The Bootleg Series, Volume 2 - Bob Dylan

Track list:

1. Seven Curses
2. Eternal Circle
3. Suze
4. Mama, You Been On My Mind
5. Farewell, Angelina
6. Subterranean Homesick Blues
7. If You Gotta Go, Go Now
8. Sitting On A Barbed Wire Fence
9. Like a Rolling Stone
10. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
11. I'll Keep It With Mine
12. She's Your Lover Now
13. I Shall Be Released
14. Santa-Fe
15. If Not for You
16. Wallflower
17. Nobody 'Cept You
18. Tangled Up in Blue
19. Call Letter Blues
20. Idiot Wind

Running time: 76 minutes
Released: 1991

Time for some Dylan. I am pretty sure this was a gift at some point and not something I went out to buy myself, which may explain why I only have volume 2. Whilst I have a sprinkling of Dylan, and recognise his importance and stature, his influence on a lot of the musicians I love, I don't share any real love of his work. I wonder what sitting through 76 minutes of just him will do for me.

Seven Curses starts us off with a pleasant little picked acoustic melody, a bright sound but a melancholic air to the little loop that suits the lyrics well. Weirdly it feels as though this tune would be a good fit for the soundtrack of Life is Strange - the guitar loops very at home with the feel of that game. It is a strong start from my perspective, but I am less taken with Eternal Circle which sees Dylan's voice have a more prominent impact on the tone of the song. I have never really got on with his delivery and when it is strong relative to the accompaniment as it is here then it begins to grate. That and the backing was pretty bland.

We hit a more interesting melody next - a bit more going on in Suze - and an extra layer courtesy of a mouth organ, though the timbre is a little shrill for my taste. This is a 2 minute instrumental which is fine... until a weird end when Dylan coughs, which gives the tune its subtitle of "The Cough Song" and leaves a poor impression. Listening to 4 in a row now, it strikes me that tune-wise there is a reliance on little repeated sections. They sound relatively simple, too - though not being a guitar player I wouldn't like to say they actually are. I guess this is one reason why people think Dylan's songs are best when covered by others - a little more invention in the performance. Speculation on my part, I guess, though his rather hard-to-love voice is probably another factor.

My problem is that here where, for the most part, it is just him and his guitar, the repetitive nature of the playing is so darn obvious and rather detracts from the songs. I suspect each song individually would not invoke this problem, as a single tune based on an oft-repeated loop with very little elaboration is one thing. Many in a row is another matter, at least to my ear; when the only other thing to hook onto is Dylan's voice I feel between a rock and a hard place... I don't really dislike any of the tracks, just experiencing them back-to-back.

At least Subterranean Homesick Blues breaks things up a bit. It manages this by shifting tone and tempo more than changing the basic formula. The faster pace, and warmer sound on the strings help, and the tune is gone before I know it. It seems to have marked a turning point on this record as the next track is also faster and warmer - and this time with extra depth provided by a band and harmonies on the chorus. There's a nice drive to it, the keys in the background adding a rounded tone. The keyboard remains through Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence too - though on this track they loop in a less interesting way, with a harsher trill to it, which starts to irk me after 2 minutes. The song has a nice bluesy feel to it, but my enjoyment of that feel is tempered a lot by the staid repetition and I find myself very glad when it starts to fade out.
 

Like a Rolling Stone is piano-driven here, pretty dull melody, the embellishments of an organ trill and harmonica don't help, and the track then ends abruptly; a live recording where Dylan says his voice has gone, and if he thinks it is bad... We approach the half way point with a tune that from its core structure sounds like it wants to be Everybody Needs Somebody but doesn't have the heart or soul to manage it. It then veers off into a series of spikier sounds, none of which I think quite gel with the vocal and leave me actively disliking the track, so much so that when I'll Keep it with Mine returns to a more subdued sound I welcome the switch. This track feels like a recording experiment; it may be my ears but it sounds like volume levels are subtly shifting throughout this piece - which despite that aural illusion is probably the most enjoyable song since track 1. Muted keys, a slower pace and a more relaxed vocal - it has a more comfortable sound, warm and easy, supportive. And if you get what I mean there you must be some kind of savant!

