Sid Smith's Postcards From The Yellow Room: December 2008

Bruford & Borstlap In Two Minds
This latest release cannily culls moments and movements from live work undertaken in 2006 and 2007, and although the audience reactions are missing from the final edit of these vignettes, In Two Minds is nevertheless a powerful testimony to what the apparently simple act of putting two players in front of a crowd of enthusiastic well-wishers can achieve.
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Delta Saxophone Quartet Dedicated To You...The Music of Soft Machine
Combining the formidable firepower of the DSQ with some remarkably imaginative arrangements makes for a nostalgic cosiness leavened with the kind of rigour and fastidious detail that made the original music such a compelling earful.
In short: out-bloody-marvellous.
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DFA 4th
If you heard this album without being told who it was, even the most cursory knowledge of the Canterbury scene would lead you to conclude that you were being treated to some long-lost or previously unheard project by National Health or Gilgamesh.
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Helena Espval & Masaki Batoh
Given Espvall's previous form (specifically the abrasive, not to say, abusive extremes of her 2006 solo album Nimis And Arx) and Batoh's penchant for experimental, often atonal, improvisation it might have been expected that the sounds resulting from the pair would strip paint at a 100 yards. Instead they've come up with something beautifully fragile, remarkably melodic and dare I say it, charming.
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Emmylou Harris All I Intended To Be
Sound-wise, it’s a return to traditional acoustic country-tinged chimes rather than the luminous ambience that infiltrated Wrecking Ball and Red Dirt Girl but in common with those records, all of the songs presented sit within a vast, magnificently desolate landscape dotted here and there with heartfelt loss and the promise of a shimmering hope, somewhere down the road.
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Jethro Tull This Was
Embracing the broader vocabularies of progressive and folk styles was a brave move considering the Top Ten success of this debut release. By the time it came out they’d already moved on. “This is how we played then – but things change” Anderson wrote on the original liner notes in ‘68. Far-sighted words as it turned out. An overlooked but essential piece of Tull.
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Seth Lakeman Poor Man's Heaven
His song writing continues the gold-yielding formula of its predecessor with energetic strumalongs, voracious fiddles and a sparkling delivery that’ll do nothing to diminish his rising star.
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Nick Lowe Jesus of Cool
Nick Lowe distilled everything he knew about the art of writing songs and making pop music into Jesus Of Cool. And what he didn’t know, he made up as he went along with all the chutzpah of a quick-talking chancer who reckoned he was about to be shown the door at any moment.
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Memphis Slim Blue Memphis Suite
When veteran blues singer and pianist Peter Chatman – better known as Memphis Slim - wound up in London in 1970 to record Blue Memphis, he was accompanied by the cream of the UK’s jazz and blues musicians. The list of those luminary players still makes for giddy reading; Peter Green, Chris Spedding, Kenny Wheeler, Karl Jenkins, Henry Lowther, John Paul Jones, Nick Evans, Duster Bennett to name but a few.
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She & Him Volume One
All the ups and downs of young romance are faithfully recreated in loving fidelity and a variety of styles to evoke that teary-eyed yesteryear pop ambience.
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Valgeir Sigurdsson Ekvilibrium
Having worked with Bjork, the Kronos Quartet and Howie B (to name drop a few), in 2007 Icelandic producer and composer Valgeir Sigurdsson stepped out with a debut album that walks the tightrope between those sometimes conflicting worlds of acoustic and electronic music.
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Micah Blue Smaldone The Red River
But beneath the veneer of dusty Americana there’s a song-cycle carrying a heart-of-darkness travelogue filled with terse observations about the malevolent force within us all that slips off the leash with a depressing regularity.
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Strawbs Dragonfly
Produced by Tony Visconti, this is a vivid and lovingly etched pastoral sequence. Joined by Claire Deniz, whose soaring cello is marshalled by sparse but effective arrangements, the rapidly maturing coherence and authority of Cousins' writing distinguishes itself from the somewhat scattergun debut.
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Underground Railroad Sticks And Stones
Cooking up a cocktail of guitar noise is always going to invoke Jesus Mary Chain or Velvet Undergound and whilst such echoes can be found in tracks such as "Stuff In Your Pocket," there’s also the terrifying pop-clarity of the Beatles/REM style mash-up of "Kill" – surely one of the best singles of the year! Irresistible thumping avant-pop.
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Various Artists Spirit of Joy
Given enough time the roster of any record label becomes one large family. For every high achiever and popular personality, there’s a bricked-up attic full of eccentrics, loveable rogues, and outright black sheep kept away public gaze. All told, another welcome trawl through the archives of the major labels by the team that brought you the Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal, A Breath of Fresh Air etc.
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Monday, December 29, 2008

