undermining their supposedly untouchable position as the nation's arbiters of taste?
Whilst I am sometimes as guilty of lapsing into hyperbole as any writer, I try very hard to avoid writing purely as a fan. Indeed, I've written critically and honestly about artists whose work I really admire (wait for my hatchet job on Morrissey's forthcoming Greatest Hits for example, or see my thoughts on Prince at the 02 or my critical review of Bruce Springsteen's 'Magic', a good deal more honest than some of the slavish fanboy writing that appeared in print - 'the best album of his career' - do you really mean that?). Not every blogger drools slavishly without exercising critical judgement - indeed, such acumen is less and less the preserve of print journalists, many of whom seem to have a bewildering lack of knowledge of musical history or cultural context.
It's also worth remembering that musical appreciation is subjective - for every listener turned off by an artist like Stephin Merritt's reliance on conceits and wit, there will be another listener enticed by it. When writers discuss music, they ought to concentrate on trying to identify elements that could unite a group of listeners, even if that group might be a marginal minority (let's also not forget that, not least do the margins often become the mainstream in the long-term, but that minorities can exercise their own significant influence). At the most conservative interpretation - this might focus on a songwriter's grasp of melody, rhythm, metre, harmony or poetry. If they combine all of the above, they are probably on to something. If we're adopting a more adventurous standpoint, we might be wise to look at how successfully writers subvert expectations on these criteria and challenge their audiences, developing their wider tastes. Simply writing to assert your authority over other, mostly non-professional writers is too easy and serves as an unhelpful guide for readers.
The newspaper that pioneered internet content with Comment is Free ought to avoid alienating those people who most welcome the freedom and creativity afforded by the internet. Otherwise, their cultural commentators will simply render themselves irrelevant. For all the current media hype surrounding predictions for 2008, it's worth remembering that for every Mika, there's a Burial or Arcade Fire - acts now invading the mainstream whose unique and broad appeal developed initially from word of mouth over the internet. The 'blogosphere' has introduced me to a good deal of uncynical and positive, but also ultimately realistic writing about music. This comes from the people who actually consume music, rather than simply blagging their way through a PR-directed selection. Is there any reason why I should not be informed by these people every bit as much as by the journalists whose writing I also admire?
He may have some good points in his lukewarm review of the new Magnetic Fields album for The Guardian (although his obvious contempt for Stephin Merritt's ironic approach to songwriting merely suggests that he lacks a sense of humour). Whilst I am an admirer of the group, my considered thoughts on that release will have to wait until I've heard the entire album. What has irked me more is the final paragraph: '...what might follow this? Merritt's next wheeze could find him mixing up any number of his previous releases - Sonny and Cher meets Randy Newman, perhaps, or maybe a fusion of Sinatra and Philip Glass. That would surely get him a load of five star internet reviews and drooling acclaim in the blogosphere.' Why does The Guardian, a paper with its very lifeblood currently dependant on its excellent website, still insist on printing this nonsense? Why can they not appreciate that a number of the people who read arts sections in newspapers are themselves bloggers? Why are all bloggers consistently tarred with the same brush, as if we're some kind of grand cult of ineptitude? Is it because the blogosphere has become something of which mainstream papers like The Guardian are increasingly wary - something that is undermining their supposedly untouchable position as the nation's arbiters of taste?
Whilst I am sometimes as guilty of lapsing into hyperbole as any writer, I try very hard to avoid writing purely as a fan. Indeed, I've written critically and honestly about artists whose work I really admire (wait for my hatchet job on Morrissey's forthcoming Greatest Hits for example, or see my thoughts on Prince at the 02 or my critical review of Bruce Springsteen's 'Magic', a good deal more honest than some of the slavish fanboy writing that appeared in print - 'the best album of his career' - do you really mean that?). Not every blogger drools slavishly without exercising critical judgement - indeed, such acumen is less and less the preserve of print journalists, many of whom seem to have a bewildering lack of knowledge of musical history or cultural context.
It's also worth remembering that musical appreciation is subjective - for every listener turned off by an artist like Stephin Merritt's reliance on conceits and wit, there will be another listener enticed by it. When writers discuss music, they ought to concentrate on trying to identify elements that could unite a group of listeners, even if that group might be a marginal minority (let's also not forget that, not least do the margins often become the mainstream in the long-term, but that minorities can exercise their own significant influence). At the most conservative interpretation - this might focus on a songwriter's grasp of melody, rhythm, metre, harmony or poetry. If they combine all of the above, they are probably on to something. If we're adopting a more adventurous standpoint, we might be wise to look at how successfully writers subvert expectations on these criteria and challenge their audiences, developing their wider tastes. Simply writing to assert your authority over other, mostly non-professional writers is too easy and serves as an unhelpful guide for readers.
The newspaper that pioneered internet content with Comment is Free ought to avoid alienating those people who most welcome the freedom and creativity afforded by the internet. Otherwise, their cultural commentators will simply render themselves irrelevant. For all the current media hype surrounding predictions for 2008, it's worth remembering that for every Mika, there's a Burial or Arcade Fire - acts now invading the mainstream whose unique and broad appeal developed initially from word of mouth over the internet. The 'blogosphere' has introduced me to a good deal of uncynical and positive, but also ultimately realistic writing about music. This comes from the people who actually consume music, rather than simply blagging their way through a PR-directed selection. Is there any reason why I should not be informed by these people every bit as much as by the journalists whose writing I also admire?
Write It Down and Set It To Music
Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, 2007)
Interest in Gus Van Sant’s succession of dreamy, listless, and morally ambiguous films seems to have waned in this country since ‘Elephant’ deservedly won him the Palme D’Or at Cannes. How bizarre that this film was only afforded a release on Boxing Day, surely a time at which nobody attends the cinema, with particularly hopeless distribution (it’s rare that I relent and pay an extortionate £10 to see a film at the Curzon Soho).
‘Paranoid Park’ is, perhaps mercifully, a good deal closer to ‘Elephant’ than Van Sant’s previous film, the overrated ‘Last Days’. ‘Last Days’, inspired by the suicide of Kurt Cobain, seemed to suggest that that tragic event could be attributed purely to boredom and disaffection, as opposed to any more complex malaise or personal torment. ‘Paranoid Park’ is the most subjective of this trilogy of films. Given that his films hardly aspire to be anything else, it’s odd that the word ‘subjective’ has been brandished against Van Sant pejoratively. ‘Paranoid Park’ captures its central character (an uncertain and hesitant teenage boy named Alex) at a period of profound dislocation and discomfort, facing his parents’ awkward divorce and unable to accept responsibility for his role in the particularly gruesome death of a railway security guard. Much like his portrayal of the high school mass-murderers in ‘Elephant’, Van Sant offers no explicit moral judgement or condemnation of Alex here – this is simply not his concern. Van Sant simply portrays Alex’s troubled existence in a fragmentary, but matter-of-fact manner.
I found it rather affecting and convincing, its desolate mood appropriately conveying isolation and estrangement from reality. Alex is an endearing character – neither academic nor especially intelligent (his voiceover is deliberately hesitant and without flow), he speaks in naturalistic language and somehow achieves his own appealingly clumsy poetry. This chimes with the dependable visual poetry of cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose photographic language is among the most eloquent in contemporary cinema. The more rough-hewn Super 8 footage of Skateboarders comes from Rain Kathy Li – neatly conveying Van Sant’s obvious affection and understanding of the disaffected teenagers that dominate the Skate Parks of Portland, Oregon.
Even more striking than the rich and rewarding cinematography is the film’s bold and disorientating sound design. The use of wildly contrasting music – from Nino Rota’s famous score for ‘Juliet of the Spirits’ to some thrashing hardcore punk – highlights Alex’s confusion and internal torment. Similarly, the amplification of usually meaningless background noise serves to emphasise a sense of strife and disorder.
That Alex seems blank and empty on the outside has provoked Van Sant’s harshest critics, but there are convincing elements to this, notably his drifting away during science classes, his constantly shifting explanation to a Police Detective, his lack of interest in sex with his energetic but unengaging girlfriend and his burgeoning friendship with another female schoolmate. Surely this is a more complex depiction of adolescent emotions than the usual angry, passive-aggressive, confrontational stereotype?
Van Sant is indulging his preoccupation with disaffected local youth in this film, and some may feel uncomfortable with his near-fetishisation of his lead actor’s angelic features. This does at least serve to contrast his outward innocence and inexperience with the weighty burden of his terrible secret though, and therefore arguably has a justified purpose. Another Van Sant fetish, the shower scene (this must be the only reason he remade Psycho shot for shot), recurs here, although in this instance it’s one of the most powerful and symbolic moments in his cinema, a baptismal moment of quite surprising intensity, again with astonishing sound.
Alex pays a high price for venturing into Paranoid Park itself, a slightly menacing and unfamiliar world in which only the very best skaters go, many of them seemingly from social backgrounds far less comfortable than Alex’s own. Eventually we find out that Alex’s voiceover represents a letter depicting the events that he is encouraged to write by his friend Macy, a remarkably warm and perceptive character. At the end, he appears to burn the pages rather than deliver it to her, but at least his innermost, most disconcerting thoughts have somehow been released.
Interest in Gus Van Sant’s succession of dreamy, listless, and morally ambiguous films seems to have waned in this country since ‘Elephant’ deservedly won him the Palme D’Or at Cannes. How bizarre that this film was only afforded a release on Boxing Day, surely a time at which nobody attends the cinema, with particularly hopeless distribution (it’s rare that I relent and pay an extortionate £10 to see a film at the Curzon Soho).
‘Paranoid Park’ is, perhaps mercifully, a good deal closer to ‘Elephant’ than Van Sant’s previous film, the overrated ‘Last Days’. ‘Last Days’, inspired by the suicide of Kurt Cobain, seemed to suggest that that tragic event could be attributed purely to boredom and disaffection, as opposed to any more complex malaise or personal torment. ‘Paranoid Park’ is the most subjective of this trilogy of films. Given that his films hardly aspire to be anything else, it’s odd that the word ‘subjective’ has been brandished against Van Sant pejoratively. ‘Paranoid Park’ captures its central character (an uncertain and hesitant teenage boy named Alex) at a period of profound dislocation and discomfort, facing his parents’ awkward divorce and unable to accept responsibility for his role in the particularly gruesome death of a railway security guard. Much like his portrayal of the high school mass-murderers in ‘Elephant’, Van Sant offers no explicit moral judgement or condemnation of Alex here – this is simply not his concern. Van Sant simply portrays Alex’s troubled existence in a fragmentary, but matter-of-fact manner.
I found it rather affecting and convincing, its desolate mood appropriately conveying isolation and estrangement from reality. Alex is an endearing character – neither academic nor especially intelligent (his voiceover is deliberately hesitant and without flow), he speaks in naturalistic language and somehow achieves his own appealingly clumsy poetry. This chimes with the dependable visual poetry of cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose photographic language is among the most eloquent in contemporary cinema. The more rough-hewn Super 8 footage of Skateboarders comes from Rain Kathy Li – neatly conveying Van Sant’s obvious affection and understanding of the disaffected teenagers that dominate the Skate Parks of Portland, Oregon.
Even more striking than the rich and rewarding cinematography is the film’s bold and disorientating sound design. The use of wildly contrasting music – from Nino Rota’s famous score for ‘Juliet of the Spirits’ to some thrashing hardcore punk – highlights Alex’s confusion and internal torment. Similarly, the amplification of usually meaningless background noise serves to emphasise a sense of strife and disorder.
That Alex seems blank and empty on the outside has provoked Van Sant’s harshest critics, but there are convincing elements to this, notably his drifting away during science classes, his constantly shifting explanation to a Police Detective, his lack of interest in sex with his energetic but unengaging girlfriend and his burgeoning friendship with another female schoolmate. Surely this is a more complex depiction of adolescent emotions than the usual angry, passive-aggressive, confrontational stereotype?
Van Sant is indulging his preoccupation with disaffected local youth in this film, and some may feel uncomfortable with his near-fetishisation of his lead actor’s angelic features. This does at least serve to contrast his outward innocence and inexperience with the weighty burden of his terrible secret though, and therefore arguably has a justified purpose. Another Van Sant fetish, the shower scene (this must be the only reason he remade Psycho shot for shot), recurs here, although in this instance it’s one of the most powerful and symbolic moments in his cinema, a baptismal moment of quite surprising intensity, again with astonishing sound.
Alex pays a high price for venturing into Paranoid Park itself, a slightly menacing and unfamiliar world in which only the very best skaters go, many of them seemingly from social backgrounds far less comfortable than Alex’s own. Eventually we find out that Alex’s voiceover represents a letter depicting the events that he is encouraged to write by his friend Macy, a remarkably warm and perceptive character. At the end, he appears to burn the pages rather than deliver it to her, but at least his innermost, most disconcerting thoughts have somehow been released.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
'I Accept Chaos, I'm Just Not Sure That It Accepts Me...'
...So says Ben Whishaw as the poet Arthur Rimbaud, one of seven facets of the iconic singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (portrayed by six different actors) in 'I'm Not There', an appropriately slippery and enigmatic anti-biopic from Todd Haynes, a director so brimming with confidence he appears to be able to do whatever he wants. Indeed, it would be very tempting, as many critics have done, drawn in by the perceptiveness and appeal of Dylan's own words, to view 'I'm Not There' simply as a film about chaos and confusion in personal identity - a film without plot, structure or narrative. Haynes is indeed a master of uncovering 'what's not there' - be it the sexual or racial tensions simmering within the world of Douglas Sirk's 1950s melodramas in his masterpiece 'Far From Heaven', or the philosophical questions that lie not just at the heart of Bob Dylan's many personas, but also of his art.
The film may be at least partially non-chronological (and therefore closely resembles Dylan's own autobiography 'Chronicles' in its approach), but each segment of the film seems to represent the songwriter at a key stage in his evolution, but always attempting to escape the pigeonholing of others. The outstanding Marcus Carl Franklin plays a young boy called Woody Guthrie. The real Woody Guthrie was of course a prime influence on Dylan - but here we see the precociously talented youngster being told to approach songs from the point of view of his own time. Christian Bale plays the young rebellious, 'folk-singing' Dylan, offending the establishment and rampaging against injustice, uncannily capturing his mannerisms and quirks of performance. Cate Blanchett provides a similarly accurate imitation as Jude Quinn, with considerable style and even affection for the callow, nonchalant, nihilistic Dylan rejecting the 'folk' and 'protest' labels in the mid-60s. Perhaps the strangest segment features Richard Gere as an ageing version of Billy the Kid (neatly referencing Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, in which Dylan 'acted'), an ageing loner representing Dylan's rural retreat after his motorcycle accident (a pivotal event cleverly left until the film's conclusion). Most uncomfortable his Heath Ledger's macho movie star (ironically playing the same folk singer represented by Bale), representing Dylan at his least likeable. Bale re-appears to signify Dylan's conversion to Christianity and Whishaw delivers his whole performance as an interview to camera, perhaps representing Dylan's initial shift from the political to the personal (although any Dylan admirer would recognise that the latter had always been a significant aspect even of his earliest work). The various 'characters' seem to be grappling with ideas of identity and categorisation, trying to escape the lives in which they find themselves.
The film has its flaws. I completely disagree with some critics, including The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who have suggested that Blanchett's impression is so outstanding as to overshadow the rest of the piece. I found her section the most problematic, mainly because it so closely followed the template of D.A. Pennebaker's legendary documentary 'Don't Look Back' - a film that has already been very successfully made using expert footage of Dylan himself (although whether that was in fact 'the real' Dylan or a temporary persona is of course anyone's guess) - that it seemed somewhat pointless. Similarly, I found myself questioning the wisdom of portraying Bale's section as a documentary, complete with voiceover and interviews with folksinger Alice Fabian (essentially Julianne Moore as Joan Baez). Both these sections seemed to slightly lack drama, although the Blanchett scenes crackle with energy, much of it thanks to Dylan's own tremendous music of the period.
Whilst Blanchett's turn is perhaps the most thought-provoking (and perhaps also the least subtle in raising questions about identity and persona), the focus on it has missed the sheer exuberance of young Marcus Carl Franklin's performance as Woody (the film is worth the entrance fee alone for his performance of 'Tombstone Blues' with a quite brilliant Richie Havens, himself one of the great Dylan interpreters) and the barely suppressed rage and resentment captured by the simmering Heath Ledger. Charlotte Gainsbourg luckily gives a correspondingly sympathetic and engaging performance as the actor Robbie's wife, clearly representing Dylan's wife Sara. I also felt the more elusive and mysterious section involving Richard Gere was on to something too - although I was not entirely sure quite what - and I certainly found myself touched and moved by My Morning Jacket's Jim James delivering a solemn and funereal rendition of 'Goin' To Acapulco'.
The musical selections are sublime throughout - indeed, the film's title is taken from a rarely heard Dylan song officially released for the first time on the soundtrack. Whilst the film takes in some of the cornerstones of Dylan's career (a rampaging 'Maggie's Farm' at Newport, with Pete Seeger cutting the cables, 'Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' etc) it also goes for some curveball and affecting choices - 'Man In The Long Black Coat', 'Simple Twist of Fate' over 'Tangled Up In Blue' and 'Pressing On' from the Christian period stick in the mind particularly. Best of all is when Haynes deliberately plays music from the wrong period - having 1997's apocalyptic 'Cold Irons Bound' over a scene supposedly located in the mid-60s emphasises the continuity as much as the contradictions in Dylan's multiple personas.
The film is edited in a way that initially seems free and loose, chopping between time periods and personas, but eventually comes to reveal its own internal logic. Themes are stated and then developed through the different performances. This is a crucial point - some critics have suggested the film will hold little interest for those not ardent Dylan admirers. This point may have an element of validity given the strong emphasis on Dylan's own words and music in the film - but these critics have lacked the independence of mind to unpick the film's central theme.
Essentially, 'I'm Not There' struck me as a highly philosophical and, on the whole, largely successful meditation on the nature of personal freedom. In the Woody sequence, the young Guthrie is told 'boy, I think you've found your freedom before you've found your technique' - a simple and direct statement neatly summarising the untutored but convincing style of the young Dylan. Elsewhere, Coco Rivington suggests to Blanchett's Jude Quinn in a dreamlike sequence that he/she may not even know what freedom is, and nor indeed may anyone. Indeed, the film suggests that Blanchett's confrontational and agitational responses to accusations of insincerity and hypocrisy as much represent the singer's desire to be free from conventional categorisation as they do elements of a volatile personality. Gere represents the singer in isolated rural retreat, seeking freedom from outside pressures and worldly concerns, although perhaps failing to find it.
Even in its more sedate moments, the film has a vitality and intellectual vigour, although its supposedly unconventional style actually reminded me of another very specific, individualistic work - Francois Girard's remarkable and superior '32 Short Films About Glenn Gould'.
The film may be at least partially non-chronological (and therefore closely resembles Dylan's own autobiography 'Chronicles' in its approach), but each segment of the film seems to represent the songwriter at a key stage in his evolution, but always attempting to escape the pigeonholing of others. The outstanding Marcus Carl Franklin plays a young boy called Woody Guthrie. The real Woody Guthrie was of course a prime influence on Dylan - but here we see the precociously talented youngster being told to approach songs from the point of view of his own time. Christian Bale plays the young rebellious, 'folk-singing' Dylan, offending the establishment and rampaging against injustice, uncannily capturing his mannerisms and quirks of performance. Cate Blanchett provides a similarly accurate imitation as Jude Quinn, with considerable style and even affection for the callow, nonchalant, nihilistic Dylan rejecting the 'folk' and 'protest' labels in the mid-60s. Perhaps the strangest segment features Richard Gere as an ageing version of Billy the Kid (neatly referencing Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, in which Dylan 'acted'), an ageing loner representing Dylan's rural retreat after his motorcycle accident (a pivotal event cleverly left until the film's conclusion). Most uncomfortable his Heath Ledger's macho movie star (ironically playing the same folk singer represented by Bale), representing Dylan at his least likeable. Bale re-appears to signify Dylan's conversion to Christianity and Whishaw delivers his whole performance as an interview to camera, perhaps representing Dylan's initial shift from the political to the personal (although any Dylan admirer would recognise that the latter had always been a significant aspect even of his earliest work). The various 'characters' seem to be grappling with ideas of identity and categorisation, trying to escape the lives in which they find themselves.
