The Debt and The Payback

Back in the saddle and feeling quietly confident about the road ahead, just as the whole of Europe looks as if it may fall into financial ruin my finances are given much needed and appreciated assistance so I can finally head towards a debt free future. I will often rile against the greed and avarice of our species  and society when I know that I am racked with it myself, but luckily I don’t believe in hypocrisy or wait maybe I do believe and just don’t care enough not to openly flaunt my own. Maybe it’s a perfectly survival trait to take the easiest option and to always look for a way to get things as quick as possible as we never know when we might get eaten by a lion, but as usual we will fall back on the excuses of primeval instinct when the world we live in is far from primal and it’s not so much Lions we have to worry about now as much as the jaws of the Fat Cats. It is hard to live the life you believe in sometimes because your own views will not always run concurrent to the opportunities and restrictions that are imposed on you by the society in which you live, life is about compromise and carving your own place in a larger sculpture. It’s quite dour advice to hand on to future generations but I sometimes feel like telling them that rather than daydreaming of adult freedoms and the sparkling example they are going to set to mankind probably best to start working on some coping mechanisms before the entire population becomes either ravaged alcoholics or gun wielding fanatics. I took out all the loans offered to me and then took out more to pay for the repayments I couldn’t afford, I’m still repaying debts that I can’t remember acquiring and have been scratching around skimming the interest of the top of a large pile each month, but hey most major governments have been doing it for years so I won’t get too down on myself. Money confuses me, it scares me and as hard a s I try to live a bohemian life it seeps in to motivate me, I don’t like numbers at all, they immediately put me into a place in my brain when I feel small, dumb and idiotic which I then go on to perpetuate by acting in exactly that manner. I want a world that is fair, which may well be impossible, and Money is the greatest or at least most obvious indicator of the disparities in apparent fairness, you can’t on reflection asses someone’s apparent happiness or their level of contentment so we rely on the outward indicators that would suggest this veil of happiness but obviously we are lying to ourselves, these possessions and outward trappings don’t breed happiness but that sure as hell don’t stop us wanting them and giving it a try, so we borrow and accumulate and try to make ourselves into the smug prick in the nice car drinking the expensive wine who in reality is probably drinking to drown the sorrows of his unopened red statements and silence the sound of a bailiff knocking on their door. We are slaves and fools to the people who offer us more and until we learn to live on our own merit and to our own means we will continue to wallow in the bottom of their pockets. Every individual has their own needs and desires, wants and wishes and sadly it is unlikely that everyone will have the means to achieve these but is it right to have the idea that we could flaunted in our faces. Over a period of 2 years I successfully sued NatWest Bank for unfair charges that they had applied to my account but could it not also be feasible to sue them for letting me walk down a path it was so clear I had little chance to return from purely so they could turn a profit from my misfortune. Viva la Revolution Viva La Apocalypse.

On a strict diet of new music I find brief time to listen but when I do cram in as much as I can, it’s hard to put anything too interesting on in the work environment as it does hinder concentration and as much as most music makes me happy I do get moaned at for my “miserable” taste in music, but what the hell do they know, I mean listen to the jingle jangle riffs on ‘Portamento’ by The Drums although the sound is initially upbeat the lyrical content is sour and scathing, I can’t decide if this album is annoyingly infectious or infectiously annoying, I guess this lies with the contrast in the music and the lyric with the constant up-strumming of the guitars and the lifting hi-hat is sounded under tales of death and disappointment. Even after this their second album the band are apparently on rocky ground and don’t sight themselves as having a long shelf life but on listening more to the second album this does seem like a shame although the lyrics might be simple they are effective and there are some lovely sounds that give the record that addictive quality that is easy to get lost in. This isn’t a big album the success of the first album has maybe made them retreat into themselves rather than become grandiose and they have taken up business with a smaller label so as to produce something that is probably very personal and whether you like it or not, quite engaging.

The winner of ‘The Mercury Prize’ was awarded last week, a prize I watch with eager anticipation and occasionally mild annoyance, after working in music retail when the award was handed out I notice the opportunity the award offers to open people’s eyes to new types of music. Although I do think that the awards are adopting a taste all of their own and there are always so many formulas and ideas that they will pick the outsider but on reflection I think they are at least an interesting reflection of what is on offer even if you don’t agree with the eventual winner, and as Guy Garvey said in Interview they are apparently the best party for artists in the calendar. So in the spirit of discovery and with a breath of relief that neither Adele or James Blake walked away victorious I listened to ‘On A Mission’ by Katy B as much as I might want to say that this isn’t my thing at one point and in one part of my musical soul it most certainly is. When an artist is lauded with rising star status it can be a lead weight around their necks especially when the artist comes from a ‘Brit School’ education and is trying to compete in the highly fickle dance and urban music genres. I guess what has stopped my musical hackles from being raised is the quality of the songs, there has been no single band wagon jumped on and there has not been a endless list of collaborators and remixes filling up the dub step dance floors. The main ingredients is definitely Katy’s voice and although there are other unsung heroes whose voices have adorned D&B classics for years it is a good thing that these sounds are getting rediscovered with some professional credos behind them. There are a couple of smashers on the album but I think it is the subtler songs that attract the attention and showcase Katie’s voice the best. I think there is no surprise that this album attracted Mercury attention I mean they are the people who chose Roni Size over The Prodigy and Radiohead in 1997.

