Music Reviews In 2007

Here's your cut-out-and-keep guide to the albums covered in this year's postcards.

January
Steve Hillage - Fish Rising
Brian Groder - Torque

February
David Toop - Sound Body
Keith Tippett - Live At Ruvo
Ghost - In Stormy Nights

March
Jesu - Conqueror
King Crimson - The Collectable King Crimson Volume II
Bobbie Gentry - The Best of the Capitol Years
Jakob - Solace
Maria Kalaniemi - Bellow Poetry
Pixies - Surfer Rosa

April
The Fucking Champs - IV
PG Six - Slightly Sorry
Cream - Fresh Cream
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced
The Who - The Who Sell Out
Richard Hell & The Voidoids - Blank Generation
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Black Sabbath - Volume Four
The Moody Blues - Live at the BBC
Nirvana - Unplugged
Deep Purple - Deep Purple In Rock
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
Deep Purple - Machine Head
Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde

May
Various Artists - A Breath of Fresh Air: Harvest Records Anthology
Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet
REM - Murmur
REM - Green
Mudhoney - March To Fuzz
Van Der Graaf Generator - Real Time
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
U2 - War
Motorhead- No Sleep 'til Hammersmith
Fairport Convention - Live at the BBC
Tuner - Pole

June
The Groundhogs - Thank Christ For The Bomb
Lou Reed - Berlin
Nick Lowe - At My Age
Kamelot - Ghost Opera
Battles - Mirrored
Anne Briggs - The Time Has Come
Robert Fripp - At The End Of Time

July
Alog - Amateur
Nick Drake - Family Affair
Trees - On The Shore
The Rolling Stones - Singles Collection
Peter Green - Supernatural
Asia - Fantasia Live In Tokyo

August
Various Artists - Insane Times: 25 Psychedelic Artyfacts from the EMI Vaults
Jefferson Airplane - Sweeping up the Spotlight
Soft Machine Legacy - Steam
Stephen Stills - Just Roll Tape
Keith Tippett - Ovary Lodge
Chris Squire - Fish Out Of Water
Jethro Tull - Live In Montreux 2003
Peter Hammill - Reissues
Weather Report - Mysterious Traveller

September
Siouxsie - Mantaray
David Sylvian - When Loud Weather Buffeted Noashima
Eric Clapton - Clapton Is God
Yes - Live At Montrueux 2003
Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True
Scott Walker - And Who Shall Go To The Ball?
Manfred Mann - Down The Road Apiece
McDonald & Giles - McDonald & Giles
Wooden Shjips - Wooden Shjips

October
Lou Reed / Zeitkratzer - Metal Machine Music
Michael Hurley - Ancestral Swamp
King Crimson - The Great Deceiver
Sandy Denny - Live at the BBC
Herbie Hancock - River:The Joni Letters
Jim White - Transnormal Skiperoo
Gavin Harrison & 05Ric - Drop
Various Artists - Migrating Bird - The Songs of Lal Waterson
Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts
Fripp & Eno - Beyond Even
Centrozoon - Lovefield
Pink Floyd - Ummagumma
Hugh Hopper - Numero D'Vol

November
Cary Brothers - Who You Are
Quiet Sun - Mainstream
Various Artists - Greasy Truckers Party
Jonty Semper - Kenotaphion
Six Organs Of Admittance - Shelter From The Ash
Morrissey - Your Arsenal
John Stevens & Evan Parker - The Longest Night/Corner To Corner
Joe Zawinul - Brown Street
Theo Travis - Double Talk
Andrew Keeling - Blue Dawn

December
Quatermass - Quatermass
Egg - The Metronomical Society
Jenny Owen Youngs - Batten The Hatches
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera
Samuli Karjalainen & Eeron Grundstrom - Crosscountry 50 KM
Great Lake Swimmers - Ongiara
Spring - Spring

Testing For Buzz XXVIII:1968 And All That IV

My parents watched a lot of television and I saw lots of programmes which I probably shouldn’t have. Strictly speaking, Public Eye starring Alfred Burke, as the down-at-heel private detective, Frank Marker, held little in the way of incentives for a kid. Character-driven stories with almost no action sequences at all. And although I probably understood about 10% of what was happening on the screen, I have such strong memories of enjoying this show.

Other programmes such as The Rat Catchers, Gideon’s Way, No Hiding Place had their thrills and spills but Public Eye and Alfred Burke’s subtle performance and these quirky stories in the hero didn’t always manage to save the day, stole a march on them all.

I think what I was enjoying was the frisson that this was proper television for grown-ups. I was gingerly setting one step outside the playground.

The Best Of The Rest In 2007

Here’s a list of some of the other albums that got a hammering over the course of 2007 here in the yellow room. In no particular order…

Keith Tippett - Ovary Lodge
An exciting, dramatic rollercoaster ride in the company of some of the 70s UK jazz scene’s brightest players.
Read more...














The Rolling Stones - Singles Collection
Too diffuse to be an effective greatest hits package, it’s a perfect celebration of their mastery of the singles format
Read more...














Weather Report - Mysterious Traveller
Brimming with dazzling invention, every piece catapults them into new dynamic territories.
Read more...













Various Artists - A Breath Of Fresh Air
A great label and some great tracks
Read more...













Hugh Hopper - Numero D'Vol
The smouldering title track opening the album sets the bar about as high as it could go.
Read more...














Quatermass - Quatermass
They could've given ELP a run for their money.
Read more...













Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True
His aim is still true after all these years. Brilliant stuff.
Read more...













Brian Groder - Torque
Just named as Downbeat's "Best of 2007", it's good to Torque.
Read more...













Jesu - Conqueror
There’s a surprisingly striking richness contained within Jesu's abrasive, brooding textures.
Read more...













Maria Kalaniemi - Bellow Poetry
If fellow Finn, Kimmo Pohjonen is said to be the Hendrix of the instrument, then Maria can be credibly claimed to be its Erik Satie.
Read more...














Lou Reed - Berlin
It remains unsettling, uncompromising and just as real now as it was all those years ago.
Read more...














Samuli Karjalainen & Eero Grundström - Crosscountry 50KM
Evocative themes with a wistful edge into spacious improvisations.
Read more...













Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Indispensable warts-and-all stuff that set the benchmark.
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Van Der Graaf Generator - Real Time
A most glorious, hair-raising racket
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Soft Machine Legacy - Steam
An album that can stand next to its illustrious forebears.
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Cary Brothers - Who You Are
An impressive debut from a singer songwriter who has been drawing comparisons to David Crosby
Read more...
















Steve Hillage - Fish Rising
The jewel in the crown of the Hillage reissues this year
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The Return Of The Toxic Tome

Debbie and I spent a portion of the morning figuring out the year ahead and even touched upon some New Year resolutions.

Elsewhere, a fighting fund for the Sid Smith tour of America 2008 was established and, not entirely unrelated to that, the terms of reference for the revision expansion and rewriting of the King Crimson biography book were formally identified today.

Areas to revise – the many mistakes, errors and omissions
Areas to expand – the social context of the music’s various eras
Areas to re-write – the whole kit and caboodle

I’ve been listening to lots of Can today. I saw them live a few times (including the time when Damo was in the band) and subconsciously connected them to Crimson at the time. Certainly in terms of the whole spontaneous composition issue, Crimso have more in common with Can than any of their regular contemporaries.

Elsewhere on the virtual whiteboard: to what extent is the story of King Crimson also the story of the rise and fall of the record industry?

Record Breaker...

In the post this morning...

These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things

Debra and I headed out to Newcastle's Central Station. We had in mind to have a day out in either York or Edinburgh (they're both one hour away on the train).

The train for York came in first, so we hopped on board, flying past Durham Cathedral on the way.


An hour later we got off in York and headed out to rendezvous with Betty's tearooms and several of York's second-hand bookshops.

Nominations For God XXI

Peter Blake

Street Life CI

Light and Dark

After the frenzy and fun of yesterday, Debbie and I found ourselves alone: Tom and Joe off to see their mother, Sam and Alys both at work, and Bernard, Lesley and gang back to Bernardstrasse.

Taking advantage of this I spent a good portion of the day reading this...

and listening to this...

Light and Dark indeed.

A Very Merry Christmas

A lovely day spent with Sam, Alys, Tom, Joe, Verity, Errin, Isaac, Bernard, Lesley and Debbie.

Testing For Buzz XXVII:1968 And All That III

Moral instruction can come from the most unlikely of sources. Georgie Fame’s “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde” from the previous year, with its cautionary tale complete with spiffing gun effects, got me fixated on the exotically named American gangsters such as Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, Bugsy Segal, Lucky Luciano, Legs Diamond, and their psychopathic ilk.

My learning curve hit a very steep incline indeed with the arrival of Crime Does Not Pay. It’s racy mixture of sex (descriptions of the scarcely attired gangster’s molls) and especially graphic close-ups of bad guys meeting a very bad end, had me enthralled and my mother horrified: I quickly learned to sneak them into the house under her radar.

I first saw this garish magazine hanging from little brass bulldog clips above the counter in Storm’s Bookshop in Wallsend. This was the place I visited as often as I could in order to get my hands on American import Marvel magazines (all second-hand and all totally out of sequence but better than the black and white UK reprints Terrific and Fantastic), Mad and Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Random Penguin I

1973
Cover design by Robert Hollingsworth

A Book Is For Life Not Just For Christmas

Here’s how one element of shopping for Christmas presents works. Tom tells me what he wants for Christmas: Money. Well that’s easy. However, I always think Christmas and birthday presents should be marked with a book just as they were when I was a kid.

Mind you, when I was about 8 years old, I recall peeling off the paper from a particularly weighty tome that my Gran Smith had proudly given me and discovering it to be the bible. When I’d asked for a book I had hoped for a ripping yarn of some kind. My Gran thought it would be more uplifting and useful in life than Treasure Island or From the Earth to the Moon However, the good book was anything but in my fug of disappointment and I still feel to sting of embarrassment as to how resentful I felt about getting this clunker.

A book is, as Anthony Burgess had it, a Box Of Organised Knowledge, and although Tom will readily read what is required for his school work but when it comes to leisure and pleasure, a book is the very last thing on his list of must-haves.

Yet despite knowing all of this, here I am stupidly traipsing around book shops looking for something to the Christmas cash in the vain hope it may catch him with his guard down.

Sid Smith's Top 25 Albums 2007

Terminally unhip and with more omissions than Conrad Black’s testimony to a jury, it’s a reckoning of the albums that have really connected with me, and me to them. Bonding with music is something that seems to get lost in the rush from one new album to the next. Sometimes it takes a while and sometimes it just doesn’t take at all, but here are the 25 that really made it into my increasingly spongy brain.