The film has its flaws. I completely disagree with some critics, including The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who have suggested that Blanchett's impression is so outstanding as to overshadow the rest of the piece. I found her section the most problematic, mainly because it so closely followed the template of D.A. Pennebaker's legendary documentary 'Don't Look Back' - a film that has already been very successfully made using expert footage of Dylan himself (although whether that was in fact 'the real' Dylan or a temporary persona is of course anyone's guess) - that it seemed somewhat pointless. Similarly, I found myself questioning the wisdom of portraying Bale's section as a documentary, complete with voiceover and interviews with folksinger Alice Fabian (essentially Julianne Moore as Joan Baez). Both these sections seemed to slightly lack drama, although the Blanchett scenes crackle with energy, much of it thanks to Dylan's own tremendous music of the period.
Whilst Blanchett's turn is perhaps the most thought-provoking (and perhaps also the least subtle in raising questions about identity and persona), the focus on it has missed the sheer exuberance of young Marcus Carl Franklin's performance as Woody (the film is worth the entrance fee alone for his performance of 'Tombstone Blues' with a quite brilliant Richie Havens, himself one of the great Dylan interpreters) and the barely suppressed rage and resentment captured by the simmering Heath Ledger. Charlotte Gainsbourg luckily gives a correspondingly sympathetic and engaging performance as the actor Robbie's wife, clearly representing Dylan's wife Sara. I also felt the more elusive and mysterious section involving Richard Gere was on to something too - although I was not entirely sure quite what - and I certainly found myself touched and moved by My Morning Jacket's Jim James delivering a solemn and funereal rendition of 'Goin' To Acapulco'.
The musical selections are sublime throughout - indeed, the film's title is taken from a rarely heard Dylan song officially released for the first time on the soundtrack. Whilst the film takes in some of the cornerstones of Dylan's career (a rampaging 'Maggie's Farm' at Newport, with Pete Seeger cutting the cables, 'Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' etc) it also goes for some curveball and affecting choices - 'Man In The Long Black Coat', 'Simple Twist of Fate' over 'Tangled Up In Blue' and 'Pressing On' from the Christian period stick in the mind particularly. Best of all is when Haynes deliberately plays music from the wrong period - having 1997's apocalyptic 'Cold Irons Bound' over a scene supposedly located in the mid-60s emphasises the continuity as much as the contradictions in Dylan's multiple personas.
The film is edited in a way that initially seems free and loose, chopping between time periods and personas, but eventually comes to reveal its own internal logic. Themes are stated and then developed through the different performances. This is a crucial point - some critics have suggested the film will hold little interest for those not ardent Dylan admirers. This point may have an element of validity given the strong emphasis on Dylan's own words and music in the film - but these critics have lacked the independence of mind to unpick the film's central theme.
Essentially, 'I'm Not There' struck me as a highly philosophical and, on the whole, largely successful meditation on the nature of personal freedom. In the Woody sequence, the young Guthrie is told 'boy, I think you've found your freedom before you've found your technique' - a simple and direct statement neatly summarising the untutored but convincing style of the young Dylan. Elsewhere, Coco Rivington suggests to Blanchett's Jude Quinn in a dreamlike sequence that he/she may not even know what freedom is, and nor indeed may anyone. Indeed, the film suggests that Blanchett's confrontational and agitational responses to accusations of insincerity and hypocrisy as much represent the singer's desire to be free from conventional categorisation as they do elements of a volatile personality. Gere represents the singer in isolated rural retreat, seeking freedom from outside pressures and worldly concerns, although perhaps failing to find it.
Even in its more sedate moments, the film has a vitality and intellectual vigour, although its supposedly unconventional style actually reminded me of another very specific, individualistic work - Francois Girard's remarkable and superior '32 Short Films About Glenn Gould'.
What 2008 Has In Store
I’m not sure the mainstream rock/pop landscape promises all that much in 2008. REM have a new album out in April, now rather blandly titled ‘Accelerate’, that promises to portray them as a reinvigorated ensemble. I worry that REM waste too much effort responding to criticism – most critics found ‘Up’ frustrating (although I felt it was by some distance their best record), so they reacted with the much more conservative, conventionally melodic and frequently wishy-washy ‘Reveal’. ‘Around The Sun’ bizarrely concentrated on the weaker aspects of the summery sound of ‘Reveal’, and was justifiably met with complete indifference both critically and commercially. Stipe is right that they had lost their dynamism as a group – but is employing the rather superficial production trickery of Jacknife Lee (the man behind recent efforts from Snow Patrol and Bloc Party) really the right answer? We shall see….
Yet another Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!’ sounds much more promising – with Cave apparently retaining the self-parodying humour that made ‘Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus’ so enjoyable. Morrissey plans to release both another greatest hits collection (will it be a shrewd enough selection?) and a new album. It’s a return to the mid-nineties trip hop sound with new albums finally from Portishead and Massive Attack. Their continuing relevance will no doubt be severely tested this year. A new Spirtualized album is always welcome, but again I doubt whether it can recapture the elemental power of ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…’. I’m hoping that ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, the upcoming fourth album from Elbow, will forge new paths for the group and fulfil my hunger for epic guitar music. They do this so much more convincingly than the likes of Coldplay and Snow Patrol, who can only grasp at the emotional depth Guy Garvey can muster when at his best. Gnarls Barkley release their second album ‘Atlantis’, which should be one of the pop records of the year, and I may be the only person in the world still excited about the apparent return of the B-52s! What about a new album and tour from AC/DC, seemingly now promised every year for the last five?!
There has been much rumour and gossip about potential albums from Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen in 2008. Nothing anywhere near solid yet – but Dylan was rumoured to have been recording with Rick Rubin, and Springsteen had a whole batch of songs left over from the Magic sessions that may or may not see the light of day.
Elsewhere, there is of course much to look forward to. I’m expecting London’s Loop collective of jazz musicians to extend their influence and reputation in 2008 – particularly with albums expected from Outhouse and Dog Soup. Seb Rochford looks set to be as active as ever – with new Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland albums both due on V2. I’m particularly excited about the former. It’s early days, but Pat Metheny has a new trio set out on Nonesuch at the end of January which should at least be interesting. Another major guitar talent, Marc Ribot, also has a new album of his own due in 2008. The Bruford/Bortslap collaboration also looks highly promising.
If there are new albums from multi-faceted vocalist Jamie Lidell and Type records’ talented Khonnor, then they should be significant highlights of the year. I’d be happy with a new record from Xela too, although I’ve not yet seen anything scheduled. With new records from Boards of Canada, M83, Broadway Project, Fennesz and Autechre, it could be an exciting year for electronic music. I’m already acquainted with the bulk of Hot Chip’s ‘Made In The Dark’, which is oddly both their poppiest and most confusing record so far. I'm not sure whether it will fall more under the 'electronic' or 'rock' banner, but we might finally hear that new album from The Notwist too!
I can’t claim to be a true hip-hop head, but I’m salivating with anticipation at the prospect of new records from Madvillain and Cannibal Ox in 2008, but both were rumoured at the start of 2007 so don’t hold your breath. Solidly confirmed is a second album from the outstanding supergroup Subtle, who made one of my favourite albums of 2006.
Two of my favourite songwriters have new albums out in the early part of the year. Homegrown talent Chris T-T becomes more and more assured and literate with each new release – I’m expecting ‘Capital’, his first album with a band since ‘London is Sinking’ in 2004, to be a real gem. On the other side of the pond, the ever-prolific Stephin Merritt already has a new Magnetic Fields album in the can – ‘Distortion’ would appear to ape the sound of The Jesus and Mary Chain at the time of ‘Psychocandy’.
In other indie prospects – there’s a second album due from the wise and witty Long Blondes, the return of The Futureheads, Grizzly Bear, The Breeders and Clem Snide and a debut from the much-hyped Foals. I’d like to think we might get something new from The Hidden Cameras as well, although no news as yet.
Above all that though, the album I’m currently most anticipating is ‘The Mande Variations’ from the master Kora player Toumani Diabate (who recently guested on Bjork’s ‘Volta’). Reports suggest that it is tremendous. If it’s even half as good as his collaboration with Ali Farka Toure (which I managed to miss at the time of release), it will be set the standard for the whole year.
Yet another Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!’ sounds much more promising – with Cave apparently retaining the self-parodying humour that made ‘Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus’ so enjoyable. Morrissey plans to release both another greatest hits collection (will it be a shrewd enough selection?) and a new album. It’s a return to the mid-nineties trip hop sound with new albums finally from Portishead and Massive Attack. Their continuing relevance will no doubt be severely tested this year. A new Spirtualized album is always welcome, but again I doubt whether it can recapture the elemental power of ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…’. I’m hoping that ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, the upcoming fourth album from Elbow, will forge new paths for the group and fulfil my hunger for epic guitar music. They do this so much more convincingly than the likes of Coldplay and Snow Patrol, who can only grasp at the emotional depth Guy Garvey can muster when at his best. Gnarls Barkley release their second album ‘Atlantis’, which should be one of the pop records of the year, and I may be the only person in the world still excited about the apparent return of the B-52s! What about a new album and tour from AC/DC, seemingly now promised every year for the last five?!
There has been much rumour and gossip about potential albums from Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen in 2008. Nothing anywhere near solid yet – but Dylan was rumoured to have been recording with Rick Rubin, and Springsteen had a whole batch of songs left over from the Magic sessions that may or may not see the light of day.
Elsewhere, there is of course much to look forward to. I’m expecting London’s Loop collective of jazz musicians to extend their influence and reputation in 2008 – particularly with albums expected from Outhouse and Dog Soup. Seb Rochford looks set to be as active as ever – with new Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland albums both due on V2. I’m particularly excited about the former. It’s early days, but Pat Metheny has a new trio set out on Nonesuch at the end of January which should at least be interesting. Another major guitar talent, Marc Ribot, also has a new album of his own due in 2008. The Bruford/Bortslap collaboration also looks highly promising.
If there are new albums from multi-faceted vocalist Jamie Lidell and Type records’ talented Khonnor, then they should be significant highlights of the year. I’d be happy with a new record from Xela too, although I’ve not yet seen anything scheduled. With new records from Boards of Canada, M83, Broadway Project, Fennesz and Autechre, it could be an exciting year for electronic music. I’m already acquainted with the bulk of Hot Chip’s ‘Made In The Dark’, which is oddly both their poppiest and most confusing record so far. I'm not sure whether it will fall more under the 'electronic' or 'rock' banner, but we might finally hear that new album from The Notwist too!
I can’t claim to be a true hip-hop head, but I’m salivating with anticipation at the prospect of new records from Madvillain and Cannibal Ox in 2008, but both were rumoured at the start of 2007 so don’t hold your breath. Solidly confirmed is a second album from the outstanding supergroup Subtle, who made one of my favourite albums of 2006.
Two of my favourite songwriters have new albums out in the early part of the year. Homegrown talent Chris T-T becomes more and more assured and literate with each new release – I’m expecting ‘Capital’, his first album with a band since ‘London is Sinking’ in 2004, to be a real gem. On the other side of the pond, the ever-prolific Stephin Merritt already has a new Magnetic Fields album in the can – ‘Distortion’ would appear to ape the sound of The Jesus and Mary Chain at the time of ‘Psychocandy’.
In other indie prospects – there’s a second album due from the wise and witty Long Blondes, the return of The Futureheads, Grizzly Bear, The Breeders and Clem Snide and a debut from the much-hyped Foals. I’d like to think we might get something new from The Hidden Cameras as well, although no news as yet.
Above all that though, the album I’m currently most anticipating is ‘The Mande Variations’ from the master Kora player Toumani Diabate (who recently guested on Bjork’s ‘Volta’). Reports suggest that it is tremendous. If it’s even half as good as his collaboration with Ali Farka Toure (which I managed to miss at the time of release), it will be set the standard for the whole year.
A Word of Thanks
It's really gratifying to have been canvassed for this blog poll over at Sweeping The Nation, without even having to make a noise or volunteer myself:
http://sweepingthenation.blogspot.com/2008/01/uk-blogger-albums-of-2007-poll-results.html
Thanks folks!
http://sweepingthenation.blogspot.com/2008/01/uk-blogger-albums-of-2007-poll-results.html
Thanks folks!
Monday, December 31, 2007
The Last Word...Honest....
A couple of things I missed out of my list the other week:
Pros:
Brian Wilson's That Lucky Old Sun - A little mawkish in places, but the very fact he's writing again is something to celebrate. He also seems to have rediscovered 'Today!' - one of the very best Beach Boys albums.
The Decemberists at the Royal Festival Hall. I knew this would be a good gig, but I hadn't expected it to be this fun! Amusing to sit sheepishly in a corner at the aftershow party too.
Cons:
Kate Nash - Sorry, but no. Elementary school harmony combined with embarrassing lyrics (merely revealing how dull the woman's life is), all delivered in a mock-cockney accent. What is there to enjoy here?
Mika - No, you are not the next Freddie Mercury. Next please!
Happy New Year to all readers!
Pros:
Brian Wilson's That Lucky Old Sun - A little mawkish in places, but the very fact he's writing again is something to celebrate. He also seems to have rediscovered 'Today!' - one of the very best Beach Boys albums.
The Decemberists at the Royal Festival Hall. I knew this would be a good gig, but I hadn't expected it to be this fun! Amusing to sit sheepishly in a corner at the aftershow party too.
Cons:
Kate Nash - Sorry, but no. Elementary school harmony combined with embarrassing lyrics (merely revealing how dull the woman's life is), all delivered in a mock-cockney accent. What is there to enjoy here?
Mika - No, you are not the next Freddie Mercury. Next please!
Happy New Year to all readers!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
The Last Words on 2007
Not only has The Wire magazine made the boldest choice of album of the year amongst the print media with Robert Wyatt's 'Comicopera', it also continues to publish rather neat personal summaries of the closing year from both writers and artists. I rather like this - so here's my subjective take on 2007, in a similar style albeit much less concise! All in no particular order, entirely personal and NOT WRITTEN IN A WORK CAPACITY.
Pros:
Love in various forms.
Turnpike Lane – especially the late-opening Melish Supermarket.
The Tiffin Tin in Hornsey - A fine Indian takeaway and occasional life-saver.
Facebook - It sounds completely pathetic, but joining it might well be the most significant thing I did all year. It has its drawbacks, and the privacy concerns are valid - but I'm rather convinced that the positives still outweigh the negatives.
Charity Shops - I've built a substantial library from them this year!
Secure, gainful employment - during daylight hours!!
Discovering that self-expression really isn't actually all that hard and having the audacity to ask of my friends only what they ask of me.
Rediscovering the hunger to write music and lyrics - and finding new approaches towards both.
The Space Race album 'You Are The Guest' - few have heard it, but it might just be the best recorded work I've been involved with so far.
Daniel Lambert and Fake Sheikh - now on hiatus, but some great songs, videos and gigs earlier in the year.
Performing at the Isle of Wight Jazz Festival, The Vortex and The Ram Jam Club, amongst other venues.
Finally finishing as a student and becoming a teacher at WAC Performing Arts and Media College - there's no doubt I'd stuck around too long and should have moved on, but it was gratifying to be recognised so warmly and genuinely at the end.
Seeing Win Butler letting a group of ticketless teenagers in through the stage door at the Arcade Fire’s show at Porchester Hall. The band’s encore – moving from the venue foyer back upstairs and into the centre of the crowd was something very special, and helps explain the unique appeal of this band.
Tim Whitehead's Jazz Summer School at Battisborough House on the coast of Devon: A wonderful, confidence-boosting week of music-making and merriment completely free from worldly concerns. It brought a few things into sharp relief - namely that, although I haven't achieved much commercial success through it so far, playing drums is what I do best and is worth persisting with until I die or become incapacitated. Secondly, although we've never played a proper public gig and have never really ‘rehearsed’, the Millar/Marle-Garcia/Paton set-up has a real chemistry.
The restraint, dignity and honesty of Alan Johnston’s speech to World Service staff on his release from captivity and the strangely moving experience of gathering outside Bush House to campaign for his release and then celebrate his return.
The World Service in its 75th Anniversary year.
Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony paired with Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto at the Proms. Wonderful!
Madrid - an invigorating quick stop in one of Europe's finest cities. The restaurant that claims to be the oldest in Europe produced some particularly fine cuisine.
Shanghai and Nanjing - Two amazing weeks observing Shanghai and its blisteringly intense pace of life. The distinctly odd experience of being a Westerner in the East, superb cuisine, basking in the company of good friends, tea-tasting, aimless walking proving the best way to discover a city’s secrets, the beautiful auburn coloured trees in the National Park in Nanjing (especially when viewed from the top floor of a pagoda), relative peace of mind and a whole raft of rare DVDs to boot!
Two wonderful weddings and the joy of observing the happiness and fulfilment of the first of my University friends to tie the knot.
Joe Lovano peforming Streams of Expression and much more at the Barbican.
The Loop Collective and their regular Monday gigs at The Oxford in Kentish Town - at last a jazz club with blood, enthusiasm, clever programming and a sensible promotional strategy.
Meeting Paul Clarvis, Seb Rochford, Ingrid Laubrock, Bill Frisell and Mike Gibbs.
The London Sinfonietta's 'Ligeti Remembered' concerts.
Mark-Antony Turnage's 'About Water' - not his best work, but his understanding of the interconnections between various forms of contemporary music remains refreshing. The performance also introduced me to Barb Jungr, a talented and charismatic performer, whose reinterpretations of Dylan are splendid.
Tom Millar's Swinging and Shiva Feshareki's Dancefloor Distortions - two 'student' compositions as vibrant, engaging and sophisticated as any other new music I heard in 2007. The two composers are younger than me in years but may have taught me more than anyone my senior during the course of the year.
Bob Dylan at Wembley Arena - so good I went back for the second night. Easily the best gigs I've seen him play and that cracked voice genuinely sounds fantastic when he bothers to enunciate. He is essentially a rapper now. Superb renditions of Spirit on the Water, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and John Brown stick in the mind particularly.
Adrian Roye, Beth Dariti and Astic Borders - Two outstanding songwriters and their consistently enjoyable collective. They deserve more attention.
The perceptive songwriting of Simon Lewis. Hopefully more prominent in 2008!
Three Trapped Tigers - The most adventurous new band in London (Supersilent meeting Battles with a twist of Keith Jarrett) and my big tip for 2008.
The winter blankets at that Young’s pub by Tate Modern.
Polar Bear at the Museum of Garden History - Just observing that alchemical connection between Rochford and Herbert was worth a thousand jam sessions or workshops.
Becoming a committed reader of yet more blogs - Audiversity, Raven Sings The Blues and Free Jazz in particular.
Rediscovering a love of language and literature: Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' (which I underestimated considerably at first and to which I had to return), Philip Roth's 'Exit Ghost' (a fine novel undersold by critics envious of Roth's undiminished prowess) and Colm Toibin's wonderful story collection 'Mothers and Sons'. Also plenty with which I was previously shamefully unfamiliar - Reinaldo Arenas, Jose Saramago, Joseph Conrad, F Scott Fitzgerald, Paul Bowles, Elizabeth Smart, Patrick White (why are almost all his works unavailable at the moment?), Thomas Bernhard....Rian Malan's 'My Traitor's Heart', a brave and excoriating examination of Apartheid-era South Africa.
The print journalism of Henry Porter and Jenni Russell
Discovering Prospect magazine - a better source of informed debate than many of the broadsheet newspapers.
Comment is Free on The Guardian website, where all manner of weirdos, geniuses and insane people appear to dwell.
The writing and email newsletters of Alex Stein.
The film criticism of Peter Bradshaw and Jonathan Romney, the music writing of John Mulvey (especially on the Wild Mercury Sound blog), Philip Sherburne, David Stubbs, Marcello Carlin and more.
John Kell’s new blog proving more edifying and cogently argued than almost anything in print.
Great covermount CDs with Jazzwise, The Wire, Mojo and even The Word.
Tim Berne at the Vortex, Tom Rainey's inspired drumming.
Catching Joe Zawinul’s last ever London performance at the Jazz Café and recognising both reverence and enthusiasm in Django Bates’ outstanding tribute at the Barbican to close the London Jazz Festival.
Some cinematic treats - All About Eve on the big screen (nobody writes scripts so consistently razor sharp anymore), Edward Yang’s colossal ‘A Brighter Summer Day’ at the same cinema.
Discovering the cinema of Terence Davies, Tsai Ming-Liang (especially the exquisite 'I Don't Want To Sleep Alone'), Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Peter Watkins, Mikio Naruse and Jan Svankmajer.
Watching Shortbus and In The Mood For Love on DVD - respectively the best films about sex and love made during my lifetime?
Finally getting round to watching Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing’ and finding that his appalling later films do indeed do their best to hide his talent.