Sid Smith's Top Albums of 2008

Terminally unhip and out of touch as ever, here's what I rate as being perhaps the best music I heard in 2008. Being incorrigibly retro, not all of it dates from this year and there are a couple of albums I've received in 2008 which would have made the list (Soft Machine's Drop and Paintbox's Bright Gold and Red) but properly belong to the new year ahead.

So, here they are in alphabetical order...

Nik Bartsch's Ronin - Holon
Above all else, the Reich-like runs and fussy circulations have at their core a cavernous funk-like pulse making this some of the most esoteric dance music there is!
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Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago
The strength of this set is found in the unflinching clarity of a musical vision that transcends styles to create something utterly enthralling from start to finish.
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Jack Bruce Spirit - Live at the BBC
It’s difficult to think of another UK musician emerging out of the blues boom of the 1960s so fully conversant with prog-tinged songs, free-form jazz and fusion-based rock - just some of the ground covered here.
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Howlin Rain Magnificent Fiend
Despite the constant echoes of another time, somehow Howlin Rain emerge very much themselves, with songs that stand up to scrutiny and repeated listening. Arguably the best album I never heard in my teens it really is magnificent stuff.
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Shelagh McDonald Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
Hovering somewhere between Sandy Denny’s gusto and Anne Briggs’ fragility, her blend of covers and original material is accompanied by the likes of Keith Christmas, Fotheringay’s Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway and Keith Tippett...deserves to be sitting next to your Nick Drake or Sandy Denny collections.
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Jim Moray Low Culture
The thing is though, Jim Moray really is every bit as good as they claim, and his fourth album continues a roll of good tunes and canny choices that many artists much longer in the tooth would give their right arm for.
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No-Man Schoolyard Ghosts
The sustained air of woebegone reverie with its masterful blend of voice, surges of orchestral strings and icy ripples of retro-sounding guitar suggests that Schoolyard Ghosts is not only No-Man’s finest album to date but is arguably the post-rock equivalent of Sinatra’s Only The Lonely. It really is that good.
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Mike Osborne Trio All Night Long
Alternating between a focused and precise articulation on the one hand and a furious abandon on the other, Osborne's outpouring is truly astonishing in its fervour and melodic reach. Constantly on the boil, All Night Long is a high point in a career that was sadly only occasionally captured for posterity.
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School of Language Sea From Shore
Fluent and impressive, you have to wonder why more music produced these days can’t be as joined-up, challenging and as informative as this.
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Bryan Spring Trio The Spirit of Spring
Whether he was laying down ferocious jazz-rock grooves with Ian Carr’s Nucleus or swinging like there’s no tomorrow with various Stan Tracey line-ups over the years, seeing Bryan Spring in concert was akin to watching a magician pull off a baffling trick: no matter how close you got it was impossible to figure out how he was doing it.
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Travis & Fripp Thread
The manner in which the darker timbre of Travis’ alto flute conspires with Fripp’s somewhat austere string settings ensures the prevailing atmosphere is the right side of chilly rather than the wrong side of chill-out.
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Alexander Tucker Portal
At times it could be the outtakes from the best album that Tiger Mountain-era Brian Eno and the seminal avant-rock terrorists, This Heat, never made.
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Tuner Muut
Operating primarily as textural manipulators rather than individual soloists, Mastelotto and Reuter are capable of producing unholy dance-groove rackets one minute and sublime moments of transcendence the next.
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Various Artists Strange Pleasures
the range, pace of change, and vaulting ambition that’s spread across each of the three CDs makes for fascinating and very often surprisingly exciting listening.
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Woven Hand Ten Stones
Raw, uncompromising and visionary, this is magnificent rock music striking out from the sea of mediocrity that is much of the indie rock scene these days. An essential must-hear/must-have record, Woven Hand creates powerful, potent and thrilling waves.
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Sunday, December 28, 2008

It's Not As Bad As It Looks...