Some sit above others because it was great music to cook along to, or socialise with, or put a smile on my face, or make me think, or make me cry or fill my soul with hope, and in the case of Jim White’s Transnormal Skiperoo, all of the above. This is how the list sits today. Ask me tomorrow and most likely it would be different in terms of the running order but probably not content.

No.1 Jim White - Transnormal Skiperoo
Though the waters charted here will be familiar to veteran White watchers, newcomers can expect to be plunged headlong into a turbulent though ultimately uplifting baptism of discovery and wonder on his best album to date.
Read more...














No.2 Six Organs Of Admittance - Shelter From The Ash
Never needlessly showy, Chasny makes everything count, fashioning a beguiling order from a sometimes snarling chaos of free-jazz storm-front drumming, clouds of squalling distortion, and some of the most plaintive ballads you'll hear this year.
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No.3 Egg - The Metronomical Society
If proof were ever needed of the incredibly fertile times that existed in the music scene back in late 60s and early 70s, this exemplary archive release would make an expert witness.
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No.4 Trees - On The Shore
If the sleeve is emblematic of the times then so too is the music it houses, hailing from a time when the gap between rock and folk was being closed, when the distance between traditional material and new writing was also being narrowed.
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No. 5 Robert Fripp - At The End Of Time
Upon vast canvases composed from solemn strings, Fripp adds shining lines of aching harmony and small strokes of melody filled with the kind depth that can only comes from nearly 50 years of dedicated service to an instrument.
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No.6 Keith Tippett - Live At Ruvo
In what amounts to a brisk survey of some of the best writing to emerge from the British jazz scene in the 70s and beyond,this is a full-blooded fiesta brimming with grand tunes and cutting-edge performances.
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No.7 Stephen Stills - Just Roll Tape
With personal problems and indifferent releases marring his later career, this first-rate release reminds us just how absurdly talented Stephen Stills really is.
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No.8 Nick Lowe - At My Age
Guaranteed to bring a smile to lips and your toe a-tapping, with its accessible brace of soul, country, rockabilly and pop, At My Age is Lowe’s effusive celebration of the finer points of his craft. Masterful stuff.
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No. 9 John Stevens & Evan Parker - The Longest Night/Corner To Corner
Crisp, brittle notes and strokes are rapidly gathered like so much kindling and then set ablaze by the telepathic interplay that comes from a couple of careers spent listening carefully not so much what was going on around them but what could be happening instead.
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No.10 TUNER - Pole
Rock textures, acid-folk nuances, astringent experimentation and post-rock ephemera all add up to something that is both sensual and cerebral at the same time.
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No.11 Joe Zawinul - Brown Street
Brown Street is a reminder of just how accomplished an artist Joe Zawinul was. He couldn't want for a better memorial to his thrilling abilities than this 2 CD set.
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No.12 Great Lake Swimmers – Ongiara

Hovering at the centre of it all, Tony Dekker’s woebegone voice with its combination of yearning fragility and breathless wonder, conjures an image of Neil Young and Paddy MacAloon’s paths crossing on an otherwise deserted, windswept prairie. Quietly impressive.
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No.13 PG Six - Slightly Sorry
Don't underestimate this clutch of unassuming songs. With each play they grow in stature gradually taking on the mantle of slow-burning classics.
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No.14 Theo Travis - Double Talk
Adventures in Prog-Jazz! It’s a difficult tightrope for any jazz player to walk, but the sure-footed progress displayed throughout Double Talk, Theo Travis makes it look and sound effortless.
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No.15 Michael Hurley - Ancestral Swamp
Despite the stripped-back sound (or perhaps because of it), Ancestral Swamp is a rich affair, filled with the considerable presence of a man who’s been around some and has a bag full of tales he wants to tell you.
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No.16 Herbie Hancock - River: The Joni Letters
Hearing him trace the patterns of Mitchell’s melodic threads and explore the enthralling spaces in between is to catch a real glimpse of heaven.
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No.17 Jenny Owen Youngs - Batten The Hatches
It’s an assured and sophisticated piece of writing performed with intensity, positively aglow with passion and an almost scary precision.Bearing in mind that this is her debut record, that she’s finding this kind of form so early in her career is simply astonishing.
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No.18 Andrew Keeling - Blue Dawn
With a luminous clarity, Keeling probes for that startling, fresh beauty residing within the mundane, and which leaves us breathless when we find it. Magnificent.
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No.19 Sandy Denny - Live at the BBC
Filled with loving care it houses the radio (and tv) output of a woman who has become the stuff of legends and fevered reveries.
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No.20 Siouxsie - Mantaray
To borrow a well-known expression, all voices are unique but some are more unique than others. Velvet-smooth and scalpel-sharp, Siouxsie’s back in town.
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No.21 Wooden Shjips - Wooden Shjips
With a technique that owes as much to sculpture as it does playing guitar, Erik “Ripley” Johnson layers long stellar notes with an almost autistic enthralment, relishing each fold and crease of the shrieking assemblage emanating from his amp.
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No. 22 Chris Squire - Fish Out Of Water
As reissue projects go, this is everything you wish for: decently packaged and priced with tons of extra features though the real juice is just where it always was, with the music itself.
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No. 23 Anne Briggs - The Time Has Come
The stunning purity of her voice cuts to the heart of the matter with the precision of a scalpel. This is one case where the hype doesn’t really do her body of work justice.
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No.24 Fairport Convention Live at the BBC
The most comprehensive anthology yet boasting everything that is known to exist from the official archive and off-air recordings, brought together in one easy-to-use set spread over 4CDs.
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No.25 Bobbie Gentry - The Best of the Capitol Years
The woman who walked out of the star-making machinery. If you only know Gentry through “Billie Joe” then this set is great place to get to know her a little better.
Read more...