She's Your Lover Now is a 6 minute track which I worry about, but it starts at a high clip, with a nice blend of instruments and with Dylan not dominating with his vocal. I like the cadence, the roll of keyboards and the rumble of the drums, the longer syllables even rather than a clipped end of line. Everything about the track holds together well through the first half at least, and even an interruption to receive a parcel doesn't break the mood. Far from being something to worry about, this is the high point to date. The tempo is maintained, the tune feels more varied (even though it probably is not) but really it is the synergy between the keys and drums that carry it. The only issue is the very abrupt end which, for a track of that length is a surprise.

I Shall Be Released slows everything down, I rather like the sentiment and the structure but the execution here leaves something to be desired in ways I cannot quite put my finger on. Whilst I try to find a good explanation we roll on to Santa-Fe. Should that be hyphenated, really? This sounds like a jumble of everything and nothing. No substance, but an awful lot of sound. I am not keen. Track 15 and there is still another half hour to go, with two more long ones in the last quarter. This take on If Not For You I rather like - warmer and fuller of sound, and slower than other versions (I have 2 more in my collection it seems) it has the heart to connect music and lyrics more strongly than the stripped back recordings.

I think that recording might spoil Wallflower, which follows. It is just so inferior in every sense as to be anonymous, like the titular figure. An apt piece of songwriting and album ordering perhaps, but a nothingness of a track for me, and Nobody 'Cept You hardly improves on it either. Country stylings don't help, nor does the constant swell of sound or the uninspired vocal. I am not being very charitable here, but I simply felt nothing for these tracks at all.

Two big ones in the last three. Tangled Up In Blue is 7 minutes, Idiot Wind nine. The former returns us to guitar and voice territory but it is miles away from the acoustic pickings that we heard early on, there is a depth to it - a couple of supporting players can really help with that! - that gives the tune a real rounded quality. The bright strings are never too strong, and likewise Dylan's voice is never too harsh here. I don't really think the track needs to be as long as it is - the story of the song might be cut short by reducing the length but my patience for it starts fraying sometime around 5 minutes. I can't help but feel that an edited version of the song without a verse or two would be a superior experience - not that this one is unpleasant. It draws down just before I finally lose goodwill with it, and we get a blues number before our epic closer. I rather like this insert. Tonally its a nice break between the marathon tracks and it has a nice rhythm - at least for the first 2 minutes. After that it starts to grate, the song really needed to be building for a finish under 3 minutes not prolonging for 4 and a half. There is no significant elaboration until just before the 4 minute mark, which is criminal. A really solid base thrown down the pan by extending it past the point of interest before doing anything with it. Idiot Wind is not a very nice song. It leaves a sour taste and I find the style quite dull too. Others are free to love it and call it classic and so on, but I'll be over here disliking it and never listening to it by choice again. 

So, where does that leave me? Some gems, some duds, lots of Dylan back-to-back was a bit of an ordeal but a sprinkling here and there is pretty welcome. Back where I started, then.

Achtung Bono - Half Man Half Biscuit

Track list:

1. Restless Legs
2. Corgi Registered Friends
3. For What Is Chatteris...
4. Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo
5. Surging Out Of Convalescence
6. Upon Westminster Bridge
7. Joy Division Oven Gloves
8. Mate Of The Bloke
9. Asparagus Next Left
10. Depressed Beyond Tablets
11. Bogus Official
12. Letters Sent
13. Twydale's Lament
14. We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune

Running time: 40 minutes
Released: 2005

I think I wrote way back that I really ought to pick up more Half Man Half Biscuit records; I didn't until Boxing Day this year when, spurred on by a couple of random plays of HMHB songs in the days before Christmas, I finally found the impetus to do so. I failed to fit a listen in yesterday because I was board gaming all day, so had a shuffle on in the background instead. However as England have polished off South Africa early today I can fit this in this morning.

I have not listened to any of these songs before, really... voyage of discovery, but I have an idea of what I am in for. Amusing lyrics and simple but catchy tunes, short and sweet. I was not expecting a (disgraced monster) Rolf Harris reference though. The problem with listening to this for the first time whilst writing a post is... well, to appreciate HMHB you really need to be free to hear the words. Add to that the short over and done nature of their tunes - packing 14 into 40 minutes here - there isn't really much spare time to comment. Or if you do comment, you are missing much of the point. That being the case, and sticking to generalisms, they manage to pack an awful lot into each track. There isn't much empty space - if you have much of a stretch of music with no lyrics you have a longer track than the usual. And in context that still means sub 4 minutes.

