Beauty Small & Wide

So far this year I have delved into the touchy feely side of my relations with other human beings and partly shelved my usual vitriol and not shoke my fist at too many things, the budget being that bit too much too resist. This time you find me at the start of spring, a change of seasons for the world and also for me in my life – so what better way to celebrate than with some glorious hippy rhetoric about the beauty of the world and of course some excellent music.

There is a peace in my soul that is flowing the good vibes and calm mentality into my life once more as I once again delve away from the city and into the quiet and beautiful parts of jolly old England that are still keeping this a green and pleasant land. I found the part of me that is peaceful and placid in the outbacks of Australia, hundreds of kilometers away from any human soul and reliant on the sun for everything and at the mercy of nature’s whim, there I learned a respect for the world and a new way of appreciating the small details in the grand schemes that build the blocks of this beautiful Earth. I feared that nobody would believe me, this person walking barefoot across the plains of the Northern Territory and scrambling up rock faces stroking the surface of every rock and lifting every leaf to my nose was a far cry from the lumbering drunk who had been stumbling around the cosmopolitan chaos of Brighton with little respect for anything except pub opening times. I worried that as soon as the great open spaces had folded in to man made structures and I was sorounded by human endevour and corruption I would once again languish into the haze of loutish intoxication that had been my escape for so long.My fears were of course in some way justified and my will was and is no stronger than that of any man but in Adelaide after returning from some time “out there” I sat staring at a blossom tree in an urban garden of a house where reckless abandon was in full dominion and I saw the quiet beauty of the wild twist its magic around my heart and I knew that I would always have that place inside of me, that wherever I went and however much I descended into the human world I had found my peace with the planet and I would forever know how to see its messages.

My new job became an exciting proposition as I walked to the back of the pub and saw the stretching vista of the Chiltern valley spread out infront of me. Im staring out over the view now and baby lambs skip unsure steps over green fields as Red Kite’s hover overhead looking for an easy meal. Ancient copse’s of greys and greens roll over the hills and line the sides of manuquered fields and over it all the billowing majesty of the heavens, great explosions of cloud billowing and mushrooming over our tiny lives. It’s easy again to conjour that far away fieling to suspend yourself in the quiet calm even when you are standing in the center of a very human storm. I am drawing from the inspiration of the fields and trying to be the person I know I can be, chaos can have no hold over you if you have truly surrended to the simple serrenity of a natural understanding its just much easier to do when it is painted infront of you in an unescapable vision.

I am settling into my 30’s quite nicely and feeling proud of myself while still knowing I must push myself every day to go further and be more it’s quite a slap in your own face when you realise that the things in life you once loathed are now the things that are driving you forward but that is part of the mystery of growing up. It’s all too easy to sit and consider and then type your ideas and ideal to a glowing white screen but being asked to be inspirational to others on a day to day basis is a new and interesting challenge that I am relishng. I am enjoying my space in the world it’s a calm haven that is allowing me to be the person that I need to be, taken away from the capitalist structures of urban dwelling I can even ignore the well groomed upper class types who frequent these affluent hills because I can take a look out of the window and remember my perspective and look to those clouds for the nearest I get to religion.

   ‘Noctourniquet’ by The Mars Volta  This will always be a band with a special place in my heart, ears and mind. I remember so clearly the anticipation of listening to the opening build up on their debut album ‘De-Loused In The Comatorium’ and waiting for the drop to hit and the measure of this band with so much potential to be heard, I was not disappointed and against the opinions of others haven’t been disappointed by them since, they knock very loudly at the doors of genius and then run screaming in a make believe language to the deepest denizens of madness and I can’t get enough of it.

When ‘At The Drive In’ split there was a hole at the top of a genre of music that Omar Rodrigues and Cedric Bixler had done much to champion and forward even though they would never presume to adhere to any scene genre or anything so saleable. The resulting split tessellated like a broken hearted lover’s pendant with ‘Sparta’ punchy and direct was caught up in the post-punk maelstrom of artists doing much to tarnish the original ideals of punk. ‘The Volta’ descended into something very much in keeping with the punk ideal  if not the sound – Loud, Angry and Visceral but refusing to conform to any conventions and never giving the people what they may think they want. Over the last 9 years The Volta boys have created a dark and terrifying world in which there music tells deep and involved stories that encapsulate a journey through deeply disturbed minds of musical virtuoso’s that are unparalleled in their delivery and unmatched in their individuality and intoxication. So with ATDI reforming (if only for live shows) what does this do to the minds and performances of these Texan rock monsters. Some will say that this album is mellow and a slap in the face to the ideals of post-punk, some will miss the concepts and involved stories of previous releases but others also have criticised them before for retreating too far into unfathomable conjunctures in the past and I will be at the head of the camp that see’s the melody and discernible lyrics as another string to the Epirus bow that this group wield every time they produce music. As usual there are deep rich layers of sound and discord that can act as a barrier to really getting in to the music but letting yourself flow with the jarring sounds and crushing rhythms will be rewarding as the Latin melodies penetrate your ear space. The vocals are the biggest shift in this release with greater clarity while still retaining the same desperate power – the album becomes more balanced than previous releases and without feeling locked out by not being a drug addled mess in a Texan desert having dark visions of blind soul conquering deities of justice this is actually a more memorable work than ‘Octahedron’ or ‘Bedlam in Goliath’. Don’t think for a moment that means we are entering the world of the 3 minute rock song or even the 12 minute prog-rock arena, The Volta twist from concord to chaos at the flick of a battery of switches with pinpoint accuracy managing to balance an un quelled belly of fire with a melodic harmony and even moments of tenderness. Still bending language to their needs and dripping with biblical and nihilistic charm in such songs as ‘Dyslexicon’;