Nominations For God XX

Joni Mitchell

Spring Spring

A Collection of Antiques & Curios...
Spring
Spring
Repertoire

Formed in 1970, Spring were a hopeful quintet going about the thankless task of playing to punters who most likely were there to see the band on afterwards. A chance encounter with the owner of Rockfield Studios in Wales led to them recording their one and only album. Tapping into the burgeoning underground scene, there are no less than three players credited with playing Mellotron.

You might think that this alone would be enough to ensure that Spring came with a copper-bottomed prog-rock guarantee. Although producer Gus Dudgeon lavished a great deal of attention in attempting to furnish these songs about war, love and loss with a contemporary feel, however generously upholstered with those eerie strings and wispy flute sounds, the material inside comes across like a poor man’s Barclay James Harvest.

Despite the best efforts of guitarist Ray Martinez (later to work with Robert Plant and, er, Showaddywaddy) and the rock-orientated vocals of Pat Moran (whose future career as a producer would encompass the likes of Lou Gramm and Iggy Pop), the problem lies not with the production or playing but with the songs themselves, sounding as though they were written at the height of the Summer of Love at its cash-in worst.

Had it actually been recorded in the 60s, Spring might well be hailed as a minor proto-prog classic. As it is, by the time RCA released it in 1971 on their underground Neon imprint, it would have sounded hopelessly dated next to the prog competition of the day. Reproduced in a handsome looking LP facsimile gatefold, mini-poster, three bonus tracks, and some truly sumptuous Mellotron throughout, this one is for hardcore collectors only.

Great Lake Swimmers Ongiara

Light As A Feather
Ongiara
Great Lake Swimmers
Nettwerk

Now this is what I call an album of ambient music. No, I’m not talking some cerebral, remote-control synthi-droneathon but the acoustic and electric sounds rebounding against such terminally old-fashioned surfaces such as wood and glass.

The third album by Canda’s Great Lake Swimmers – the vehicle for songwriter Tony Dekker – was recorded in the beautiful environment of the Aeolian Hall in London, Ontario. Revealingly, the examples of the peerless acoustics offered on the venue’s own website include a Shostakovich piano piece and “Your Rocky Spine”, the first track from Ongiara.

Site-specific recordings aren’t a new fad for this outfit. Their first self-titled album (2003) was recorded in a grain silo, whilst Bodies And Minds (2005) was laid down in a church. The resulting sound from this venerable Ontario venue is crisp and clean but with plenty of warmth to it – especially when played at a bit of volume.

Whilst borrowing some trappings of country music, Bob Egan’s pedal steel, Erik Arnesen’s melancholic banjo and Serena Ryder’s winsome backing vocals, evoke a landscape of unadorned beauty that’s about as far removed from the well-worn shtick associated with the hat acts and rhinestone starlets of that genre as it’s possible to imagine. Sadcore, ambient folk, alt-pop, nu-country – call it what you will, there’s a magical presence on this record that defies categorisation.

With no sign any unnecessary preening throughout the 43 minutes which these ten songs occupy, in essence they’re gently mesmerising chamber pieces, performed in an articulate but utterly uncluttered fashion. There’s no studio “fairy dust”, fade outs, or any artifice of that kind. “Changing Colours” has a honed poetic electric guitar solo by Arnesen that is as stirringly magnificent as it brief, whilst Egan’s ascending pedal steel guitar echoes and embodies the lyric’s observation “I was heavy, but now I am light” on ‘I Became Awake.’ Simplicity really is the ultimate sophistication.

Hovering at the centre of it all, Dekker’s woebegone voice with its combination of yearning fragility and breathless wonder, conjures an image of Neil Young and Paddy MacAloon’s paths crossing on an otherwise deserted, windswept prairie. Quietly impressive.

New Blog On The Block

Earlier in the day there came an email from Bernard. He's created his own blog. Hurrah! Aside from being my best buddy when I was a kid, and my brother in law, Bernard is also my better half on our graphic novel, The Scent of Cinnamon. You can take a look by going to In A Silent Way. Tell him I sent you.

Ornulf Opdahl

The last few days have been unbelievably busy work-wise leaving very little time for time out with Debra. We’ve been passing like ships in the night lately. Business in Newcastle provided an opportunity to take in the about-to-end Winter Landscapes exhibition at the University of Northumbria Gallery.

There were some very fine evocations of the spectral winter air from a variety of artists most of whom were new to me. However, the star of the show (and the real reason for my visit) was the contribution from Norway's Ørnulph Opdahl.

To fully appreciate Opdahl’s ability to capture the texture of the season you really have to see his large canvasses. However, this was a group show and so consisted of a few small oils and a dozen or so lithographs.

I felt my pulse quicken when I saw one going for what I thought was £100.00. Thankfully I realised the error in my placing in the decimal point before hurtling up to the desk to place an order and being told it’s £1,000.

Anyway, you don’t really get a clue from this scan of the invitation card but here’s a detail from Fjord Village.

