Alone E.P. - Moist

Track List:

6. I Am (Red Snapper Remix)

Running time: 5 minutes
Released: 2009

I do not know where I picked this up. The "why" is easy enough - Red Snapper. Moist is an... unfortunate name. I know several people who recoil reflexively from the word. In this instance it would seem to refer to a Swedish guy who seems to do a bit of everything.

I only have the one track, which must have been made free somewhere, or distributed through Red Snapper somehow for me to have it.

I can hear the RS influence in the bass (I believe it is a stand-up). The track has a reasonable progression, but nothing outstanding and there is no real melody to speak of which is disappointing. It keeps threatening to get good, but never quite fulfilling on its promise. Decent track, I see no reason to cut it, but neither do I feel like getting all Moist over it.

Alone Aboard the Ark - The Leisure Society

Track List:

1. Another Sunday Psalm
2. A Softer Voice Takes Longer Hearing
3. Fight for Everyone
4. Tearing the Arches Down
5. The Sober Scent of Paper
6. All I Have Seen
7. Everyone Understands
8. Life is a Cabriolet
9. One Man and His Fug
10. Forever Shall We Wait
11. We Go Together
12. The Last in a Long Line

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2013

OK, I suspect this will be a touch disappointing, although I might find that I simply have not previously given this album the attention it deserves. In context, The Leisure Society's debut album The Sleeper is one of my go-back-to-over-and-over favourites, but each release since has lost a little of the magic that made that album so special for me.

This album has a strong opening, with the sunny style that Nick Hemming has made his own very much present in the opening refrains. The man has chops, as Ivor Novello song-writing nominations testify. He also has a pretty decent voice and an identifiable style of delivery with his voice following the lilt of his words nicely, swelling and falling with the roll of the lyric. The song is quaint but loses me a bit when a mouth organ (or similar) is introduced. The album seems to jump back 60 years with its second track - it feels like a homage to older song forms, an impression strengthened by the string arrangements. I do not find it particularly endearing. Thankfully it is a single track effect. Fight for Everyone returns to more modern jauntiness and brings back an infectious happiness that reminds me of when I saw these guys live at End of the Road. It is a very pop-y song though at the same time I cannot imagine it actually being very popular with a wider audience. I like the hook, it brings a smile to my face, and I like that it is called and repeated in several different instruments. However the song then lets itself down by ending meekly and unexpectedly. It just does not feel complete.

It is followed by a number which strips back most accompaniment to the vocal to a staccato guitar, a musical departure that falls flat for me. I am surely guilty these days, of setting a style preference for an artist and then almost too-quickly disregarding their work when they stray from that preferred style, listening instead to the favoured tracks. This is odd, because I have always said I prefer it when artists evolve over time rather than stick to the same tired routine. Intellectually I think that is still true, but in practice pigeonholing artists in this way is useful shorthand for comparison. It is natural to want more of what you like and less of what you do not, and if evolution takes things away from the former and towards the latter it can feel like a negative. That does not make it one though; if no-one adapted and evolved we would all be bored of uniformity.

The middle section of this album is such an evolution. I do not find these songs work too well for me. There are interesting points, but I find myself pining for the musical joy of the arrangements that accompanied Hemming's earlier writing, rather than the very different sounds shared here. If I approached these in the right mood, I am certain I would enjoy the songs more... but I cannot shake the thought that I want to put The Sleeper on right now and listen to that instead. The more I think about it, the more that album is The Leisure Society. That kind of static viewpoint is not helpful; I want to see the good here.

There are some fuller arrangements going on too, and some more songs immediately recognisable as in the style of... There is a particular method applied to the guitar lines and rhythms that is very much a signature of The Leisure Society even before you hear the voice to confirm it. The majority of the tunes are decent, but there are not the stand out wonders I hope for. I suspect many of them would grow on me given repeated listens as one or two are producing a toe-tapping response as it is. However...

This blog is not a recommendation hotspot, but just listen to A Short Weekend Begins With Longing.

That is the standard to which I hold this band, and there is nothing on All Aboard the Ark that comes close to matching that in terms of its simple, genuine, magic. It was the song that captured me, it is representative of their debut album which is quality throughout. We Go Together captures a little of the feel, and there are hints of it sprinkled elsewhere throughout this collection of tunes; the overall impression is similar enough to be recognisably the same source, but also disappointingly removed enough that some of the magic is missing.

Let me clear up: the songs are all nice enough that I am keeping them. I like the approach to music taken by The Leisure Society, like their lyrics and arrangements. I look forward to what they may produce in future. I just not so secretly wish that they will make The Sleeper again.

Allz Saintz Dayz - Martin John Henry

Track List:

1. Allz Saintz Dayz

Running time: 4 minutes
Released: 2010

This is a free single from former De Rosa songwriter Martin John Henry. It is a re-imagining of All Saints Day from Mend from his former band. 

I like the De Rosa recording more. This is remixed with electronics that are interesting but not particularly compelling. It is a little too sedate and does not contain the same fire in the delivery. Not sure it is worth keeping.

Allo Darlin' - Allo Darlin'

Track List:

1. Dreaming
2. The Polaroid Song
3. Silver Dollars
4. Kiss Your Lips
5. Heartbeat Chilli
6. If Loneliness Was Art
7. Woody Allen
8. Let's Go Swimming
9. My Heart is a Drummer
10. What Will Be Will Be

Running time: 37 minutes
Released: 2010

Now this should freshen things up!

Allo Darlin' was another purchase based on a discovery on LastFM and it quickly became a firm favourite. The first song I heard was Kiss Your Lips and it was infectiously fun, happy and generally great. I then picked up the album and found that there were 7 other songs just as good or better. The other 2 I am not so keen on. The group play infectious indie-pop with personality and energy and are just awesome to see live.

The infectious happiness in this album starts immediately. Nice, bright, catchy upbeat drive and a his/hers duet with interesting voices. It just oozes positivity around a simple clean structure and a hook that lasts the distance without getting dull, only to be blown away by the twangy-ness of the line that starts The Polaroid Song. Both of these tunes are busy. They are not massively deep or layered  but there is a very strong simple theme and the pacey nature of playing quite a lot of notes, in jaunty fashion gives the impression of so much going on it is hard to keep up. The actual song about Polaroids is actually quite a laid back/reflective number which makes for an interesting contrast with the highish tempo. I find both an absolute joy.

That sentiment does not go away yet either. Silver Dollars has a similar structure (upbeat bass, fairly high tempo) but more space for the vocal and more separation of tune and rhythm. It contains one very strained rhyme that has always bugged me slightly (rhyming platonic with tonic is perhaps less the issue than the delivery of the line, but still...), but otherwise it continues the theme of really cheery, charming tunes and catchy music.

Kiss Your Lips changes pace a little. It is noticeably slower, but no less catchy. I know I am sounding like a raging fanboy here, but there is something immediate and instinctive about my reaction to these songs - an unlocking of buried joy - that I cannot really explain. I doubt many people that know me would type me as the hipster who gets in on cult indie darlings but that is pretty much exactly what happened when I heard Allo Darlin' first. Just blown away by some emotional response to their genuine fun.

Heartbeat Chilli is the first of the two songs I do not much care for. Much slower and simpler it loses the energy and enthusiasm that is, for me, the real selling point of Allo Darlin'. It is also a food-centric love song and just typing that phrase seems so fundamentally wrong! Thankfully it is just a mid-album interlude in the infectious pop. Loneliness is less upbeat to start but it grows on you before the cheesy sha-la-la's kick in. As a long term singleton there are elements of recognition in this; these are geeky love songs, which somehow makes them more palatable to me than more traditional pop love ballads - I am a massive geek after all. That said, she could be singing about strangling cats on Mars for all I care. I note the words as I listen but really I am here for the the simple wonder of it, and for basslines and snazzy tempo to die for. Woody Allen has both in spades and my foot starts tapping as I type. I cannot stop smiling. It's not even my favourite song from this disc!