“In the time of the sixth sun

We are cattle to the prod

And I burn this dictionary

Because it’s my dyslexicon’

But straight after we are allowed a look into the fragile heart of this tormented man of words who sees the things he loves always turning black and twisted and never sure who to blame, the cruelty of others or his own twisted view in ‘Empty Vessels Make The Loudest Sound’;

“I am a mountain of cavernous people

Searching for a lighthouse in the fog

 the flowers that grew from the cracks in the ground you paved

didn’t you think he would warn me through the thorns of my waking dreams

when the riddles connected the dots of this constellation”

These two songs back to back show a level of duality and musical cohesion that very few artists manage to forge into a workable form, it has been said that the best reason to write an album is if it would drive you crazy not too and here we see the cause and the cure laid out for us to listen too, confessional without being needy and ferociously angry while still being disappointed and realistic. I know that this will not be an easy recommendation because for some the sheer volume of noise can be too much but if you want to immerse yourself in a deeply powerful world of music then let The Volta boys entertain you with their talented hands and disturbed hearts.

   ‘Sonik Kicks’ by Paul Weller  Here is another artist who has more than earned his place in the hall of fame and legend status and has become the synonymous leader of an on-going revolution that has been pushing on since even ‘The Modfather’ was born. But what happens when ‘The Modfather’ becomes the ‘ModGrandfather’ and the brand becomes impossible to escape, I once saw Mr.Weller pushing a pram around Preston Park -Brighton in full pinstripe suit and peacock feathered hair looking every bit the part but a part of me was unsure how real it all was or if he had become what people expected him to be. The hairstyle and that look have gone through many adulterations and adaptions but back come’s Weller the elder statesman to vamp his sound and bring a style that he is very heavily touting as modern to a new audience and a sympathetic old one. In all honesty I really wish he hadn’t bothered because I hate to say bad things about him but I find this offering to be dull lacklustre and at sometimes desperate. Surrounding yourself with younger versions of yourself and letting them tweak modulators and play synthesised sounds over your musical ‘B’ sides is not a reinvention it’s a dull attempt to sound vital and make people think there is life in the old dog yet. This is making me sad to write because I once thought that Weller could do no wrong, he was the first artist that I owned the complete back catalogue of on cd (mainly as I was still saving up for the more extensive Beatles one) and “Broken Stones” was the first song that I shared with a girl as “our song”. Rumour was that Weller’s desire to explore his softer side as a songwriter with songs such as ‘English Rose’ was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Bruce Foxton and the rest of ‘The Jam’. Weller rode the 90’s wave heavily and with obvious skill but for me the turn of the millennium was one too many  centuries for this musical survivor and none of his output since then has been notable except by is disappointment. There is a very repetitive tone through this album and the guitar work seems to meld into a fuggy sound that masks any true sparks of the original Weller sound. But don’t get too down about it put on ‘Setting Sons’ and relish in a true English hero in the prime of his life and let this piffle fizzle out.

   ‘Port Of Morrow’ by The Shins  James Mercer is Indie royalty and his absence from his flagship group has caused ripples across the jingle jangle lo fi’ish community, what was he doing playing around with essentially dance producers when what we really want from him is lyrical genius and another look into his perpetually confused and lovesick cynical view of the world. There was some derision over the bands last offering many thinking it was a little too bleepy and far too cheerful, I disagreed but am also glad that this album is soaked in the bittersweet and encapsulating everything we fell in love with the band for in the first place.