Samuli Karjalainen Eero Grundström Crosscountry 50 KM

Crossing The Divide…

Crosscountry 50 KM
Samuli Karjalainen & Eero Grundström
Aania

Whilst it’s true that there are indescribably high mountains of utter crud out there on the internet I can honestly say I would not have come across this sparkling catch without the aid of the web.

When I first heard the opening track from Crosscountry 50 KM (“Tutelko?”) it was one of those magical encounters in which the crystalline beauty the tune made me stop whatever it was I was doing at the time. Once snared, I spent the rest of the afternoon enthralled by its poignant simplicity.

Formed in the Spring of 2007, tin whistle and flautist Samuli Karjalainen and harmonium player / multi-instrumentalist, Eero Grundström, the two players specialise in leading off from evocative themes with a wistful edge into spacious improvisations.

Occasional use of electronics lends a circumspect modernity to the proceedings: the gentle “Siperia” is punctuated by reverb-washed percussion; similarly on “Kehto the autoharp-like kantele radiates between the burrs of sonically enhanced harmonium. Think Radio 3’s Late Junction show and you’ve got a sense of this album’s subtle use of modern production techniques.

Firmly rooted in the Finnish and Celtic traditions (Samuli gained a small following whilst studying music in Ireland), it’s easy to imagine these tunes drifting to us all the way from fire-lit ancient evenings. A real winter warmer if ever there was.

You can get this album from here.

Testing For Buzz XXVI:1968 And All That II

It's April 1968 and I've just heard Julie Driscoll singing "This Wheel's On Fire." Even before she opened her lips to sing, my body has gone cold with the sound of Brian Auger’s icy piano arpeggios twirling around the chilled sustained chords of the Mellotron. My spring had turned to winter in the space of a few seconds.

And then the voice: seductive, sexy but in no way simpering. She was taking charge. She wasn’t asking you anything but telling you straight - just how it was, how it is, and how it was going to be from this moment onwards. “If your memory serves you well…” she purred.

Later in the song the voice opened up and a different kind of power emerged. Still under that unflappable control, it now gained a harsher edge as the song moved into the chorus before being consumed in a swirl of studio chicanery.

Like any good trick you always want to know how it’s done but to gain that knowledge risks breaking the spell – and I knew, even then in 1968, I wanted the magic to continue. From that moment onward I was utterly hooked by an infatuation that has yet to subside.

The Listing Time

Today I was up and out of the comforts and charms of the yellow room and heading off to Bernard and Lesley’s house.

The reason for this house-sitting was to let some roofing firm access to a pesky leak whilst B&L went off to go and pick up their daughter, Errin, up from college in Northampton.

The approach to Bernardstrassse...



Bernardstrasse itself (complete with ghostly mist-like strands which were not visible when this picture was snapped)...

An hour into my early morning vigil the firm rang to say they weren’t going to make it because of transport problems. I could believe it when they said the van wouldn’t start because it’s extremely cold in Whitley Bay at the moment – certainly the coldest I’ve experienced for…well, a long tim

From there I walked into Whitley Bay to try and get my head around the fact that Christmas Day will soon be upon us and not unreasonably, people in our house will be expecting a present or two.

Even if I was totally oblivious to the impending festivities the game would be given away by the sheet numbers of delivery men and couriers who’ve been nipping up and down our street in the last week. Online purchasing has definitely taken a hold if our neck of the woods is in any way representative.

The sooner I get a Christmas list together and get on top of this situation the more agreeable the day itself will be.

Elsewhere, it occurred to me that I should compile a “best of” list for the blog, highlighting those platters that have set my toes a-tapping over the last 12 months. Hardly original I know but all part of a natural desire to make sense of the listening experience of a year. And who doesn’t like a list at this time of the year?

Robert Wyatt Comicopera

The End Of An Era?

Comicopera
Robert Wyatt
Domino

Such is his status as a left-field national institution, to even consider committing the thoughtcrime of being underwhelmed by a Robert Wyatt album I feel I ought to do the decent thing and hang myself from the nearest lamppost.

The guilt associated with this feeling is compounded considering that all the elements of Wyatt’s revered position are essentially present and correct; the aching bitter-sweet melancholia of his voice, that endearing uneven lope of his fragile homespun songs, the pained honesty of his performances.

However, as good as these components are, and despite the presence of some great songs (“AWOL” is surely one of his very best), the sense of momentum and resolution that characterised Rock Bottom, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard and Schleep is never quite replicated or achieved here.

Perhaps it’s to do with the presence of some bitty, somewhat pedestrian filler getting in the way. The lacklustre “On The Town Square” sounds tired rather than joyous. Similarly just as the pace picks up, a rather vacuous processed vibes/steel pan solo by Orphy Robinson (“Pastafari”) saps the precious tension created by the preceding pensive build of “Cancion De Julieta”.

Whilst generally being a touch more accessible than his previous Cuckooland, the three-act structure of Comicopera doesn't do it many favours, stretching out an agreeably minimal palette to the point where it’s spread a little too thinly.

A Cold Start With A Happy Ending

A very cold morning in Whitley Bay despite the winter sun. Although it's Saturday, Debra is off to her place of work to support a fund-raising day.


When her bus arrives to whisk her away I head into Whitley Bay to pick up some bits and pieces for tonight's planned festivities. We've invited neighbours John, Jude, Dave, Julie, Thomas, Leonie, and Bernard and Lesley around for some nibbles and a drink.

Debra and I spent a most of last night in the kitchen preparing various bite sized morsels but a little more fine-tuning is required today.