My favourite track, by a country mile, is My Heart is a Drummer. So joyous. It starts slow then explodes into full on catchy jangly goodness and the delivery of the chorus still gives me goosebumps. The bridge is so infectious it is unreal. Having seen a tent full of folks of all ages jumping up and down to this in a sweaty ecstasy once, I would give quite a lot to do so again but these days I do not get to as many gigs as I used to. Living in a small town not a tour spot, not knowing people who share my tastes. It saddens me some.

The album ends on a more reflective note. What Will Be Will Be is the second track I could take or leave most of the time. It is really nicely done and really it only suffers here because the rest of the album is such a favourite, and because the disc is short, you are not worn out enough to appreciate the slow-down fully.

When I bought this, almost 4 years ago now, it went into the car and stayed on a constant play cycle for an age. I put it back in often. The magic has not faded. Two later albums have come since - the second just a couple of weeks back. They have not grabbed me in the same way, but Europe was a grower, and I am hoping that We Come From the Same Place will be too. Allo Darlin' may be the best band you have never heard of. From my experience I would say listen to this disc if you get the chance - even if it is not normally your thing. You may think it trite hipster shite, or you may find, like I did, that there is something inexplicably necessary about this music.

Music is about emotional responses and this album produces one of my most enduring. A little ray of sunshine in the dark autumnal gloom. These days there are few things that I would blanket recommend, but Allo Darlin' has a quintessential simplicity and joy about it, I would quite happily do so. I do do so. It will not be everyone's cup of tea, but if even one person has the same magical reaction to their work that I did then the world is a brighter place.

'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! - Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Track List:

1. Mladic
2. Their Helicopters’ Sing
3. We Drift Like Worried Fire
4. Strung Like Lights at Thee Printemps Erable

Running Time: 53 minutes
Released: 2012

OK so apparently apostrophes count as "other" but not enough for this album to have been listed with the punctuation and numbers in WMP. Instead there is an insert in the middle of A just for this album. Computers, eh? Got to love them.

I had been aware of GY!BE (and the correct punctuation in their name) for a long time without ever buying anything. Hearing stuff friends played was the extent of it until something prompted me to buy this 2012 release. I think I regretted it immediately and LastFM suggests I have not managed to listen to the whole thing in the 2 years I have had it (3 scrobbles before this listen). I will admit I am not looking forward to this one, and expect it to be disappearing from my library once it is complete. "Its only 4 tracks, how bad can it be?" - after one 15 minute 4-tracker comes one almost making the hour. Well, no time like the present...

The 4 tracks break down as 2 super-tracks of ~20 minutes each, and 2 tracks that are in the ballpark of the regular song (albeit the longer end of that scale) at 6 1/2 minutes. Mladic, presumably named for this dirtbag, is of the former. It opens with a long sequence with an insistent guitar riff repeating whilst all kinds of layers form, play out and dissipate over the top of it. Actually this is pretty darn good. The relative volumes are right, so that repetition is very audible but at the same time it plays second fiddle to what else is going on. Rather than becoming a drone to get bored of, it becomes a touchstone of familiarity whilst the sound around it shrieks, wails, thumps and breaks into your skull with its insistence. The impressive part is the sustained intensity of the piece. The soundscape takes on elements from eastern musical traditions as the tune progresses and I find these just that little bit harsher. They are sharper edged sounds and tones which does not sit so well. I am about half way through the song's length when I realise that constant guitar repeat has gone. I wonder when it disappeared. It is no coincidence that this realisation accompanies a lightening of the load - an expansion of the sound into airier space, less constrained, more open, and slowed... to the point of almost petering out at one stage. The lull is not appreciated here other than for drawing closed those eastern twangs and heralding a return to more rounded sounds that, whilst still noisy, cut less of a hole in my eardrums. The last third of this piece has been rather dull in comparison with what came before. It keeps threatening to build to something again, but then chickens out and maintains a status quo which just fails to excite, before finally kicking any interest out the door with improvised percussion left alone to finish up. I found the first half pretty great, the third quarter alright and the last simply forgettable. Not sure what that leaves me wanting to do with the track really...

Their Helicopters' Sing takes over and is just flat for the first 2 1/2 minutes. A simple drone. I keep waiting for something to kick in, and whilst there is a gradual build in volume and assorted other sounds being layered on top of the drone it singularly fails to engage with me, the drone getting on my nerves and a few of the layered sounds being like nails down a chalkboard in terms of the response they generate. The whole 6 1/2 minutes are like this, alas, and as good an indication as any as to why I did not get into GY!BE earlier.

The opening to We Drift Like Worried Fire, the second mega-track, is interesting. A plucked string hook, and crafted sounds around that produce an eerie tone. This takes up the first three minutes, before a guitar comes in to pick up the hook and it promises for a growth in the sound, something that is sorely needed by this point. Alas it is some time coming - another minute before anything further is built on. The base remains pleasant enough, but the song is flattering to deceive a little until the stings return as a melody. There is then some progression, construction, and embellishment. The problem I find myself with is that I have just got bored in the meantime and the new, richer sound is nice, but is it nice enough to excuse the overlong build up? On balance, probably, just. Of course as I say that there are still 12 minutes to go!

The clocks went back last night. It is now 17.30 and pitch dark outside, which does nothing for my mood. The next 4 months are bleak, black and devoid of fun as I rise in the dark, leave for work in the dark, and come home again in the dark. Bleh.

I was going to compare that to what was happening in the tune around the 10 minute mark but then it got interesting on me again. This piece is really frustrating with its ups and downs. One of the problems is that the interesting bits are either too short or last long enough to become uninteresting by virtue of repetition. Unlike Mladic, it appears that the last third of this tune will be the most energetic, highest tempo, and more impressive section. I suspect there may yet be a bait-and-switch ending, but the build feels like we could be in for a crescendo and that is a positive development. Definitely an interesting end, and overall it leaves me with a positive impression on the song despite moments of disengagement or frustration with earlier sections.

The fourth and final track is another drone-based piece and I have to say I am immediately turned off by this approach. There is nothing here for me to latch on to, nothing to enjoy, just a wall of sameness pushing at my eardrums and making me want the listen to end. Even when that wall breaks there is no element introduced to liven it up, just another different drone taking over. I will be keeping 50% of this album and to my surprise it is the longer pieces that make the cut. They both have their moments of frustration or disinterest but they also have some astounding sections that really gripped my ears. As the album closes, I am left with a physical sensation of the sound having been removed. This speaks to the effect of the drones - powerful in terms of generating a response, but not necessarily a favourable one.

All You Good Good People E.P. - Embrace

Track List:

1. All You Good Good People
2. You Don't Amount To Anything - This Time
3. The Way I Do
4. Free Ride

Running time: 16 minutes
Released: 1997

Ah, Embrace. To me, they were the palatable part of Britpop for a short while. I hated Oasis, thought Blur were poseurs (I have come around a bit on this, since realising Albarn's talent) and could not stand The Verve or the 101 other derivative incarnations of that movement. 

However this single hooked me, though if I remember rightly I had already liked The Last Gas and taped it off the radio. Onto cassette and everything. I can still hear All You Good Good People in my head, and The Way I Do and Free Ride bring to mind memories of lovelorn youthfulness. The other track here has no place in my memory. I liked this enough to buy the album The Good Will Out when it followed.

I suspect I will not be so quick to praise this time, however the opening chords of the single are still very pleasant. The vocal/lyric is less interesting but there is a wider arrangement or orchestration on this song that softens the edge of whining northern bleakness that I always felt followed some of the other Britpoppers around like a bad smell. That said the vocal really obscures the arrangement in places, which is a shame because the big sound is quite effective otherwise, even if the song should really end at the 4:30 mark where the first swell concludes. Instead we get a minute and a half of pointless extension with no further verse or chorus and a lead out that does not add anything or substantially change the tone. Wasted space.

You Don't Amount to Anything - This Time is... ugh. Bad piano is bad, bad vocal is worse. This is car crash stuff, complete with self-indulgent cat-strangled guitar. The Way I Do is pretty bad, too. Not a  poor man's Lennon, a destitute man's Lennon. I think I was probably too unaware to notice the mimicry at the time, but now it is so blindingly obvious and painful to sit through. And I say this as someone who is not a fan of The Beatles or Lennon in particular. Unless Free Ride is a stormer, this whole disc goes bye-bye as, I have the title track elsewhere and that is sufficiently a) OK and b) nostalgic that I would keep it.