Watching Derek Jarman’s ‘Blue’ for the first time – perhaps the most unfailingly honest self-portrait conceivable – a blue screen for 80 minutes and the most extraordinary soundtrack I can remember hearing. It combines to produce a profound, devastating but ultimately positive experience.
Quality new films a little thin on the ground this year - Climates, Syndromes and a Century, Zodiac, The Lives of Others, Knocked Up, Hot Fuzz, The Simpsons Movie, Control, Beyond Hatred, Ghosts, The Bourne Ultimatum but still more to see mercifully (Assassination of Jesse James, Into the Wild, Yella, Jindabyne, Silent Light, Paranoid Park, Lust Caution, I'm Not There).
Cape Wrath, Skins and House on Channel 4, The Wire on FX, half of Dr. Who on BBC, The Mighty Boosh, Spooks even at its most absurd. I avoided Heroes completely.
Continuing to work through DVDs of Northern Exposure seasons 3 and 4 and Peep Show 1-3, rediscovering the sheer blinding genius of Seinfeld and I’m Alan Partridge.
Bill Fay appearing onstage with Wilco, reticent and masked by a gigantic beard, but definitely him! Can Jeff Tweedy coax him into recording new material now? The astounding guitar playing of Nels Cline and adventurous percussion of Glenn Kotche also impressed.
The Smoking Ban - I was ambivalent to start with, but I'm a fully fledged supporter now!
Alexis Taylor's press release for the Robert Wyatt album.
Aphex Twin as The Tuss – an accidental but criminal omission from my albums of the year.
Steely Dan at Hammersmith Apollo and Daniel Johnston at the Union Chapel – two very different concerts in the same week, both surprisingly moving.
Daft Punk in Hyde Park - perhaps the most profound and exciting communal dance music experience I can remember. That pyramid spacepod thing was just amazing.
Dirty Projectors in support of Beirut at Koko – possibly the best support set I’ve seen this decade.
LCD Soundsystem's 'All My Friends' perfectly encapsulating the sensation of still feeling young, accompanied by a stark awareness of growing older and its accompanying poignancy. I would play this song at the start of any wedding DJ set. Where are my friends tonight?
Sly Stone’s bizarre appearance in Boscombe (for the 15 minutes he was on stage).
Vincent Cable - Perhaps the only decent thing to have emerged from the Liberal Democrat implosion - a politician of skill, intelligence and integrity. What a shame he was only a temporary blip on an otherwise tediously predictable landscape.
The courage and conviction of the Burmese monks.
The Hype Machine, now cleverly redesigned - an easy route to new music online.
Radiohead subverting the music industry.
The rejuvenation, however temporary it proves to be, of Ronnie O' Sullivan's incomporable genius.
Bosh! club
Rufus Wainwright - he may be camp, but there's also something unrestrained and defiant about him that I really admire. Seeing him sing 'Get Happy' in drag at the Hammersmith Apollo was certainly an experience!
Beth Ditto – one cannot possibly object to her becoming a superstar this year.
Misty's Big Adventure and Chris T-T at Club Fandango - simply superb!
Tim Whitehead’s birthday concert at the Ram Jam club and seeing the great Ian Carr enjoying a glass of red wine.
Bruce Springteen and the E Street Band at the 02 Arena: No Surrender, Because The Night, Racing In The Streets, Jungleland – pretty close to a dream set list. Magic!
A belated discovery of technology - especially iTunes, Digital Photography and MOG.
Knitted scarves.
Older sounds: Brotherhood of Breath, Arthur Russell/Dinosaur L, Young Marble Giants, The Boo Radleys, Ace Records’ Girl pop compilations, The Shangri-Las, Best of Ethiopiques.
Cons:
Love in various forms.
Confusion and inertia in a number of areas and the frequent failure to convert opportunities into reality.
A feeling of ‘safety’ and a concurrent futile lust for danger.
Insomnia and persistent colds.
The transition to ‘real’ adulthood continuing to be marked by form-filling, multiple bank accounts and institutional inefficiencies. Tedium ad nauseum.
Floods, fires and pestilence – What exactly is all this portending?
Au Revoir Michael Brecker, Alice Coltrane, Luciano Pavarotti, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Joe Zawinul, Ousmane Sembene, Edward Yang, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Ahmet Ertegun, Karlheinz Stockhausen and many more - far too many legends to lose in one year.
The 'oh-so-conveniently' timed departure of Tony Blair and the spineless 'coronation' of Gordon Brown, a ‘leader’ who has transpired to be every bit as gormless and lacking in judgment as sensible people suspected.
The idea of Tony Blair as a Special Envoy to the Middle East was so laughable it was inevitable that it turned out to be true.
The unsurprising revelation that our personal data is rarely safer in government hands than in the hands of corporations. At least it *might* wake people up to the huge technical and administrative flaws in the terrible ID cards scheme.
The unfolding disaster in Iraq whilst little is done to alleviate the problems in Darfur or Zimbabwe.
The Northern Rock crisis revealing the terrible vulnerability of our seemingly unbreakable ties to the US and its economy. William Hague still seems to be more worried about Europe!
The continuation of New Labour's authoritarian programme and the curse of mutual exclusivity in politics and society: Should we have civil liberties or national security? Individual freedom or a managed economy? I remain astounded at the need for 'debate' here. We can, and should have both! We need a political party bold enough to argue that economic factors can be a big restriction on individual freedom and that the true centre ground in Britain is not the current form of cowardly Thatcherism masked by misleading 'progressive' language. Surely that should be the Liberal Democrats? Oh dear, look what they've done....
Polly Toynbee and her steadfast refusal to criticise Labour on anything.
'Short-termism' - surely one area where we all need some form of government intervention is in planning for our futures. Individuals can all play a part, but a wholesale cultural and social change requires some courage, impetus and direction! International farces like the recent Bali talks on climate change (where an agreement was made to reach an agreement) merely expose world leaders as spineless and incompetent.
The McCann saga and Diana inquest - two lows for the British media this year. The Diana affair has been surrounded by obsessive and tasteless morbidity ('her last smile', 'her dying moments' etc), with no element of her sorry life left private. Reporting on the McCann affair made too many casual assumptions before any due legal process had been instigated. I sympathise greatly with any parents in those circumstances, but making them celebrities did not help anyone, least of all Madeleine.
Bono - Can he please live up to his own ideals before imposing them on everybody else?
Free London newspapers. Can't you see I'm carrying a book?
Andy Murray having to pull out of Wimbledon.
The crisis gripping the media over ‘deception’.
The continuing lack of any truly decent new British literature.
Crowded House in Hyde Park - they brought entirely the wrong kind of weather with them, a freak downpour so heavy it rained through my umbrella. At least Peter Gabriel was good.
Prince at the 02 - Perhaps the most over-hyped and disappointing live music experience of the year, delivering entertainment but little more.
The 02 Arena in general - quite possibly the ghastliest environment in which to see live music.
Sly Stone’s bizarre appearance in Boscome (for the hours and hours of waiting and the 50 minutes of chronic unprofessionalism when his band was onstage but he wasn't).
Band Reunions - Too many, please stop now.
Overpriced concert tickets - £86 to see Neil Young? You must be joking! I accept that market forces dictate prices to a certain extent, but can promoters not see that live music in this country is fast becoming elitist - entirely unafforable for most people on average incomes?
Ticket touts - for inflating ticket prices and preventing ordinary fans from seeing their musical heroes. The failure of the government to tackle the ticketing black market is shameful.
Overpriced sporting event tickets - see above.
The F1 spying saga. I enjoy the politics and soap opera to some extent, but this was a step too far and Fernando Alonso's behaviour seemed particularly questionable. There is a worrying sense that FIA judgements are increasingly arbitrary and inconsistent.
The continuing torment that accompanies being a Spurs supporter.
The lack of political respect for the Arts in Britain - the impossibility of getting funding unless you play some kind of industry game, the lack of interest in contemporary composition outside the music colleges, the continuing patronising attitude towards jazz and popular art forms. Cinema distribution also continues to decline markedly - the recent takeover of Artificial Eye (with some concurrent barmy acquisitions that seem far removed from AE’s established aesthetic) and financial peril of Tartan Films do not hint at a rosy 2008. Funding for serious filmmakers is even worse – Terence Davies is celebrated with a retrospective reminding people of his sublime genius, yet is no longer able to make a film in this country. The Film Council prefers to fund nonsense like the St Trinians remake, which is hugely depressing.
The 'work' ethos – please work to live, not live to work. It's no wonder that the Arts suffer when most people seem to have no interest or energy for going out during the working week!
A whole string of unimaginative and interminably average indie-rock being shamefully presented as something new - Babyshambles, Pigeon Detectives, The Cribs, The Twang, The Kooks etc... (even the names are terrible).
Other overrated charlatans - Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and much of this tedious freak-folk brigade, Portico Quartet.
The lack of any informed young music writers in print - particularly at the NME - which continues to display breathtaking ignorance of musical history. An easy target for sure, but one that's still worth highlighting – Morrissey seemed to think so anyway.
Talking during gigs - To the two people who audaciously asked me to save their unreserved seats for them at Cat Power's Forum show while they went to the bar - if you're going to ask a stranger a favour, do him the courtesy of not talking through the entire performance! Why pay £20 for the privilege? Go to a pub! Also, to the two women sitting behind us at Bruce Springsteen – whilst I’m sure one telling the other that she should ‘respect her body more’ was excellent advice, there’s a time and a place, and it’s not during a lovely and very quiet rendition of ‘Magic’.
Egotism and indecision amongst musicians - just get on with the business of making original music!
David Lynch's 'Inland Empire' - The more I think about it, the more it seems like an entirely unnecessary companion piece to 'Mulholland Drive' with too many convolutions and indulgences. Why try and complement a masterpiece?
Michel Gondry’s ‘The Science of Sleep’ – whimsical, superficial and silly and the most disappointing film of the year.
Inadequate public services, especially in London. The only posited solutions appear to be more investment or the extension of the unhelpful ‘market’ in service provision. Neither seems particularly imaginative to me in 2007. What would help would be if British government actually expressed some enthusiasm for the service ethos and emphasised its value, instead of consistently undermining the services, then dismantling them because they are failing.
The continuing misuse of words such as ‘modernity’ and ‘reform’ in political discourse.
The classically trained violinist who opened for Jools Holland at the Albert Hall: ‘Entertaining’ an audience with frankly vulgar displays of meaningless virtuosity in a crass attempt to ‘popularise’ what doesn’t need popularising – possibly the worst piece of live music I’ve ever sat through!
A lack of planning for New Year’s Eve yet again.
Pros:
Love in various forms.
Turnpike Lane – especially the late-opening Melish Supermarket.
The Tiffin Tin in Hornsey - A fine Indian takeaway and occasional life-saver.
Facebook - It sounds completely pathetic, but joining it might well be the most significant thing I did all year. It has its drawbacks, and the privacy concerns are valid - but I'm rather convinced that the positives still outweigh the negatives.
Charity Shops - I've built a substantial library from them this year!
Secure, gainful employment - during daylight hours!!
Discovering that self-expression really isn't actually all that hard and having the audacity to ask of my friends only what they ask of me.
Rediscovering the hunger to write music and lyrics - and finding new approaches towards both.
The Space Race album 'You Are The Guest' - few have heard it, but it might just be the best recorded work I've been involved with so far.
Daniel Lambert and Fake Sheikh - now on hiatus, but some great songs, videos and gigs earlier in the year.
Performing at the Isle of Wight Jazz Festival, The Vortex and The Ram Jam Club, amongst other venues.
Finally finishing as a student and becoming a teacher at WAC Performing Arts and Media College - there's no doubt I'd stuck around too long and should have moved on, but it was gratifying to be recognised so warmly and genuinely at the end.
Seeing Win Butler letting a group of ticketless teenagers in through the stage door at the Arcade Fire’s show at Porchester Hall. The band’s encore – moving from the venue foyer back upstairs and into the centre of the crowd was something very special, and helps explain the unique appeal of this band.
Tim Whitehead's Jazz Summer School at Battisborough House on the coast of Devon: A wonderful, confidence-boosting week of music-making and merriment completely free from worldly concerns. It brought a few things into sharp relief - namely that, although I haven't achieved much commercial success through it so far, playing drums is what I do best and is worth persisting with until I die or become incapacitated. Secondly, although we've never played a proper public gig and have never really ‘rehearsed’, the Millar/Marle-Garcia/Paton set-up has a real chemistry.
The restraint, dignity and honesty of Alan Johnston’s speech to World Service staff on his release from captivity and the strangely moving experience of gathering outside Bush House to campaign for his release and then celebrate his return.
The World Service in its 75th Anniversary year.
Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony paired with Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto at the Proms. Wonderful!
Madrid - an invigorating quick stop in one of Europe's finest cities. The restaurant that claims to be the oldest in Europe produced some particularly fine cuisine.
Shanghai and Nanjing - Two amazing weeks observing Shanghai and its blisteringly intense pace of life. The distinctly odd experience of being a Westerner in the East, superb cuisine, basking in the company of good friends, tea-tasting, aimless walking proving the best way to discover a city’s secrets, the beautiful auburn coloured trees in the National Park in Nanjing (especially when viewed from the top floor of a pagoda), relative peace of mind and a whole raft of rare DVDs to boot!
Two wonderful weddings and the joy of observing the happiness and fulfilment of the first of my University friends to tie the knot.
Joe Lovano peforming Streams of Expression and much more at the Barbican.
The Loop Collective and their regular Monday gigs at The Oxford in Kentish Town - at last a jazz club with blood, enthusiasm, clever programming and a sensible promotional strategy.
Meeting Paul Clarvis, Seb Rochford, Ingrid Laubrock, Bill Frisell and Mike Gibbs.
The London Sinfonietta's 'Ligeti Remembered' concerts.
Mark-Antony Turnage's 'About Water' - not his best work, but his understanding of the interconnections between various forms of contemporary music remains refreshing. The performance also introduced me to Barb Jungr, a talented and charismatic performer, whose reinterpretations of Dylan are splendid.
Tom Millar's Swinging and Shiva Feshareki's Dancefloor Distortions - two 'student' compositions as vibrant, engaging and sophisticated as any other new music I heard in 2007. The two composers are younger than me in years but may have taught me more than anyone my senior during the course of the year.
Bob Dylan at Wembley Arena - so good I went back for the second night. Easily the best gigs I've seen him play and that cracked voice genuinely sounds fantastic when he bothers to enunciate. He is essentially a rapper now. Superb renditions of Spirit on the Water, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and John Brown stick in the mind particularly.
Adrian Roye, Beth Dariti and Astic Borders - Two outstanding songwriters and their consistently enjoyable collective. They deserve more attention.
The perceptive songwriting of Simon Lewis. Hopefully more prominent in 2008!
Three Trapped Tigers - The most adventurous new band in London (Supersilent meeting Battles with a twist of Keith Jarrett) and my big tip for 2008.
The winter blankets at that Young’s pub by Tate Modern.
Polar Bear at the Museum of Garden History - Just observing that alchemical connection between Rochford and Herbert was worth a thousand jam sessions or workshops.
Becoming a committed reader of yet more blogs - Audiversity, Raven Sings The Blues and Free Jazz in particular.
Rediscovering a love of language and literature: Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' (which I underestimated considerably at first and to which I had to return), Philip Roth's 'Exit Ghost' (a fine novel undersold by critics envious of Roth's undiminished prowess) and Colm Toibin's wonderful story collection 'Mothers and Sons'. Also plenty with which I was previously shamefully unfamiliar - Reinaldo Arenas, Jose Saramago, Joseph Conrad, F Scott Fitzgerald, Paul Bowles, Elizabeth Smart, Patrick White (why are almost all his works unavailable at the moment?), Thomas Bernhard....Rian Malan's 'My Traitor's Heart', a brave and excoriating examination of Apartheid-era South Africa.
The print journalism of Henry Porter and Jenni Russell
Discovering Prospect magazine - a better source of informed debate than many of the broadsheet newspapers.
Comment is Free on The Guardian website, where all manner of weirdos, geniuses and insane people appear to dwell.
The writing and email newsletters of Alex Stein.
The film criticism of Peter Bradshaw and Jonathan Romney, the music writing of John Mulvey (especially on the Wild Mercury Sound blog), Philip Sherburne, David Stubbs, Marcello Carlin and more.
John Kell’s new blog proving more edifying and cogently argued than almost anything in print.
Great covermount CDs with Jazzwise, The Wire, Mojo and even The Word.
Tim Berne at the Vortex, Tom Rainey's inspired drumming.
Catching Joe Zawinul’s last ever London performance at the Jazz Café and recognising both reverence and enthusiasm in Django Bates’ outstanding tribute at the Barbican to close the London Jazz Festival.
Some cinematic treats - All About Eve on the big screen (nobody writes scripts so consistently razor sharp anymore), Edward Yang’s colossal ‘A Brighter Summer Day’ at the same cinema.
Discovering the cinema of Terence Davies, Tsai Ming-Liang (especially the exquisite 'I Don't Want To Sleep Alone'), Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Peter Watkins, Mikio Naruse and Jan Svankmajer.
Watching Shortbus and In The Mood For Love on DVD - respectively the best films about sex and love made during my lifetime?
Finally getting round to watching Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing’ and finding that his appalling later films do indeed do their best to hide his talent.
Watching Derek Jarman’s ‘Blue’ for the first time – perhaps the most unfailingly honest self-portrait conceivable – a blue screen for 80 minutes and the most extraordinary soundtrack I can remember hearing. It combines to produce a profound, devastating but ultimately positive experience.
Quality new films a little thin on the ground this year - Climates, Syndromes and a Century, Zodiac, The Lives of Others, Knocked Up, Hot Fuzz, The Simpsons Movie, Control, Beyond Hatred, Ghosts, The Bourne Ultimatum but still more to see mercifully (Assassination of Jesse James, Into the Wild, Yella, Jindabyne, Silent Light, Paranoid Park, Lust Caution, I'm Not There).
Cape Wrath, Skins and House on Channel 4, The Wire on FX, half of Dr. Who on BBC, The Mighty Boosh, Spooks even at its most absurd. I avoided Heroes completely.
Continuing to work through DVDs of Northern Exposure seasons 3 and 4 and Peep Show 1-3, rediscovering the sheer blinding genius of Seinfeld and I’m Alan Partridge.
Bill Fay appearing onstage with Wilco, reticent and masked by a gigantic beard, but definitely him! Can Jeff Tweedy coax him into recording new material now? The astounding guitar playing of Nels Cline and adventurous percussion of Glenn Kotche also impressed.
The Smoking Ban - I was ambivalent to start with, but I'm a fully fledged supporter now!
Alexis Taylor's press release for the Robert Wyatt album.
Aphex Twin as The Tuss – an accidental but criminal omission from my albums of the year.
Steely Dan at Hammersmith Apollo and Daniel Johnston at the Union Chapel – two very different concerts in the same week, both surprisingly moving.
Daft Punk in Hyde Park - perhaps the most profound and exciting communal dance music experience I can remember. That pyramid spacepod thing was just amazing.
Dirty Projectors in support of Beirut at Koko – possibly the best support set I’ve seen this decade.
LCD Soundsystem's 'All My Friends' perfectly encapsulating the sensation of still feeling young, accompanied by a stark awareness of growing older and its accompanying poignancy. I would play this song at the start of any wedding DJ set. Where are my friends tonight?
Sly Stone’s bizarre appearance in Boscombe (for the 15 minutes he was on stage).
Vincent Cable - Perhaps the only decent thing to have emerged from the Liberal Democrat implosion - a politician of skill, intelligence and integrity. What a shame he was only a temporary blip on an otherwise tediously predictable landscape.
The courage and conviction of the Burmese monks.
The Hype Machine, now cleverly redesigned - an easy route to new music online.
Radiohead subverting the music industry.
The rejuvenation, however temporary it proves to be, of Ronnie O' Sullivan's incomporable genius.
Bosh! club
Rufus Wainwright - he may be camp, but there's also something unrestrained and defiant about him that I really admire. Seeing him sing 'Get Happy' in drag at the Hammersmith Apollo was certainly an experience!
Beth Ditto – one cannot possibly object to her becoming a superstar this year.
Misty's Big Adventure and Chris T-T at Club Fandango - simply superb!
Tim Whitehead’s birthday concert at the Ram Jam club and seeing the great Ian Carr enjoying a glass of red wine.
Bruce Springteen and the E Street Band at the 02 Arena: No Surrender, Because The Night, Racing In The Streets, Jungleland – pretty close to a dream set list. Magic!