There is something in this album and indeed the group that is impossible to emulate and is missing from far too much modern music and that is character. Watching the latest musical monstrosity ‘The Voice’ on BBC One and hearing the hopefuls be told how talented they are when really all they are displaying is a very 90’s vocal style of making sure every note in an octave has been achieved in as short a time as possible, they could sing at me until I turned blue and fell over and I would still not care a jot because they have no character – destined to repeat the songs of others in a bland style that is only really excusable at a drunkard party closely followed by vomiting and blacking out. I read 95% of the Harry Potter saga and even after the 1,084,000 words that ordeal entailed I still didn’t give a ploppy shit if Harry lived, died or turned gay and declared his deep arousal at all things ginger and magical because the twerp had little to no character. For an unassuming indie gent, resplendent in jeans and cardigan Mr.Mercer only has to open his mouth once to have me hooked on his every word and hoping things turn out well – that’s style baby and this album oozes it from every pour.

There are melodies and harmonies that come straight from the first two albums echoed in a childlike innocence coupled with a teenage yearning and a few years of experience. This isn’t new ground but well-trod and firm underfoot for a band that made their names with these intricate love songs sung to the stars in the dead of night. If ‘Chutes Too Narrow’ was caught up on a fantasy of how love can be then this is an album that has been chewed up and spat out by love and still wants to sing its praises. “No Way Down”;

“Make me a drink, strong enough

To wash away the dishwater world,

They said was lemonade”

How could I resist? The lyric is right up my street so go back a few years before Indie started getting so dark and broody and when you still had guitar songs that were not folk and float in the wonderful world of The Shins.

   ‘Mr.M’ by Lambchop If Mr.Mercer is Indie royalty then Kurt Wagner the pivotal member of Lambchop is a foreign dignitary of the highest order, it’s one thing to be brilliant but the myriad of line-up’s and plays on musical styles outputted by this outfit since the early 90’s has been consistently brilliant, a rare and beautiful thing. The tides of the musical styles that Wagner and co have displayed have ebbed and flowed over the years but the lounge singer voice and aching beauty of the music has seen them through to arrive here when the styles are in the limelight to be well practiced masters and it shows in every song, in every chord, in every note. Laid back and effortless would imply a lack of attention but in reality I mean it to imply that this is not forced it is one of the most natural, open and heartfelt recordings I have heard since – well last year and the astonishing album by Bill Callahan. I have drawn something new from this album at each listen and grown to like it then love it with every play, it is an unassuming but addictive piece of work that soothes at the same time as it challenges you subtly to look at the frailties of this world. Kurt Wagner operates well on the side of the self-deprecating masses whom it is hard to truly hurt because they see the ridiculous nature of the world and the great balance between the irrelevant and the important. There is a wounded sound to the vocal that gives the gravitas of experience like a sage oracle who’s every word should be hung upon as if it is the last we will hear, there is also beauty and innocence like a Disney cartoon or the saccharine world of Burt Bacharach where love lives inside of bubbles but this sings of the sugar hangover that follows where we see that good time for the temporary and unreal that it really is. There is nothing happier than misery in my opinion and this album I could wallow in cuddle up near and shake inside until all my troubles are far away – I hope you let it in and help it heal you. It’s all good so I refuse to pick out specific songs I just urge you to listen.

I have been away for too long due to my immersion in my new world, limited access to shops or internet has limited my new music acquiring abilities and when needing to display your character through the medium of a work stereo it is important to rely on old friends so thank you Biggy, J5 and the wonders of Fela Kuti for helping me set a president and be there for me in unsure times. I will shelve my need for constant cooking and figure calculating to be back sooner next time and hopefully under a brighter sun. Until then listen close and listen loud my good friends.

Going Viral & Spitting Back

I do intend to carry on a series of blogs about the relationships that form our life and make it a nice place to be but I thought that I would take a small break to be a little bit more light hearted and speak about more modern dilemmas.

I have blogged before about technology and briefly about the Internet but the way it expands and includes itself into our lives is an exponential expansion that deserves observing and realising as the game changing system that it is and not brushed aside as mundane and ‘So last Wednesday’. With a campaign video made by a group of young well doers there mission has managed to gain support and attention around the world and is influencing the actions of world leaders and mobilising American troops to give help in an African conflict. The ‘Kony 2012’ campaign became big news and spread at an incredible rate with the video reaching 83,614,332 views on You-Tube alone. I am not here to pass comment on the content of this particular campaign but to show the way the Internet is mobilising people by getting messages that appeal directly to them straight into their homes and affecting them in a very real way. Much of the protesting that has been going on around the world from the peaceful ‘Occupy’ movement to the citizens putting their lives in danger in Libya, Syria and Egypt has been orchestrated by messages sent through Facebook and other internet medium. We have here a uniting tool that gets right into our homes and can talk to us about issues with little to no worry that our involvement is being too closely tracked and we have resources at our fingertips to research any information as and when it is sent to us. So take on lots of information because its so easy but use reasoning and the information available to make your own filters and make up your own mind, it’s never been easy to spread “facts” but it has also never been so easy to check up on their validity.