Musically, the simple little rolls pretty much exist purely to support the rhythm of the lyrics and as such the two dovetail really well. Execution is proficient not masterful and the heavily (natural) accented vocal is a breath of fresh air, even if the singing is not the most musical you'll hear. Style varies from ballad-like ditties to punkier numbers and tone from jovial to pissed off so all in all it is a pretty varied ride. I am 5 tracks in now, and Surging Out of Convalescence is probably the most musical of them so far, it has a bit more body to it, it builds a little more, interplay between the guitars and drums adds a dimension lacking from earlier tracks, even if what it builds to is repeated loops. It is really hard to dislike this, it feels like music made with a giant smile on their faces one way or another, which lends it a charm that carries it past whatever deficiencies are present.

Cheery lines about wanting to shoot other bands aside, the funniest part of Upon Westminster Bridge is a reimagining of Partridge in a Pear Tree that works surprisingly well. We are almost half way. It feels as though the listen has been going for longer than that but in a good way. Rather than dragging, the density of the tunes means each gives the impression of a couple of minutes longer than they are and rattling through many of them means by the end it may feel like a double album! I am not so taken by Joy Division Oven Gloves, love the title but the actual song is basically nonsense rather than a comprehensible tale of some kind. The offbeat stories are the best bits of HMHB so when they present random strings of things instead the veneer chips off and the limitations of their structure becomes much clearer. The stories often make no sense, so out there can they be, but they are almost guaranteed to raise some kind of smile.

The flip-flop from ambling to crashing, ditty to punk, and back is a nice way of getting you on side too - injecting energy now and again and preventing the parade of comedy songs from becoming too samey and trite.

I have reached Letters Sent. This seems to be a nice song composed of concatenated open letters to various recipients, the joins apparent in context but not explicit. It begins as an acoustic trill, then goes electric, but this doesn't (as I would have expected) coincide with the letters becoming more vitriolic; missed a trick there perhaps. Vitriol is certainly present in Twydale's Lament, though it fizzles before the end of the song and I get the feeling the album is petering out.

The final track title is genius, or at least I think it is knowing and amusing both. The track itself a simple little number and probably a very fair example of a Half Man Half Biscuit song. Little light melody, solid repeating hook, smile-inducing lyrics, a bit of chanted harmony. A fine ending rather than the damp squib Twydale promised. I need to listen to this more to get a sense for most of the lyrics, but I am already glad I picked it up.

The Boombox Ballads - Sweet Baboo

Track list:

1. Sometimes
2. Got To Hang On To You
3. You Are Gentle
4. Two Lucky Magpies
5. The Boombox Ballad
6. You Got Me Time Keeping
7. Walking In The Rain
8. I Just Want To Be Good
9. Tonight You Are A Tiger
10. Over & Out

Running time: 39 minutes
Released: 2015

Complete change of tone from the last album now. I can't remember what made me pick up music by Sweet Baboo in the first place, but something made me buy Ships, which I absolutely loved. Thus I snapped this up when it came out this year then... I hardly engaged with it. Time to give it a second chance.

It begins with a guitar hook and our performer's rather distinctive voice. A slightly strained, off-kilter tone combines with generally nerdy or off-the-wall lyrics to make Sweet Baboo a one-of-a-kind. Here the song also contains a rather more orchestrated section, horns and strings giving a bigger, more produced sound. I am not sure that really works. I rather like the basic form here, but the more extravagant sections cave it in and replace it with something less immediately lovable.

The geekiness returns for track 2, and I wonder if I ever listened to this at all. I thought I had, but this rings no bells at all. Still, a self-aware song about playing music to a lover is precisely the sort of thing I expect to hear. This track harks back to decades past in a pleasant way, with a nice pop-y sound and good clean fun, and that call to the past persists into You Are Gentle, where only the odd harmony in the keys hints at the experimental side of Sweet Baboo, if you ignore the lyrics that is. I find this style enjoyable. When he nails it, Sweet Baboo produces an effortless cool and there are elements of that here. It goes a little bizarre as the track draws down, the tones going a little too electronic to maintain the mirage of an older tune. It rather spoils the tune.

The next offering is again using a piano and strings... this feels a lot more mature than Ships. Less fun, perhaps, and less immediately lovable, but a true development and delivery of something new. It is so completely different, perhaps that is why I didn't get on with it on first exposure. Not what I thought it was when I bought it, especially given the title which evokes thoughts of lo-fi home recordings rather than more arranged pieces. Now, approaching it open minded and without expectation, I am charmed.