On the way into the town centre there was a lengthy queue stretching out of Grainger Games. It was just past 9.00 a.m.

Back home, I busied myself with bread making, a spot of hoovering and playing along to Ongiara, the fabulous new album by Great Lake Swimmers. A telephone call from Bernard suggests I should open my email.

When I do I am greeted by Nez.

A nightmare sequence is ready and awaiting my words. Nez is in the dastardly clutches of the terrorist organisation, CUSP - the Committee for the Unilateral Separation of Pugo. Don't believe me? See for yourself!

And then, later in the evening...

Nominations For God XIX

Bobbie Gentry

Jenny Owen Youngs Batten The Hatches

A Drop Of The Hard Stuff

Batten The Hatches
Jenny Owen Youngs
Nettwerk

You’re never quite sure where you are with this woman from New Jersey. Fresh and warm like summer sun one minute, then as biting as stinging frost on a winter morning the next; the weather with Jenny Owen Youngs can be stormy indeed.

Her candour, as she chronicles the dark side of relationships, is unflinching. “I seen the way you eye me up like a chunk of meat gone bad / like you were wishing I was something still worth having that you could go ahead and have” (‘Coyote’).

And don’t let her fondness for cuss words fool you into thinking that she’s some new kid on the Indie block ranting about self-harm with a perma-sneer to match. Her waltz-time dissection of falling in love when maybe you shouldn’t (‘Fuck Was I’) is viscerally direct and free from histrionics. Though a deserved hit on myspace and Youtube, her fondness for everyone’s favourite Anglo-Saxon expletive will nix any chance of mainstream airplay.

On stage she her tippy-toe agitation keeps things engagingly unpredictable. Thankfully the album captures this and the supple grace of the arrangements compliments her ever changing moods. Strands of pop, (‘From Here’) and country (‘Porchrail’ and the smiley ‘P.S’) are fluently exercised. She even takes a redemptive swing at rap artist Nelly’s ‘Hot In Herre’, with a cover that cleverly subverts the over-inflated bump n’ grind.

There’s also surprising tinges of electronica in evidence. ‘Lightning Rod’ swoons on an undulating bed of sine waves and the eerie Portishhead-like ‘Woodcut’ has a woozy ambience that’s as unsettling as it is sexy. ‘Keys Out Lights On’ wouldn’t sound out of place on a Robert Wyatt album.

Interestingly, the most structurally ambitious song, ‘Bricks’, is also the album’s most affecting: a five minute, multi-sectioned odyssey co-opting Nick Drake finger-picking, tart strings and close-mic intimacy where she momentarily lets go of her inner ballad that’s always threatening to break free.

It’s an unbelievably poignant moment on this song about families and the sweet and sour nature of belonging but wanting (or needing) to be far away. It’s an assured and sophisticated piece of writing performed with intensity, positively aglow with passion and an almost scary precision.

Bearing in mind that this is her debut record that she’s finding this kind of form so early in her career is simply astonishing.

Baubles, Bangles & Beads

You know it's Christmas when...

Street Life C

Where are you going, mysterious traveller?

Egg The Metronomical Society

In Praise of Loony Tunes

The Metronomical Society Egg
Burning Shed

If proof were ever needed of the incredibly fertile times that existed in the music scene back in late 60s and early 70s, this exemplary archive release would make an expert witness. Having begun life as a covers band (Donovan, Hendrix and The Nice), keyboard player Dave Stewart, bassist and singer Mont Campbell, and drummer Clive Brooks quickly realised that they needed to find their own licks.

In abandoning their wannabe aspirations they came up with a uniquely British Heath-Robinson hybrid, precariously bolted together from a musical Meccano set that audaciously connected rock and classical motifs, jazzy phrasing and a noisome nuts and bolts from the avant-garde that was de rigueur back in the day.

More than anything Egg’s music had real personality and a likeable one at that. Comparable in part to the sounds emanating from the post-Ayers Soft Machine though Egg’s compositions were overtly complex and “serious” they were also capable of putting a smile on your face.

The close-knit humour evident in Mont Campbell’s witty lyrics (“Seven Is A Jolly Good Time” has to be one of the smartest songs about the metrical joys of what was then still called the underground scene) or the lightning-fast allusion to a popular TV show of the day (is just me or does “Enneagram” weave in a bit of the middle eight from the theme tune to Doctor Finlay’s Casebook?), was all an integral part of their dotty inventiveness and winning charm.

The package, with its glorious train-spotterly detailed sleeve-notes, collects vintage BBC sessions and four tracks lifted from an audience recording at The Roundhouse in 1972 and not heard publicly for 35 years: astonishingly these tapes have escaped the ravenous clutches of the bootleg or p2p crowd and thus are imbued with that added “wow!” factor.

In concert the band really packed a punch that wasn’t always evident from their studio albums. Often touring in the support slot to some big name act, Egg’s fleet-of-foot pace and their astute use of dynamics meant they could take on most impatient crowds and win them over. And if not, then the jabbing chords in “Long Piece No.3 Part 4” would surely keep even the most belligerent of punters pinned to the floor.

And when that failed, any anti-Egg rioting could reliably be averted with a rousing rendition of “I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside.”

All of which and a whole lot more besides is contained on what is without doubt an essential purchase for any fan of the Canterbury Sound. Army surplus trenchcoat and loon pants optional.

This album is available direct from Burning Shed.

Hear samples on the Egg archive myspace site.