Going “Viral” is a marketing managers dream to create something that has a momentum all of its own and will spread exponentially with no effort from the creator to publicise, but the Internet has a funny sense of humour and a twisted sense of logic, new things have become funny simply because of the way the data is transferred and something that has a quirky global appeal can be the simplest idea that sparks the biggest fire. With the vast majority of mobile phones now being able to record video and YouTube giving an open invitation to share this with the masses there is a flood of content than can be funny just by the shear volume. ‘Nyan Cat’,   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4 has amassed 68,445,599 views and a simple home movie of a baby biting a toddler’s finger aptly named ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM has attracted a staggering 432,847,294 views. These videos or meme’s can be used like trading cards in as you pass along the little nuggets that you have found springing from the most inane situations or the depths of the strangest parts of peoples brains. These skits animations and ideas would stand no chance of Television commission and would fall flat on their face if they did; they exist in their own world where there are few rules and little censorship. Personally I find these to be great curiosities, its not like these are the only thing that the Internet or indeed YouTube gets used for, we share so much useful information online that it’s good to take a break to watch a series of cat videos. The point is that these seemingly innocent pieces of zany and irrelevant video seep into our mind and become the perfect vehicle for all kinds of messages and ideas, Viral marketing will be the primary mode of advertising within the next few years and it will get you if you like it or not.

Thinking forward to the technology that will enhance our life in the future is a daunting and exciting prospect, when you see the meteoric rise of web based systems in my lifetime we can only assume it will continue in this fashion and I am hopefully poised to embrace and utilise anything I can, so expel the fear and accept that certain things that used to be all about people will now be all about computer screens and be part of what will be on offer.

It’s been a while since I have had a rant at our ruling class which is more to do with myself getting consumed in the events of my life than them making any attempt to cease there meddling ways of interrupting and vulture like preying on the weak and needy. The venomous money snake George Osborne set out with the countries piggy bank this week to once again declare a financial war on anything remotely fun. It’s not easy to get on in the world, I don’t know if it ever has been, I am certainly still feeling the financial burden of the childish recklessness of my youth but at the same time we as a nation will be expected to do the same for the country and its past mistakes. Personally I will in many ways be better off with higher personal allowance of tax but will promptly blow this extra cash very quickly when I attempt to drink, smoke or travel anywhere in my car to do anything except go to work. Unless I can succeed in becoming exceptionally wealthy I will be forced into a situation of working into my seventies and even then have anything I have managed to save taken from me when I have precious little strength to defend myself. I do sound worryingly true blue when I talk about the welfare state and even as far as right wing when I talk of my final solution to the benefit classes but in truth it is a system of dependency offered up by past administrations that have made it easier to take than to have value and pride and earn. Maybe we can trust the Conservatives to deal out the harsh attacks on the low income families that may start to force a change in attitude but as I have shouted in many people’s ears, we will never achieve true change while greed and avarice are at the core of our beings, where financial attainment is the new enlightenment. We must install pride in the hearts of the nation before asking them to deliver on any front. There are of course far too many of us and the constant spread of our population without the infrastructure to support it makes us all as a nation a dis-functioning family fit for a bust up and paternity test on a day time TV show. So as I have ended a few blog posts and as is the call to arms for the warrior poets who will stand on the ashes of a broken Britain and usher in a new age of true Democracy I call at the top of my lungs Viva La Revolution!

    Bruce Springsteen - ‘Wrecking Ball’ Many people get called Boss every day, in building sites and offices across the land people in charge have risen above and are referred to simply as The Boss but only one man has done that through the power of Rock, there has been a King, A King Of Pop and more Queens than I care to mention but there is only one boss.

Three years since his last release and several more since he appeared with such bombast with the full E Street Band line-up with added horns to get Springsteen back to a huge chest beating Americana that will have you bashing your fist and yelling along. After playing at the inauguration of president Obama a lot has changed in the field of American politics and as elections loom and the cash cow of American democracy is being milked for every drop here one of America’s rock icons shows his colours in a joyful album of praise for the American dream  as an ideal but shaking its fist at the failures and injustice that is evident every day– the way that only Springsteen could. Even if the sentiment of the lyrics ‘we look after our own, wherever this flag is flown’ might be a double edged sword pointing at the egotistical tyrants that some of the rest of the world see when looking at the star spangled banner but for that die hard Democrat it is a chime of the Liberty Bell and a yellow ribbon round an oak tree for a ferociously patriotic nation and musician.