The title track is a bit more off the wall, a quirky little instrumental, and is merely a speedbump before a more upbeat track. You Got Me Time Keeping is peppy duet. The female singer joining in here is also suitably geeky of voice and the two bounce off each other well in the first minute and a half of the track before it all grows up a bit. This song is 7 minutes long, a significant departure from the short, direct length of the rest. This appears to give it more than enough time to jump the shark. It begins a high tempo number, turns into a slow ballad, then introduces a weirdness and a darkness that I find bleeds off any of the interest that the former change up maintained. Discordant strings overbear the fragile voices with a drone that I find incredibly unpleasant. Then, just after 5 minutes, the nice quick duet it started as cuts back in, geeky lyrics to the fore. Frustrating. I wish I could simply chop out the four minutes in the middle and re-engineer the track into something core coherent and enjoyable; it would only stretch to two (maybe add a half) minutes though.

Walking in the rain? No thanks. The song is nice in the faint praise kind of way - pleasant but unengaging. It smacks of TV advert music or period drama montage music to me. This lacks either immediate charm or considered appreciation. It feels a little as though this record is caught between a natural output and a conscious attempt at something more adult - which is a shame, because frankly unashamed geekdom is in relatively short supply and I could have done with more of it. And because when the matured sound is put forward and committed to, that works. It is just that some tracks seem to get caught between the two and I don't think they are tastes that go well together. It can work if music is one and lyric is the other, or when elements of each are used in concert, but wavering between the two styles rather than committing to an approach was what killed the centrepiece of the album for me.

I have to say I rather like the last couple of tracks. Over & Out has a slow pace that I think Sweet Baboo uses better than most, finding natural rhythms with a cadence of coolness, lounge without the cheese (or with a very specific type of cheese at least). All in all this feels like a mixed bag. Less pop than Ships, but I reckon a couple of the tunes here could grow on me given a chance.

Bone Machine - Tom Waits

Track list:

1. Earth Died Screaming
2. Dirt in the Ground
3. Such a Scream
4. All Stripped Down
5. Who Are You
6. The Ocean Doesn't Want Me
7. Jesus Gonna Be Here
8. A Little Rain
9. In the Colosseum
10. Goin' Out West
11. Murder in the Red Barn
12. Black Wings
13. Whistle Down the Wind
14. I Don't Wanna Grow Up
15. Let Me Get Up on It
16. That Feel

Running time: 53 minutes
Released: 1992

Back to Waits now. Unlike Alice and Blood Money I have not listed to a lot of this at any point, only heard the tunes in a shuffle. As a result I don't have a picture of the album going in based on anything more than the title and song names - and that picture is not pretty. Nor is the cover art.

Christmas has been and gone, and I am looking forward to a few days off, at home, where I might get through a number of listens. This being the first. I have been staring at it for a week, not in a Tom Waits mood. To be honest I still am not, but whereas pre-Christmas I could put it off, now I ave no excuses. I wish I did though - this sort of intense darkness is best approached in appropriate mind. Rambling percussion, husky muttered vocal and a wailing chorus make Earth Died Screaming a difficult opening, the only musical sounds arriving at the death. Thankfully Dirt in the ground, whilst maintaining the downtrodden darkness, also keeps the melodic aspects too. A soft piano and sax combo is a very understated but pleasant form, moreso than the strained stylings Waits puts into his voice here.

The shambling piano, so soft as to disappear at times, is really atmospheric and effective. The sax gets wearing, as does the vocal, but although it is limited, the keyboard tune keeps giving enough of a softening edge to make the tune enjoyable. After a short pause to collect the first of my winter sale shopping (2 pairs of jeans, 2 Half Man Half Biscuit CDs and 2 videogames) from a courier it is on with with this show.

Such a Scream confirms that the listen is a trial today. This is, for me, not Waits at his best. I prefer his more maudlin but melodic efforts over this edgy material. I find All Stripped Down to be a title that works on 3 or four levels, but a song that offers me very little. I am grateful that it is 16 tracks in 50 minutes, not 10. The quicker turnaround makes each track less of a trial of patience. I say that as if I hate this; I do not. Its just a bit more intense and dark than I want just now. Thankfully, Waits wanders and Who Are You is a bit more coherent and musical again. The voice and the backing do not quite seem to match up, out of sync in a tiny but charming way, I rather like this one. I can only think it is no co-incidence that Kathleen Brennan is credited as a co-writer on this and Dirt in the Ground, but not the other three I have enjoyed less.