Free Ride, then... the piano is tinny. I think it must have been recorded on an electric keyboard... or maybe my ears have gone. Probably the latter, alas. It is a bleak song and the lyric is pretty asinine but I cannot help but like the melody and the tone is reasonable.  It is a keeper, but barely; the sort of tune I do not mind popping up 1 in 15000 or so but would never go out of my way to listen to again. Actually - that sentence right there is reason enough to get rid of it. Off with it's head!

All World: Greatest Hits - LL Cool J

Track List:

1. I Can't Live Without My Radio
2. Rock The Bells
3. I'm Bad
4. I Need Love
5. Going Back To Cali
6. Jack The Ripper
7. Jingling Baby
8. Big Ole Butt
9. Boomin' System
10. Around The Way Girl
11. Mama Said Knock You Out
12. Back Seat
13. I Need A Beat
14. Doin It
15. Loungin
16. Hey Lover
17. Ain't Nobody

Running time: 77 minutes
Released: 1996

Ah now we step back in time. I went through a hip-hop phase in my teens and bought this based almost entirely on Ain't Nobody. I retain a fondness for the odd rap tune here and there - or at least a platonic ideal of a rap tune, too much of it is simply misogynistic garbage - but it is not an area I keep up with in any way. Just the odd relic like this, with associated nostalgia.

I don't remember ...Radio being so bland. Its the only word I think fits. There is some fire in the tone of voice, but the delivery is also pretty one-note for most of the piece and it is properly old school with nothing but a percussion track. Man, beats can be good, but there needs to be a little more to it than that. I had also forgotten how much some rappers liked their own names as lyrics.

I like the medium. Like spoken word material it can be very powerful for conveying a message, and when it does that well you get some pretty brilliant work. For me, personally, it's a bit of a crapshoot trying to find that material amongst the other trappings. I am not 15 any more; I am not interested in self-aggrandisement, insult hurling or power fantasy. That said, I'm Bad is a much more palatable track than the prior two - there is more going on, the sampled sirens and musical interludes make for a more rounded tune. The thought occurs to me that LL Cool J must have a horribly dry throat. That much shouty/raspy-ness in the delivery must have taken its toll over the years.

The tone shifts then. I Need Love sounds more like a plaintive needy whinge than a love song to me these days; it seems to go on forever and bores me to tears. Going Back to Cali is also less visceral. The soundscape is nice enough in spots (it goes a bit faux-jazz later in the song), but I cannot help but think the recording levels are all over the place. Half the time the percussion, scratching and samples seem to obliterate the lyric which just seems like a mistake. So far this listen is reinforcing the idea that nostalgia is looking back fondly at stuff you have never re-examined and never should. Oh well!

This feels closer to the birth of hip-hop than I remember ever thinking before, but the timing makes sense I guess: the second wave prior to the rise and rise of gangsta rap. This best-of pre-dates 2Pac's (coming later) by just 2 years but covers material back to a lot earlier - which means that there is not actually too much disagreeable subject matter here so far. I have to pause the listen for a bit though, as I am really not feeling this right now and need to go get some food having not eaten all day.

Resuming, sated, I have 2/3rds of the disc still to go. All is jingling... or rather it should be. Really if you use that in a title, and do not actually include any jingles you have dropped the ball. The way the line is delivered it sounds more like jiggling and the song has a sleazy vibe to it that makes that reading stronger. I am not a fan. I have also noticed a weird interruption on a few tracks here, annoying - just like the changed tone/theme. Two sleazier numbers back to back.

My ears prick up a little with the change of sound for Around the Way Girl - a brighter, more upbeat sound, and the first use of a sung chorus (sample?). It is a much more listenable tune as a result, though I am not really parsing the lyrics at all though and I am glad when it gives way to Mama Said Knock You Out, this chorus is an old memory, familiar. The song is supposedly a hit back against critics thinking his career was over. It gives it a visceral, personal edge and whilst I am not a great fan of the sampling here, or the violence described in the verses, that strength of feeling makes it a much more powerful song.

Back Seat is back to the sleaze and instantly forgettable as a result. A shame because it returns to the lighter style of backing which I think can be really effective with a good lyric. Not overshadowing the message. Instead here it gets to be accompanied by simulated sex noises. Ugh. As a greatest hits album this is all over the place stylistically and it makes for an odd end-to-end. Percussive to musical to sleazy to percussive, back to sleazy and over again. I note that whilst the subjects of sex and violence have arisen, lyrically there is far less cussing and swearing than you might expect, so that is something. I am not enthused about the lyrics here though. It is hard to see looking back almost 20 years to why this interested me.

Ah, I forgot cheesy. It swings to that, too (Loungin) though maybe it is just a subtype of sleazy. Actually I quite like this tune because the sample just has groove, an easy swagger, and fits well with the vocal. To be fair, Ain't Nobody is ultimately cheese too, but very fine cheese, and mostly because the milk from which the cheese was crafted was unbelievable. OK, I am stretching the metaphor. Ultimately this has made me somewhat apprehensive of the other hip-hop listens coming up. I all but left the genre behind for all intents and purposes ~15 years ago, with only a handful of purchases since, and those leaning towards spoken word. I cannot say that I have enjoyed this listen, but I will be keeping some tracks for posterity. Not many though - just 5 of 17: I'm Bad, Around the Way Girl, Mama Said Knock You Out, Loungin and Ain't Nobody pass the interest test for different reasons. Slimming down is good; I do not go for big ole butts.

All We Could Do Was Sing - Port O'Brien

Track List:

1. I Woke Up Today
2. Stuck on a Boat
3. Fisherman's Son
4. Don't Take My Advice
5. Alive For Nothing
6. My Eyes Won't Shut
7. Pigeonhold
8. Will You Be There?
9. The Rooftop Song
10. In Vino Veritas
11. Close the Lid
12. Valdez

Running time: 40 minutes
Released: 2008

Another total oddball that I cannot explain by any means. I have vague memories of buying this from Amazon, and similarly vague recollections of not liking it very much. I do not recall what prompted the purchase or what I did not like, however so it is entirely probable that one or both of those memories will turn out to have been bunk.

Such is life.

Quite a punchy start... rhythmic and with a catchy hook; almost African in origin. Just a shame about the vocal which is simply put: awful. Not only is it out of keeping with the music that it overlays, it is a very poor harmony - more shouted than sung. There is the basis of a good tune here, but that vocal spoils it. If it is a sign of vocals to come, the whole album is ditched. There is enough in the backing to make me hope that is not the case though - catchy, hooky, there is something here that intrigues me. I am glad to hear the infectiousness continue past track one, whilst the vocal is replaced with a more conventional one (albeit with echoes of poor harmony on choruses).

A quarter of the way through and the elements are gaining some consistency - for better and for worse. The singing is more bearable when it is just the lead vocalist, but his voice is not very palatable. There is a rawness there which makes everything sound slightly out of tune to me. The arrangements are neat though - they have a quintessentially catchy set up. The percussion is solid, and there are layers of strings (guitars, banjos, fiddles and cellos at different points, I think) that provide either a solid hook to hang everything on, or a layered sound that comes across as really rich - and frequently both.

The songs are pretty short on average too, which means even those that rely on a single hook repeated for the length do not have time to get boring. 12 tracks in 40 minutes is good for that. Pretty good for passing the time too... I am killing time before an agreed Borderlands: The Presequel co-op session, watching muted football on TV and soaking my sink strainers with industrial-strength cleaning fluid. Seriously, those things get rank. I expected a forgettable listen as a result, but there is a lot more to this album than I thought.

It does get into horrible noise at times though - I Woke Up Today showed them capable of it, and Pigeonhold confirms they can do it with the instruments as well as with vocal. Again, there are some pretty cool elements to the track, but the way everything comes together is pretty ugly. By contrast there are a couple of much lighter songs too - ones where the vocal is even largely pleasant and/or the menagerie of instrumentation gives way to a softer string backing.