The thing that allows Springsteen to evoke quite damming indictments "If I had me a gun, I'd find the bastards and shoot 'em on sight," from the track “Jack Of All Trades”, is the polished production and glossy finished sound that places him in the Rock ‘N’ Roll hall of fame at the same time it attacks the country that would support such a bourgeois ideal while trampling on the workers who built the country to begin with. This is the 17^th studio release and from the cold harsh sounds of ‘Nebraska’ to the journey to the centre of the American folk tradition on ‘The Seger Sessions’ and always with the memory of the late 80’s sheen of ‘Born In The USA’, Springsteen and the exemplary E Street Band have looked at the same problem from many angles, but it’s at its best when it is played out to the big band sound the nation loves while simultaneously spitting the lyrics that tell of a mistreated and repressed people, it’s the American dream in Blues form and it’s the stuff that raises one lonely man with a guitar and a pen to be ‘The Boss’.

This is a real fist pounding album of drivetime hits with the anarchy well hidden, the titles sell you and the rhythm pushes you so hit play on ‘Shackled and Drawn’ or ‘Jack Of All Trades’ and listen to the hypocrisy that is the American Dream.

   Disappears – ‘Pre-Language’ There is a raw power here that instantly engages me, a beating urgency that makes you feel the expression of emotion in much more than the angst ridden nihilistic lyrical content but in the beating fists of the guitarist and the pounding bass as it churns out fury in every well timed snap.  Coming out of Chicago and picking up an uber respectable guitar player in the shape of Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth since ‘Lux’ there debut album in 2010. They return with their style that has been describes as Shoe-gaze, Grunge and even Krautrock set to stun and bidding your attention you pathetic worms.

The music on display here is as cold as a mortician’s slab and as blunt as my comments about James Blunt, this could be my album of the year where I poo poo whatever anyone else has to say because for me it just plain hit the spot. When Joy Division and Can were producing music I was yet to surface onto planet earth, when The Pixies, Nirvana and Sonic Youth ruled the roost I was busy riding my bike and listening to the soft rock of my parents liking. I am glad to hear a resurgence of these influences making new and exciting music in the tradition of those stylised rock gods. A fierce repetition drives the point home and the guitar roars and soars with an epic rock quality while still operating under a punk grit and pointedness that is jagged and severe. This is the second album of the year that has made me proud to be a punk again and with At The Drive In Hitting the stage this summer it seems like a true resurgence in the true spirit of punk without the pandering to a childlike audience. The spirit of punk was an attitude of spitting in the face of any authority with words and attitude to be nihilistic in nature and to believe in something far from the status quo this attitude was taken on by those tired of a rock formulaic progression while still maintaining its venom and angst, post-punk is my holy land and always has been because it adds elements of intelligence and musical cohesion to full on heartfelt emotion and loud and proud honesty.

I may be getting dragged into some hyperbole and overstating the point but here but I think this album may get overlooked and I want to set my stall out to say I really enjoyed it, I’d love for you to have a listen to the spitting venom of ‘Replicate’ because it does just what punk says on the tin.

   Band Of Skulls – ‘Sweet Sour’ In the summer of 2005 there was a brief relapse into a summer of love when The Magic Numbers came onto the scene with arc wide smiles and sending out the spirit of brotherly love not only with their  genetics but with their music.  A few years later there was a resurgence of raw power as the top of the hipster scenes toyed together with epic titans of rock and produced an aged raw power with a modern twang with a sterling album from ‘Them Crooked Vultures’. A few years later again in the backwaters of Southampton a group have managed at moments to fuse these two musical occurrences into something once more new and exciting, fusing more influences than it might at first seem.

What I know of The Southampton music scene I know from a sage oracle of musical knowledge and all round ginger god Mr.Olly Onslaught and his most excellent musings in his blog http://ifoundthisvoiceinmyrecordcollection.blogspot.co.uk , which I urge anyone listening to have a look at for some top rate musical musings. Anyways it seems modern Southampton is churning out bands fusing sounds and delivering a powerful record with some riffs that will have the steadfast of head bangers at least nodding along.

I could well be accused of musical snobbery as I first became aware of this album from a TV advert which always puts me off, I just don’t like to see an album sold like this, I don’t know why but I think it concentrates your thoughts on the commercial selling point of an album rather than the actual chords played. It takes the stylistic approach of a band well out of their hands and into the hands of marketing executives, but as there is a track on this album called ‘The Devil Takes Care Of His Own’ maybe that is devoted to those putrid spawns of Satan.

In its most successful and memorable parts this is an album of crunchy heavy riff driven rock that has all the head banging credentials but it is in reality half made of much more delicate and understated songs with close harmony and a much more Indie production value. I like duality and though some may think it weakens the message I think it shows a good use of attack and decay ‘Lay My Head Down’ waits till four minutes in to bring on a clash of reverb but then takes it back to a simple solo and a mellow vocal. But for floor filling songs that will surely be setting off a festival crowd or two this summer it has to be the upbeat songs that sell this but they two are full of good harmonies and playfull tunes, listen to ‘Bruises’ and listen Loud

   Sharon Van Etten – ‘Tramp’  To Describe something as no frills might initially sound like a shallow and insulting comment against someone’s expression, but with the ever expanding genre of modern female singer songwriter’s performing under the folk umbrella there is beginning to be a division of modernists and purists, so ‘no frills’ isn’t a negative for me as I am on the side of those who are brave enough and talented enough to let the simplicity of the song and the clarity of the unclouded voice tell the story, which goes back to the very origins of the Folk tradition.