It's worse!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Retail Therapy In Edinburgh

Despite feeling like I'd been run over by a steam roller (i.e. sore throat and general flu-like grogginess) such is my dedication to culture, I looked forward to spending a day in Edinburgh with Debra. The purpose of our visit was to see an exhibition of work by painter Gerhard Richter. Oh, and visit FOPP. The thought of scoping the Richter and scooping up whatever FOPP had to offer was enough to send the fug of illness into retreat.

It's a long established tradition that whenever we visit Newcastle's Central Station, Debra always visits Costa Coffee and we endure the sub-arctic conditions, which are a feature of the station no matter what the time of year, as we pretend to be part of the cafe society.

Our train rolled in the appointed time and we boarded finding our seats, settling back and letting the train take the strain. Only it wasn't our train as as a bemused but very pleasant conductor called Dave informed us twenty minutes later. It seems there were two different trains going to Edinburgh leaving within five minutes of each other.

It also seems that we weren't the only ones to make the same mistake, evidenced by the now hugely over-crowded train with punters filling up the vestibules, ailses, and if they could have squeezed into them, the luggage racks. So we spent the rest of the journey wobbling about from left to right like extras in Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea but enjoying ourselves nevertheless.

Edinburgh was bright and nippy. As we left Waverly Station we spied the Balmoral Hotel where Debra and I once spent an indecently luxurious evening way back when in our courting days.

We walked the short distance along a busy and apparently recession-proof Princes Street (past my favourite Thunderbird 3 look-alike monument) toward the National Gallery.

We were here to see this exhibition by Gerhard Richter, and thanks to this link sent to me by Mr.CBQ, you can too!

I hadn't realised just how epic some of his abstract paintings are, huge things occupying an entire wall. Like this one, my favourite of the entire show.

Close up, you really can see the way in which the paint is layered and scraped back- lots of collisions and mixed messages clammering for attention. Stunning stuff.

Moving from room to room, the stylistic leaps Richter covers are huge. This was Debra's favourite and about as far away from the above picture as its possible to get.

As Debra observed afterwards, Richter's paintings "take some peering at." She's not wrong. Musing in the shop afterwards, I couldn't make up my mind as to which Richter book to get and so we decided to come back later after our next foray.

Our destination was none other than FOPP in Rose Street. It's long been a cause of much chagrin in the Smith household that a branch of this outlet isn't a bit nearer to home. Mind you, Debra said this lack of local FOPPery gives us an excuse to visit Edinburgh more often and that can't be a bad thing can it?

By the time we emerged dusk was descending on the city. The view along Rose Street was stunning...

as was the view along Princes Street...

Back to the Gallery where I picked up a copy of Richter's Atlas.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Boxing Day Rendezvous

Along to Bernardstrasse for a seasonal drink with the Quinns

followed by yet more opening of presents and then a walk along the sea front...

Happily for us, the Rendezvous Cafe was open and doing a brisk trade...

Nominations For God LXXIII

Robert Mulligan

Thursday, December 25, 2008

A Very Merry Christmas

The day began with a Christmas cuppa...

and proceeded to discarding the superfluous...

A sentiment whole-heartedly endorsed by a visiting Ginger Bob...

A somewhat reduced Christmas day party in numbers made up for with in the frequency of their yuletide toasting!

Street Life CL

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Last Minute...

It’s typical isn’t it? Just when I’m feeling smug about having done all my Christmas shopping ages ago, yesterday we realised that we were a crucial purchase missing. So, I had to mount an early morning raid into Newcastle.

Of course by the time I’d done various chores around the house it wasn’t that early and I took a packed Metro into town. Evidence of the recession was everywhere to be seen, by which I mean I was able to walk anywhere I wanted without feeling like I was part of some vast herd. I visited three shops and in two of them there were no queues at the tills. In the one that was busy the queue took no time to clear.

I called in at Lesley’s place of work to complete an item of family business, and then went into a comparatively deserted Grainger Arcade, and from there the Metro back to the Bay. Once in, I turned on the radio to hear the mid-day news that Zavvi had gone into administration. As I walked past this morning I was startled at how empty it looked. It could be that everyone in the north had done their shopping early and were at home watching Alistair Sim movies and nibbling a luxury mincepie, but I doubt it.

This is one of several images that came via email from artist Martin Hoogeboom this week.

Martin has been responding to some words I'd sent him for next year's The Confessions of the Sputnik Kid project.If you’ve not seen his work before then I urge you to take a look at his blog.