Testing For Buzz XXV: 1968 And All That I

As a kid I was mostly interested in the usual stuff of childhood. But in 1968 the adult world began to encroach onto the periphery of my vision. I began to take notice of current events. The Vietnam War meant nothing to me except that occasionally there would be Julian Pettifer on the box reporting from a combat zone.

Even then I suspect I only listened up because the crack and thump of the ordinance around him didn’t sound anything like the zip and zing you heard in the WW2 movies, and therefore wasn’t "real."

Then came the Grosvenor Square demonstration outside the American Embassy in London. The TV coverage showed both sides having a go at each other – here was the generation gap drawn out in the starkest extremes.

That sense of polarisation was echoed in our house. My parents were outraged at the disgraceful behaviour of the long-haired young people with much talk about how a few strokes of the birch would have sorted them all out.

As I watched and listened I found myself in sympathy with students being mauled and manhandled. Given that I had zilch understanding of what they were demonstrating about, my support was entirely intuitive. However, whatever titanic political issues were involved, the real buzz catching my attention was that this was the first time I was conscious of dissenting from the views expressed by my elders and betters.

Street Life XCIX

This Sporting Life IV

Joe is not a happy camper today. The torrential rain, which began yesterday and apart from an hour at sunrise shows no sign of letting up any time soon, means his rugby match is cancelled. What better time then to sit back and rest upon his sporting laurels.

This is the local paper's report from last week's thrilling match...

Retail Therapy

If the cap fits...

Karlheinz Stockhausen 1928 -2007

Stockhausen epitomised all that was wrong and right in the world of contemporary classical music for me. Controversial and eccentric, he was prone to talking about receiving his music from the universal consciousness, scoring music for string quartets and helicopters, and writing operas that lasted a whole day! There was always an uncomfortable, gimmicky aspect to some of his work. However, he was undeniably a pioneer who threaded the fabric of modernity from strips of magnetic tape with music concrete pieces such as Gesang Der Junglinge and the minimalist electronica Telemusik.

Like most people of my generation Stockhausen came to my notice by word of mouth. One of the faces on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, he was often name-checked by musicians in the MM or the NME which eventually piqued one’s curiosity.

As with John Cage (another frequently named-dropped icon of the avant-garde back then), entering into his world was like walking into a vast auditorium filled with possibilities and spring-boards to other places and spaces. The sheer range and choice that Stockhausen’s music implied could leave you breathless and dizzy.

The piece of his that I kept coming back to throughout the years was the vocal work, Stimmung, whose ability to be both soothing and provocative made it utterly exhilarating. I wasted no opportunity to swank around telling people that I really dug Stockhausen, and it was great music to put on the record player when you wanted to clear the room or appear dreadfully highbrow and (you thought) sophisticated.

Notwithstanding such youthful prattyness, I didn’t always understand or like what I heard but I knew it was never going to be dull and I was well and truly hooked.

In the mid-70s my sister, Lesley returned from Heidelberg, Germany where she was living at the time and presented me with a huge vinyl box set of the epic Aus Den Sieben Tagen (now sadly lost amongst several house moves) and Jonathan Cott’s Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer was a constant companion, introducing me in some detail to the world of graphic scores, potentiometers and Stockhausen’s often bizarre but intriguing cosmology.

More than that it was a portal into other worlds of strange music, filled as it was with references to lots of other people I’d never of such as Jung, Varese, Boulez, Le Corbusier, Berio and concepts about timbre, serialism, microtones and all manner of incendiary ideas that quite literally blew my mind.

Stockhausen was a major artistic catalyst for me and like many others around the around the globe who came into contact with his work, my life was immeasurably enriched.

It was from reading about and listening to Stockhausen that I stepped off into the world of performing music, drafting my own graphic scores and eagerly presenting them to the experimental music workshops hosted at Wallsend Arts Centre in 1975 and led by Keith Morris.

The title of one of them, In The Stomach of God was lifted from Stockhausen’s recounting of one of his dreams, and used a text by Novalis (The Disciples of Sais) which Cott prefaced his book with, rightly believing it to be a perfect description of the man himself.

“He watched the stars and imitated their courses and positions in the sand. Into the ocean of the air he gazed incessantly; and never tired of observing its clearness, its movements, its clouds, its illuminations.”

Nominations For God XVIII

Gillian Ayers

The November Suite In December

Today saw a major change here in the yellow room. The three-piece suite Debra purchased on a whim last month has finally made its way upstairs.

I say on a whim because Debra when passing the newsagent in the town centre, she spied a postcard in the ads section of the window with a picture of the suite for sale at a knock-down price. Unable to resist a bargain, she telephoned the owner and the deal was struck right then and there.

This acquisition was not, as has been suggested in some quarters, the result of my desire to open up this room to lounging about. I do enough of that already, thank you very much. Nor should the arrival of somewhere pleasant to sit awhile be taken as any indication that I have softened in my resolve to keep pretty much everyone else in the house out of my office.

Originally intended for life in the red room downstairs, capricious as ever, Debra decided it was destined for higher office. However, between you and I, after being extremely sceptical about its purchase in November, I'm rather glad that Debra finally chose the yellow room as the final resting place of the new suite.

Elsewhere in the day, I talked on the blower to the Kenty Kimbrini about potential travel plans in August next year, and not entirely unrelated, a chat with Jakko wherein I caught up with his now bucolic life following his move from London.