The most engaging songs are somewhere in the middle though - Port O'Brien seem to me to be best when hooking you strongly and hammering an interesting little pattern on the rim of your eardrum. I would not call them world beaters. There is no sublime genius at work here, but there is plenty of genuine love and hard playing and the ear-catching qualities that only come when people are really into what they are doing. There is a Waits-y vibe to some of the combinations of off-beat percussiveness and muted string, and a backyard guitar session feel to others - I am trying and failing to come up with a good artist to compare with.

The only songs that bored me in any way (the couple of bad tracks were not boring) were Close the Lid, which I think this more down to the length and the fact it does give the hooks and form long enough to get stale, and Valdez. The latter closes the album; it refers to the infamous Exxon Valdez spill but it is just a little trite and lacking any interest.

I will be cutting a few tracks here, but not as many as I was expecting to go before I began. The album provided a pleasant surprise and a light mid-evening entertainment. I won't be buying any more though.

All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone - Explosions in the Sky

Track list:

1. The Birth and Death of the Day
2. Welcome, Ghosts
3. It's Natural to Be Afraid
4. What Do You Go Home To?
5. Catastrophe and the Cure
6. So Long, Lonesome

Running time: 43 minutes
Released: 2007

I am not sure I have ever listened to this album properly before. I used to have it in my library twice, once ripped, once gifted, but removed the duplication a while back. I have vague inklings of not getting on with EitS in the way I did with Mogwai or This Will Destroy You or, more recently, Jakob, who operate in similar spheres. Interesting to give this a chance again.

When starting the listen, I am immediately turned off by a screeching to the guitar-driven wall that hits my ears. Thankfully the wailing sound abates and more melodic tones emerge, swell then fall before another wall of more gravelly sound hits. I am not really getting on with The Birth and Death of the Day. The melodies are nice enough but not demanding, and the fuller sounds when they come in are less musical than they might be. The percussion is too loud for my liking and overall the tunes when they come through from the rest are just a little too... plain?

Not sure what I feel is missing here... maybe a layer effect? Perhaps the genius line to draw in my ear? Whatever it is I am perceiving this album as somewhat removed from me. Maybe it is just that I do not have a context for the tracks - they are not generating mental images for me, they have not been on the road with me and I am simply less familiar with them than other "post rock" from my library. Whatever it is, I am not getting something from this listen that would, ideally, be there. There are some nice sections in the tracks, but also periods where either I find the sound uncomfortable (like the opening of the album) or bland. Without something to root these tunes and cement them in my mind's ear, they are washing over me and falling to the ground like rain off a plastic mac.

Then we hit a movement in It's Natural to Be Afraid -  from about 4 minutes into the 13+ minute piece - and I hit a bit I like. I can see what people like about Explosions in the Sky... it is very reminiscent of This Will Destroy You (who, coming later, were probably influenced by EitS rather than the other way around). This reminiscence, this familiarity, is engaging. I find I like this track, whereas the two before I could happily leave. I still cannot put my finger on what specifically makes the difference, and the ending of the track ruins the positive impression a little but this will be kept, even if the rest gets junked (as seems possible).

There is a busyness to the keyboard in What Do You Go Home To? which obliterates the calm of the pace and the serenity of the rest of the sculpted sounds. I am not a fan; I can hear some nice lines behind it but whilst the contrast is assuredly deliberate I feel too much is lost in its application to make the track an interesting listen. Actually that might be a thread here: there is generally a little too much going on for my liking. When one player goes quiet, the others do not necessarily follow. Deliberate contrast is imposed in a number of cases. One instrument staying strong or persistent where otherwise we might get some space to breathe. Trying to put this another way... it feels like guys bouncing off each other a little more than constructively working together to construct the final work. That can be awesome when it comes off - and I suspect many folk would see this album as coming off very well.

I do not fit in that camp. The songs here just fail to touch my soul enough and only two will be kept, with So Long, Lonesome being the second. I like title, I like the "chorus" refrain and the rest of the instrumentation does not do any of the small things that somehow unknowingly combined to make the majority of these songs just fall flat for me. I would not say that I think All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone is a bad album; it is just one that I cannot find a place for. Other works exist to fill this hole and without that magic something that commends music to my heart, this disc falls short of appreciation.

All Maps Welcome - Tom McRae

Track List:

1. For The Restless
2. Hummingbird Song
3. The Girl Who Falls Downstairs
4. How The West Was Won
5. Packing For The Crash
6. It Ain't You
7. Strangest Land
8. My Vampire Heart
9. Silent Boulevard
10. Still Lost
11. Border Song

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2005

Tom McRae burst into my consciousness with his eponymous debut album, which was Mercury-nominated. I saw him tour it and then bought 4 more over the years that followed. To be honest, my impression now is that I should have stopped after the second (Just Like Blood) as the consistency dropped with the years. This is his third album, and whilst there are still a couple of good songs that I recognise and will definitely be keeping in the track list, I anticipate cutting some chaff here after the listen too.

McRae has a distinctive voice, somewhat strangled and strained. Quiet but edgy. It is the standout element of the opening track, which is otherwise quite plodding and far from engaging. The lyrics repeat too much and the music is uninspired. The general ambiance it creates is pretty strong but, maybe it's the tired mood I am in, whilst it evokes a solid image, it provides very little engagement with it. It is like looking at a painting on a TV screen - one step removed. The same goes for Hummingbird Song, which has a very similar structure. Vocal over very sparse but deliberate tune. This is less taught than the first song, but there are elements of tension in the sharp electrics. Neither song has engaged, and in parts this one feels like a less interesting retread of an earlier song, whose name escapes me this second. If that same flawed memory serves the next three songs are the heart of the album however, so maybe things will improve presently.

Certainly they introduce more music. There is a greater tunefulness, more songcraft and more to listen to. I find McRae to have a problem with repetition though, it just feels as though there is too much chorus and not enough verse. I do not believe that is a fair criticism, but it is the honest reaction that smacks me in the face listening to The Girl Who Falls Downstairs. I quite like it, but it just feels like I have heard everything within the first moments of a five minute track. It is an odd impression.

How the West Was Won is probably my favourite tune from this album. This is the example of how McRae did not completely leave me behind. The song as story. It is long, but lyrical, it is pretty and arranged with haunting strings that pull at emotions. The overall tone is quite sad, reflective but there are swells and lulls in the course that means it always offers something. Choruses are delivered differently, bridges put focus on brass. It is not a pop song (as I see them) for it lacks the uniformity. I have always liked its lyrics as companion to the tune. They would not win any awards when read, but they fit the piece as presented on record and beat some of the other efforts on the disc. Like Packing for the Crash where the title is pretty much the only lyric, repeated too often to be interesting. The music is pretty bland too, but it does at least have some depth of sound.

I will be honest here: whilst I recognise about half of the remaining song titles, they do not breed any sense of interest for me, or conjure the songs to mind. This is the problem with mid-to-late Tom McRae, too much is eminently forgettable. His voice and vocal style are very recognisable and he has it within him to write some decent songs, Tom McRae was packed with tight songs, dripping with angst and developed enough to work. These songs? Half have no arrangement of note, the other half have nothing of interest either lyrically or in delivery.

OK, that is a bit hyperbolic but I am prone to that. In truth, I have just drifted a little from this style of music. I went through a phase of loving singer/songwriter stuff almost exclusively, and probably buying the approach more than the actual output. From where I sit now, albums like this one do not stack up well against the wider nature of my library. It is not that he cannot write, cannot play, cannot sing - just that he does not do so in a way that speaks to the me of 2014 with his songs of 2005. There is a lot more depth to the second half here than I have conveyed here; were I interested in a fair criticism I would mention the ache of My Vampire Heart. Instead I am just going to opine about how much more I got from his first album which, hell, may not even stand up when I eventually get to it in a year or more.

I got into Tom McRae at the same time as I got into Ed Harcourt and the two have had similar career paths in terms of the impressions their albums left on me. Good starts, tailing off into mediocrity whilst still providing me with the odd reminder of why I liked them to start with. I should really have bought fewer albums by both, not bought on name and regretted it later but made informed purchases. But if I had done that I would never have heard How The West Was Won or Visit From the Dead Dog which appear on albums I am otherwise indifferent to.