Tonight I’m helping Debra prepare for our meal tomorrow. It’ll be a quiet affair compared to last year as Tom and Joe will be at their mother’s house for Christmas (their first without their maternal Grandmother). Doris (Debra’s mum) will be joining Sam, Alys, Debra and myself.

On the musical front I’ve been listening to the new / forthcoming Steve Wilson album Insugentes. Tom stopped by earlier and gave it a thumbs up – "Mixtape" by No-Man is one of his favourites so perhaps this isn’t such a surprise. I was delighted to discover that Ken Hyder had left a message on my review of his album with Talisker, Dreaming of Glenisla which has been getting heavy rotation here in the Yellow Room as well.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Street Life CXLIX

Random Penguin L

2003
Front cover photograph: A Red Army soldier in
the street-fighting for Berlin, end of April 1945

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Testing For Buzz L 1968 And All That XXI

40 years ago today Apollo 8 set sail for the moon. It's difficult to explain to someone who wasn't around at the time just how big a deal this momentous take-off was. A tin can with three humans inside was going to leave our world behind, travel a greater distance than any other persons in the entire history of our planet, and come back and tell us about it!

The logistics and resources needed to make all of this happen were staggering. Still are staggering when you consider it. Not yet having succumbed to cynicism at that stage in my life, my excitement found expression in drawings, press clippings, and trying to cram every fact about the men and the hardware that was going to make it possible into my head.

This is also my favourite mission badge of them all. It beautifully captured the purpose of the mission (to get to the moon and get back folks) and the designated number. What a neat piece of integrated design!

Friday, December 19, 2008

Street Life CXLVIII

Nominations For God LXXII

Linda Thompson

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Ken Hyder's Talisker Dreaming Of Glenisla

Going back to his roots
Dreaming of Glenisla
Ken Hyder’s Talisker
Reel Recordings

With most jazzers of his generation using a mode of expression that was essentially American in nature, drummer Ken Hyder dug deep into his Scottish culture for inspiration and a change of direction. When it was released on Virgin’s Caroline label in 1975, the results didn’t sit well with many critics of the day. This might be down to the irreverent air created by the use of diddlin’ songs - a traditional form of Celtic scat singing - and Hyder’s tendency to adopt an unsettling dada-esque vocalese with a pronounced Scots twang.

Yet the original album is replete with gorgeous moments of languid serenity – the reverie of Davie Webster’s alto or the silky lines from John Rangecroft’s clarinet and tenor on the title track and the mournful “Lament For Mal Dean” overflow with warmth and passion.

The linkage between intertwining Celtic melodies and the fast-moving post-bop/ Ayler lines isn’t too much of a stretch. Elegiac jazz one moment, free-form jigs and reels the next, in bolting together two different traditions in such an unfettered manner, Hyder may have confused audiences of the day but created an album which still sounds startling and different.

We live in an age that nowadays thinks nothing of cross-cultural collaborations, but Ken Hyder got there before everyone else – only the culture he was exploring was not deemed hip enough for the jazz scene and not folky enough for those on the other side of the fence.

The original album comes with a bonus session from 1976 material impressive session from a year. Once again on a mix of original and traditional tunes, Rangecroft’s clarinet stands out as something ineffably sad but strangely uplifting.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Words And Music X: Graham Nash And David Crosby

They might not be as hip as Neil Young but when you listen to these two singing the effect is just breathtaking. Even if you know the song (it's Guinevere) just take the time to listen to what they are doing here. Graham Nash's control on the high harmony is nothing short of brilliant. I get the shivers every single time they go into that last verse.

The Day Today

Opening the door at 7.30 a.m. to get a package

Shouting at the radio and the piece about selling off of the Post Office

Shouting at the screen after reading this piece sent to me by Sean Hewitt

Laughing out loud at this piece on last night’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Dealing with the tail end of some correspondence with Steve Wilson

Talking to my son who is off school today

Talking on the blower with a pal whose business has been affected by the downturn

Writing the opening moments of The Confessions of the Sputnik Kid

Emailing Martin Hoogeboom ideas and drafts re the above

Pitching a couple of ideas to prospective clients

Giving my niece the key to her parent's house

Writing a review

Reading through various lists of top albums of 2008 and feeling so out of the loop. Last year I did my Top 25 list . Not so sure I'll be able to do anything like that number this year.