Ah, now this... while creepy is also kinda cool. The Ocean Doesn't Want Me is another What's He Building in There? Odd sounds in the background, percussion leading the ear whilst Tom delivers his message in that ever-distinctive gravelly voice, spoken rather than sung. This is far more effective at building a 'nicely' odd and nasty atmosphere than the broken percussive sounds on earlier tracks and whilst creepier, less arduous to listen to at the same time. This sort of sound is very uniquely Waits, and in the right mood it is glorious; in a post-family come down state as I am today it is wide of the mark. Unlike Alice, or even Blood Money, Bone Machine is failing to have the magic that can make me be in the right mood after the start. I don't think this album quite has the same lightning in a bottle feel to it. From Little Rain we hit another run of co-penned tracks, the first of which does remind me a little of Alice, which I appreciate. This run is not a step away from the percussion and bare-bones structure setup of the album though. In the Colosseum suffers from over-repetition of the title in the lyrics of the chorus and I find it overstays its welcome too - stretching out to almost 5 minutes in total. The length (hardly the longest of tunes ever) is felt because of the reliance on thumps and bangs more than anything else.

Ah, Goin' Out West has a bit more of a groove to it, strong enough that the opening line was almost inaudible actually, and it strikes me as unusual for Waits' voice to be subservient to the music in the way it is here. It still has all the same characteristics, but the recording levels are such that the bassy twang that structures the tune is definitely sharing the stage with the drums, pushing the vocal to the fringes. It creates a really interesting tune - Waits almost his own backing vocalist here, and the space within the piece feels back to front in an attractive way. I like it. The theory that co-writing tempered the more out-there tendencies may still hold, but that it suggested more melody is simply wishful thinking. There is still very little of that here. There are gems here all the same though. I love the opening of Black Wings, with a tempered edge to Waits' vocal - a film montage voice-over quality to it, which suits the music perfectly. I could swear that I've seen this movie... There is a subdued nature to this piece, but a definite quality - for me it is the pick of the album thus far by a mile - so evocative with so little.

Hah, just to put the nail in the coffin of my early-claimed revelation, Whistle Down the Wind is precisely the maudlin songster Waits that I love, in terms of tone at least, and the song is penned on his tod. Disheveled, tumbledown, haggard - the piano in Waits finest moments brings these words to mind. Playing and producing glorious melodies despite its condition, filling spaces and halls that crumble and fester in worlds that are not nice places to be. Rays of light in the darkness of a hopeless world, and all the more magic for it. Maybe I am growing into the right frame of mind for this album just as it is coming to a close, but the second half is far more engaging than the first was. More likely, I think, the songs are more accessible - a bit less percussion, a bit more melody, a bit more to latch on to. The first half was genuinely a bit of a chore, and a couple of the tracks really dragged but it ends strongly in terms of the atmosphere and emotion it produces so I am willing to let it off the hook.

Bon Iver, Bon Iver - Bon Iver

Track list:

8. Calgary

Running time: 4 minutes
Released: 2011

Oh my - what a post title. There is some confusion as to whether the correct title is doubled up as here or a single instance of Bon Iver. The latter seems more likely but some sources say otherwise and this form is weirder. In any case, I only have one track from this album (though I do have For Emma, Forever Ago) and I don't know where it came from, I would guess a LastFM freebie. I never picked up the rest of the album, which could mean I didn't like this much, or that I never listened to it. 

It is not what I expected. Synth background and high pitched vocal. I find the track a nothingness if I am honest. The addition of a drum beat is welcome, but I don't get on with the vocal or the constancy of those synth notes. When they stop, the percussion has completely taken over and whilst it was welcome it was not interesting enough to be that prominent. I think I see a good reason why I did not follow up with a purchase. Not for me.

Bombshell - King Creosote

Track list:

1. Leslie
2. Home in a Sentence
3. You’ve No Clue Do You
4. Cowardly Custard
5. Church as Witness
6. There’s None of That
7. Nooks
8. Now Drop Your Bombshell
9. Admiral
10. Cockle Shell
11. Spystick
12. At the W.A.L.
13. And the Racket They Made

Running time: 51 minutes
Released: 2007

Time for a true favourite now, one good enough to wash away the disappointment of an album cut entirely from my collection last time out. This album contains a couple of my most played songs, one that I can recognise from the first note alone and closes with a tune that would hint at the magic in the combination of King Creosote and Jon Hopkins, which would later earn them a Mercury nod for Diamond Mine.