More power to PJ Harvey though two time winner with a very original concept and a corking album.

More little scampsters who seem to have their music well back on track much to my relief as shown in this realisation of where their talents really lie on ‘A Different Kind Of Fix’ by Bombay Bicycle Club even at such a tender young age these London Folk/Rockers have had quite a musical journey. I have always been stunned by their talent and craftsmanship threaded through their work and although I must admit I was slightly bent out of shape with the direction they had taken on the last record I am smiling now listening to a band do what they do best, imbuing that British Folk sound into pointed and perfectly executed heavy guitar driven rock. The album is well textured and pitched with Steadman finding space for his folk fascinations between songs that will have them being toast of the live stage with the young and the older admiring their great playing ability. There are songs of massive enormity and pomp and circumstance there are tender and sweet moments and there are pop hits and sometimes all three collide inside a four minute song. It is great to hear them on top form and continuing to carve a career for themselves as interesting and dynamic musicians.

That’s all for now and although there are many great Records in my airwaves there is never enough time and sometimes you need just that one last listen to make your mind up for sure, so speak soon and keep your ears and minds open.

The Lost Summer Of My Discontent

Well it seems that July and August fell off the edge of the calendar for me, really not for lack of anything to report but possibly completely the opposite my life became swamped with the constant barrage of work and the chaos, emotion and high jinks that creates. Sometimes I have no idea why i do the job i do because on paper it looks so daft but at others i couldn’t wish for anything i want more. But here is not the time to talk about my job, this is not the space for the disgruntled chef part of my I.D that would be a different and more curse word filled blog altogether, but like i say under the title of this blog, the world does get ugly and i have been driven to one or more violent outbreaks last month and not so much fits of depression but definitely despair and it is only now on drives home with the stereo turned up high in the middle of the night that i am finding the musical ropes to pull me on to a more manageable September.

The world is once again showing us its ugly side, its wanton desire for destruction and ability to create individuals who are so detached from the moral compasses to which most of us steer that they will hold their dominion of death and destruction no matter what. I managed to escape the business of life for a week in the Lake District where it was easy to retreat into the feeling of the smallness of life and our own inconsequential existences against the vastness of nature. But on my return the news was full of stories of great anger and hatred as someone’s cold blood had boiled and massacred innocent children in his retaliation of what he couldn’t understand about the direction our population is taking with its decisions. There are so few platforms of legitimate revolt existing that people are pushed and pushed in a highly restrictive pressure cooker where there possibly tainted views are twisted and left to fester and the desire for outlet becomes more and more vicious and as their views become more outrageous the walls that restrict them seem higher and the force needed to break them becomes greater and more bloody. Whenever a massacre of this nature occurs and people are shocked and outraged i am never in the crowd saying 'I don’t know how someone could do that', or 'It doesn’t make any sense' i am too enthralled with looking at the systems that restrict peoples outlets for their thoughts, no matter how bigoted and backwards and wondering how these incidents don’t occur on a day to day basis.

And then London burned, then the apparently disenfranchised youth raised their hoodie covered

heads and demanded to be listened too, they took to the streets to show those in power that they will be heard - if only that were the truth. For anyone with the spirit of Punk coursing through their veins it is a pleasing sight to see London Burning to feel that the anarchistic rebellion is upon us and that blows are being struck right at the centre of the rat race, that displays are being made that Capitalism is not unshakeable, but in reality this was just a sad indictment of the throttle hold that consumerism and avarice has over the young and how utterly unmotivated they are for change. With people rising together in anger we can show a message to a holidaying government that we will not stand for their impositions but instead it is seen as an opportunity to add to one’s personal collection of material possessions and show utter dependence on the simple and benign. When you hear riot and rebellion you think of fighting for a cause and a struggle of an oppressed people, like the Greeks condemning their governments spending spree and showing their anger but all we have here is a pathetic show of how terminal the consumerist tumour is that the desire to own will so easily bury and moral's and the self preservation is a distant memory in the land of the selfish.