A belated discovery of technology - especially iTunes, Digital Photography and MOG.
Knitted scarves.
Older sounds: Brotherhood of Breath, Arthur Russell/Dinosaur L, Young Marble Giants, The Boo Radleys, Ace Records’ Girl pop compilations, The Shangri-Las, Best of Ethiopiques.
Cons:
Love in various forms.
Confusion and inertia in a number of areas and the frequent failure to convert opportunities into reality.
A feeling of ‘safety’ and a concurrent futile lust for danger.
Insomnia and persistent colds.
The transition to ‘real’ adulthood continuing to be marked by form-filling, multiple bank accounts and institutional inefficiencies. Tedium ad nauseum.
Floods, fires and pestilence – What exactly is all this portending?
Au Revoir Michael Brecker, Alice Coltrane, Luciano Pavarotti, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Joe Zawinul, Ousmane Sembene, Edward Yang, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Ahmet Ertegun, Karlheinz Stockhausen and many more - far too many legends to lose in one year.
The 'oh-so-conveniently' timed departure of Tony Blair and the spineless 'coronation' of Gordon Brown, a ‘leader’ who has transpired to be every bit as gormless and lacking in judgment as sensible people suspected.
The idea of Tony Blair as a Special Envoy to the Middle East was so laughable it was inevitable that it turned out to be true.
The unsurprising revelation that our personal data is rarely safer in government hands than in the hands of corporations. At least it *might* wake people up to the huge technical and administrative flaws in the terrible ID cards scheme.
The unfolding disaster in Iraq whilst little is done to alleviate the problems in Darfur or Zimbabwe.
The Northern Rock crisis revealing the terrible vulnerability of our seemingly unbreakable ties to the US and its economy. William Hague still seems to be more worried about Europe!
The continuation of New Labour's authoritarian programme and the curse of mutual exclusivity in politics and society: Should we have civil liberties or national security? Individual freedom or a managed economy? I remain astounded at the need for 'debate' here. We can, and should have both! We need a political party bold enough to argue that economic factors can be a big restriction on individual freedom and that the true centre ground in Britain is not the current form of cowardly Thatcherism masked by misleading 'progressive' language. Surely that should be the Liberal Democrats? Oh dear, look what they've done....
Polly Toynbee and her steadfast refusal to criticise Labour on anything.
'Short-termism' - surely one area where we all need some form of government intervention is in planning for our futures. Individuals can all play a part, but a wholesale cultural and social change requires some courage, impetus and direction! International farces like the recent Bali talks on climate change (where an agreement was made to reach an agreement) merely expose world leaders as spineless and incompetent.
The McCann saga and Diana inquest - two lows for the British media this year. The Diana affair has been surrounded by obsessive and tasteless morbidity ('her last smile', 'her dying moments' etc), with no element of her sorry life left private. Reporting on the McCann affair made too many casual assumptions before any due legal process had been instigated. I sympathise greatly with any parents in those circumstances, but making them celebrities did not help anyone, least of all Madeleine.
Bono - Can he please live up to his own ideals before imposing them on everybody else?
Free London newspapers. Can't you see I'm carrying a book?
Andy Murray having to pull out of Wimbledon.
The crisis gripping the media over ‘deception’.
The continuing lack of any truly decent new British literature.
Crowded House in Hyde Park - they brought entirely the wrong kind of weather with them, a freak downpour so heavy it rained through my umbrella. At least Peter Gabriel was good.
Prince at the 02 - Perhaps the most over-hyped and disappointing live music experience of the year, delivering entertainment but little more.
The 02 Arena in general - quite possibly the ghastliest environment in which to see live music.
Sly Stone’s bizarre appearance in Boscome (for the hours and hours of waiting and the 50 minutes of chronic unprofessionalism when his band was onstage but he wasn't).
Band Reunions - Too many, please stop now.
Overpriced concert tickets - £86 to see Neil Young? You must be joking! I accept that market forces dictate prices to a certain extent, but can promoters not see that live music in this country is fast becoming elitist - entirely unafforable for most people on average incomes?
Ticket touts - for inflating ticket prices and preventing ordinary fans from seeing their musical heroes. The failure of the government to tackle the ticketing black market is shameful.
Overpriced sporting event tickets - see above.
The F1 spying saga. I enjoy the politics and soap opera to some extent, but this was a step too far and Fernando Alonso's behaviour seemed particularly questionable. There is a worrying sense that FIA judgements are increasingly arbitrary and inconsistent.
The continuing torment that accompanies being a Spurs supporter.
The lack of political respect for the Arts in Britain - the impossibility of getting funding unless you play some kind of industry game, the lack of interest in contemporary composition outside the music colleges, the continuing patronising attitude towards jazz and popular art forms. Cinema distribution also continues to decline markedly - the recent takeover of Artificial Eye (with some concurrent barmy acquisitions that seem far removed from AE’s established aesthetic) and financial peril of Tartan Films do not hint at a rosy 2008. Funding for serious filmmakers is even worse – Terence Davies is celebrated with a retrospective reminding people of his sublime genius, yet is no longer able to make a film in this country. The Film Council prefers to fund nonsense like the St Trinians remake, which is hugely depressing.
The 'work' ethos – please work to live, not live to work. It's no wonder that the Arts suffer when most people seem to have no interest or energy for going out during the working week!
A whole string of unimaginative and interminably average indie-rock being shamefully presented as something new - Babyshambles, Pigeon Detectives, The Cribs, The Twang, The Kooks etc... (even the names are terrible).
Other overrated charlatans - Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and much of this tedious freak-folk brigade, Portico Quartet.
The lack of any informed young music writers in print - particularly at the NME - which continues to display breathtaking ignorance of musical history. An easy target for sure, but one that's still worth highlighting – Morrissey seemed to think so anyway.
Talking during gigs - To the two people who audaciously asked me to save their unreserved seats for them at Cat Power's Forum show while they went to the bar - if you're going to ask a stranger a favour, do him the courtesy of not talking through the entire performance! Why pay £20 for the privilege? Go to a pub! Also, to the two women sitting behind us at Bruce Springsteen – whilst I’m sure one telling the other that she should ‘respect her body more’ was excellent advice, there’s a time and a place, and it’s not during a lovely and very quiet rendition of ‘Magic’.
Egotism and indecision amongst musicians - just get on with the business of making original music!
David Lynch's 'Inland Empire' - The more I think about it, the more it seems like an entirely unnecessary companion piece to 'Mulholland Drive' with too many convolutions and indulgences. Why try and complement a masterpiece?
Michel Gondry’s ‘The Science of Sleep’ – whimsical, superficial and silly and the most disappointing film of the year.
Inadequate public services, especially in London. The only posited solutions appear to be more investment or the extension of the unhelpful ‘market’ in service provision. Neither seems particularly imaginative to me in 2007. What would help would be if British government actually expressed some enthusiasm for the service ethos and emphasised its value, instead of consistently undermining the services, then dismantling them because they are failing.
The continuing misuse of words such as ‘modernity’ and ‘reform’ in political discourse.
The classically trained violinist who opened for Jools Holland at the Albert Hall: ‘Entertaining’ an audience with frankly vulgar displays of meaningless virtuosity in a crass attempt to ‘popularise’ what doesn’t need popularising – possibly the worst piece of live music I’ve ever sat through!
A lack of planning for New Year’s Eve yet again.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tracks of the Year 2007
No, I’m not doing another top 100. If you’ll forgive me, it’s simply too draining. I’d certainly at least like to draw attention to some of my favourite tracks of the year though, particularly those that featured on albums that narrowly missed the cut.
Many have already written at length about LCD Soundsystem’s exquisite ‘All My Friends’, but no overview of 2007 would be complete without it. Expanding on the notion of wanting ‘to see all my friends at once’ that Arthur Russell introduced on the Dinosaur L dancefloor classic ‘Go Bang!’, the song deftly captured the poignancy that accompanies growing older, and not being able to party quite as hard as you once could. ‘We set controls for the heart of the sun’ said James Murphy, not merely dropping the Pink Floyd reference for cachet ‘…one of the ways we show our age.’ With its insistent one chord attack sounding like Steve Reich appropriated for the dancefloor, it managed to be both propulsive and touching.
I felt less inclined to follow the mainstream pop charts this year than ever before, but a couple of records were simply unavoidable through sheer ubiquity. Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ seemed to be at numero uno for ever and ever during a particularly drizzly mid-summer and it proved difficult to resist its infectious charms, even if its follow-ups proved disappointingly clunky. Girls Aloud continued their mission to squeeze as many ideas into one song as humanly possible with the deranged ‘Sexy Sexy No No No’, one of my favourite pop records of the year. Elsewhere in the pop world, I loved Robyn for being a most unconventional pop star, and one keen to take control of her own affairs. ‘Be Mine’ and ‘With Every Heartbeat’ provided insistent thrills. I rather lost touch with the world of mainstream R&B this year, but Amerie made two storming singles with ‘Take Control’ and ‘Gotta Work’ – she has a wonderful voice and resists the urge to show off beloved of many of the genre’s weaker artists.
Dance music didn’t exactly produce many wonders this year (with the notable exception of The Field and ‘Over The Ice’ in particular) – in fact, I was more likely to turn to LCD Soundsystem for toe-tapping thrills. The Chemical Brothers and Underworld continued to repeat themselves ad infinitum, but can I confess getting a guilty pleasure from singles from David Guetta and Fedde Le Grand? Not my usual cup of tea for sure. Maybe Bjork’s embrace of dance music on ‘Declare Independence’ resulted in my favourite four-to-the-floor club track of the year.
I remain undecided about ‘Shake A Fist’, the taster for Hot Chip’s upcoming third album (well, fourth or fifth if you count the albums of unreleased material I have at home). This one might just have edged them too far into gimmicky territory for my tastes with its Todd Rundgren sample and intentionally tacky Casio sounds. I preferred the house-inspired ‘My Piano’ from their DJ Kicks set and I’m coming to adore the camptastic Erasure-soundalike ‘Ready For The Floor’, even though it’s a million miles from their early aesthetic. But that’s one for 2008.
For zany playful fun, there was synth and drums duo Shy Child. Their schtik became a little tiresome over the course of an entire album, but ‘Drop The Phone’ was an hilarious and zesty introduction to their brand of analogue electro (although not quite as wonderful as their obscene ode to auto-fellatio ‘Down On Yourself’ from last year). I also loved the delightfully titled ‘F*cking Boyfriend’ from The Bird and The Bee, a duo featuring the late great Lowell George’s daughter on vocal duties. It’s a marvellously sheened piece of alternative pop desperation.
Last night’s outstanding Club Fandango gig reminded me that Misty’s Big Adventure made one of the singles of the year with ‘Fashion Parade’ – a track that pulls off the very rare trick of being both satirically pointed and musically exciting. It’s a very accurate parody of the Franz Ferdinand British rock sound, emphasising the industry’s cynical, financially motivated interest in manipulating a post-punk revival. The group are also perceptive enough to note the rapid downfall of many a hyped band. Whilst they themselves may not be commercial gold, they may well outlive a number of their targets here, no doubt helped along nicely by their wit, originality and quirky charm. There wasn’t much else to get excited about in the British indie scene (I’m happy enough to ignore The Pigeon Detectives, The Wombats, The Twang et al), but Amy May and Paris Motel made a lush and enthralling album, with one beautifully romantic standout track, the beguiling ‘Catherine By The Sea’. The Broken Family Band have of course long been regulars on these pages, but ‘Hello Love’ featured some of their very best songs – I would particularly highlight the sex song ‘Leaps’ and the deliciously ironic ‘Dancing on the 4th Floor’. Bloc Party made a somewhat politically schematic and self-conscious second album, but its more personal moments dealing with loss and burgeoning sexuality respectively (‘Kreuzberg’ and ‘I Still Remember’) are brave and beautiful songs.
Inevitably, the Canadians were out in force yet again. The most incisive writing of the year came from Leslie Feist – a woman who seems to have all the wisdom and experience anyone could wish for in a songwriter. I particularly loved the silky smooth ‘Brandy Alexander’, as good an analysis of temptation and infatuation as I’ve heard, and the majestic ‘Intuition’, a song brave enough to ask counterfactual questions of the relationships that never were. Both are singularly brilliant, emotionally attuned songs of the highest order. Similarly brave was Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Not Ready To Love’, a rare tender ballad amidst more ornate surroundings, and a song with the courage to admit to insecurity and uncertainty. Whilst The New Pornographers disappointed with their ‘Challengers’ album, veering into orchestrated mush and plodding tempos, the opening track ‘My Rights Versus Yours’ still captured the jaunty, dexterous and intricate power pop they do best.
US songwriters and groups also produced some magic too. Will Sheff, with his revolving cast in Okkervil River, wrote a clever but affecting little gem in ‘Plus Ones’, dissecting relationship break-ups by adding one to famous songs with numbers in their titles – ‘the 51st Way to Leave Your Lover’ etc. Sam Beam continues to write some of the most elegant, literate and engrossing songs in the modern American canon – there were two major works on ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ – ‘Resurrection Fern’ and ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’. Ben Bridwell’s Band of Horses are improving rapidly – ‘No One’s Gonna Love You’ was a moment of pure spine-tingling beauty. Rilo Kiley’s album was full of polished pop gems, but I particularly liked the cautionary ‘15’ and the slinky disco number ‘Breakin’ Up’.
I often prefer Radiohead for their musical intuition than their songwriting – but ‘In Rainbows’ did much to broaden my view of the band. Especially impressive were the jazz-tinged, spiteful ‘Reckoner’ and the beautiful adultery song ‘House of Cards’. Needless to say, both songs approached subject matter some distance from Thom Yorke’s usual technophobic, paranoid vision of urban alienation, and benefited greatly from the change in approach. Equally brilliant was ‘4 Minute Warning’ from the bonus disc, a song of spine-tingling directness and simplicity.
I’ve not yet had a change to digest the entirety of the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy covers album that has only recently slipped out with little or no fanfare, but his version of R Kelly’s ‘The World’s Greatest’ is one of the best things I’ve heard all year. Will Oldham is one of the world’s great contrarians, but I sense this interpretation is one hundred per cent sincere. Oldham has already expressed admiration for Kelly’s saccharine chart-topper ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ (a sentiment shared by Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, who used to cover that song at gigs). I find R Kelly a most preposterous figure occasionally tinged with genius, as anyone who has seen all 500,000 parts of ‘Trapped In The Closet’ will surely attest, but Oldham finds a vulnerable majesty at the heart of Kelly’s song of steely conviction.
Maybe even I heard a little too much from Bruce Springsteen in 2008, with the live album jostling with the E Street Band comeback for my attention. There’s little denying that ‘Girls In Their Summer Clothes’ is one of his very best songs though – harking back to that Phil Spector-infused sound that dominated ‘Born To Run’, and featuring a careful balancing act between euphoria and poignancy. It’s absolutely tremendous, and one of a handful of moments on ‘Magic’ where the sheer quality of the man’s writing cuts through Brendan O’ Brien’s muddy and undeveloped production.
Springsteen wasn’t the only elder statesperson to come up trumps in 2007. I could pick almost any track from the Robert Wyatt album, but ‘A Beautiful War’ and ‘AWOL’ are probably my personal favourites. Nick Lowe also made another relaxed and refined record, included a deliciously spiteful piece of casual misogyny on ‘I Trained Her To Love Me’. 2007 also proved another great year for valiant soul survivors – particularly notable were Mavis Staples’ powerful reworking of ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’ and Bettye LaVette’s extraordinary version of Elton John’s ‘Talking Toy Soldiers’, injecting more passion and conviction into that one song than Elton himself has managed in the whole of the last 20 years.
The more progressive, adventurous end of the rock spectrum enjoyed a very encouraging year, with Yeasayer’s wonderfully harmonised, Tears For Fears- referencing ‘2080’, The Besnard Lakes’ espionage tale ‘Disaster’ and the extraordinary ‘Atlas’ from Battles being essential inclusions in any overview of the year’s best tracks.
Far too much great jazz to mention in detail here – but I particularly admired the driving energy of Michael Brecker’s ‘Tumbleweed’, the wonderful ‘Aftermath’ from the Curios album, John Surman’s beautiful ‘Winter Wish’, David Torn’s terrifying and intimidating ‘Structural Functions of Prezens’, ‘Giant’ from those mirthful troublemakers The Bad Plus, Led Bib’s storming deconstruction of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, Gwilym Simock’s polyrhythmic rendering of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ and the outrageous piano trio take on Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ from Yaron Hermon. That rather flippant bombshell of a track seems a good note on which to conclude!
Many have already written at length about LCD Soundsystem’s exquisite ‘All My Friends’, but no overview of 2007 would be complete without it. Expanding on the notion of wanting ‘to see all my friends at once’ that Arthur Russell introduced on the Dinosaur L dancefloor classic ‘Go Bang!’, the song deftly captured the poignancy that accompanies growing older, and not being able to party quite as hard as you once could. ‘We set controls for the heart of the sun’ said James Murphy, not merely dropping the Pink Floyd reference for cachet ‘…one of the ways we show our age.’ With its insistent one chord attack sounding like Steve Reich appropriated for the dancefloor, it managed to be both propulsive and touching.
I felt less inclined to follow the mainstream pop charts this year than ever before, but a couple of records were simply unavoidable through sheer ubiquity. Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ seemed to be at numero uno for ever and ever during a particularly drizzly mid-summer and it proved difficult to resist its infectious charms, even if its follow-ups proved disappointingly clunky. Girls Aloud continued their mission to squeeze as many ideas into one song as humanly possible with the deranged ‘Sexy Sexy No No No’, one of my favourite pop records of the year. Elsewhere in the pop world, I loved Robyn for being a most unconventional pop star, and one keen to take control of her own affairs. ‘Be Mine’ and ‘With Every Heartbeat’ provided insistent thrills. I rather lost touch with the world of mainstream R&B this year, but Amerie made two storming singles with ‘Take Control’ and ‘Gotta Work’ – she has a wonderful voice and resists the urge to show off beloved of many of the genre’s weaker artists.
Dance music didn’t exactly produce many wonders this year (with the notable exception of The Field and ‘Over The Ice’ in particular) – in fact, I was more likely to turn to LCD Soundsystem for toe-tapping thrills. The Chemical Brothers and Underworld continued to repeat themselves ad infinitum, but can I confess getting a guilty pleasure from singles from David Guetta and Fedde Le Grand? Not my usual cup of tea for sure. Maybe Bjork’s embrace of dance music on ‘Declare Independence’ resulted in my favourite four-to-the-floor club track of the year.
I remain undecided about ‘Shake A Fist’, the taster for Hot Chip’s upcoming third album (well, fourth or fifth if you count the albums of unreleased material I have at home). This one might just have edged them too far into gimmicky territory for my tastes with its Todd Rundgren sample and intentionally tacky Casio sounds. I preferred the house-inspired ‘My Piano’ from their DJ Kicks set and I’m coming to adore the camptastic Erasure-soundalike ‘Ready For The Floor’, even though it’s a million miles from their early aesthetic. But that’s one for 2008.
For zany playful fun, there was synth and drums duo Shy Child. Their schtik became a little tiresome over the course of an entire album, but ‘Drop The Phone’ was an hilarious and zesty introduction to their brand of analogue electro (although not quite as wonderful as their obscene ode to auto-fellatio ‘Down On Yourself’ from last year). I also loved the delightfully titled ‘F*cking Boyfriend’ from The Bird and The Bee, a duo featuring the late great Lowell George’s daughter on vocal duties. It’s a marvellously sheened piece of alternative pop desperation.
Last night’s outstanding Club Fandango gig reminded me that Misty’s Big Adventure made one of the singles of the year with ‘Fashion Parade’ – a track that pulls off the very rare trick of being both satirically pointed and musically exciting. It’s a very accurate parody of the Franz Ferdinand British rock sound, emphasising the industry’s cynical, financially motivated interest in manipulating a post-punk revival. The group are also perceptive enough to note the rapid downfall of many a hyped band. Whilst they themselves may not be commercial gold, they may well outlive a number of their targets here, no doubt helped along nicely by their wit, originality and quirky charm. There wasn’t much else to get excited about in the British indie scene (I’m happy enough to ignore The Pigeon Detectives, The Wombats, The Twang et al), but Amy May and Paris Motel made a lush and enthralling album, with one beautifully romantic standout track, the beguiling ‘Catherine By The Sea’. The Broken Family Band have of course long been regulars on these pages, but ‘Hello Love’ featured some of their very best songs – I would particularly highlight the sex song ‘Leaps’ and the deliciously ironic ‘Dancing on the 4th Floor’. Bloc Party made a somewhat politically schematic and self-conscious second album, but its more personal moments dealing with loss and burgeoning sexuality respectively (‘Kreuzberg’ and ‘I Still Remember’) are brave and beautiful songs.