Trying to figure out how I can get Podcasts From The Yellow Room into production

Drawing up a list of objectives for 2009

Cooking an evening meal for the family

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Ray Russell Secret Asylum

Taking No Prisoners…
Secret Asylum
Ray Russell
Reel Recordings
“Stained Angel Morning,” opening this 1973 album, has an acoustic guitar and sweet flute lilting through a gentle, eastern-tinged ballad. A minute later, and the pastoral air previously suggested is curtly dispelled by the fractious ensemble that includes trumpeter Harry Becket and tenor sax player, Gary Windo squawking for all they’re worth.

This headlong plunge from ornate themes into turbulent free-form sorties sets the tone for the rest of the record in which the diligent rhythm section of double bassist Daryl Runswick and drummer Alan Rushton rumble and tumble below the outré sonics of the frontline protagonists. Russell, one of the best kept secrets of the British jazz scene, is primarily throwing out oblique FX-squalls that add to an already frenetic and dense Jackson Pollock-style palette that is their adoptive mode.

Though the individual players here are beyond reproach, their abstracted runs often sound as though they’re in competition rather than co-operation with each other. Unforgiving and certainly uncompromising it may be but anything in which Russell is involved is always worth a punt.

It’s bizarre to think that the acerbic strangulated screams emanating from this guitar come from the same man who would eventually be writing incidental music for TV cops, A Touch Of Frost and Bergerac.

Random Penguin XLIX

1998
Jacket photograph: Red Army soldiers of Rodimtsev's 13th Guards Division
advancing in the ruins of Stalingrad

Monday, December 15, 2008

Shelagh McDonald Let No Man Steal Your Thyme

Lost and Found...
Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
Shelagh McDonald
Sanctuary
Like Syd Barrett before her, the story goes that Shelagh McDonald had one bad acid trip too many and disappeared from the music scene in 1972 leaving behind just two albums. Unheard of since 1970s, her whereabouts have been the subject to much speculation and whispered adulation. When this compilation was originally released in 2005, she was still missing presumed lost in the woods. That same year, possibly prompted by the interest generated by this release, she resurfaced, talking about restarting her career.

What we have is all the songs and scraps resulting from McDonald’s brief forays into recording studio. The first two tracks - taken from a 1969 BBC folk scene anthology– are fairly leaden folk and blues songs in which the singer sounds awkward and uncomfortable, and it’s not until her self-titled 1970 debut that she starts to really shine.

Hovering somewhere between Sandy Denny’s gusto and Anne Briggs’ fragility, her blend of covers and original material is accompanied by the likes of Keith Christmas, Fotheringay’s Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway and Keith Tippett.

By Stargazer (1971), McDonald is producing quality folk-rock material with an equally top-drawer cast of cameos from Danny Thompson, Ray Warleigh, Dave Mattacks and Richard Thompson, etc. Although obvious echoes of Joni Mitchell can be heard on the airy breeze of “Rod’s Song” and the moody Blue-like chords of “Lonely King”, there’s a timbral Joe Boyd/ witchseason richness on tracks such as the six-minute “Odyssey” and the title track (possibly influenced by The Nice’s cover of “Hang Onto A Dream”) is furnished with opulent orchestration and resplendently spectral choirs beautifully arranged by Robert Kirby.

Of the two records, it’s Stargazer which is the real keeper but they both deserve to be sitting next to your Nick Drake or Sandy Denny collections. With both being long out of print, this set puts them back where they belong, alongside extensive alternate takes, rarities and everything from her abandoned third album.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

The Winter Winds They Do Blow

This morning Lesley rang and asked if I wanted to go to Warkworth with her today. Ten minutes later we were in the car heading north up the coastal route. Warkworth holds a special charge for Lesley and myself. As children we used to spend a lot of time here. These visits at weekends and during the summer were something of an idyll, happy times as Lesley recalls, and a contrast the to constraints and tensions of everyday life back at home.

Our visits stopped upon the death of our Grandfather – one loss reinforcing and underscoring the other. All these years later we are still paying homage to those times. The mood isn’t maudlin but celebratory. We were lucky to be able to have enjoyed such beautiful surroundings, and it’s this that we take in when we look at the views, piecing together fragments of memories such as the smell and noise of the byre, blackberry picking, gathering mushrooms, running through fields and lanes, creating dens and hidey-holes, and on and on.

Today the landscape was in the vice-like grip of a cold, cold day upon which the light only gained the most fleeting grasp.