I cannot honestly say how much of this I want rid of. I am in an odd mood this evening which is perhaps colouring this post and I can see merits in several tracks here. I am just not sure they are merits that warrant keeping them. Something to think on.

All Is Violent, All Is Bright - God Is An Astronaut

Track List:

1. Fragile
2. All Is Violent, All Is Bright
3. Forever Lost
4. Fire Flies and Empty Skies
5. A Deafening Distance
6. Infinite Horizons
7. Suicide by Star
8. Remembrance Day
9. Dust and Echoes
10. When Everything Dies

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2005

God Is An Astronaut were another LastFM find, on some kind of Post-Rock station, probably based on Mogwai, though there is not really much resemblance between the two - with this Irish group being much more electro/synthy in their approach. I remember being taken in by, I think, From Dust to the Beyond (on The End of the Beginning) and then just picking up a few albums blind. I have no real familiarity with these songs by name, but I am sure I will recognise a few as they play.

Fragile is an interesting opening, slow and gentle to start with, it feels - and this is something I find myself saying about a fair few opening tracks - more like a closer than an opener. I could not say whether this is just me though, perhaps I look for different things in the first song on an album than others. Primarily I want one of two things:

1. A statement that sets the tone for what is to come; or

2. A slow build that grows into the rest of the album.

 (3. Bloody lists don't play nicely with the image opposite).

The latter is half true here, but overall Fragile has no build - it starts pretty one-paced and one-tone and maintains that slow, low feel throughout. It is far from an unpleasant listen but it just lacks any X factor as an opener. Thankfully the title track picks up the mantle a bit better, and has some real energy about it by the time it comes to close.

As Forever Lost starts I am noticing a pattern here though. The sounds used in these tunes are all very similar. There is distinction between the songs in tempo, volume, etc. but fundamentally they all sound... if not the same then a bit too close together to really enthuse about them. Moreover I think that extends past this album to the other 2 and a half (one is very short) that I have. I am getting a picture of God is an Astronaut as a "do one thing, but do it well" sort of band forming - but it is unfair to judge that description final just 3 songs into the first listen on the basis of my (already documented to be wonky) memory.

Synth/programmed keys, guitars, drums all present. It is a formula that seems to be doing them well and I'll be clear here: for all the over-familiarity of each song there is nothing here that would move me to remove this album from my library. It just feels as though the tunes are a little too uniform for back-to-back appreciation of the sort this blog is about. The combination of the programming with the live recording settles into a regular pattern. The guitars do "X" the keys do "Y" and the drums do "Z". Often - in the case of the keys and guitars, using similar tones and changing the patterns from song to song. This is almost certainly a grossly unfair criticism in terms of the actual process; I am not a music critic just some dude writing a blog with no real experience.

But you know what? I have a sneaking suspicion that what I see as sameness between the tunes is probably a fundamental keystone of their appeal. GiaA are a "safe" band, you know what you are going to get and if you happen to like that, its all good. And how many people today actually consume music in the way that I am doing for this project? I would guess relatively few, which means those similarities becomes less of an issue, less of an irritation. Those similarities though? They make it really easy to identify a God is an Astronaut track in a rotation.

For my part, I prefer the louder and brasher tunes on this album. When the volume and tempo go up the (by now) genericisms of the format and reuse of the same notes fade as issues, getting lost in the more vibrant sounds, the fuzziness introduced by more notation and the energy transmitted through the songs. The slower, sparser pieces - whilst possibly more melodic - allow my ear to latch onto the common theme(s) and refrains more easily. I wish I could transcribe by ear to investigate my own point more thoroughly, but alas that is beyond me.

Wow, this has been an overtly negative post for being about something I like and will be keeping all of... how can I address that?

First the oddity: there are a few tracks here where the smoothness of playback is interrupted near the end of the song. I cannot tell whether this is an artefact of the rip from CD or a genuine article in the work (where perhaps the original track lines were different). I suspect the former, but if so to have it occur 3 or 4 times in one disc when I do not consciously recall every having heard it elsewhere it interesting to say the least.

Finally, to end on a positive note: do one thing and do it well. We could latch on to two different sentiments in that sentence: limitation, or quality.  The rest of this post bleats about the limitation. The quality though? Well, until the last track (which to be honest has a problem with dead air and a hidden track that should probably not exist) they keep track length well in hand, which is unusual in this sort of instrumental rock and there is not a single unpleasant song here. There is a good mix of slower melodies and faster riots and examples of both are sculpted into compelling soundscapes and catchy loops that will stick in your head and be recognised whenever they pop up again. It takes real craft to be that immediately identifiable in a field populated by everyone and their dog using the same tools to sculpt the same material.

It's just that you will never be sure which statue you are looking at.

All Is Fair - Gojogo

Track List:

1. Sounds In the Fields
2. Tezeta
3. Puppets
4. Dusk
5. All Is Fair In Love and War
6. Yangsta
7. Taal Mama
8. Aviary
9. Hush

Running time: 47 minutes
Released: 2006

Now this is an oddity. I bought this album after Gojogo came up in a LastFM station I was listening to, I think based on The Imagined Village shortly after their eponymous debut. I remember delighting in the ambience but have not listed to any tracks from this album for a long time. It should be an interesting one to return to.

It opens very... classically.  Not what I remember. I am a little tipsy as I type this and listening to Gogjogo's new-agey work as a counterpoint to a bitty and unfulfilling work day  and the bile and rubbish that I have been exposed to as I catch myself up on the hideous mess that is GamerGate. If you do not know what that is I envy you. Save yourself the trouble, do not look it up.

Tezeta is more like what I was expecting to hear, unconventional percussion with a sparse string melody. I am not sure I like the strings, but the rhythm is compelling, if a little hypnotic. It is a short piece though and before I finish a paragraph it is done. Puppets is in a similar vein, but with the emphasis more on the bass/rhythm, the string melody is somehow subservient to them, slaved to the beat (it is also less harshly recorded). Overall I really like this track.

OK to get the major criticism out of the way first: this does all sound a bit deliberately ethnic, a bit "look at us we're diverse". It would be easy to dismiss this album as an ethnic recording, but for the fact the group are white Americans. but that would be missing the point. And missing the genius. The album comes alive with All is Fair in Love and War (which, as it starts, I keep expecting to morph into Knight Rider) and its sheer immediacy. Heavily percussive there are much more western sensibilities about the track, even if the percussion still gives it an eastern sound. There is a tension, a knife edge provided by the structure, the rapid beat, one that is not at all dismissed by the plaintive guitar over the top. It vanishes, to be replaces with an uneasy calm after a few minutes... the track changing tone dramatically as a result, but feeling like there is something to be stoked... only to peter out unsastisfyingly without regaining the urgency with which it opened. I like the track as a whole, but it really could have done with ending on a bang, not a whimper.

Yangsta, which follows starts slow, but does build it is almost entirely percussive, the string line here being so high as to be miss-able. The rhythm is infectious and the introduction of different sounds to complement the basic loop constructs a highly infectious track. This is not representative of anything else in my library, it stands alone - yet music being what music is, the jump from this track to the jazzier end of drum and bass (something that will come up later) is not a massive one. Music is so interconnected, so fluid. In looking them up, it seems they had another album in 2011 - I am enjoying this enough to suggest that I should look it up; Taal Mama might be the best track yet.

Aviary is more hit and miss. It carries virtually no melody in places and the percussion is nothing like interesting enough to pull off the "main event" it is aiming for. And yet it remains an engaging listen because of its difference. The closer is more challenging, but rewarding. It introduces brass for the first time, warbling jazzy laments over the layered soundscape provided by the now familiar percussion and strings. I find my thoughts drifting nicely, the track slipping by, the album closing.

Despite the time, and perhaps because of inebriation, the album as flown by. I am not left with the same strong impression that I recall having on first exposure, but I am left thinking that it is a very nice counterpoint to most of my music. A lot of thought, and no little skill, went into producing this, and whilst it is at best an occasional enjoyment, it is an enjoyment to be savoured.