Inevitably, the Canadians were out in force yet again. The most incisive writing of the year came from Leslie Feist – a woman who seems to have all the wisdom and experience anyone could wish for in a songwriter. I particularly loved the silky smooth ‘Brandy Alexander’, as good an analysis of temptation and infatuation as I’ve heard, and the majestic ‘Intuition’, a song brave enough to ask counterfactual questions of the relationships that never were. Both are singularly brilliant, emotionally attuned songs of the highest order. Similarly brave was Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Not Ready To Love’, a rare tender ballad amidst more ornate surroundings, and a song with the courage to admit to insecurity and uncertainty. Whilst The New Pornographers disappointed with their ‘Challengers’ album, veering into orchestrated mush and plodding tempos, the opening track ‘My Rights Versus Yours’ still captured the jaunty, dexterous and intricate power pop they do best.
US songwriters and groups also produced some magic too. Will Sheff, with his revolving cast in Okkervil River, wrote a clever but affecting little gem in ‘Plus Ones’, dissecting relationship break-ups by adding one to famous songs with numbers in their titles – ‘the 51st Way to Leave Your Lover’ etc. Sam Beam continues to write some of the most elegant, literate and engrossing songs in the modern American canon – there were two major works on ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ – ‘Resurrection Fern’ and ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’. Ben Bridwell’s Band of Horses are improving rapidly – ‘No One’s Gonna Love You’ was a moment of pure spine-tingling beauty. Rilo Kiley’s album was full of polished pop gems, but I particularly liked the cautionary ‘15’ and the slinky disco number ‘Breakin’ Up’.
I often prefer Radiohead for their musical intuition than their songwriting – but ‘In Rainbows’ did much to broaden my view of the band. Especially impressive were the jazz-tinged, spiteful ‘Reckoner’ and the beautiful adultery song ‘House of Cards’. Needless to say, both songs approached subject matter some distance from Thom Yorke’s usual technophobic, paranoid vision of urban alienation, and benefited greatly from the change in approach. Equally brilliant was ‘4 Minute Warning’ from the bonus disc, a song of spine-tingling directness and simplicity.
I’ve not yet had a change to digest the entirety of the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy covers album that has only recently slipped out with little or no fanfare, but his version of R Kelly’s ‘The World’s Greatest’ is one of the best things I’ve heard all year. Will Oldham is one of the world’s great contrarians, but I sense this interpretation is one hundred per cent sincere. Oldham has already expressed admiration for Kelly’s saccharine chart-topper ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ (a sentiment shared by Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, who used to cover that song at gigs). I find R Kelly a most preposterous figure occasionally tinged with genius, as anyone who has seen all 500,000 parts of ‘Trapped In The Closet’ will surely attest, but Oldham finds a vulnerable majesty at the heart of Kelly’s song of steely conviction.
Maybe even I heard a little too much from Bruce Springsteen in 2008, with the live album jostling with the E Street Band comeback for my attention. There’s little denying that ‘Girls In Their Summer Clothes’ is one of his very best songs though – harking back to that Phil Spector-infused sound that dominated ‘Born To Run’, and featuring a careful balancing act between euphoria and poignancy. It’s absolutely tremendous, and one of a handful of moments on ‘Magic’ where the sheer quality of the man’s writing cuts through Brendan O’ Brien’s muddy and undeveloped production.
Springsteen wasn’t the only elder statesperson to come up trumps in 2007. I could pick almost any track from the Robert Wyatt album, but ‘A Beautiful War’ and ‘AWOL’ are probably my personal favourites. Nick Lowe also made another relaxed and refined record, included a deliciously spiteful piece of casual misogyny on ‘I Trained Her To Love Me’. 2007 also proved another great year for valiant soul survivors – particularly notable were Mavis Staples’ powerful reworking of ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’ and Bettye LaVette’s extraordinary version of Elton John’s ‘Talking Toy Soldiers’, injecting more passion and conviction into that one song than Elton himself has managed in the whole of the last 20 years.
The more progressive, adventurous end of the rock spectrum enjoyed a very encouraging year, with Yeasayer’s wonderfully harmonised, Tears For Fears- referencing ‘2080’, The Besnard Lakes’ espionage tale ‘Disaster’ and the extraordinary ‘Atlas’ from Battles being essential inclusions in any overview of the year’s best tracks.
Far too much great jazz to mention in detail here – but I particularly admired the driving energy of Michael Brecker’s ‘Tumbleweed’, the wonderful ‘Aftermath’ from the Curios album, John Surman’s beautiful ‘Winter Wish’, David Torn’s terrifying and intimidating ‘Structural Functions of Prezens’, ‘Giant’ from those mirthful troublemakers The Bad Plus, Led Bib’s storming deconstruction of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, Gwilym Simock’s polyrhythmic rendering of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ and the outrageous piano trio take on Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ from Yaron Hermon. That rather flippant bombshell of a track seems a good note on which to conclude!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Buried Treasure #4 and #5
The Dramatics - A Dramatic Experience
Chairmen of The Board - Skin I'm In
For this feature, I’ve decided to bundle together two of the more casually undersold soul vocal group albums. It may just be a matter of audiences and critics expecting soul vocal groups to stay in their place – specifically, to deliver simple, infectious two and a half minute pop songs rich in luxurious harmony. Yet The Temptations very successfully expanded their approach with Norman Whitfield behind the controls – and many now rightfully view the likes of ‘Cloud Nine’, ‘Psychedelic Shack’ and ‘Masterpiece’ as classics of the genre. My mind has been jolted back to ‘A Dramatic Experience’ thanks to Mojo’s refreshing inclusion of ‘The Devil Is Dope’ on their Stax covermount CD this month. Both that and the Chairmen of the Board record left a lasting impression on me during my childhood.
The Dramatics’ claim to a place in soul history has not been helped by their timing. Part of the expansionist phase of Stax Records, a costly experiment that ultimately destroyed the label – critical assessments of their output have tended to be tied up with the label’s unfortunate fate in the mid-seventies. Similarly, ‘Skin I’m In’ was Chairmen of the Board’s final long player, and by some distance their most musically ambitious and audacious. It too became tied up in the demise of a record label – in this case Holland-Dozier-Holland’s Invictus label. The label’s star, Freda Payne, had effectively been on strike for much of 1971-2 in a dispute over artistic control, whilst Chairmen of the Board themselves launched litigation against the label in 1972.
Both albums are clearly indebted to the crucial role of their producers. The Dramatics had already forged a strong relationship with producer and writer Tony Hester, but his somewhat autobiographical stamp is all over ‘A Dramatic Experience’, along with his preference for lavish string arrangements and sound effects. Jeffrey Bowen not only brought in the original line-up of Funkadelic to perform as Chairmen of the Board’s imperious backing group, but also made the mellotron the domineering presence on several tracks.
Both albums have a somewhat schizophrenic identity. Half the tracks on ‘A Dramatic Experience’ represent a proto-concept album addressing the evils of drug addiction and drug pushing. The remaining tracks are rather saccharine ballads in the manner of The Stylistics. ‘Skin I’m In’ also devotes nearly half its tracks to romantic ballads dominated by falsetto singing, but the remaining half is futuristic aggressive funk, incorporating a masterfully produced suite of music centred around Sly Stone’s ‘Life and Death’. Taken as a whole, this four song suite is one of the best pieces of pop music ever crafted. The under-appreciation of these records has inevitably centred on their supposed lack of focus, although such a perspective ignores the necessity for light and shade, and indeed neglects to emphasise the careful balance between confrontation and reconciliation that both these albums achieved brilliantly.
‘A Dramatic Experience’ more than lives up to its title, achieving a unique drama by veering unexpectedly from the violent and terrifying to the lush and romantic. I would argue that there is a place on the same album for the exquisite ‘Fell For You’, the angry ‘Hey You Get Off My Mountain’ and the palpably uneasy ‘Beware Of The Man (With The Candy In His Hand)’. With age and experience, I’ve come to realise that this is an album that neatly parallels the addictive properties of narcotics and physical attraction, and is therefore a good deal more complex than simply being a piece of anti-drugs propaganda. Indeed, writer and producer Tony Hester apparently became a drug addict himself! The balance on ‘Skin I’m In’ is less thematically and conceptually advanced, but there’s little doubting that the group and their outstanding musicians imbue the ballads with as much nuance as they provide energy for the party tracks. Funk writer Dave Thompson describes ‘Skin I’m In’ as ‘hard funking and almost gratuitously aggressive’ – but one wonders whether he simply skipped over its more tender moments.
I remember a Geography teacher at my school, who was a kindred spirit to me due to his love of 70s soul, funk and blues, being somewhat staggered that I had enjoyed the music of BT Express as a child, such were the unashamedly sexual implications of their music and lyrics. I protested that I had no idea what the ‘It’ of ‘Do It ‘Til You’re Satisfied’ might have been at that age – I was more than happy to accept that it could be merely innocent dancing (or indeed anything you wanted it to be – I don’t think I was missing the point!). Perhaps though, it’s these two records that best capture the contradictory impulses of the musical education my father offered me. If you’re desperate to stop your children experimenting with narcotics, I would strongly advise you to present them with a copy of ‘A Dramatic Experience’ at a formative age. The cover image alone is positively terrifying (a portrait of a particularly beastly Devil) and the music is psychologically intimidating too. Ushered in by a wave of crackling hellfire and anguished torment, ‘The Devil Is Dope’, a mind-blowing track on so many levels, is enough to convince any child that all drugs are inherently evil and should be avoided at all costs. By way of contrast, ‘Life and Death’ and ‘Everybody Party All Night’, with their defiantly minimal lyrics, are superb rallying cries for hedonism – ‘if it feels good it’s alright’ apparently. The hit single ‘Finders Keepers’ also seems to urge a rather guilt-free, unrepentant stance on sexual morality (‘I’ve found the love you lost and I’m gonna keep her!’).
Both albums benefit from a concerted attention to detail. The string and horn charts that lavishly adorn ‘A Dramatic Experience’ emphasise its theatrical qualities, a technique echoed by the extraordinary mellotron orchestration on ‘Morning Glory’ and ‘White Rose (Freedom Flower)’ from ‘Skin I’m In’. Similarly, the slinky groove of ‘Finders Keepers’ rests not only on its Stevie Wonder-inspired Clavinet pattern, but also on the occasional interjection of offbeat handclaps and the creeping menace of The Dramatics’ ‘Beware Of The Man (With The Candy In His Hand)’ is underlined by a sudden switch to a high-end bassline in the song’s chorus.
Another strong quality of both albums is the ability of the group’s dominant vocalists to thoroughly inhabit the worlds of their songs’ protagonists. Ron Banks and William “Wee Gee” Howard developed the gritty end of their vocal stylings for the ghoulish drug nightmares of ‘A Dramatic Experience’ whilst General Johnson, handling 90% of the vocals on ‘Skin I’m In’ captured palpable desperation in the face of injustice on the title track, and a driving sexualised urgency on ‘Life and Death’. By way of contrast, on ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ he sounded sweet and vulnerable.
These two enduringly powerful albums are rich in visionary ideas, with expertly produced, brilliantly executed musical foundations. Both records belie the notion of the vocal group as a charisma-less entity – with all the tracks oozing personality, conviction and theatrical expression. Released within a year of each other, the records provide sterling proof of just how adventurous the soul music of the early seventies could be. If Timbaland and The Neptunes might be the Holland-Dozier-Holland and Norman Whitfield of contemporary soul – who exactly are the Tony Hesters and Jeffrey Bowens? And are there any vocal groups now who could match this standard of delivery?
Chairmen of The Board - Skin I'm In
For this feature, I’ve decided to bundle together two of the more casually undersold soul vocal group albums. It may just be a matter of audiences and critics expecting soul vocal groups to stay in their place – specifically, to deliver simple, infectious two and a half minute pop songs rich in luxurious harmony. Yet The Temptations very successfully expanded their approach with Norman Whitfield behind the controls – and many now rightfully view the likes of ‘Cloud Nine’, ‘Psychedelic Shack’ and ‘Masterpiece’ as classics of the genre. My mind has been jolted back to ‘A Dramatic Experience’ thanks to Mojo’s refreshing inclusion of ‘The Devil Is Dope’ on their Stax covermount CD this month. Both that and the Chairmen of the Board record left a lasting impression on me during my childhood.
The Dramatics’ claim to a place in soul history has not been helped by their timing. Part of the expansionist phase of Stax Records, a costly experiment that ultimately destroyed the label – critical assessments of their output have tended to be tied up with the label’s unfortunate fate in the mid-seventies. Similarly, ‘Skin I’m In’ was Chairmen of the Board’s final long player, and by some distance their most musically ambitious and audacious. It too became tied up in the demise of a record label – in this case Holland-Dozier-Holland’s Invictus label. The label’s star, Freda Payne, had effectively been on strike for much of 1971-2 in a dispute over artistic control, whilst Chairmen of the Board themselves launched litigation against the label in 1972.
Both albums are clearly indebted to the crucial role of their producers. The Dramatics had already forged a strong relationship with producer and writer Tony Hester, but his somewhat autobiographical stamp is all over ‘A Dramatic Experience’, along with his preference for lavish string arrangements and sound effects. Jeffrey Bowen not only brought in the original line-up of Funkadelic to perform as Chairmen of the Board’s imperious backing group, but also made the mellotron the domineering presence on several tracks.
Both albums have a somewhat schizophrenic identity. Half the tracks on ‘A Dramatic Experience’ represent a proto-concept album addressing the evils of drug addiction and drug pushing. The remaining tracks are rather saccharine ballads in the manner of The Stylistics. ‘Skin I’m In’ also devotes nearly half its tracks to romantic ballads dominated by falsetto singing, but the remaining half is futuristic aggressive funk, incorporating a masterfully produced suite of music centred around Sly Stone’s ‘Life and Death’. Taken as a whole, this four song suite is one of the best pieces of pop music ever crafted. The under-appreciation of these records has inevitably centred on their supposed lack of focus, although such a perspective ignores the necessity for light and shade, and indeed neglects to emphasise the careful balance between confrontation and reconciliation that both these albums achieved brilliantly.
‘A Dramatic Experience’ more than lives up to its title, achieving a unique drama by veering unexpectedly from the violent and terrifying to the lush and romantic. I would argue that there is a place on the same album for the exquisite ‘Fell For You’, the angry ‘Hey You Get Off My Mountain’ and the palpably uneasy ‘Beware Of The Man (With The Candy In His Hand)’. With age and experience, I’ve come to realise that this is an album that neatly parallels the addictive properties of narcotics and physical attraction, and is therefore a good deal more complex than simply being a piece of anti-drugs propaganda. Indeed, writer and producer Tony Hester apparently became a drug addict himself! The balance on ‘Skin I’m In’ is less thematically and conceptually advanced, but there’s little doubting that the group and their outstanding musicians imbue the ballads with as much nuance as they provide energy for the party tracks. Funk writer Dave Thompson describes ‘Skin I’m In’ as ‘hard funking and almost gratuitously aggressive’ – but one wonders whether he simply skipped over its more tender moments.
I remember a Geography teacher at my school, who was a kindred spirit to me due to his love of 70s soul, funk and blues, being somewhat staggered that I had enjoyed the music of BT Express as a child, such were the unashamedly sexual implications of their music and lyrics. I protested that I had no idea what the ‘It’ of ‘Do It ‘Til You’re Satisfied’ might have been at that age – I was more than happy to accept that it could be merely innocent dancing (or indeed anything you wanted it to be – I don’t think I was missing the point!). Perhaps though, it’s these two records that best capture the contradictory impulses of the musical education my father offered me. If you’re desperate to stop your children experimenting with narcotics, I would strongly advise you to present them with a copy of ‘A Dramatic Experience’ at a formative age. The cover image alone is positively terrifying (a portrait of a particularly beastly Devil) and the music is psychologically intimidating too. Ushered in by a wave of crackling hellfire and anguished torment, ‘The Devil Is Dope’, a mind-blowing track on so many levels, is enough to convince any child that all drugs are inherently evil and should be avoided at all costs. By way of contrast, ‘Life and Death’ and ‘Everybody Party All Night’, with their defiantly minimal lyrics, are superb rallying cries for hedonism – ‘if it feels good it’s alright’ apparently. The hit single ‘Finders Keepers’ also seems to urge a rather guilt-free, unrepentant stance on sexual morality (‘I’ve found the love you lost and I’m gonna keep her!’).
Both albums benefit from a concerted attention to detail. The string and horn charts that lavishly adorn ‘A Dramatic Experience’ emphasise its theatrical qualities, a technique echoed by the extraordinary mellotron orchestration on ‘Morning Glory’ and ‘White Rose (Freedom Flower)’ from ‘Skin I’m In’. Similarly, the slinky groove of ‘Finders Keepers’ rests not only on its Stevie Wonder-inspired Clavinet pattern, but also on the occasional interjection of offbeat handclaps and the creeping menace of The Dramatics’ ‘Beware Of The Man (With The Candy In His Hand)’ is underlined by a sudden switch to a high-end bassline in the song’s chorus.
Another strong quality of both albums is the ability of the group’s dominant vocalists to thoroughly inhabit the worlds of their songs’ protagonists. Ron Banks and William “Wee Gee” Howard developed the gritty end of their vocal stylings for the ghoulish drug nightmares of ‘A Dramatic Experience’ whilst General Johnson, handling 90% of the vocals on ‘Skin I’m In’ captured palpable desperation in the face of injustice on the title track, and a driving sexualised urgency on ‘Life and Death’. By way of contrast, on ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ he sounded sweet and vulnerable.
These two enduringly powerful albums are rich in visionary ideas, with expertly produced, brilliantly executed musical foundations. Both records belie the notion of the vocal group as a charisma-less entity – with all the tracks oozing personality, conviction and theatrical expression. Released within a year of each other, the records provide sterling proof of just how adventurous the soul music of the early seventies could be. If Timbaland and The Neptunes might be the Holland-Dozier-Holland and Norman Whitfield of contemporary soul – who exactly are the Tony Hesters and Jeffrey Bowens? And are there any vocal groups now who could match this standard of delivery?
Friday, December 07, 2007
Albums Of The Year Part 4: 25-1
Just before I kick off the final instalment, a quick reminder of the previous albums of the year here:
2006: Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
2005: Acoustic Ladyland - Last Chance Disco
2004: Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
2003: Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People (in a piece written for John Kell's Unpredictable Same fanzine - this blog started in March 2004)
I'm not sure I stand by some of those choices now! Without further ado, here's the Top 25 of 2007...
25. Tinariwen – Aman Iman: Water Is Life (Independiente)
The Tuareg Desert Blues masters reached a substantial audience here in the UK with this stirring and potent set. Demonstrating just how much life and vitality can be drawn from very minimal harmony, the group exploited the unfamiliar tones and scale constructions of their native music to colossal impact. This is fervent and righteous music, its political motivation and unapologetic rebelliousness evident in spite of the language barrier.
24. Rufus Wainwright – Release The Stars (Polydor)
Initial impressions of ‘Release The Stars’ might suggest that Rufus indulged all his camp fantasies across one dazzling, totally over the top collection, but there’s more to ‘Release The Stars’ than meets the eye. Like the rest of his best work, it somehow manages to be simultaneously frivolous and profound. Whilst he’s certainly not one to resist the temptation to over-egg the pudding, the lavish treatments adorning the songs here seem appropriately ostentatious rather than merely extravagant. Best of all, his voice continues to develop into a really powerful instrument – there’s less of the exaggerated slurring and much more personal conviction this time around.
23. El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (Definitive Jux)
Whilst there were no hip hop albums in the league of ‘Liquid Swords’, ‘The Cold Vein’ or ‘Fishscale’ this year, Definitive Jux’s production maestro El-P came pretty close with this brooding, unsettling collection. It’s certainly a hip hop album where the focus is as much on the music as the lyrics – the dark, tense and claustrophobic atmospheres that El-P conjures have become something of a signature sound. Added to this are some original, occasionally surreal words that push well beyond rap’s usual braggadocio and machismo.
22. PJ Harvey – White Chalk (Island)
There’s something genuinely creepy, disturbing and malevolent about ‘White Chalk’. It seems, at least in part, to be a document of the corruption of innocence and the end of childhood, and its language is dark, foreboding and unrepentant. The presentation is similarly uncompromising, with Polly mostly abandoning guitars in favour of very skeletal, untutored piano playing. ‘White Chalk’ seems to constitute a deliberate repudiation of virtuosity from one of our most accomplished artistes, but the results are dependably vivid and unsettling.