On one side of Berry Bank water bubbled up out of the mulch, rolling down the bank in little rippling circles.

Berry Bank was where we scattered my mother's ashes in 2006. We both agreed that Doreen would have approved of this seasonal water feature.

The nagging cold easily penetrated our winter layers causing us to head back to Lesley's car and from there, away from Bank House cottages and to Warkworth itself.

After wandering around the riverside a while (encountering voracious ducks!) we finally sat down in an eaterie that was new to us, called Cabosse. On the evidence of what was presented to us, I believe the word cabosse might well mean "sweet tooth heaven." If you're looking for good service and even better choclate-related goodies then look no further.

Homeward bound...

Back at the ranch, I donned the pinny and cooked a big Sunday roast for soon-to-be-assembled team.

Debbie and our guests -Peter and Kevin - spent the day in Tynemouth market. Joe spent his at a mate's house (following a sleepover), Tom spent the day in bed having been out the night before, and Alys had been into Newcastle to see Yoko Ono at the Baltic. She bought home some Ono memorabilia from the day.

Al was unconvinced by the Fluxus-based arty shenanigans and shrugged when I mentioned that Ono (whatever one thinks about her work) was something of a legend.

Tomorrow morning, houseguests Peter and Kevin are off to the Baltic to take in the Ono exhibition en route back to Birmingham.

Tonight, as Debs, Peter and Kevin head of to the pub for a final drink, I watch the wonderful Outnumbered on catch-up. This has been one of the best family sit-coms I've ever seen. Great cast (especially the children) and superb writing from Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

They Came From Birmingham...

The last houseguests of 2008 arrived last night. On the left, Lord Beige himself and to his right, Kevin S.

They may present as models of restraint and decorum but these old pals of Debbie plan to raid restaurants, public houses and market stalls with appetites that would put a plague of locusts to shame.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Street Life CXLVII

Nominations For God LXXI

Gerhard Richter

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Happy Birthday Joe

Today Slipknot came to town. I'd bought Joe a ticket for the gig as a birthday present back in September and he's been impatiently counting the days down to tonight ever since. Lesley picked me up in the Mirthmobile at around 9.30 pm and we took a careful drive up roads that were incredibly icy all the way in.

Once we'd parked up I headed over to the Metro Radio Arena - a vast shed of a place. The last time I was here was to see Bill Bailey in concert last year and the time before that was to see Peter Gabriel in 2004.

I arrived a little early and so walked inside. Remarkably, one of the staff held the door open for me and I waltzed in like Lord Muck of the Manor. This meant I was able to catch the encore and throw up the horns - or whatever it is they say these days.

From where I stood the sound was muddy and mostly all in the mid-range. As far as I could tell, the venue (which was 95% full) went apeshit regardless. Oh, and the drumkit not only turned upside down but it revolved as well.

Joe had arrived early with his pals and (he told me later) had secured places down at the front. Thus maximum moshing was achieved. In the mêlée that followed, one of Joe's pals (either Dale or Dawson) had lost a shoe.

I met Joe and pals at the pre-arranged point and we began the long trek back to Lesley's car. The ground underfoot was treacherous before hand and made worse with a freezing fog. It wasn't much better in the car and Lesley being the careful driver she is took it easy.

After dropping Dale and Dawson at their respective houses in Whitley Bay, we motored around to the end of our street. Thanking Lesley for her unflinching act of familial solidarity, we got back home. Joe's ears were ringing, his voice was hoarse and he was bruised from head to toe. Or as he put it as we sat in the kitchen after midnight, "This has been the best day of my life!"

Three In A Row XIII

Fairport Convention 1968

What We Did On Our Holidays 1969

Unhalfbricking 1969

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

School Of Language Sea From Shore

Speaking In Tongues ...
Sea From Shore School Of Language
Memphis Industries

Filled with explosive and eclectic invention, there’s never a dull moment in Dave Brewis’ first solo project after stepping outside of Field Music. Along with his brother Pete (who notched up his own solo outing with That Was The Week That Was), Brewis is intent on creating a brainiac juke-box that is encyclopaedic in scope and unwilling to be penned into any particular category or box you care to mention.