This Brooklyn songstress approaches her music with a personal touch, she has a moody voice with a rasp that sounds hung over or desperate – the lyric is pure yet poetic the tune is in key but without being polished or fake. Her style has attracted some collaborators and supporters who are at the forefront of rediscovering an ancient style With Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner collaborating on a cover of the closing track of her 2010 album ‘Love More’. Guitar and drum duties on the opener and some of the tracks falls to long time folk/indie miserabilist Matt Barrick of The Walkmen which gives an angsty platform for Miss Van Etten to talk of ‘Serpents in my mind trying to forgive your cries, Everyone changes, in time, I hope he changes, this time.’ Its an album of understated beauty and non-shouting anger and pain, there are vocal fuge’s of cooing la’s and fawning ahhhs but it returns always to pithy lyric,  music is clearly an escape and this is an evacuation.

There is a confident resignation that comes with more than a short while dealing with bitterness, an acknowledgment of your own failings and an appreciation of the pleasure of pain. It’s an honest look of the emotions we have to deal with through lives as while there is love there is also loss and the best moments are hard fought for. Start with lead single ‘Serpents’ and the glory of the rest will follow but for me the untold bitterness of ‘Kevin’s’ is where this exciting artist is at her simple best.

I’m about to shift my life up a gear and hopefully make a positive impact on my day to day existence, that does involve moving into a detached house so hopefully the volume levels can increase and any possible stresses can be drowned out in a glorious haze of rock. Hope to speak to you soon and in the meantime happy listening and big smiles all round.

Dear Friends - Angels,Drunks & Magi

 

  They say that you cant pick your family but you can pick your friends but in some ways I would tend to disagree, not with the family point odviously that goes without saying but sometimes friends are just as attached and without the filter of choice. Circumstance throws people your way the choice is meerly how hard you latch on, friendships require much more effort than family, I have said and done things to family members that if we were friends we would have ceased that relationship they require more of you and can sometimes take more than they will ever give in return, yet there is a bond that is invisible and occasionally unfeesable that endeers them to your heart. I remember first moving to Brighton when it had been a few years since I was last put in a new situation and asking at the time “how do you go about making friends” forgetting what an organic process it is where they seem to appear and become an intrinsic part of your existence, you dont hunt them or pick them from a shelf you are thrown towards one another on similar tides.

And the most refreshing thing about friends is that they too are the most wonderful tonic to heal the hurts of the most bruised and battered ego, they want you in your life, they will go to lengths to share their time with you, for nothing more than the appreciation of your special brand of funny. The older I get the more unfortunate it is that I dont get to spend as much time as I would like with the people I have met along the way but constraints on my time and theirs and the increasing number and distance between these people makes it impossible, but a good friend will know that this is just one of the sad facts of life and when you find yourself together again then it will be like you never left the room. I seem to always mention Social Media in these blog’s but as that is where I publicise them it seems appropriate and the effects they have on friendships is changing the way we relate to others. Meeting up with somebody you have had no physical or verbal contact with in many months can be less of a boundry because through the process of casual osmosis you have recieved knowledge about there comings and goings from the intracacies of their postings and comments. Som emay say that this is diluting the importance of human contact that to a degree is certainly true but used in moderation and at least sometimes in full sentences it can help to bridge the gaps that the neccesities of life place between people who otherwise would be sitting side by side setting the world to rights.

Seeing friends from the past can be like time travel, a glimpse and a memory into how and who you used to be and where the person you are now came from. This isnt always a proud reflection but there are some of my friends who I am so glad that I still know because they saw me at my worst and they can sympathise with my struggles without me having to sing my tails of woe and sound like an insufferable whinner. There are small victories and funny situations that relayed to strangers would seem trite and mundane but dropped into conversation with the right person can light up the room in a halo of laughter and appreciation. good stories can be like a trading card game which can be traded and used to cut and parry with a stranger and while this can sometimes lead to one upmanship and empty bragging, between friends it is a bartering and swapping celebration where everyones hand is only there to help bolster the significance and hilarity of each tale. A great experience is worth having for the moment but it will be given true value from the re-telling and the connections it will form from its memory in the minds of those who matter.