All India Radio - All India Radio

Track list:

5. Evening Star
9. Waukaringa

Running time: 9 minutes
Released: 2003

A stub; 2 songs from this album, one downloaded free at LastFM just now, another which I can only surmise was previously available free on LastFM but is no longer, which is why this is in my library.

I do not know much about All India Radio, but I seem to have a fair number (18) of tracks by them from a number of different releases. I would imagine all free and all from LastFM; they still have a number of downloads listed there, though the tracks do not all line up with what I have. I cannot think of any other source, though... I do not believe I ever bought anything by AIR, I have no physical discs, and I am not in the habit of downloading stuff illicitly. Anyhow - 2 songs, lets hear them.

Evening Star is pleasant enough - familiar sounding guitar-provided instrumental over (I would guess) synth backing. It evokes a wide open sky on a warm summer night - which is probably intentional to go by "Australian" and the cover image. It is perfectly listenable, even if it does repeat refrains too often. It is pretty good background music, a settled rhythm to the piece, and entirely inoffensiv.e. Waukaringa is the currently free song linked above. It is sparse. I think I prefer this. It eventually gets a beat after 2 minutes in and goes downhill a bit. The lovely light touch replaced with a generic-sounding loop which - like Evening Star - is perfectly listenable but not really engaging.

I would say both songs are reasonable pieces but there just does not feel like there is any heft to them, anything other than a nice hum to remove silence - a shame because I thought Waukaringa was going to be a stunning ambient track at first. Never mind. Whilst I could listen to either again and not complain, I have no drive to do so, too little engagement. Another casualty.

All Hour Cymbals - Yeasayer

Track List:

1. Sunrise
2. Wait for the Summer
3. 2080
4. Germs
5. Ah, Weir
6. No Need to Worry
7. Forgiveness
8. Wait for the Wintertime
9. Worms
10. Waves
11. Red Cave

Running time: 46 minutes
Released: 2007

I was sold on Yeasayer by a performance of 2080 on Later... With Jools Holland. 

I picked up this album, and (later) Odd Blood, which I found too odd to like. I am not sure how well this stands up (I find the above-linked video cringeworthy now - mostly for the singer's antics), but I have fond memories of both that tune and the opener, Sunrise. The rest of the album does not conjure any specific recollections.

Sunrise (free on LastFM) is fairly cute, jazzy bass combined with odd sounds and an affective vocal, it all comes together pretty well for the first half of the song, but the latter half is an over-long outro where nothing really changes and it plays out to boredom. I hope that is not a sign of things to come.

Wait for the Summer is... yeah, what was I thinking here? Look the styling of the arrangements I quite like - the elements used to craft this song are all reasonable but they come together as a tangled mess - the worst offender the ridiculously over-levelled percussive bells that dominate. It feels rudderless in a way that neither Sunrise nor 2080 (also available free on LastFM) do. Speaking of 2080, I have little doubt that this is the best crafted track on the album - a great hook, big brash sound and accessible. Whilst I cannot watch that vid linked above without tensing, listening to the album version stimulates the original love of the track. It feels tight, well constructed and most importantly catchy. I do not really care for the vocal but it suits the track OK... the main draw is the hook, but even after that fades there is interest and coherence in the track. It does end rather weakly though.

I am not expecting much from the remaining tracks - there is too much of a hippy-ish "out there" tinge to Yeasayer for my appreciation. I find some of it atonal, and other bits of it boring. There are flits of interest around the edges of tracks but nothing as big and statement-like, or as successful in fusing their "freakier" elements with good old fashioned radio-friendly music as 2080.  I hope that somewhere here there is a gem I have forgotten but I am sceptical, mostly because of the vocalist. His style does not appeal, and I cannot get those performing antics out of my head.

Honestly, I cannot quite believe I bought Odd Blood based on this experience. Forgiveness is the next track that holds my attention for any time thanks to interesting hooks again. Unfortunately it has a horrid atonal opening, a "feature" that recurs through its length - I cannot even begin to describe the sound well, but I find it offensive. And that is a shame because I like the parts of the song which do not have it obliterating the more musical tones. I will be trimming down what I hold from this disc, the only question is how much will be left?

I am probably making a false association but something about the music of Wait for the Wintertime reminds me of early Pink Floyd (who seem to be getting a lot of passing mentions!). Specifically A Saucerful of Secrets, though I freely admit my actual memories of that album are practically confined to the line "set the controls for the heart of the sun" so the importance of the parallel is questionable. I think the song may pass the keep test though. It feels a little bit directionless but I quite like the main hook and I find the "weirdness" less intrusive on this one.

Then we hit an interesting point where the track titles in my library do not match those in the legend here. This time I am pretty sure mine are wrong - but looking one of them up ("Many Waves" in place of Worms, Worms in place of "Waves") suggests I may not be alone. A quick check of my CD (running up and down the stairs) confirms that when this got ripped I trusted a borked source to title tracks correctly - but also doesn't give a name for track 11. Oddities like this annoy me and so I have just renamed the tracks... even though I am about to delete them because neither inspire me.

That missing track 11 from the CD, Red Cave, is probably the most pleasant sound on the album. Or it would be if the song was a minute long. The problem with the pleasantness is that it is very dull and goes on for 3:30 before it devolves into a badly delivered vocal and atonal backing. 

I think this is the frustrating thing for me here: Yeasayer clearly have some talent, and demonstrated with 2080 that they could fuse more mainstream song forms with elements of New Weird America to create something different and exciting. Alas it seems that was a moment of alchemy and not a reproducible effect. All Hour Cymbals is a lot less interesting than I remember, and I found it genuinely unpleasant in places, so it goes - with only two freely available tracks to mark its passing; in hindsight Wait for the Wintertime does not pass muster for retention.

All Hail West Texas - The Mountain Goats

Track List:

1. The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton
2. Fall Of The Star High School Running Back
3. Color In Your Cheeks
4. Jenny
5. Fault Lines
6. Balance
7. Pink And Blue
8. Riches And Wonders
9. The Mess Inside
10. Jeff Davis County Blues
11. Distant Stations
12. Blues In Dallas
13. Source Decay
14. Absolute Lithops Effect

Running time: 41 minutes
Released: 2002

This is vintage Mountain Goats. Whilst plenty of time could be wasted trying to somehow unravel the cryptic tagline (right there in the image, folks!), it is much easier to simply sit back and listen to the songs that emerged, rather than try to tie them together. The album does feel themed though, there is a consistency in tone that strikes me whenever I put it on (invariably in the car). Part of that is surely down to how it was recorded, one man on a boombox, which leaves an audible thread running through everything.

Sure, the resulting sound quality is not always great but that takes nothing away from the songs themselves, which shine like diamonds. It feels weird listening to them whilst sat static at a laptop though. I should be behind a wheel, on the road - which would be really fitting because there is a theme of drifting/traveling in these songs too.

I like it from the get-go, the medium and method is more evident in this kind of listen than when I consume this on CD, with my attention on the road. Listening now I find myself drawn more to Darnielle's playing. His guitar (and the drone of the tape deck) is pretty much all there is to accompany his voice and the lines he plays are interesting. I am no great connoisseur of guitar, but I would not rate him highly as a player. His ability to craft a tune though - when to leave things sparse, when to amp up the music - that is another matter. I never realised just how empty or simple some of these tracks were - and I mean that as a compliment. When not paying close attention, there has always sounded like there was more depth to the instrumentation because the tracks are wonderful.

I have to say, I still adore Balance. The hook is catchy as all hell, it is played strongly and the song is short - it burns bright and quick and is easily my favourite track on the album even if others might have more merit as songs or stories set to tunes. Such as The Mess Inside, which gets me every time. I am pretty sure that I cannot say anything about this album that has not been said somewhere before by someone else so this is going to be a really short post whilst I just enjoy all but one of the remaining tracks.

The exception is Blues In Dallas - I really don't like the percussion and keyboard-provided... whatever it is, but mostly the percussion. It is too loud, too insistent and too repetitive; unfortunately it is the longest track on the album. Fortunately it is the only weak spot and is completely overshadowed by the majesty of the other tracks.