21. Olafur Arnalds – Eulogy For Evolution (Erased Tapes)
Iceland’s freshest export has been highlighted as the obvious next step for lovers of Sigur Ros’ composition with rock dynamics. Where Sigur Ros sometimes veer into plodding rhythmic banality, Arnalds avoids this pitfall by frequently jettisoning rhythm in favour of mood and atmosphere. These are remarkably pure and elegantly simple compositions, full of space and silence and with individual notes held as long as feels necessary. Themes are repeated and developed rather than merely stated. The result is a concise but meaningful collection of profound and aching sadness, unrepentantly desolate and mournful.
20. Efterklang – Parades (Leaf)
With ‘Parades’, Danish group Efterklang crafted one of the most original and fascinating releases of the year. There’s something of the collective joy so beloved of The Polyphonic Spree in their layered choral vocals and chamber arrangements, but their nimble incorporation of marching rhythms and furtive textures marked them as several leagues above that most pretentious of bands. Their occasional preference for melancholy calm over quasi-religious fervour also results in a less overbearing, more immersing sound. This is adventurous music that veers between the mysterious and the extraordinary, brilliantly arranged and executed with formal restraint. There are now so many acts keen to find that intersection where electronics and acoustics subsume each other that it would be too easy to neglect those bands that hit that very spot perfectly. Efterklang are certainly one of them.
19. Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog (Transgressive/Sub Pop)
I’ve been harping on about Sam Beam’s literary brand of songwriting for some time here, but ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’, comfortably his most consistent album to date, sees him expand his musical outlook too. Softly spoken and well versed in the art of understatement, Beam’s new vision of American folk is now not just rich in gothic imagery and allusive language, but also able to incorporate a wide range of musical infusions from dub reggae to African rhythms with adroit tenderness. Members of Calexico embellish Beam’s ensemble with a pioneer spirit. As usual, a handful of the songs here are effortlessly moving, and the whole album coheres beautifully.
18. Curios – Hidden (Jazzizit)
Acoustic Ladyland have garnered considerable publicity over the last couple of years for their insistent, media-friendly fusion of punk and jazz, but their quietly gifted and unassuming keyboardist Tom Cawley crafted a magisterial record of his own in 2007, to a sadly much less significant fanfare. It’s a great time for the piano trio at the moment, and Curios are among a number of groups really pushing the format well beyond its obvious limitations. With a near perfect balance of elegiac, emotional ballads, palpable swing and rhythmically propulsive energy, the group adds real muscle and impressive interplay to Cawley’s sophisticated compositions. Veering from the frantic to the sensuous, ‘Hidden’ is a multi-faceted and deeply rewarding work.
17. Battles – Mirrored (Warp)
With Tyondai ‘son of Anthony’ Braxton and members of Helmet and Don Caballero amongst their number, Battles were always going to be an adventurous proposition. Yet the more predictable math rock of their initial EPs gave little preparation for this confounding and exceptional debut album proper. ‘Mirrored’ is off-kilter but thoroughly groovy, and full of all manner of interesting sounds. It’s a supremely technical music by most rock bands’ standards, but it also encapsulates the basic, elemental thrill that comes from the best rock and roll.
16. Bruce Springsteen and The Sessions Band – Live In Dublin (Columbia)
It’s a bit of an indulgence to include this fantastic live recording in addition to Springsteen’s E Street comeback, but it’s just such a thrilling, celebratory document that it couldn’t have been omitted. Springsteen’s shows with the Sessions band may not have reached as many people as the E Street stadium extravaganzas, but they certainly rivalled those shows for intensity and unrestrained mass celebration. Digging deep into musical history, Springsteen channelled his characteristic fervour and grit through the great American canon, reinventing many of his own original songs in the process. Best of all was his biting rewrite of Blind Alfred Reed’s ‘How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live’ to reveal George W. Bush’s incompetence and thinly veiled indifference in the face of Hurricane Katrina. ‘He’s the best of what America could be…and should be’ according to Jon Landau. Damn right.
15. Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals (We Are Free)
‘World music that doesn’t make you want to puke’ according to our only viable music weekly (how about actually looking to the wider world for some more of that?), Yeasayer’s debut was an exhilarating rush of rhythmic and harmonic invention, equal parts Crosby, Stills and Nash and King Crimson. Here is a band set to build their profile considerably in 2008 – very much pursuing their own distinctive path, and creating some rich, positive and intoxicating music in the process. So often do their abundant ideas bear fruit in reality, Yeasayer’s ambitions are lofty but never embarrassing or misguided.
14. John Abercrombie – The Third Quartet (ECM)
John Abercrombie is one of the master guitarists, and ‘The Third Quartet’ is yet another peerless example of his artistry. It’s an evocative, expressive and fluid collection demonstrating both the exemplary technique of the group leader and the combined prowess of his outstanding ensemble. This is elusive, subtle music that takes time to weave its peculiar and haunting web. It creates a distinctive feeling of weightlessness and drifting that is both challenging and satisfying.
13. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver (DFA/EMI)
James Murphy remains an intriguing proposition – a man who makes hipster music despite appearing defiantly uncool in demeanour. It’s easy to see how Hot Chip have found a happy home on his DFA label. ‘Sound Of Silver’ is a massive improvement on his promising but rather cobbled together debut album. He has absorbed a massive range of music, from the driving Krautrock of Neu! to the primitive grooves of Dinosaur L or ESG, via minimal composers such as Steve Reich. Murphy is astute in unpicking the thorny problem of attempts to regress back to adolescence, emphasising the poignancy that accompanies growing older. Musically, it is minimal but relentless and propulsive – it satisfies both the impulse to dance and the cerebral demand for conceptual thought.
12. Gwilym Simcock – Perception (Basho)
I want to hate Gwilym Simcock. Prodigiously gifted as a composer and soloist, a top class ensemble player, young and distinctively handsome to boot – there’s just too much to envy. Yet ‘Perception’ is such a breathtakingly inspiring debut – theoretically grounded but also full of feeling, freedom and meaningful ideas. The group playing (featuring John Paricelli and Stan Sulzmann amongst other first rate musicians) is invigorating and thrilling, whilst Simcock’s writing is consistently inventive, particularly with time and metre. He’s also a skilled interpreter too, breathing thoroughly new life into his version of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. He shares a sensibility with the revered American Brad Mehldau in his combination of technical mastery (established through rigorous classical training) with the spontaneity of improvisation. Yet his ballad playing is also supremely sensitive and he has a more playful and exuberant side that Mehldau sometimes lacks. Only the unflattering cover photograph does Simcock a disservice here. To say the future looks bright for him is something of an understatement.
11. The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar)
A good friend of mine described this as ‘the album the Arcade Fire should have made next’. He has a good point there. Whilst the Arcade Fire opted to amplify their grandiose side, fellow Canadians The Besnard Lakes modestly crafted a slow burning, but ultimately towering second album that has begun to make a deserved international impact for them. With its spy theme and enthralling juxtaposition of progressive arrangements with very unfashionable 70s rock influences, the elaborate, twisting songs here placed the band in its own unique and unconventional space. That their live performances proved devastatingly loud and earth-shaking was a bonus.
10. Radiohead – In Rainbows (W.A.S.T.E./XL)
In a year when British group-based guitar music is notable by its almost total absence from my end-of-year round-up (only The Broken Family Band, Super Furry Animals, Paris Motel and The Twilight Sad make for the other entries), thank goodness for the return of Radiohead. There is no other British rock group working at this level of creativity and ambition. The minimal arrangements of these songs work through creating space as much as sound, and this may eventually stand proud as the most focussed of Radiohead’s post-‘OK Computer’ releases. No longer do they sound like a band merely appropriating a wide range of influences, but rather a living, breathing creative unit subsuming their reference points within a clear and consistent vision. Whilst I’ve been critical of Thom Yorke’s alienation-by-numbers lyrics elsewhere, he excels himself on two unusually personal standouts here – the confessionals ‘House Of Cards’ and ‘Reckoner’. The bonus disc added some more conventional balladry to satisfy less adventurous fans, but also continued the seductive, broadly erotic qualities that dominate the main release (indeed, I pre-empted Yorke himself – he has now called these ‘seduction songs’). With echoes of AR Kane, Talk Talk and Brian Eno, ‘In Rainbows’ built upon some judicious foundations with characteristic invention and audacity.
9. James Blackshaw – The Cloud Of Unknowing (Tompkins Square)
A student of the John Fahey ‘Takoma’ school of guitar playing, James Blackshaw is a homegrown instrumental talent worth celebrating. His sheets and layers of sound create effects that will be more familiar to students of contemporary classical music than folk or rock guitar playing. As a result, ‘The Cloud Of Unknowing’ has a spiritual, prophetic resonance at its heart and is one of 2007’s most unusual and idiosyncratic offerings. It’s actually Blackshaw’s fourth album, and with digital re-releases of the previous three now promised, it looks like a catalogue worth taking the time to explore further.
8. Panda Bear – Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
As mirthful and mischievous as Animal Collective’s ‘Strawberry Jam’ undoubtedly is, they were trumped by this solo offering from their percussionist in 2007. In fact, this was by some distance the best record yet from the entire Paw Tracks staple. Taking the summer harmonies of Brian Wilson as its starting point, Noah Lennox filtered his infectious, insistent vocal lines through urgent, propulsive rhythms and quirky home studio manipulations. By linking these fragments together, Lennox crafted a song cycle that sounded at turns eerily familiar and purposefully alien. Lennox appeared to be warping something comforting into something unknown and unforgiving. Not to be confused with Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear of course.
7. Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (Domino)
I can’t do much more here than to underline Marcello Carlin’s brilliant exposition on the underselling of this album by professional music critics in Britain (in a similar way, he argues, to the way writers approached ‘The Drift’ by Scott Walker last year). It took Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, in a characteristically erudite press release, to elucidate this album’s sheer brilliance clearly. Robert Wyatt is such a unique and distinctive voice (both literally and figuratively) that it has become all too easy to take him for granted. That much of ‘Comicopera’ emphasises how warm and accessible he can be is therefore no bad thing. Far from being too quirky and idiosyncratic to have a hit, Wyatt can be playful, sincere, warm and affecting. The writing here is incisive and the execution exquisite. Whilst much of the music feels like a statement of personal freedom, Wyatt’s strong sense of humanity and community is also evident and every note is carefully judged and timed. The sudden switch away from the English language represents the clearest expression of political frustration with Western foreign policy yet committed to disc (considerably more eloquent than Neil Young’s hamfisted and overpraised ‘Living With War’, for example). ‘Comicopera’ is a beautiful and disorientating suite charged with as much empathy and insight as anger and rage.
6. Burial – Untrue (Hyperdub)
Disorientating and unsettling, yet also grounded by real emotional depth and a soulful streak, Burial’s second album successfully upgraded the template of his astonishing debut. Although the album is largely wordless, its edited snatches of vocal samples and lingering synth pads combine to say more about a sense of urban dislocation than the self-conscious lyrics of either Thom Yorke or Kele Okereke. ‘Untrue’ is an uneasy but affecting listen to rival Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’ or Massive Attack’s ‘Blue Lines’.
5. Michael Brecker – Pilgrimage (Heads Up)
What a towering achievement this album is, not least because Brecker effectively kept himself alive whilst terminally ill to complete it. Brecker surrounded himself with a dream line-up (with both Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, a more-than-usually tasteful and expressive Pat Metheny, complemented and completed by the driving union of Jack DeJohnette and John Patittucci), the sterling support no doubt advancing him to the very peak of his own powers. Whilst ‘Pilgrimage’ does not add anything particularly new to the jazz idiom, it expands the existing language with peerless panache and flair. The themes are incomparably strong and memorable, the group dynamic virtually faultless and the improvising strident and powerful. It’s a muscular group performance, but also tender and mournful in all the appropriate places. ‘Pilgrimage’ is an inevitable future classic and, fittingly, one of Brecker’s very best albums.
4. David Torn – Prezens (ECM)
What is this extraordinary noise exactly? Is it jazz? Is it improvised metal? Is it electronica? Frankly, who cares how it’s classified? It’s much more important that it’s terrifyingly original and, by implication, absolutely terrifying. With an unfathomably inspired line up of free improvisers (Tim Berne, Craig Taborn and the world-class drummer Tom Rainey), ‘Prezens’ is brutal, confrontational and provocative all in the best possible way. It’s unpredictable and thrilling, primal yet also devilishly intricate. It’s some way removed from the more serene and meditative sound normally associated with the ECM label. Best of all, it’s an inspired combination of collective improvisation and studio processing that sounds palpably dangerous. It sounds like an auditory hallucination – a graphic and disturbing musical vision of hell.
3. Bjork – Volta (One Little Indian)
The tribal drums that usher in ‘Earth Intruders’ also neatly symbolise the onward march of Bjork’s musical career. Here is an artist who has never looked back and, at least in part through judicious collaborations, has continued to refine, develop and innovate in all aspects of her work, from production values to artwork. After the experiments with vocal effects on ‘Medulla’, ‘Volta’ adopted an earthier strategy, focussing more on rhythm and on that extraordinarily resonant all-female brass section (all the more striking in the moments when beats were abandoned). It also liberally picked and mixed musical styles from around the globe, with Toumani Diabate’s Koura adding depth and Congolese maestros Konono No. 1 making sonic trouble. With her voice frequently at its most uncompromising, this is not Bjork’s most conventionally melodic statement – but then conventional melody has never been her priority. With every release she continues to stretch her mind and her talent, this time synthesising the rigours of modern composition with the primarily sexual impulse of dance and soul music. It was a signpost of the woman’s magisterial talent that the Timbaland produced tracks are arguably the least successful here. Thematically, ‘Volta’ is a defiant and inspiring celebration of love and life, brave in its exhortation to embrace all opportunities and cast aside misgivings.
2. Feist – The Reminder (Polydor)
Has there been a more insightful, compassionate and sympathetic collection of songs in the last ten years? On ‘The Reminder’, Leslie Feist encapsulated the overwhelming, sometimes stifling power of memory on human relationships with nuance, subtlety and grace. The overall sound was stately and refined but never bland (so the Dido comparisons are entirely misleading) - a highly sophisticated confection unafraid to venture into areas of personality and consciousness that most pop songwriters prefer to avoid. It’s a beautifully produced, captivating and powerfully moving record, and that ubiquitous ipod advert at least made sure that we didn’t miss out on her this year.
1. Dirty Projectors – Rise Above (Rough Trade)
Dave Longstreth’s weird and wonderful masterpiece has hardly even been noticed by the British music press. If it were not for his sterling set in support of Beirut at Koko earlier in the year, I may never have even heard this subversive, bold and fearless music. It’s supposedly a re-imagining of Black Flag’s classic ‘Damaged’ album in its entirety. This could so easily have been a grand folly extraordinaire, but Longstreth, retaining the album’s inlay but not the cassette itself from his youth, worked entirely from personal memories and interpretations. Direct flashbacks to that band’s sound are, perhaps as a result, really only apparent in the unexpected bursts of hardcore thrashing that sometimes perforate the meticulously crafted arrangements. There are hints of Afrobeat, country-rock and the avant garde, all melded into a rigorously controlled yet unspeakably thrilling melting pot. It’s both original and radical, making the rest of 2007’s rock music look timid and tepid by comparison.
2006: Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
2005: Acoustic Ladyland - Last Chance Disco
2004: Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
2003: Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People (in a piece written for John Kell's Unpredictable Same fanzine - this blog started in March 2004)
I'm not sure I stand by some of those choices now! Without further ado, here's the Top 25 of 2007...
25. Tinariwen – Aman Iman: Water Is Life (Independiente)
The Tuareg Desert Blues masters reached a substantial audience here in the UK with this stirring and potent set. Demonstrating just how much life and vitality can be drawn from very minimal harmony, the group exploited the unfamiliar tones and scale constructions of their native music to colossal impact. This is fervent and righteous music, its political motivation and unapologetic rebelliousness evident in spite of the language barrier.
24. Rufus Wainwright – Release The Stars (Polydor)
Initial impressions of ‘Release The Stars’ might suggest that Rufus indulged all his camp fantasies across one dazzling, totally over the top collection, but there’s more to ‘Release The Stars’ than meets the eye. Like the rest of his best work, it somehow manages to be simultaneously frivolous and profound. Whilst he’s certainly not one to resist the temptation to over-egg the pudding, the lavish treatments adorning the songs here seem appropriately ostentatious rather than merely extravagant. Best of all, his voice continues to develop into a really powerful instrument – there’s less of the exaggerated slurring and much more personal conviction this time around.
23. El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (Definitive Jux)
Whilst there were no hip hop albums in the league of ‘Liquid Swords’, ‘The Cold Vein’ or ‘Fishscale’ this year, Definitive Jux’s production maestro El-P came pretty close with this brooding, unsettling collection. It’s certainly a hip hop album where the focus is as much on the music as the lyrics – the dark, tense and claustrophobic atmospheres that El-P conjures have become something of a signature sound. Added to this are some original, occasionally surreal words that push well beyond rap’s usual braggadocio and machismo.
22. PJ Harvey – White Chalk (Island)
There’s something genuinely creepy, disturbing and malevolent about ‘White Chalk’. It seems, at least in part, to be a document of the corruption of innocence and the end of childhood, and its language is dark, foreboding and unrepentant. The presentation is similarly uncompromising, with Polly mostly abandoning guitars in favour of very skeletal, untutored piano playing. ‘White Chalk’ seems to constitute a deliberate repudiation of virtuosity from one of our most accomplished artistes, but the results are dependably vivid and unsettling.
21. Olafur Arnalds – Eulogy For Evolution (Erased Tapes)
Iceland’s freshest export has been highlighted as the obvious next step for lovers of Sigur Ros’ composition with rock dynamics. Where Sigur Ros sometimes veer into plodding rhythmic banality, Arnalds avoids this pitfall by frequently jettisoning rhythm in favour of mood and atmosphere. These are remarkably pure and elegantly simple compositions, full of space and silence and with individual notes held as long as feels necessary. Themes are repeated and developed rather than merely stated. The result is a concise but meaningful collection of profound and aching sadness, unrepentantly desolate and mournful.
20. Efterklang – Parades (Leaf)
With ‘Parades’, Danish group Efterklang crafted one of the most original and fascinating releases of the year. There’s something of the collective joy so beloved of The Polyphonic Spree in their layered choral vocals and chamber arrangements, but their nimble incorporation of marching rhythms and furtive textures marked them as several leagues above that most pretentious of bands. Their occasional preference for melancholy calm over quasi-religious fervour also results in a less overbearing, more immersing sound. This is adventurous music that veers between the mysterious and the extraordinary, brilliantly arranged and executed with formal restraint. There are now so many acts keen to find that intersection where electronics and acoustics subsume each other that it would be too easy to neglect those bands that hit that very spot perfectly. Efterklang are certainly one of them.
19. Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog (Transgressive/Sub Pop)
I’ve been harping on about Sam Beam’s literary brand of songwriting for some time here, but ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’, comfortably his most consistent album to date, sees him expand his musical outlook too. Softly spoken and well versed in the art of understatement, Beam’s new vision of American folk is now not just rich in gothic imagery and allusive language, but also able to incorporate a wide range of musical infusions from dub reggae to African rhythms with adroit tenderness. Members of Calexico embellish Beam’s ensemble with a pioneer spirit. As usual, a handful of the songs here are effortlessly moving, and the whole album coheres beautifully.
18. Curios – Hidden (Jazzizit)
Acoustic Ladyland have garnered considerable publicity over the last couple of years for their insistent, media-friendly fusion of punk and jazz, but their quietly gifted and unassuming keyboardist Tom Cawley crafted a magisterial record of his own in 2007, to a sadly much less significant fanfare. It’s a great time for the piano trio at the moment, and Curios are among a number of groups really pushing the format well beyond its obvious limitations. With a near perfect balance of elegiac, emotional ballads, palpable swing and rhythmically propulsive energy, the group adds real muscle and impressive interplay to Cawley’s sophisticated compositions. Veering from the frantic to the sensuous, ‘Hidden’ is a multi-faceted and deeply rewarding work.