Television channels parade the most vacuous and puerile members of our community happily handing out 15 minutes of fame to those with very little to offer. This is not documentary making designed to highlight a problem that needs to be solved it is sensationalising the ridiculousness of our society for the pure amusement of others, it’s a carnival freak show that sends me to the darker places of my psyche where i feel that a serious cull is in order. Lowest common denominator has become aspirational, brats and idiots spout celebrity as the only career they would consider entering and the perspective of our youth is bent so badly out of shape they take to the streets to parade their idiocy and mediocrity in the public eye.

Well as summer came and went in the flash of an eye and for me was spent inside feeling the heat of a different kind it is maybe even more important to have the sounds of a good 'Summer Album' to brighten up our days, by this i don’t mean a collection of BBQ tunes but an album that sits well alongside a long road trip or that uncanny feeling when you think life should and could go on  

The Tripper by The Fruit Bats this great band have whimsy and great story running through all their songs and have a style that has laid back written all over it. An Acoustic groove is created in repetitive patterns and the vocal tells us tales of another place that seems so enchanting. With this offering the band are layed back to the point of reclining fully horizontal and there is a relaxation in their music that is hard to ignore. By this their 5th album they don’t have anything to prove and if you have already enjoyed previous offerings then this album will sit well with the maturing band who are settled in to a relaxed groove, this is one for a stoned afternoon in a field in the middle of nowhere, not a festival just a field and the characters conjured will prove all the friends you need for a summers picnic.

Torches by Foster The People it became somewhat impossible to ignore this band as every radio station and TV interlude started to use a snippet from one track to segway through their shows so when you actually got round to hearing the song proper you where sure you already knew it well. Maybe the album is a bit of a pop cliché, but maybe that is what the perfect "summer album" is all about giving validation to feel good sounds that us uppity musical snobs would usually pass off as meaningless and passé. The formula is all well worked out and extremely well delivered with vo-coded voices and a whistle you can’t help but purse your lips too, there is an infectious feel good nature to the songs and a definite air of celebration that I think imbues the album with sunlight.

Circuital by My Morning Jacket I’m sure that this will not feature into many people’s idea of a summer album but my perspective is sometimes slightly different and hell I’m not writing this for anybody but myself so you will have to listen to my strange pigeonholes. Although the album came out in May I have been somewhat behind schedule and this album hit me at just the right time. There is a magical quality in Jim James’s voice that have always made this band a standout act for me, surfing so effortlessly between the gloom and the sun I think they are the perfect band to play out a wet English summer. The album is comprised of some songs destined to have been played by ‘The Muppets’ in a project that fell through that shows the whimsy with which the band can approach songs that others would see as heavy. The band have a big sound but they use it to conjure a wonderful rhythm and drama, there are layers of sound and great rhythm in guitars and tambourines that create the image of a jamboree of musicians that are somehow always on point with retro sounds used to create a very individual and unique sound. Songs like ‘Holding on to Black Metal’ combine a James Bond esque brass stab with a choir of children which lends its innocence to a song about well Black Metal, and what a understated yet excellent guitar solo. Bringing the big band sound straight together with jangle pop and an epic sound the album is a not to be surprised at exceptional achievement.

But with little thought needed strolling to the top of the summer album charts and more than likely straight into the top ten of the year for the second year running with typical style and swagger comes D by White Denim This album is quite simply a tour de force of a group of musical maestro’s that have honed their complexities into a coherent album that is overflowing with killer riffs and more styles and seamless transitions than a Conservative spin doctor. Type the band’s name into Wikipedia and there style is described as so:

“Their music draws influence from dub, psychedelic rock, blues, punk rock, progressive rock, soul, jazz, experimental rock with home-based recording, jamming approach, intense looping work and unusual song structures.^”

I mean what’s not to love and the band flit through the styles and forms without dropping a beat are fluttering an eyelid. The rhythmic complexity is as engaging as it is jaw dropping and the layered intricacies of the guitar pattern is as mesmerising as it is face melting. There is a sense of dropping in to the middle of a Zappa esque freak-out after walking away from a jam with Fela Kuti, just before a jazz flute epic that would have Ron Burgundy spitting with jelousy. The band have scratched around with lo-fi recording techniques and moderate obscurity but with a second guitarist in place and access to a modern studio the band have delivered a masterpiece without diluting the kudos and spirit of the blues band that they had created in their previous recordings. There are very few moments of relaxation in this work it’s a driving sound of technical brilliance and counterpointed precision, does that all sound a bit over technical and musician wanky because the album certainly doesn’t, there is whimsy in the vocal and pure blues rock keeping the album securely on the rails and more than likely straight into another top ten placing from me.

So there it was the summer of 2011, and while I baton down the hatches for a rain filled September I am firmly back on the search for the new and interesting sounds which will fill my autumn with aural sensations. My finger is back on the pulse and will be poking at a keyboard a lot sooner this time, until then remember to live life like the captain of a sinking ship and I will swim in your escapades soon enough.