The end of the listen is interrupted by a request to move my car so a neighbour can have a skip exchanged and in truth as much as I like the last couple of tracks I don't stop and restart. I know them well from commutes past, and am secure in my knowledge and appreciation of this album. I was a late-comer to TMG, and to All Hail West Texas in particular. I only picked it up, along with a number of other back catalogue releases after someone started a thread on a media forum I frequent about trying to puzzle out the seven people from the songs. I am glad they did, because if that thread had not appeared then I would have a hole in my library where this now sits, firmly in the pantheon of my favourite albums.

Edit: I also acquired the remastered version of this album. That listen is here.

All Eternals Deck - The Mountain Goats

Track List:

1. Damn These Vampires
2. Birth Of Serpents
3. Estate Sale Sign
4. Age Of Kings
5. The Autopsy Garland
6. Beautiful Gas Mask
7. High Hawk Season
8. Prowl Great Cain
9. Sourdoire Valley Song
10. Outer Scorpion Squadron
11. For Charles Bronson
12. Never Quite Free
13. Liza Forever Minnelli

Running time: 42 minutes
Released: 2011

Now for the first of two Mountain Goats albums in a row. AED blew me away when it came out, to the point that I made the effort to treck down to London by train, on a week-night, to see them gig.  Recent plays in the car have me thinking that time and reflection have been less kind to it than some of John Darnielle's work, however. Time to test that theory.

Certainly Damn These Vampires sounds muted now, detached and less immediately impacting. It is a decent track still but my initial impression of the song was of a bigger hit to open the album. I suspect that it is my memory that is at fault, or perhaps having the song explained took away some of the magic.

There is a bit more urgency and raw emotion in Birth of Serpents, but it is not until Estate Sale Sign that I feel the album is really underway. I find I enjoy the anger in the delivery and the minimal arrangement - drums and strangled guitar, high tempo and strongly delivered lines. It, too, sounds more muted now than I remember it from release - but the energy and vitality in the performance carry it through. When melody returns in later tracks there is a warmth to the sound and it feels like the album has woken up. 

However it is generally better when the tempo stays higher. Yes the slower melodic pieces are nice, but there is a rawness to The Mountain Goats music and that shines through better on the pacier tracks. I am not talking thrashed out super-fast here, just a good driving pace rather than a slower ballad. The slower tunes expose the minimalist approach to arrangement a bit more, and whilst some of those songs are really good they give the impression they could take more beautification: bows and garlands provided by a deeper instrumentation. High Hawk Season is an interesting half-way house here. A slower song, arrangement is provided by a backing choir rather than more instruments.

Prowl Great Cain was my original favourite, no longer so. I like it a lot, but other tracks have supplanted it. I do love the chorus though - the line "I feel guilty but I can't feel ashamed" has always struck a chord and the whole song hangs together really well. I think my initial favouritism may have something to do with a keyboard line sneaking in, the tempo and the lyrics. The latter two hit you fairly early, and form a strong impression, albeit one that is weaker now that I have given time to some of its album-mates.

I find it really quite astounding what this man can do. Whilst the album does contain some more arranged tunes, the majority of his work is reasonably minimalist, yet leaves a strong impression. Not all of it great (there are songs on albums to come I do not like at all), but most of it very good. His songs feel like songs rather than some insignificant words provided to offset the music, which is often quite raw but no less accomplished for that. There is often a simplicity to the bass and/or rhythm, perhaps just a simple loop, but they are catchy, they are thoughtful and they are effective. I would say that Darnielle is a songwriter first and foremost. I cannot level the same criticisms of forgettable lyrics that I have used in the past here (though to be fair there could be an element of familiarity there too). I doubt I would put all the tracks on a high lyrical pedestal as entire songs, but most of them contain at least one very memorable line. He has, though, the knack of finding a chord, a loop, a hook to go with these songs and produces magic in doing so.

I am particularly fond of Never Quite Free. I could listen to this song over and over and over. It has a power, emotion, openness and a "from the heart" quality that strikes right at mine. The piano is back, and whilst the guitar line on the outro is a little parody of a melancholic line it is the only small fault that I find with the song. For me it is almost as if the album ends there, because even as Liza Forever Minelli plays (I like the song but it is not special) I find myself replaying Never Quite Free in my head. It is ever thus when I listen to All Eternals Deck.

All Creatures Will Make Merry - Meursault

Track List:

1 Payday
2 Crank Resolutions
3 All Creatures Will Make Merry... Under Pain of Death
4 Weather
5 One Day This'll All Be Fields
6 What You Don't Have
7 Another
8 New Ruin
9 Sleet
10 Song for Martin Kippenberger
11 A Fair Exchange

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 2010

So this is going to be interesting. I only have vague impressions of this album - and not liking it much. Why I picked it up, my initial though was that I was on a kick for all things Scottish finding a lot of great low-fi folk and indie on LastFM, but this released to late to be in the wave of purchases that followed those discoveries. No idea how this will work out, so lets find out!

The opening is dark - footsteps... but that tone is lost with the first note, which introduces mournfulness. It is a strange opening, especially given that plus some indistinct backing is all there is to Payday.

Crank Resolutions has more to it, but there is an odd distance about the sound - both the vocal and the music behind it seem removed from their present somehow. I do not recognise this at all despite somehow having racked up 40+ plays of Meursault over 4 years. There is an electronic edge to this - not at all what I was expecting. It's not bad. Meursault are named for the protagonist in L'Etranger by Camus. This does not predispose me to like them - having to read that book, in the original French, was one of the hardest and dullest things I had to do at school. I can see why they might have chosen the name, and I guess it adds an artistic choice to the distance between the listener and the sounds recorded. Particularly the vocal, which is very muted, distant on each track so far. It is not a technique that I have (consciously) heard used a lot and it gives this album a stand out feature.

I have to say, I am enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would before I started. 

There is a touch of Admiral Fallow about Weather, another Scottish indie-folk band so I guess it is not that much of a surprise. I am not keen on the muted strings or the lyric/delivery of One Day This'll All Be Fields though the song just does nothing for me and the sounds which accompany its denouement are ugly... presaging the next track which is really rather too off-key as it launches. Nor does it improve noticeably, consisting mostly of the same distant vocal and a very bland driving rhythm.

Another swaps one bland for another (I see what I did there). This time a bland guitar melody. However in this case the blandness of the accompaniment helps the distinctive vocal style because there is no competition for attention. It makes the voice more distinct whilst keeping the distance that has characterised the album. The problem I find with the song is that whilst it has a strong character, it does not seem to have a strong heart - I find that despite finding the vocal line very clear and well delivered (I like the distance, I have decided), having just finished listening to it I could not tell you a single lyric from it. The actual content thus proves forgettable, even as  - or perhaps because - the style is very memorable.

New Ruin may be my favourite track on this album. There is good drive, neat instrumentation, decent electronics and the same vocal delivery that has marked the other tunes. Lyrically it is still unremarkable to the point of blank memory but the different elements that Meursault have shown through the disc are combined here to produce a tune I really like. 

I have finally realised what the distant vocal reminds me of: Pink Floyd's The Wall. It is a strange bedfellow, because the tone here is very different to that double album, generally speaking. There is far less anger on show. Reinforcing the idea that Meursault are odd ducks is the ode to Martin Kippenberger. It starts with great momentum but dies off and runs too long, but at least I have now heard of a hard-drinking German artist who died young. Good trade?

The album ends quietly, and that is probably a fair indication that the album has peaks and troughs. Overall it is a decent work, with a couple of disappointments and a real high point. There is a pretty strong character to the disc with the vocal style flowing through the whole thing. I thought I might be cutting this before I listened to it, but having done so, there is no call for that.

Alive - Terry Callier

Track List:

1. Ordinary Joe
2. Step Into The Light
3. Lazurus Man
4. Lament For The Late A.D.
5. African Violet
6. You're Gonna Miss Your Candy Man
7. What Colour Is Love
8. Dancing Girl
9. People Get Ready
10. I Don't Wanna See Myself

Running time: 71 minutes
Released: 2001

Terry Callier is one of my favourite vocalists of all time. He came to my attention in a duet with Beth Orton (Lean On Me - a Callier cover) and I instantly loved his voice. I smiled every time I heard him. His passing at 67 in 2012 was a sad day.