17. Battles – Mirrored (Warp)
With Tyondai ‘son of Anthony’ Braxton and members of Helmet and Don Caballero amongst their number, Battles were always going to be an adventurous proposition. Yet the more predictable math rock of their initial EPs gave little preparation for this confounding and exceptional debut album proper. ‘Mirrored’ is off-kilter but thoroughly groovy, and full of all manner of interesting sounds. It’s a supremely technical music by most rock bands’ standards, but it also encapsulates the basic, elemental thrill that comes from the best rock and roll.
16. Bruce Springsteen and The Sessions Band – Live In Dublin (Columbia)
It’s a bit of an indulgence to include this fantastic live recording in addition to Springsteen’s E Street comeback, but it’s just such a thrilling, celebratory document that it couldn’t have been omitted. Springsteen’s shows with the Sessions band may not have reached as many people as the E Street stadium extravaganzas, but they certainly rivalled those shows for intensity and unrestrained mass celebration. Digging deep into musical history, Springsteen channelled his characteristic fervour and grit through the great American canon, reinventing many of his own original songs in the process. Best of all was his biting rewrite of Blind Alfred Reed’s ‘How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live’ to reveal George W. Bush’s incompetence and thinly veiled indifference in the face of Hurricane Katrina. ‘He’s the best of what America could be…and should be’ according to Jon Landau. Damn right.
15. Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals (We Are Free)
‘World music that doesn’t make you want to puke’ according to our only viable music weekly (how about actually looking to the wider world for some more of that?), Yeasayer’s debut was an exhilarating rush of rhythmic and harmonic invention, equal parts Crosby, Stills and Nash and King Crimson. Here is a band set to build their profile considerably in 2008 – very much pursuing their own distinctive path, and creating some rich, positive and intoxicating music in the process. So often do their abundant ideas bear fruit in reality, Yeasayer’s ambitions are lofty but never embarrassing or misguided.
14. John Abercrombie – The Third Quartet (ECM)
John Abercrombie is one of the master guitarists, and ‘The Third Quartet’ is yet another peerless example of his artistry. It’s an evocative, expressive and fluid collection demonstrating both the exemplary technique of the group leader and the combined prowess of his outstanding ensemble. This is elusive, subtle music that takes time to weave its peculiar and haunting web. It creates a distinctive feeling of weightlessness and drifting that is both challenging and satisfying.
13. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver (DFA/EMI)
James Murphy remains an intriguing proposition – a man who makes hipster music despite appearing defiantly uncool in demeanour. It’s easy to see how Hot Chip have found a happy home on his DFA label. ‘Sound Of Silver’ is a massive improvement on his promising but rather cobbled together debut album. He has absorbed a massive range of music, from the driving Krautrock of Neu! to the primitive grooves of Dinosaur L or ESG, via minimal composers such as Steve Reich. Murphy is astute in unpicking the thorny problem of attempts to regress back to adolescence, emphasising the poignancy that accompanies growing older. Musically, it is minimal but relentless and propulsive – it satisfies both the impulse to dance and the cerebral demand for conceptual thought.
12. Gwilym Simcock – Perception (Basho)
I want to hate Gwilym Simcock. Prodigiously gifted as a composer and soloist, a top class ensemble player, young and distinctively handsome to boot – there’s just too much to envy. Yet ‘Perception’ is such a breathtakingly inspiring debut – theoretically grounded but also full of feeling, freedom and meaningful ideas. The group playing (featuring John Paricelli and Stan Sulzmann amongst other first rate musicians) is invigorating and thrilling, whilst Simcock’s writing is consistently inventive, particularly with time and metre. He’s also a skilled interpreter too, breathing thoroughly new life into his version of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. He shares a sensibility with the revered American Brad Mehldau in his combination of technical mastery (established through rigorous classical training) with the spontaneity of improvisation. Yet his ballad playing is also supremely sensitive and he has a more playful and exuberant side that Mehldau sometimes lacks. Only the unflattering cover photograph does Simcock a disservice here. To say the future looks bright for him is something of an understatement.
11. The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar)
A good friend of mine described this as ‘the album the Arcade Fire should have made next’. He has a good point there. Whilst the Arcade Fire opted to amplify their grandiose side, fellow Canadians The Besnard Lakes modestly crafted a slow burning, but ultimately towering second album that has begun to make a deserved international impact for them. With its spy theme and enthralling juxtaposition of progressive arrangements with very unfashionable 70s rock influences, the elaborate, twisting songs here placed the band in its own unique and unconventional space. That their live performances proved devastatingly loud and earth-shaking was a bonus.
10. Radiohead – In Rainbows (W.A.S.T.E./XL)
In a year when British group-based guitar music is notable by its almost total absence from my end-of-year round-up (only The Broken Family Band, Super Furry Animals, Paris Motel and The Twilight Sad make for the other entries), thank goodness for the return of Radiohead. There is no other British rock group working at this level of creativity and ambition. The minimal arrangements of these songs work through creating space as much as sound, and this may eventually stand proud as the most focussed of Radiohead’s post-‘OK Computer’ releases. No longer do they sound like a band merely appropriating a wide range of influences, but rather a living, breathing creative unit subsuming their reference points within a clear and consistent vision. Whilst I’ve been critical of Thom Yorke’s alienation-by-numbers lyrics elsewhere, he excels himself on two unusually personal standouts here – the confessionals ‘House Of Cards’ and ‘Reckoner’. The bonus disc added some more conventional balladry to satisfy less adventurous fans, but also continued the seductive, broadly erotic qualities that dominate the main release (indeed, I pre-empted Yorke himself – he has now called these ‘seduction songs’). With echoes of AR Kane, Talk Talk and Brian Eno, ‘In Rainbows’ built upon some judicious foundations with characteristic invention and audacity.
9. James Blackshaw – The Cloud Of Unknowing (Tompkins Square)
A student of the John Fahey ‘Takoma’ school of guitar playing, James Blackshaw is a homegrown instrumental talent worth celebrating. His sheets and layers of sound create effects that will be more familiar to students of contemporary classical music than folk or rock guitar playing. As a result, ‘The Cloud Of Unknowing’ has a spiritual, prophetic resonance at its heart and is one of 2007’s most unusual and idiosyncratic offerings. It’s actually Blackshaw’s fourth album, and with digital re-releases of the previous three now promised, it looks like a catalogue worth taking the time to explore further.
8. Panda Bear – Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
As mirthful and mischievous as Animal Collective’s ‘Strawberry Jam’ undoubtedly is, they were trumped by this solo offering from their percussionist in 2007. In fact, this was by some distance the best record yet from the entire Paw Tracks staple. Taking the summer harmonies of Brian Wilson as its starting point, Noah Lennox filtered his infectious, insistent vocal lines through urgent, propulsive rhythms and quirky home studio manipulations. By linking these fragments together, Lennox crafted a song cycle that sounded at turns eerily familiar and purposefully alien. Lennox appeared to be warping something comforting into something unknown and unforgiving. Not to be confused with Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear of course.
7. Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (Domino)
I can’t do much more here than to underline Marcello Carlin’s brilliant exposition on the underselling of this album by professional music critics in Britain (in a similar way, he argues, to the way writers approached ‘The Drift’ by Scott Walker last year). It took Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, in a characteristically erudite press release, to elucidate this album’s sheer brilliance clearly. Robert Wyatt is such a unique and distinctive voice (both literally and figuratively) that it has become all too easy to take him for granted. That much of ‘Comicopera’ emphasises how warm and accessible he can be is therefore no bad thing. Far from being too quirky and idiosyncratic to have a hit, Wyatt can be playful, sincere, warm and affecting. The writing here is incisive and the execution exquisite. Whilst much of the music feels like a statement of personal freedom, Wyatt’s strong sense of humanity and community is also evident and every note is carefully judged and timed. The sudden switch away from the English language represents the clearest expression of political frustration with Western foreign policy yet committed to disc (considerably more eloquent than Neil Young’s hamfisted and overpraised ‘Living With War’, for example). ‘Comicopera’ is a beautiful and disorientating suite charged with as much empathy and insight as anger and rage.
6. Burial – Untrue (Hyperdub)
Disorientating and unsettling, yet also grounded by real emotional depth and a soulful streak, Burial’s second album successfully upgraded the template of his astonishing debut. Although the album is largely wordless, its edited snatches of vocal samples and lingering synth pads combine to say more about a sense of urban dislocation than the self-conscious lyrics of either Thom Yorke or Kele Okereke. ‘Untrue’ is an uneasy but affecting listen to rival Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’ or Massive Attack’s ‘Blue Lines’.
5. Michael Brecker – Pilgrimage (Heads Up)
What a towering achievement this album is, not least because Brecker effectively kept himself alive whilst terminally ill to complete it. Brecker surrounded himself with a dream line-up (with both Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, a more-than-usually tasteful and expressive Pat Metheny, complemented and completed by the driving union of Jack DeJohnette and John Patittucci), the sterling support no doubt advancing him to the very peak of his own powers. Whilst ‘Pilgrimage’ does not add anything particularly new to the jazz idiom, it expands the existing language with peerless panache and flair. The themes are incomparably strong and memorable, the group dynamic virtually faultless and the improvising strident and powerful. It’s a muscular group performance, but also tender and mournful in all the appropriate places. ‘Pilgrimage’ is an inevitable future classic and, fittingly, one of Brecker’s very best albums.
4. David Torn – Prezens (ECM)
What is this extraordinary noise exactly? Is it jazz? Is it improvised metal? Is it electronica? Frankly, who cares how it’s classified? It’s much more important that it’s terrifyingly original and, by implication, absolutely terrifying. With an unfathomably inspired line up of free improvisers (Tim Berne, Craig Taborn and the world-class drummer Tom Rainey), ‘Prezens’ is brutal, confrontational and provocative all in the best possible way. It’s unpredictable and thrilling, primal yet also devilishly intricate. It’s some way removed from the more serene and meditative sound normally associated with the ECM label. Best of all, it’s an inspired combination of collective improvisation and studio processing that sounds palpably dangerous. It sounds like an auditory hallucination – a graphic and disturbing musical vision of hell.
3. Bjork – Volta (One Little Indian)
The tribal drums that usher in ‘Earth Intruders’ also neatly symbolise the onward march of Bjork’s musical career. Here is an artist who has never looked back and, at least in part through judicious collaborations, has continued to refine, develop and innovate in all aspects of her work, from production values to artwork. After the experiments with vocal effects on ‘Medulla’, ‘Volta’ adopted an earthier strategy, focussing more on rhythm and on that extraordinarily resonant all-female brass section (all the more striking in the moments when beats were abandoned). It also liberally picked and mixed musical styles from around the globe, with Toumani Diabate’s Koura adding depth and Congolese maestros Konono No. 1 making sonic trouble. With her voice frequently at its most uncompromising, this is not Bjork’s most conventionally melodic statement – but then conventional melody has never been her priority. With every release she continues to stretch her mind and her talent, this time synthesising the rigours of modern composition with the primarily sexual impulse of dance and soul music. It was a signpost of the woman’s magisterial talent that the Timbaland produced tracks are arguably the least successful here. Thematically, ‘Volta’ is a defiant and inspiring celebration of love and life, brave in its exhortation to embrace all opportunities and cast aside misgivings.
2. Feist – The Reminder (Polydor)
Has there been a more insightful, compassionate and sympathetic collection of songs in the last ten years? On ‘The Reminder’, Leslie Feist encapsulated the overwhelming, sometimes stifling power of memory on human relationships with nuance, subtlety and grace. The overall sound was stately and refined but never bland (so the Dido comparisons are entirely misleading) - a highly sophisticated confection unafraid to venture into areas of personality and consciousness that most pop songwriters prefer to avoid. It’s a beautifully produced, captivating and powerfully moving record, and that ubiquitous ipod advert at least made sure that we didn’t miss out on her this year.
1. Dirty Projectors – Rise Above (Rough Trade)
Dave Longstreth’s weird and wonderful masterpiece has hardly even been noticed by the British music press. If it were not for his sterling set in support of Beirut at Koko earlier in the year, I may never have even heard this subversive, bold and fearless music. It’s supposedly a re-imagining of Black Flag’s classic ‘Damaged’ album in its entirety. This could so easily have been a grand folly extraordinaire, but Longstreth, retaining the album’s inlay but not the cassette itself from his youth, worked entirely from personal memories and interpretations. Direct flashbacks to that band’s sound are, perhaps as a result, really only apparent in the unexpected bursts of hardcore thrashing that sometimes perforate the meticulously crafted arrangements. There are hints of Afrobeat, country-rock and the avant garde, all melded into a rigorously controlled yet unspeakably thrilling melting pot. It’s both original and radical, making the rest of 2007’s rock music look timid and tepid by comparison.
Albums Of The Year 2007 Part 3: 50-26
50. Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass (Definitive Jux)
Aesop Rock still remains one of my favourite rappers, and he hasn’t yet really put a foot wrong. His language is flighty, verbose and unconventional, and the music never settles for the familiar. Instead, it veers across all sorts of unpredictable, occasionally even uncomfortable terrain, and the results are visceral and exciting. Like his kindred spirits in the Anticon collective, Aesop Rock infuriates those who like their hip hop baser and more aggressive. Yet, if this is a genre based largely on poetics and voice inflections – why should it not incorporate wild flights of fancy and imaginative whims just as much as gritty dissections of reality?
49. Antibalas – Security (Anti)
This one seemed to miss the radar of most UK publications, but it’s a rather joyful and exuberant contemporary take on Afrobeat. Merging the preoccupations of Fela Kuti with the more cerebral outlook of Tortoise (whose John McEntire produces and mixes the entire set), this is a multicultural extravaganza of rhythm and feel. It’s tightly organised, but also thrillingly raw, burningly intense and organic, driven in equal parts by the crisp rhythm and horn sections.
48. Cinematic Orchestra – Ma Fleur (Ninja Tunes)
Here’s an album that has grown on me considerably over the course of the past few months. This is perhaps because it’s Jason Swinscoe’s most subtle musical statement to date – now as enthralled with folk music as with jazz and hip hop. It’s a lighter, more vulnerable record than its predecessors, and a sweetly intoxicating one too. Fontella Bass again guests, apparently now quite unwell, and her damaged but undefeated vocals are quietly devastating. Elsewhere, the intricate shuffle rhythms and slow building atmospheres are masterfully handled. There are some exquisitely judged contributions from some of London’s finest jazz musicians, including keyboardist Nick Ramm and percussionist Milo Fell.
47. Basquiat Strings – Basquiat Strings feat. Seb Rochford (F-IRE)
Whilst Seb Rochford is certainly a crucial figure here, underpinning the music with subtle brush strokes and a uniquely sensitive swing, this is really Cellist Ben Davis’ project. Rightly nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, but inevitably denied its deserved victory in favour of the far more superficial Klaxons, this album is an original fusion – chamber music that grooves.
46. The Bad Plus – PROG (Heads Up)
Now that The Bad Plus’ power trio reversions of rock classics have lost their novelty value, there seems to be an increased risk of taking them for granted. This surely neglects the group’s remarkable technical ability, and their own creative impetus. Over the course of their last couple of albums, their original compositions have become more muscular, occasionally even fiery, and they polyrhythmic invention on display on ‘Prog’ is mind-boggling. Of the interpretations, David Bowie’s ‘Life On Mars’ becomes even more theatrical through a merciless extension by pianist Ethan Iverson and Tears For Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ is imbued with reflective regret.
45. Susanna – Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos (Rune Grammofon)
Oh Susanna! What icy elegance, what subtlety, what restraint! I don’t even have any idea what Susanna looks like, but her voice is one of the most beautiful and alluring sounds to pass my ears in the last couple of years. If last year’s album of perverse covers with her Magical Orchestra hinted at Susanna’s singular vision, this absurdly titled ‘solo’ work realises this with purity and majesty. These songs are supremely understated and their grief and sadness cuts through the austerity of the arrangements.
44. Paul Motian, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell – Time and Time Again (ECM)
Paul Motian’s bassless trio is one of the most original groups in contemporary jazz. Frisell and Lovano seem like radically different musicians on paper. Lovano is well-versed in jazz language and produces a masterful, dominating sound. Frisell is more interested in the intersections between jazz and American folk music, and his trademark sound is more atmospheric and spacey. Yet Motian directs them into a very free and liberating creative space where, whilst restraining some of their more individualistic tendencies, they integrate in a quite remarkable symbiosis. Motian’s drumming is a language all of its own – his nimble, elongated strokes are unique among modern drummers.
43. Pharoahe Monch – Desire (SRC/Universal)
In spite of his breathtaking arrogance, after eight years of almost complete silence, Pharoahe Monch made one of the most taut and least indulgent hip hop albums in some time with ‘Desire’. It’s audacious in the extreme – how odd it is that hip hop seems the one genre of music so supremely personalised that covers are unthinkable. Monch destroys these casual assumptions with ingenuity with his version of Public Enemy’s ‘Welcome To The Terrordome’. In its genre-busting, cerebral force, ‘Desire’ seems almost like a lost classic from an earlier era, but it’s also so savage and confrontational as to resemble nothing else. He’s not shying away from key issues here – ‘Desire’ deals with gun crime, war and poverty amongst other weighty subjects. It’s an attacking, unrepentant blast from a major talent now thankfully back in the game.
42. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand (Rounder)
It was extremely irritating that all attention was focussed on the superficial Led Zeppelin reunion at the expense of either its chief motivation (the sad death of Atlantic records founder Armet Ehrtegun), or their frontman’s superb contemporary work. Plant is clearly determined not to let Zep get in the way of this fascinating collaborative project (he plans to tour with Krauss next year), but it was always inevitable that it wouldn’t have quite the same commercial impact. Plant has been delving deeper into his musical heritage over the past few years, the result being a complete diminution of rock posturing in favour of sensitively handled interpretations of an American folk canon. That Plant can immerse himself in this world convincingly is testament to his thorough understanding of the music. Whilst Krauss can sometimes be a little pristine or twee in her own work, she sounds more otherworldly and compelling here, and the combination of her voice with Plant’s is surprisingly exotic. With a band that includes the consistently innovative guitarist Marc Ribot, things were never going to get too conventional – and there’s a dark undertone to many of these inspired reworkings.
41. Okkervil River – The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)
Will Sheff continued his blisteringly intense, highly literate songwriting mission on this powerful collection, mixing brutality and tenderness in equal measure. He’s an absolutely superb lyricist, full of ideas delivered in the form of narrative prose-poems rather than conventional verse-chorus-verse songs. His vocal delivery is also savage and impassioned, although he’s increasingly capable of exercising restraint too. Once again, the arrangements were sublime, and his carefully constructed world completely absorbing.
40. Jim Hart’s Gemini – Emergence (Loop)
Those privileged few ‘in the know’ about London’s jazz scene would no doubt assert that the self-promoting Loop Collective represent one of the most promising prospects in some time. Yet Jim Hart’s Gemini, alongside Outhouse, are one of only a handful of their bands to get funds together for national tours. In spite of this, there’s not a great deal of publicity about them, and little recognition that ‘Emergence’ is one of the most confident British jazz albums of the year. Hart is a drummer and percussionist, but he concentrates exclusively on vibraphone and marimba here. He combines creative composing with adventurous improvising. There’s also a remarkably strong rapport between the musicians, driven along nicely by the swinging drumming of Tom Skinner.
39. Supersilent – 8 (Rune Grammofon)
One feels there’s probably as much myth as reality about Norwegian free improvisers Supersilent. Do they really not communicate with each other aside from making this completely unplanned music? It seems unlikely – but, as with all their previous releases, there’s a weird and unforced alchemy to this manipulated, twisted electronic noise. If anything, ‘8’ seems a little more focussed than their previous output, with each track single-mindedly developing a clear idea to its logical conclusion.
38. Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam (Domino)
Animal Collective have progressively been restraining some of their more gonzo tendencies in favour of a more infectious sound that has become increasingly saccharine. ‘Strawberry Jam’ is therefore the perfect title for this sweeter-than-sweet set, but their handling of this jaunty, chirpy music somehow keeps it firmly on the right side of the fine line between insistent and irritating. There’s still a madcap experimentalism at their core, and with some surreal imagery and highly unusual sounds, they delivered their most boundlessly joyful, blissfully lysergic statement so far.
37. John Surman – The Spaces In Between (ECM)
Very little frustrates me quite as much as the notion that Classical and Jazz are mutually exclusive musical disciplines. As Hugh Masakela exclaimed at a recent London concert: ‘It’s not true that a symphony orchestra can’t swing!’. John Surman, one of British jazz’s finest talents, has long been honing his brand of part-composed, part-improvised chamber music. ‘The Spaces In Between’ is another collaboration with double bassist Chris Laurence and the Trans4Mation String Quartet, and may be the best example yet of this peculiarly effective cross-breeding. The music is richly melodic, elegiac and touching, and the quartet accompaniments veer from the languid to the surprisingly sprightly. Best of all, there’s plenty of space for exposition, and Surman has rarely sounded more in control, drawing a tremendous range of sounds from his range of saxophones and clarinets.