Quatermass Quatermass

An Experiment That Nearly Worked…

Quatermass
Quatermass
Repertoire

Occasionally cropping up in proto-prog top 20 lists, Quatermass have suffered from being remembered more for the Hipgnosis-designed sleeve than the music housed inside it.

This is a shame really as this power trio of bass, drums and organ could well have given ELP a run for their money had things worked out differently. Unlike Emo and co, Quatermass’ show ended not long after the album was released on the Harvest label in 1970.

The group formed following the collapse of Episode Six, (caused when singer Ian Gillan left to join Deep Purple), the wheat was soon separated from the chaff during a series of heavy-inclined noodlings that left singer and bassist, John Gustafason, drummer Mick Underwood and keyboardist Peter Robinson to form Quatermass.

“Post War Saturday Echo” is typical of the album’s approach to structuring the songs. Beginning with a faux-classical bombastic bite, it moves through a slow-burning bluesy exposition then rushing headlong into a complex time signature that sounds not unlike the opening sections of ELP’s Tarkus – which at the time had yet to be recorded.

“Up On The Ground” and “Make Up Your Mind” showcases Robinson’s classically orientated organ playing with a series of gutsy solos, subtle use of synth and potently spacious orchestral arrangements on the ambitious ten minute “Laughin’ Tackle.”

The Achilles heel lies with the “ache in my head and I wanna go to bed” lyric which shows that Quatermass hadn’t entirely dispensed with straight-style rocking. Whereas Greg Lake’s vocals gave ELP a soaring quality, Gustafason’s range is up in the ball-clenching caterwaul category – a left-over from working with Ian Gillan perhaps. Certainly the Purple influence is up front and in-yer-face with the inclusion here of their single-only “One Blind Mice.”

Despite some major support slots in the States and Europe with Purple and Uriah Heep, financial problems and label disinterest saw the band split in 1970. Moving into session work (notably Roxy Music and Gillan for Gustafson and Shawn Phillips for the others), Quatermass quickly fell from memory and into the outer darkness of prog rock also-rans. Hopefully this reissue will help fuel their rehabilitation.

In Dreams Awake

Today has been another white-knuckled ride in the daily doings of a rock n’ roll writer. After tending to the DGMLive site this morning and some associated issues, and a couple of review pieces, I set about doing the thing I hate the most – paperwork.

As Ed Reardon would undoubtedly say at this point (through a cloud of toxic pipe smoke) “did Henry David Thoreau have to worry about such paltry issues?”

Of course not. Still, needs must etc.

When the paperwork comes a calling so to does it’s near neighbour, prevarication. My favourite form of prevarication is to go out into Whitley Bay and do the shopping.

Despite the arrival of iconic seasonal "good cheer" in the shape of this year’s town centre tree, it never really got light today.

On the way home I bumped into Bernard who was on his way to Cartridge World. “I’ve got something for you” he said brandishing a folder in which was contained a few pages of The Scent of Cinnamon.

“You get the biscuits and I’ll get the kettle on” I helpfully suggested. Twenty minutes later we were sat in the comfort of the Tellow Room and pushed around some issues regarding the project. Here’s another page in progress…

A good discussion with Bernard about the shortcomings and positives of the format we’ve chosen to work in; the revisions which are needed in the script are clearer to me now that we’re working with the visuals.

As Bernard was leaving, we bumped into a lovely sunset – easily the best part of the day.

I’m enjoying working with Bernard immensely on teasing out the details of the story and how we might plot the thing. As Henry David Thoreau so ably put it “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

Testing For Buzz XXIV:Jim Steranko

Alongside names such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko another favourite artist from my Marvel Comics passion was Jim Steranko. I think this one sums him up pretty well; Fantastic attention to detail; the merging of technology and the human form; a graphic representation of the huge drama in which agent Nick Fury is embroiled. Truly, this man is between a rock and a hard place.

Interesting to note that this cover from 1968 features an exploding Earth that bears an uncanny resemblance to the sphere gracing Roger Dean’s artwork for Fragile by Yes a few years later.

This Sporting Life III

Joe was busy on two sporting fronts this weekend. Yesterday, he was playing for Whitley Bay High School against Burnside. Both sides did well but Whitley went through to the next round. Several parents from Sundays at Rockcliff were on the line. We occasionally forgot who we were there to support and started bellowing "Rockcliff" in our excitement.


Here's the press clipping from last week's game published 29th November 2009...

Eagle-eyed readers will see that in my wide-eyed excitement I totally mixed up the scores. Sunderland slammed Rockcliff into the ground as per last time. It was Scarborough who narrowly beat the home team.

Several of us were worried that the heroic exertions of yesterday might tucker the kids out for today's Rockcliff vs Lanchester but we needn't have worried.




Although Lanchester took the lead throughout the first half, Rockcliff came back and fought their way into the lead and victory - I know it's not the done thing to boast about your own kids' triumphs but Joe scored a really great pile-driving try which had us all on the touchline jumping up and down like a bunch of ninnies.

Street LIfe XCVIII

The World of Nez

Remember Nez, the character who said hello a few weeks ago to readers of this blog?

Bernard has been busy working on a few drafts of the early pages of The Scent of Cinnamon. It was a real thrill to see Nez's world taking shape off my pages and on to someone else's.


As work progresses along , we'll be posting a few more sketches and drafts over the next few weeks before launching Nez and his adventures properly.



In the meantime click on the images above and take a look at the world Bernard is creating for our hero.