Placing these memories in places is not always essential but it can help to magnify their resonence standing in the same points of geography and letting the past wash over you like a warm tide or bite at you like a cold wind. Standing at the top of the park where I played as a child was a sobering moment of realisation as to how far I have come in life and how much I have enjoyed the ride. The house that I would call my childhood home has cheated on me, the silver birch has gone and the sorounding fence makes for a quite pompous outlook – its full of other peoples memories now, ours are clouded and live with my family not the building. The path at the side always seemed such a trek and now I strole down in what seems like a few steps, peaking over fences rather than scrambling with haste towards the swings. My school where I was a teenager is no longer there, im sad that others will not get to build a youth in those same corridoors but am glad that I can still sit with someone from that time and turn those dusty black and white recollections into vivid colour.

My life has been enriched by the people I have been lucky enough to have as part of it, I miss people far too often and hope that some people remember me when they hear certain songs or drink particular drinks, I hope they realise that my not being there is a matter of life throwing us its merry way on the tides of life and in no ffault of their own because I think fondly back to the time we may have spent together or the strange and quirky stories that would make sense or humour only to us. My words are worth nothing if it is not collaborated and colured in by your shared reccolection. I am not a conformer to any organised religion but I do have a hope for an afterlife, a party where all the people I have had the pleasure of meeting is attending and each one in turn would get there chance to recall the past and mingle through the rest of your life until all your traits and foibles make sense to everyone in the room – that and getting bladdered and making some new crazy stories even when its long past the time for new memories.

That leads me to a sad dedication, aalthough I did not know him well I would like to dedicate this post and my thoughts to Chaz who sadly passed away last week. Loosing someone so young reminds us all of the fragility of our lives and should be a inspiration to value the ones that you hold dear and not put off meetings and remembering yourself to others – Life is a wonderful gift that we must be careful not to squander and ignore because it passes us by quicker than we would like. Our time here is only weighted by any meaning or warmth when it is populated by others and when we are lucky enough to meet people who fill our hearts with gladness we should make sure to let them know and value each day. I hope that Chav’s friends and family can be strong enough to remember the good times and keep them in that place in their minds reserved for drunken laughter, crazy stories and more than anything brilliantly loud music. I’d say rest in peace but I’m sure he would find that dull so shine on you crazy diamond and we will do our best to keep on rocking in the free world.

    ‘Animal Joy’ by Shearwater  Destined to be underappreciated this eighth release is uncompromisingly epic and soaringly beautiful, but as the project started as essentially a side project from Okkervil River to showcase a softer side who needs the appreciation when you have an outlet for a great musical vision. There is a very marmite sensation with the vocalist in this band but due to this being the eighth release I’m guessing there is enough people on the love it side of the fence to keep the band recording and I personally can’t get enough of it, a falsetto air with a general guttural crunch somewhere far below. This album seems more whole than past releases moving away from that purely ethereal down-tempo output that they were becoming known for, perhaps picking up some ideas and a bolstered confidence from some large support slots over the last few years.

There is quite a haunting and unsettling sound at times, such as at the start of ‘Insolence’ but this is counterpointed with a blissful holiness that seems in praise of the world. This music is rich and textural and plays across a large range to sound quite epic without sounding schmaltzy and overdone because there are always enough elements of simplicity to keep the sound grounded. There is a lack of scope over the entire album and themes are revisited to varying degrees of bombast, there is definitely a theme and a sound that is very distinct to this group and this album which I think fits in with the idea of this being a conduit for certain skills and ideas that would not sit well with the members other groups. This is definitely a more accomplished and accessible album than the band have produced in the past, I hope they continue on this positive step forward.

   ‘Blues Funeral’ by The Mark Lanegan Band   Eight years since the gravel voiced dark man of rock released under his own name and with a tough act to follow after the much applauded ‘Bubbelgum’, which I also urge you to go and re-listen to. His voice has lost none of the edge or the tone and is instantly engaging and commanding of respect. All the usual themes are here for this sultry overlord of Blues, heavy drinking, Jesus and Nihilistic alcoholic tears all rolled up in a fuzz of warm deep bass that throbs under the velvet glove of Lanegan’s silken voice. There is less of a desperate sound than previous work more comfortable and statesmen like is this rock panther lurking in a dark mystique of a richer more produced sound that rolls over us in an industrial thrall. More people have been inspired by this style than you might imagine but few can touch the effortless drama of Lanegan’s voice, he is much aged Johnny Cash as he is the reckless abandon of a Queen Of The Stone Age. I don’t think the album has a great deal of scope but it has an epic sound and little to argue with such faultless delivery.  You can’t go far wrong setting your stall with a song called ‘The Gravedigger’s Song’ or the ‘to be used in an advert soon of ‘Riot In My House’.