36. The Field – From Here We Go Sublime (Kompakt)
Whilst I’m really no techno expert, every so often there’s an album that passes within my radar and makes me wonder what I’ve been missing. In spite of the music’s US heritage with the likes of Derrick May and Jeff Mills, most recently, these albums have mostly emerged from Europe. Laurent Garnier’s ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’ was an almighty classic and a couple of years ago, Isolee’s ‘We Are Monster’ enthralled me with its elegant constructions. Now Swedish producer Axel Willner has produced one of the most captivating electronic albums of 2007. Some have emphasised that this album shares as much with the shoegazing techniques of My Bloody Valentine and Ride as with the minimalist work of Steve Reich or indeed Mills and May. ‘From Here We Go Sublime’ is not really about clever beats (it’s almost entirely four-square), but more about mood, texture and atmosphere. Willner weaves subtle changes into his cumulative repetitions with skill and craft.
35. Erik Friedlander – Block Ice and Propane (SkipStone)
The Cello is still rarely used as an improvisational instrument, which is odd given its depth, versatility and resonance. Yet Erik Friedlander is the highest ranking of three Cellists to appear in this list. He’s one of the instrument’s master technicians, both in ensemble format and as a solo artist, as on this remarkable recording. He has collaborated with artists as diverse as John Zorn and Courtney Love and clearly has little respect for conventional musical boundaries. Sometimes his sound his harsh and grating, sometimes it is dreamy and languid. Perhaps most interesting of all is his deconstructed blues pizzicato, by which he makes his instrument sound more like a guitar. Much of this is folk music, but it is folk music completely revitalised, and imbued with a wonderfully childlike and naïve curiosity.
34. Mavis Staples – We’ll Never Turn Back (Anti)
Ry Cooder brought his magic production touch to this collection of protest songs from the determinedly gritty former Staple Singer. ‘We’ll Never Turn Back’ demonstrated modern America could still sustain a fiery tradition of rebellion and saw Staples sermonising tirelessly against injustice wherever she saw it. Revitalising these civil rights songs so that they now applied to the impoverished and abused anywhere, she imbued her music with a righteous energy and powerful sense of community.
33. Stars Of The Lid – Stars Of The Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline (Kranky)
This is some of the strangest, most haunting and beautiful music of the year, yet it achieves this by abandoning most established musical conventions. There’s little melody or harmony and no real underlying rhythm at all – the music instead relies solely on drones and pulses, with only very slight variations in tone and pitch. Yet the bizarre song titles suggest they are not too po-faced in their approach, and the results strongly bear this out. There’s a powerful and entrancing mood, and a carefully controlled ebb and flow that takes this into weird and wonderful territory.
32. Nels Cline Singers – Draw Breath (Cryptogramophone)
Whilst the merits of Wilco’s ‘Sky Blue Sky’ divided opinion somewhat, few could argue with the extraordinary vision and talent of their lead guitarist. With an effortless mastery of the fretboard, Nels Cline is a fearsome improviser rooted in both rock and roll and free jazz. ‘Draw Breath’ is an audacious and thoroughly engaging record, with some lengthy extrapolations that take numerous risks and raise the tension to fever pitch. The group’s name is a quirky misnomer though – there’s no singing whatsoever!
31. Sylvie Lewis – Translations (Cheap Lullaby)
With a slight taste for whimsy and a genuine enthusiasm for a songwriting tradition incorporating cabaret, jazz and musical theatre, Berklee-trained Sylvie Lewis proved one of the major discoveries of the year. Deceptively light and airy, many of these songs were sweetly observed and contained real wit and emotional substance. Her voice, always admirably restrained, never exaggerated or overstated her themes. With a talent for drawing convincing characters and imbuing them with much of her own endearing personality and charm, Lewis remains one to watch.
30. Fennesz Sakomoto – Cendre (Touch)
The combination of Christian Fennesz’s laptop guitar manipulations and Ryuchi Sakomoto’s lingering, unresolved piano chords created a haunting and melancholy atmosphere. Whilst not quite as singularly brilliant as Fennesz’s ‘Endless Summer’, this was still improvised electronic music at its most human and least cloying, invested this time not with warmth, but with a frosty heart.
29. Fraud – Fraud (Babel)
With a strikingly unconventional line-up (no bass, baritone guitar and two drummers!), Fraud proved one of British jazz’s most enticing prospects for some time. This debut was unpredictable and unstoppable in its foraging for new sounds. The chattering, intricate dynamic, chiefly dictated by Tim Giles’ unstoppable, constantly interjecting percussion, provided much more than a fleeting source of excitement.
28. The Broken Family Band – Hello Love (Track and Field)
The cherished cult indie heroes changed direction slightly with this fourth long player. They mostly abandoned both their gently parodic take on country and its more aggressive punk-infused counterpart in favour of some more sincere musings about love and loss. These songs were certainly earnest, but they were also unsparingly candid and unsentimental, and frequently wise in their conclusions and platitudes. There also seemed to be a new sophistication in both production and performance, resulting in ‘Hello Love’ being the group’s strongest and most satisfying work to date.
27. Marnie Stern – In Advance Of The Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars)
Marnie Stern certainly took no prisoners with her furious, rapid fire, passive-aggressive music. Yet there was also a gift for melody lurking beneath the confrontational poise and the battering-ram assault. These shockingly immediate songs may well prove highly durable. Stern’s strong and distinctively feminine artistry was occasionally reminiscent of a more avant-garde Sleater Kinney. ‘In Advance of the Broken Arm’ has ushered in a fascinating and thrilling new talent.
26. Apostle of Hustle – National Anthem Of Nowhere (Arts and Crafts)
Anyone who thought Yeasayer were unique amongst Western groups in incorporating world music influences should head here. Andrew Whiteman’s project is one of the very strongest of the Broken Social Scene axis (certainly more interesting than Kevin Drew’s slightly underwhelming ‘Spirit If…’) and this is a dense and ambitious album characterised by intricate arrangement, subtle melodic craftsmanship and rhythmic dexterity. It’s adventurous rock music, striving admirably to push this still young musical form in exciting new directions.
To be continued...
Aesop Rock still remains one of my favourite rappers, and he hasn’t yet really put a foot wrong. His language is flighty, verbose and unconventional, and the music never settles for the familiar. Instead, it veers across all sorts of unpredictable, occasionally even uncomfortable terrain, and the results are visceral and exciting. Like his kindred spirits in the Anticon collective, Aesop Rock infuriates those who like their hip hop baser and more aggressive. Yet, if this is a genre based largely on poetics and voice inflections – why should it not incorporate wild flights of fancy and imaginative whims just as much as gritty dissections of reality?
49. Antibalas – Security (Anti)
This one seemed to miss the radar of most UK publications, but it’s a rather joyful and exuberant contemporary take on Afrobeat. Merging the preoccupations of Fela Kuti with the more cerebral outlook of Tortoise (whose John McEntire produces and mixes the entire set), this is a multicultural extravaganza of rhythm and feel. It’s tightly organised, but also thrillingly raw, burningly intense and organic, driven in equal parts by the crisp rhythm and horn sections.
48. Cinematic Orchestra – Ma Fleur (Ninja Tunes)
Here’s an album that has grown on me considerably over the course of the past few months. This is perhaps because it’s Jason Swinscoe’s most subtle musical statement to date – now as enthralled with folk music as with jazz and hip hop. It’s a lighter, more vulnerable record than its predecessors, and a sweetly intoxicating one too. Fontella Bass again guests, apparently now quite unwell, and her damaged but undefeated vocals are quietly devastating. Elsewhere, the intricate shuffle rhythms and slow building atmospheres are masterfully handled. There are some exquisitely judged contributions from some of London’s finest jazz musicians, including keyboardist Nick Ramm and percussionist Milo Fell.
47. Basquiat Strings – Basquiat Strings feat. Seb Rochford (F-IRE)
Whilst Seb Rochford is certainly a crucial figure here, underpinning the music with subtle brush strokes and a uniquely sensitive swing, this is really Cellist Ben Davis’ project. Rightly nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, but inevitably denied its deserved victory in favour of the far more superficial Klaxons, this album is an original fusion – chamber music that grooves.
46. The Bad Plus – PROG (Heads Up)
Now that The Bad Plus’ power trio reversions of rock classics have lost their novelty value, there seems to be an increased risk of taking them for granted. This surely neglects the group’s remarkable technical ability, and their own creative impetus. Over the course of their last couple of albums, their original compositions have become more muscular, occasionally even fiery, and they polyrhythmic invention on display on ‘Prog’ is mind-boggling. Of the interpretations, David Bowie’s ‘Life On Mars’ becomes even more theatrical through a merciless extension by pianist Ethan Iverson and Tears For Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ is imbued with reflective regret.
45. Susanna – Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos (Rune Grammofon)
Oh Susanna! What icy elegance, what subtlety, what restraint! I don’t even have any idea what Susanna looks like, but her voice is one of the most beautiful and alluring sounds to pass my ears in the last couple of years. If last year’s album of perverse covers with her Magical Orchestra hinted at Susanna’s singular vision, this absurdly titled ‘solo’ work realises this with purity and majesty. These songs are supremely understated and their grief and sadness cuts through the austerity of the arrangements.
44. Paul Motian, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell – Time and Time Again (ECM)
Paul Motian’s bassless trio is one of the most original groups in contemporary jazz. Frisell and Lovano seem like radically different musicians on paper. Lovano is well-versed in jazz language and produces a masterful, dominating sound. Frisell is more interested in the intersections between jazz and American folk music, and his trademark sound is more atmospheric and spacey. Yet Motian directs them into a very free and liberating creative space where, whilst restraining some of their more individualistic tendencies, they integrate in a quite remarkable symbiosis. Motian’s drumming is a language all of its own – his nimble, elongated strokes are unique among modern drummers.
43. Pharoahe Monch – Desire (SRC/Universal)
In spite of his breathtaking arrogance, after eight years of almost complete silence, Pharoahe Monch made one of the most taut and least indulgent hip hop albums in some time with ‘Desire’. It’s audacious in the extreme – how odd it is that hip hop seems the one genre of music so supremely personalised that covers are unthinkable. Monch destroys these casual assumptions with ingenuity with his version of Public Enemy’s ‘Welcome To The Terrordome’. In its genre-busting, cerebral force, ‘Desire’ seems almost like a lost classic from an earlier era, but it’s also so savage and confrontational as to resemble nothing else. He’s not shying away from key issues here – ‘Desire’ deals with gun crime, war and poverty amongst other weighty subjects. It’s an attacking, unrepentant blast from a major talent now thankfully back in the game.
42. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand (Rounder)
It was extremely irritating that all attention was focussed on the superficial Led Zeppelin reunion at the expense of either its chief motivation (the sad death of Atlantic records founder Armet Ehrtegun), or their frontman’s superb contemporary work. Plant is clearly determined not to let Zep get in the way of this fascinating collaborative project (he plans to tour with Krauss next year), but it was always inevitable that it wouldn’t have quite the same commercial impact. Plant has been delving deeper into his musical heritage over the past few years, the result being a complete diminution of rock posturing in favour of sensitively handled interpretations of an American folk canon. That Plant can immerse himself in this world convincingly is testament to his thorough understanding of the music. Whilst Krauss can sometimes be a little pristine or twee in her own work, she sounds more otherworldly and compelling here, and the combination of her voice with Plant’s is surprisingly exotic. With a band that includes the consistently innovative guitarist Marc Ribot, things were never going to get too conventional – and there’s a dark undertone to many of these inspired reworkings.
41. Okkervil River – The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)
Will Sheff continued his blisteringly intense, highly literate songwriting mission on this powerful collection, mixing brutality and tenderness in equal measure. He’s an absolutely superb lyricist, full of ideas delivered in the form of narrative prose-poems rather than conventional verse-chorus-verse songs. His vocal delivery is also savage and impassioned, although he’s increasingly capable of exercising restraint too. Once again, the arrangements were sublime, and his carefully constructed world completely absorbing.
40. Jim Hart’s Gemini – Emergence (Loop)
Those privileged few ‘in the know’ about London’s jazz scene would no doubt assert that the self-promoting Loop Collective represent one of the most promising prospects in some time. Yet Jim Hart’s Gemini, alongside Outhouse, are one of only a handful of their bands to get funds together for national tours. In spite of this, there’s not a great deal of publicity about them, and little recognition that ‘Emergence’ is one of the most confident British jazz albums of the year. Hart is a drummer and percussionist, but he concentrates exclusively on vibraphone and marimba here. He combines creative composing with adventurous improvising. There’s also a remarkably strong rapport between the musicians, driven along nicely by the swinging drumming of Tom Skinner.
39. Supersilent – 8 (Rune Grammofon)
One feels there’s probably as much myth as reality about Norwegian free improvisers Supersilent. Do they really not communicate with each other aside from making this completely unplanned music? It seems unlikely – but, as with all their previous releases, there’s a weird and unforced alchemy to this manipulated, twisted electronic noise. If anything, ‘8’ seems a little more focussed than their previous output, with each track single-mindedly developing a clear idea to its logical conclusion.
38. Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam (Domino)
Animal Collective have progressively been restraining some of their more gonzo tendencies in favour of a more infectious sound that has become increasingly saccharine. ‘Strawberry Jam’ is therefore the perfect title for this sweeter-than-sweet set, but their handling of this jaunty, chirpy music somehow keeps it firmly on the right side of the fine line between insistent and irritating. There’s still a madcap experimentalism at their core, and with some surreal imagery and highly unusual sounds, they delivered their most boundlessly joyful, blissfully lysergic statement so far.
37. John Surman – The Spaces In Between (ECM)
Very little frustrates me quite as much as the notion that Classical and Jazz are mutually exclusive musical disciplines. As Hugh Masakela exclaimed at a recent London concert: ‘It’s not true that a symphony orchestra can’t swing!’. John Surman, one of British jazz’s finest talents, has long been honing his brand of part-composed, part-improvised chamber music. ‘The Spaces In Between’ is another collaboration with double bassist Chris Laurence and the Trans4Mation String Quartet, and may be the best example yet of this peculiarly effective cross-breeding. The music is richly melodic, elegiac and touching, and the quartet accompaniments veer from the languid to the surprisingly sprightly. Best of all, there’s plenty of space for exposition, and Surman has rarely sounded more in control, drawing a tremendous range of sounds from his range of saxophones and clarinets.
36. The Field – From Here We Go Sublime (Kompakt)
Whilst I’m really no techno expert, every so often there’s an album that passes within my radar and makes me wonder what I’ve been missing. In spite of the music’s US heritage with the likes of Derrick May and Jeff Mills, most recently, these albums have mostly emerged from Europe. Laurent Garnier’s ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’ was an almighty classic and a couple of years ago, Isolee’s ‘We Are Monster’ enthralled me with its elegant constructions. Now Swedish producer Axel Willner has produced one of the most captivating electronic albums of 2007. Some have emphasised that this album shares as much with the shoegazing techniques of My Bloody Valentine and Ride as with the minimalist work of Steve Reich or indeed Mills and May. ‘From Here We Go Sublime’ is not really about clever beats (it’s almost entirely four-square), but more about mood, texture and atmosphere. Willner weaves subtle changes into his cumulative repetitions with skill and craft.
35. Erik Friedlander – Block Ice and Propane (SkipStone)
The Cello is still rarely used as an improvisational instrument, which is odd given its depth, versatility and resonance. Yet Erik Friedlander is the highest ranking of three Cellists to appear in this list. He’s one of the instrument’s master technicians, both in ensemble format and as a solo artist, as on this remarkable recording. He has collaborated with artists as diverse as John Zorn and Courtney Love and clearly has little respect for conventional musical boundaries. Sometimes his sound his harsh and grating, sometimes it is dreamy and languid. Perhaps most interesting of all is his deconstructed blues pizzicato, by which he makes his instrument sound more like a guitar. Much of this is folk music, but it is folk music completely revitalised, and imbued with a wonderfully childlike and naïve curiosity.
34. Mavis Staples – We’ll Never Turn Back (Anti)
Ry Cooder brought his magic production touch to this collection of protest songs from the determinedly gritty former Staple Singer. ‘We’ll Never Turn Back’ demonstrated modern America could still sustain a fiery tradition of rebellion and saw Staples sermonising tirelessly against injustice wherever she saw it. Revitalising these civil rights songs so that they now applied to the impoverished and abused anywhere, she imbued her music with a righteous energy and powerful sense of community.
33. Stars Of The Lid – Stars Of The Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline (Kranky)
This is some of the strangest, most haunting and beautiful music of the year, yet it achieves this by abandoning most established musical conventions. There’s little melody or harmony and no real underlying rhythm at all – the music instead relies solely on drones and pulses, with only very slight variations in tone and pitch. Yet the bizarre song titles suggest they are not too po-faced in their approach, and the results strongly bear this out. There’s a powerful and entrancing mood, and a carefully controlled ebb and flow that takes this into weird and wonderful territory.
32. Nels Cline Singers – Draw Breath (Cryptogramophone)
Whilst the merits of Wilco’s ‘Sky Blue Sky’ divided opinion somewhat, few could argue with the extraordinary vision and talent of their lead guitarist. With an effortless mastery of the fretboard, Nels Cline is a fearsome improviser rooted in both rock and roll and free jazz. ‘Draw Breath’ is an audacious and thoroughly engaging record, with some lengthy extrapolations that take numerous risks and raise the tension to fever pitch. The group’s name is a quirky misnomer though – there’s no singing whatsoever!
31. Sylvie Lewis – Translations (Cheap Lullaby)
With a slight taste for whimsy and a genuine enthusiasm for a songwriting tradition incorporating cabaret, jazz and musical theatre, Berklee-trained Sylvie Lewis proved one of the major discoveries of the year. Deceptively light and airy, many of these songs were sweetly observed and contained real wit and emotional substance. Her voice, always admirably restrained, never exaggerated or overstated her themes. With a talent for drawing convincing characters and imbuing them with much of her own endearing personality and charm, Lewis remains one to watch.
30. Fennesz Sakomoto – Cendre (Touch)
The combination of Christian Fennesz’s laptop guitar manipulations and Ryuchi Sakomoto’s lingering, unresolved piano chords created a haunting and melancholy atmosphere. Whilst not quite as singularly brilliant as Fennesz’s ‘Endless Summer’, this was still improvised electronic music at its most human and least cloying, invested this time not with warmth, but with a frosty heart.
29. Fraud – Fraud (Babel)
With a strikingly unconventional line-up (no bass, baritone guitar and two drummers!), Fraud proved one of British jazz’s most enticing prospects for some time. This debut was unpredictable and unstoppable in its foraging for new sounds. The chattering, intricate dynamic, chiefly dictated by Tim Giles’ unstoppable, constantly interjecting percussion, provided much more than a fleeting source of excitement.
28. The Broken Family Band – Hello Love (Track and Field)
The cherished cult indie heroes changed direction slightly with this fourth long player. They mostly abandoned both their gently parodic take on country and its more aggressive punk-infused counterpart in favour of some more sincere musings about love and loss. These songs were certainly earnest, but they were also unsparingly candid and unsentimental, and frequently wise in their conclusions and platitudes. There also seemed to be a new sophistication in both production and performance, resulting in ‘Hello Love’ being the group’s strongest and most satisfying work to date.
27. Marnie Stern – In Advance Of The Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars)
Marnie Stern certainly took no prisoners with her furious, rapid fire, passive-aggressive music. Yet there was also a gift for melody lurking beneath the confrontational poise and the battering-ram assault. These shockingly immediate songs may well prove highly durable. Stern’s strong and distinctively feminine artistry was occasionally reminiscent of a more avant-garde Sleater Kinney. ‘In Advance of the Broken Arm’ has ushered in a fascinating and thrilling new talent.
26. Apostle of Hustle – National Anthem Of Nowhere (Arts and Crafts)
Anyone who thought Yeasayer were unique amongst Western groups in incorporating world music influences should head here. Andrew Whiteman’s project is one of the very strongest of the Broken Social Scene axis (certainly more interesting than Kevin Drew’s slightly underwhelming ‘Spirit If…’) and this is a dense and ambitious album characterised by intricate arrangement, subtle melodic craftsmanship and rhythmic dexterity. It’s adventurous rock music, striving admirably to push this still young musical form in exciting new directions.
To be continued...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)