Bristling with ELP-sampled syths, thumping fusillades of reversed drumming, shoals of dreamy piano and lots of tricksy George Harrison sliding past Steve Howe-style guitar, what might sound like a worst-nightmare mess on paper, in practice is a kaleidoscopic tour-de-force. Although it’s informed and influenced by the past, Brewis proves to be no slave to retro fashions. Rather, he’s a passionate advocate of following impulsive threads and creative decisions no matter where they lead, no matter how obscure the course or outcome.

The shimmering elegance of "Keep Your Water" is reason enough to fall in love with this album but there are plenty of other moments to send the shivers racing down your spine. The block-tackle slam of "Rockist" (parts 1 – 4 no less, all you prog-pop pickers!) has the assorted density of Bill Nelson’s solo rock albums but never forgets how to connect at a visceral level; "Disappointment 99", for example, has the heart of Robert Palmer but the head and feet of a belligerently rowdy King Crimson.

This caustic, genuinely experimental appetite present throughout Sea From Shore demonstrates the very rigour that’s missing in vast chunks of the Indie rock scene to which Brewis nominally belongs. Fluent and impressive, you have to wonder why more music produced these days can’t be as joined-up, challenging and as informative as this.

This review originally appeared here.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Street Life CXLVI

Random Penguin XLVIII

1975
The cover shows a detail from 'Nant-Y-Gio Iron Works', a watercolour by George Robertson in the National Museum of Wales

Monday, December 08, 2008

Passing On

Given its proximity to our everyday lives, you’d think our relationship with death would be easier than it is. No matter how expected a passing might be, breaking or receiving the news of the death of a loved one is always a journey into unknown territory.

Tom and Joe’s maternal grandmother died this morning after a long and difficult fight with cancer. After speaking with their mother it was agreed that I would tell them the news when they got in from school.

For them this is the beginning of a new part of their lives. The boys have now lost all their grandparents, all of whom played a significant who played a significant and vitally important part of their childhood. My heart goes out to them.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Los Gauchos Alemanes Commendatore

Take Your Pick…
Los Gauchos Alemanes/Commendatore
Possible Records
With Los Gauchos Alemanes emerging out of Robert Fripp’s Guitar Craft bootcamp in 1992, and Commendatore coming into being around 1999, this mixture of live and studio tracks spans seven of those years and show all sides of both groups personalities; hard-edged riffing, angular runs, splenetic bursts of noise and some truly cute melt-in-your-mouth moments that are almost shocking in contrast to some of their brutal bed-fellows.

Despite their associations with the often overly sombre Guitar Craft extended family, this record is also lots of fun with plenty of laughs and tumbles in it – especially a cracking cover of the Mission Impossible theme!

Although both line-ups have fluctuated over the years, Hernan Nunez is the one constant factors in the groups. His pop sensibilities (also explored in an off-shot duo called Santos Luminosos) are well to the fore in compositions that evoke gentler guitar heroics of the 50s and early 60s.

Focussing upon the power of simple melodies and dramatic resolutions make an album about tunes rather than any displays of technique and their attendant pyrotechnics. Despite their associations with the often sombre Guitar Craft extended family this is also and with lots of laughs and tumbles in it.

You can hear samples of this album over their Myspace site

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Isotope Golden Section

Perfectly proportioned...
Golden Section
Isotope
Cuneiform Records

There are some groups whose studio albums never quite managed to capture or convey the essence and chemistry of the music. Mid-70s jazz-rockers, Isotope, certainly fall into this category. Their self-titled debut album from 1974 suffered from a muted boxy feel, and though their sonics were vastly improved on the follow-up records, Illusion, and their final cut, Deep End (1975), they still lacked the snap and crackle that was so evident in concert. Whilst Isotope At The BBC (Hux, 2004) was a move in the right direction, it’s only now with Cuneiform’s excellent Golden Section that we have something approaching the definitive account of this criminally under-rated group.

Recorded in 1975 on a date for Radio Bremen between Illusion and Deep End, the quartet of guitarist Gary Boyle, drummer Nigel Morris, keyboard player Laurence Scott and bassist Hugh Hopper are joined (for 6 of the 13 tracks) by percussionist Aureo de Souza and immediately create fireworks. Whilst the influence of the Mahavishnu Orchestra was always obvious in their work, this set often has them stretching out into the implied funk of Sweetnighter-era Weather Report.

Boyle’s darting runs spar with Morris’s persisent dead-eye grooves, yet managing to leave enough space for Hopper’s prowling fuzz bass and Scott’s FX-enhanced electric piano stabs to bring both atmosphere and tension.