From the opening bars of Leslie I am instantly back in a cocoon that only King Creosote can create. Long drawn out notes on his accordion accompanying his voice - ever a knife edge between brilliance and brokenness that I love. Gruffness, but also fragility, a combination that - along with a lot of his lyrics - speaks to me in a way no other musician does. There is a reason this guy is out on his own at the head of my most listened list, and it isn't just that he has been prolific over the years because I don't have all those CDR albums he self-produced for Fence.

I am going to leave this link to a Grauniad piece here: its the only time I've ever stumbled over something like a listen report, and it happens to be for one of my all time favourites. The writer is far more shrewd about interpreting songs and gives timestamps which clearly mean it wasn't done live (or presumably from a single play), but it was an interesting read, and another shining endorsement of this album. For the record, I don't think its as good as KC Rules OK.

I find it quite hard to write much about the individual tracks, they are so grooved into my consciousness over years of listening. Stylistically it moves about a bit. By You've No Clue Do You - a Cluedo-inspired number, who'd have thought? - it is in mainstream guitar pop mode but somehow it still appeals to me, feels a million miles away from that mainstream. I think its a combination of the odd subject matter and that voice again. It's far from the strongest number on the album as a result though... I am far more charmed by the like of Cowardly Custard - self-deprecating and heartfelt, it makes a break-up song catchy, easy to relate to and I have a great fondness for it as a result.

For all my familiarity with these songs, I have never really pegged some of the details. We ascribe our own interpretations on to things quite firmly, even as our appreciation of things changes over time. I never used to think much of Church as Witness - too slow and regretful - when I was younger but I find myself more drawn to it now. I don't have children, so I can barely imagine the level of self-loathing the described events conjured, but it is a powerful emotion that here is bravely put to song and shared. Powerful. That we then get a more upbeat number, is welcome. Of course, that upbeat tone is only skin deep; all the jaunty, easy tunes in the world wont disguise the bitterness of the lyrics, which basically boil down to "there's nothing good in this relationship," but it does take the edge off and make for a decent song. I notice on this listen that the lead out is a bit too long, though, so it's not perfect.

At least now we get a tune that is nice and whimsical, a positive take on the whole relationship thing rather than a bitter retrospective. There is something incredibly formulaic about Nooks, and yet... I don't know if its the fact that I can immediately relate to the situation described, the small touches, the fact that this sits within an album of favourite tunes or what, but I don't find the simple repetitive tune at all off-putting, nor the clichéd topic eye-rollingly dull. Funny how we can excuse the faults of the things we like eh? If this tune had been by anyone else it would probably be unlistenably bad. I do like the way the tone of these tunes wanders all over the place - mournful, regretful, forceful, jaunty, new-love happy, bitter... KC's voice and playing supports them all equally. It means you are always hearing something different, but no less good.

Ah, Admiral. I rarely listen to this track any more, but it is the song that sold me on King Creosote way back when I first heard it on Last FM. It really is spine-tinglingly good, goosebumps and shivers on the delivery of the chorus (I almost capitalized that out of habit; the things work does to us, eh?) is just... well, brilliant and broken. Here KC is singing near the top of his range and it introduces a strained sound to the vocal that sounds like a lump in the throat which is utterly perfect and appropriate for the subject matter. I think this song is a pretty good barometer of whether you will love (not like, I would point you more to Home in a Sentence or Cowardly Custard for that) King Creosote or not.

This listen is on a lazy Saturday morning, the week before Christmas. I need to toddle up the road to Majestic to pick up boozy presents a bit later, but hopefully after the deliveries I am waiting for arrive. I got home at 2.30 this morning after being in Bristol for a friend's birthday. Driving back late at night has become a thing; the lure of my own bed beating that of drinking and merriment. Huh. This listen is a good slow start to the day. The last quarter of the album is particularly strong for me. Spystick is a re-recording of a track from the CDR days, given a much lusher arrangement, a menacing drone and a relentless drive, the backing vocal adding a sense of paranoia entirely appropriate for the stalker-ish nature of the lyrics, then At the W.A.L. (Women Against Laughter - no, not very PC but rather knowing about it, I ascribe a self-awareness to it; I have to or feel dirty about the song) starts slow, but once the scene is established we get an injection of pace and purpose and a riff that supports the rest of the song comes in, the lyrics quickly devolve to plaintive cries of "Its gonna be alright" with the edginess and emotion of his voice carrying the day. Everything goes a bit mental musically in a long old lead out, but unlike There's None of That it doesn't overstay its welcome.