   ‘I Am Gemini’ by Cursive I listen with baited breath when an artist that I respect as much as this puts out a new release, especially when there …… release ‘Mama I’m Swollen’ was such an epic hit in my eyes and a powerful combination of the crashing post-punk power of the guitar work with Tim Kasher’s special blend of bitter sweet lyrical style, here I am left sadly disappointed trying my hardest to get into the groove and falling short at every song. Kasher has always fused his releases with meticulous sense of story and invented fantastical characters that few others would have dared to try and make work within the theme of rock, but this may be one step too far. Here we have a convoluted tale of Twins split at birth who reunite across the stars as the sun and moon and battle the depths of good vs. evil, if anyone could make this work it would be Cursive but we find them trying too hard and delivering for only short bursts that aren’t enough to shake the feeling in our heads that maybe the more complete rock song ethos of the likes of ‘From The Hip’ are where we most like this bands trajectory to be facing. Unsurprisingly the production is truly first class and the guitar sounds are in a league of their own but the riffs disappear as quickly as they come and far too often the mix of it all descends into some sort of Rush meet Mars Volta road crash. Maybe there was a feel that ‘Mama I’m Swollen’ was too much of a departure from the fantastical tale element and the group feel that they needed to outdo the fairy-tale of Dorothy and indulge in the theatre of it all, but the content seems to vague and the riffs are too tight to descend into wankery that would excuse the out there-ness of the lyric. It pains me to right this band such a poor revue but over seven releases from Mr.Kasher and only one failing to enter the epic status I think he can still hold his head up high in my estimation.

     ‘No One Can Ever Know’ by The Twilight Sad. Sad indeed as this bunch of Scottish minstrels pick up their guitars and synths and soak us in a melancholy bath of sparse and eerie sounds that echo of Ian Curtis being found hanging all the photos turned to face the floor. Being superbly hypocritical as is my want I do find it hard when an album has been recommended to me by someone who’s opinion I respect as there is an expectation and you know that if you don’t agree then there will be some explaining to be done.

This is at heart a very different and personnel record for the band with a sound taken from a bygone industrial age that floats in and out of fashion with various degrees of mystery and mystique. The sound is cavernous and cold and unrelenting in its misery and tone of closeted emotion. It is a powerful piece of work which speaks of loss and yearning in an aching way that we can’t help but believe, especially when delivered with the brute honesty of a heavy Scottish accent. The songs are not inviting and the noises created can be unsettling but it is a bath of emotion that catches you up and takes you very slowly on a downward spiral.  Small drum loops are reminiscent of beats that might grow and spawn into Radiohead beats but the style stays minimal and the production is kept very low key and direct in its delivery. Songs such as ‘Sick’ are really indicative of the sound but for a band known for ear splitting live performances i think it is well worth cranking it up to a volume above doom and letting the album in its entirety wallow over you in its wistful waves of melancholy.

‘Visions’ by Grimes Although it occasionally pains me I do garner some of my musical information from the publications found at Pitchfork Media.com and as I hear this record I can almost feel their salivations as a young Canadian hipster delivers from her bedroom an album of beats bleeps and blissful wails that is completely of its time and as punk as it is glam as it is uber stylish and lusciously good looking. There is an age of music producer now who may have spent their entire musical histories listening to predominantly electronic music so these are the people we can look to who can re-invent the style and cross it with other sounds to make something new shiny and ultimately very engaging and enjoyable to listen too. I become somewhat obsessive about the individual sounds that make up these pieces of music because they are what form the backbone and the character of an album and what give it its atmosphere and individualism, its why I can’t listen to Trance which shares common sounds and regurgitates them seemingly at will, here we have here is a well stocked toolbox of warm and textured beats that have been processed and arranged to tip at all sorts of genre’s and points in time to create something unique and wonderful. One of the first records to utilise the modern whommp effect of a dubstep drop but with a gentle palm and as a platform to soar high above with an ethereal voice that speaks of the unattainable and the ethereal without being distant or obtrusive.

The track ‘Be A Body’ is a standout track that I have found hard to resist playing at ear splitting volumes as I try to introduce a few unsuspecting friends to a new chapter in dance noise. It pains me when the music dullards of pop hail artists such as Lady Gaga to be pushing the boundaries because they are doing just the opposite but the dominance of these monolithic vapid artists leaves a great niche for the true artists to blow the boundaries wide apart. 

The vocal may be ethereal and distant or sometimes plain twee relying mainly on a variety of ooohhs and ahhhs as the voice is synthesised and modulated but that in itself makes a modern type of organic that swoons and bites in all the right places. When the lyrics do become decipherable they are pointed and in the sense of a teenage love poem but it is the lairing and use of beats to create a warm future that sets this album apart.

It’s been a while since my last post and I’m some way behind on listening to the new music that has been flung at me from every corner, technological problems have held me back and the need to sort out the comings and goings of my life. Hopefully soon I will be getting to the stage where I can resolve my mind to being an even more productive person who can better channel the things that I want to get across, hope there is still some interested parties out there and that the volume hasn’t been turned down too low. Speak soon old friends