This album was passed to me by a friend who had bought it and not got on with it very well. Unsurprisingly, given the title, it is a live album. Two of the songs stand out to me at a glance: Ordinary Joe is pretty much the definitive Callier song and Don't Want To See Myself was my favourite track from the first album of his I picked up. They bookend these performances; lets find out what lies between them.

I love Ordinary Joe as a song it is just so uplifting whilst having an edge of self-deprecation. This delivery though is a little too quick - the tempo is higher than recorded versions and it spoils the cadence of the lyric a bit for me. The arrangement is also damaged a bit by the pace. It is a fully understandable difference from record to performance but a regrettable one - especially given the extended duration which calibrates as less song, more tune and it is the song I adore. It still has me tapping my foot, but it is a tempered pleasure, not an unbridled one.

I can see why my friend passed on this with the review of "it's too jazzy"; there is a definite light jazz vibe about the instrumentation and an hour and more of it may well wear me down, let alone someone who is not keen on jazz in the first place. I can cope (for now), largely because Callier sings more on Step Into The Light, though it is too much repetition of the title phrase for me to hold it up as a good song. Repetition that is mirrored in the arrangement.

All the tracks are too long here - an affectation of arrangement and live performance for sure, but a 10 track record should not go on for 70 minutes when your tunes are normally sub 5 minute length. That this one does even with one track that runs only for 68 seconds is not a good sign. Oh well - I can always switch off and enjoy the voice. Lazarus man (and Callier was, career-wise - with a long break from recording and performing) is half sung, half spoken, but shows off Callier's soft, expressive and soulful voice brilliantly in both moods. My only issue with it is the length, and to avoid repeating that about each track I should stop typing now... Seriously though, stretching tracks like this just leaves us with dead loops, repeats and rambling passages that lose their way.

Lament... is a tribute, apparently to an unarmed man shot by New York police. Police carrying guns is still thankfully rare in the UK and I hope that can continue for my lifetime but I am far from convinced that it will. I say that not to denigrate those police that do carry (here or elsewhere) but I remember when I went to the US actually feeling less safe seeing police with firearms walking around. It is a visceral thing, and not buying in to the idea of a cycle of escalating violence - after all if one "side" carries, then the other will more likely do so too.

African Violet... I could have sworn I had other versions of this song, but apparently not. Oh wait - somehow, probably thanks to me misreading/mistyping, I have it down as American Violet on Fire on Ice (great album). Duly changed. Stupid fingers and eyes making mistakes years ago when I originally ripped all my CDs. I find the version on Alive too full of dead space, filler sections... I am sounding like a broken record again. As it ends and segues into You're Gonna Miss Your Candy Man the pace and tone changes up a gear. This is a nice lively opening. I have this track down as You're Goin' Miss Your Candyman more than once in my library and that returns hits on the web too; I suspect the source of my track list was wrong. Not Amazon this time though, but I still cannot be bothered to change it now I have noticed. It is a livelier track, and I needed that. There is still too much repetition though, the bass and rhythm sections are particularly guilty of that here. The song has a decent groove, but too long without modifying it dilutes that effect. Thankfully the whole tune is a bit shorter and overall I think it is my favourite so far on the album. The quicker pace is not maintained though, to my chagrin.

Dancing Girl is not a tune I recognise (I appear not to have a recorded version of it) but it is a good vehicle for Callier's vocal, with a low-level accompaniment behind it that is in places reminiscent of certain film soundtracks. The song is 11 minutes, but really it feels like more than one track as the tone and instrumentation change so the length does not come across. Actually the track flies by much faster than some earlier (shorter) tunes and suddenly we reach the closer.

I Don't Want to See Myself was one of the stand-out tracks on Lifetime, the first Callier album I bought, and this performance, whilst it contains longer bridges, is pretty true to my memory of the recording. It is a nice way to close - higher tempo, more upbeat. The bass errs on the side of cheesy at times but that is forgivable. It is not a fantastic tune, but it is a good one that leaves me smiling.

All in all, Alive definitely has its faults, but I find it hard to part with any of the tracks here. I do not have any other live work by Terry Callier, and there will be no more to replace this with something better - may he rest in peace. I challenge anyone to listen to Terry Callier and not fall in love with his voice, the man had more soul than many much more acclaimed stars. He remains a firm favourite, with much better albums to come in due course.

Alice - Tom Waits

Track List:

1. Alice
2. Everything You Can Think
3. Flower's Grave
4. No One Knows I'm Gone
5. Kommienezuspadt
6. Poor Edward
7. Table Top Joe
8. Lost in the Harbour
9. We're All Mad Here
10. Watch Her Disappear
11. Reeperbahn
12. I'm Still Here
13. Fish & Bird
14. Barcarolle
15. Fawn

Running time: 48 minutes

Released: 2002

Ah Tom Waits. I got into him late - and I still skip a lot of his material - but he has somehow found a place in my top 10 artists by # of plays over at LastFM. I think Alice was the first Waits album I bought actually - along with Blood Money - not that I remember what prompted me to do so. I think it may still be my favourite, but that sort of talk is liable to let me down as I suspect that my impression is overly reliant on the opening title track.

From the first line this is a tale of woe. Gravelly voiced, Waits recites over a lovely, evocative arrangement that perfectly conjures visions of a tumbledown, dark, sad milieu. It is a very disarming song and a strong opening that stands up very well to my initial impressions on buying it 12(!) years ago.

Looking down the track list, I can bring about half of them to mind, but Everything You Can Think is only familiar when it starts. The delivery here is harsh. The tune is similarly rag-tag and ramshackle as Alice was, but the tone is set by the vocal. This place is grim but there is beauty there too, as Flower's Grave takes over.

Waits' voice may be an acquired taste for some, but it is one well worth acquiring as he sculpts songs unlike any other. The first four on Alice are all slow, three of them are laments, but they are all stunning. Kommienezuspadt changes things up - it is faster, but incomprehensible. The mental image it conjures up is a run-down dive bar popluated by poor and in-between-worlds types getting in their fix of booze and gambling, grateful for not being out in the wider world just now. It is overly repetitive by design, the title repeated over and over, but it somehow works to build a picture whilst the bass and muted brass craft a bustle around it.

Poor Edward is a return to the lament - probably Waits' premiere form - and a really good example of it. Even more so than Alice. I wish I had the words to adequately convey the mastery exhibited here, but it is just too exquisite. Table Top Joe, which follows, is a bar-room, sozzled singalong tune and it feels important to lift the mood. There is a gorgeous piano line here that carries the tune nicely even as Waits devolves into scat. It disappoints me by having the tune fade out rather than end, though - a practice I am far from fond of.

Lost in the Harbour is one of those songs that I only recognise as it starts - a common occurrence in a library like mine, full of random bits and bobs and too large to know everything. It has some very odd bits in, this song, but overall it is still a wonderful track despite Waits' voice sounding even more strained than usual. Astounding to think that I am only half way through the disc at this point.

We're All Mad Here is the first disappointment on the album. It starts nicely, but despite being short, by the end it is meandering unguided towards dissatisfaction, aimless. Watch Her Disappear, which follows, is a story read out over more of the same period tunes - not so much a song, but a short dictation over backing. By the time Reeperbahn starts the tone is maudlin and the song is challenged to keep this going with tragi-comic subject matter; naturally, it does.

I'm Still Here is another beautiful piano melody, so nicely played that it made my hairs stand on end. It's a love song of sorts, celebrating longevity of relationships, even as they change. I had not realised until just now that these songs came from a play, but it makes perfect sense with the consistent ambiance and setting images that listening to it brings to mind. I feel the end of the album drops in intensity and in how compelling it is, but it drops from such a peak that the drop is forgivable, and in some respects the last tracks are the most melodic. Melody is not Waits' forte though so the close is more denouement than climax. The impression as Fawn ends is one of emptiness, but gladness that the listen is done. Forgivable though the reduction in quality is, it leaves the overall feeling of disappointment.  Alice is a wonderful album and it does not deserve to be parted with on such unfulfilled thoughts.