Given the top-flight quality of the knotty compositions, fiery extemporisation and soaring musicianship throughout, how do we account for the largesse which American fusion proponents are increasingly granted against the opprobrium that is still the lot of yer ‘umble jazz-rock merchant from dear old Blighty?

More details about this album can be found over at Cuneiform Records

Friday, December 05, 2008

Nominations For God LXX

Clive James

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Street Life CXLV

Three In A Row XII: Talking Heads

More Songs About Buildings And Food
1978

Fear Of Music
1979

Remain In Light
1980

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

I'll Give You My Heart: The Cherry Red Singles Collection 1978-83

The importance of being earnest...
I'll Give You My Heart: The Cherry Red Singles Collection 1978-83
Various Artists
Cherry Red

Who'd have thought that a label so associated with the late 70s/early 80s new wave movement took its name from a track by the Groundhogs or that label boss Iain McNay would be standing in line at Buckingham Palace in 2005 talking to Prince Philip about The Dead Kennedy's classic toe-tapper "Too Drunk To Fuck." These are just two fascinating facts that come from a box set that is nothing less than a beautifully packaged slice of British social history spread over eight CDs.

It covers a period of profound change in which young people in the UK were coming to terms with Mrs. Thatcher's Conservative’s brand of realpolitik on the one hand, and the fall-out from the punk culture wars and its attendant musical vacuum on the other. The subsequent sense of disaffection found expression in a creative outpouring which the label simultaneously exploited and helped stimulate.

The music appearing on Cherry Red between 1978 and the mid-80s has a wildly schizophrenic aspect from one release to another. Thus you get bizarre collisions of style and taste; consumptive synth-driven doodlings by the likes of Thomas Leer and The Passage; 60s-style harmonies in Staa Marx's "Crazy Weekend" and their bizarre B-side mash-up of The Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday"; the Hollywood Brats' wholesale pre-empting of Oasis; the cardigan-wearing tentative troubadours such as Tracy Thorn and Ben Watt in their pre-fame phase; the agit-prop anger of Atilla The Stockbrocker railing against, well, everything.

After the brutal reductionism of punk had finally thawed out, folks were up for a bit of experimentation and there’s no shortage of people wanting to make scraps of obtuse noises into songs. No bit of tape is left unlooped by the wilfully obscure and eerie electronica outfit Five Or Six, represented by a whopping 16 engrossing tracks, with their top-flight mournful thrumming, dissonant sound sources and chippy drum machines.

Only projects curated or performed by Morgan Fisher get more exposure across the 8 CDs. Fragments of his charmingly diverse (and recently re-released) Miniatures project are here (Andy Partridge, Robert Wyatt, Robert Fripp, George Melly, etc) as is his ludicrous cover of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" (performed in a West Country accent against dub reggae beats) which seems to have been released solely to provoke a wry smirkfrom John Peel.

That comedic streak is as much a part of the Cherry Red mix as any number of rowdy garage bands, mumbling girls with guitars and spotty lads making bleeps with cheap synthesisers. It’s impossible not to be tickled by Monochrome Set’s marvellous boy-meets-girl-stickiness-ensues observational humour of "The Mating Game" or Destroy All Monster's dead-pan commemoration of boredom as a lifestyle choice in the succinctly titled, "Bored." And let’s hear it for "Extract From The Compassion And Humanity Of Margaret Thatcher" (which is of course, over four minutes of silence).

The old cliché is true. They don't make them like this anymore and that's exactly why this set is such a treasure trove. All this and the wonderful Kevin Coyne too!

This review originally appeared here.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Street Life CXLIV

Random Penguin XLVII

1980

Monday, December 01, 2008

If You Had To Start From Scratch What Would Be The First 10 Albums You'd Buy Again?

A pal emailed to say he’d seen this thread on the Steve Hoffman Message Boards. What would I buy?

The Beatles Revolver
Jack Bruce Harmony Row
Crosby Stills Nash same title (1969)
Miles Davis ESP
Hatfield And The North same title
King Crimson Larks’ Tongues In Aspic
Van Morrison Veedon Fleece
Arvo Part Alina
Talk Talk Spirit of Eden
Weather Report Mysterious Traveller

If You Had To Start From Scratch What Would Be The First 10 Albums You'd Buy Again? Answers to the usual address…

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Tuesday, December 30, 2008