The real crown jewel here though is the closer. I think that And the Racket they made is an HMS Ginafore song (she provides the backing vocals here) covered by KC, not the other way around but I can't find anything to back this up. I have seen live clips and heard streams of a more guitar-ridden rendition and that spoils it some for me, but here on the album Jon Hopkins' sparse arrangement and KC's voice lift the poetic lyrics into an almost religious experience for me, just so perfectly matched and observed. It's very, very quiet, thoughtful and reflective. Powerful imagery and masterful execution - I could listen to it over and over; it is one of my all time favourite tunes - but only in this particular version.

Bodysong - Jonny Greenwood

Track list

1. Moon Thrills
2. Moon Mall
3. Trench
4. Iron Swallow
5. Clockwork Tin Soldiers
6. Convergence
7. Nudnik Headache
8. Peartree
9. Splitter
10. Bode Radio/Glass Light/Broken Hearts
11. 24 Hour Charleston
12. Milky Drops From Heaven
13. Tehellet

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2003

I doubt very much I will like this one much. Picked up, of course, because of the artist being better known as one of the members of Radiohead, Bodysong is not something I have ever sat down to listen to before, except perhaps once when I bought it. Since then I suspect I have skipped every time a track came up if I was conscious of it and not otherwise engaged. Still - actually paying attention to items like this is what this project is all about, so can't complain!

This is apparently a soundtrack, but not to any film I had heard of. I can't remember how I came across it - some years after it was produced, but felt compelled to shell out once I had. The first track is pleasant enough I guess, sparse piano chords and a sense of emptiness imparted by high register trills. It took me a while to see the "h" in the title when I checked. Those trills grow more wearing as the track progresses and by the end I do not like it.

I am sitting down to this listen in procrastination over Christmas shopping. No good ideas; nothing that matches the ideas that I have well enough. I don't want to buy sweets for other people's children (family I will not see in person), so what?  It has been that sort of weekend; unproductive and a struggle. I have upgraded to Windows 10, finally, however and now I get an annoying beep every time the track changes. Grr; sound alerts for sys-tray notifications. Something else to be disabled. A couple of clicks later and that is done, along with the second track - a short interlude which segues into Trench seamlessly (and with no beep!).

So far this album is exactly as unengaging as I was expecting it to be. Divorced of the context of the film to which it was created, these sounds are aimless and odd constructions, the sounds too individual to enjoy. Iron Swallow, for example, is shrill and yet sombre. A string lament coming on the back of space-scape type imagery created (at least in my mind) by the first three numbers, whilst Clockwork Tin Soldiers sounds like a conversation between The Clangers that was left on the cutting room floor over its first minute. The track then changes direction a fair bit, back to spacey, sci-fi sounds. I am sure the visuals gave good reason for these tonic shifts, but without them it just feels random. Convergence is all percussion - another different tone. I am seriously considering breaking form and just stopping the listen here, declaring the whole disc a casualty and moving on. As a listening experience this leaves a lot to be desired.

It really is unfair to pass comment on a soundtrack with no knowledge of what it was composed for like this. I can only assume that the vagaries of the film demanded such a definite lack of coherence and theme. It sounds like a sampler of samples for other musicians to pick up and do something with in places - some pattern or other that on its own is nothing like enough to carry a track, but which has a lot of potential if placed in the context of more composition. Alas here that never comes, so whilst Nudnik Headache has a really nice rhythm to start, that is all it has and, once you notice that, the charm of the rhythm starts to dissipate. I am sorry to say that judged on the soundtrack alone, Bodysong is a mess.

Just as I type that, Splitter starts. This has a really high tempo, drums, and brass. It is immediately a much more engaging track for the extra depth. The percussion is the structure here, the horns the interest - aside from when the former disappears and the trumpet solo we're presented with has all the appeal of a slap in the face. It is a brief moment in the middle of the track, which otherwise keeps the energy high, but it sums up the disc so far - an unannounced and unwelcome shift - and kills the track. I find myself wondering when it will end which, for a track under 4 minutes in length, is not a good sign. Considering I liked the first half of the number a lot, that is a real disappointment.

Hope for a track to stand out and demand to be kept is fading, but the opening to 24 Hour Charleston has a nice sense of threat to it, a dark demand. Unfortunately, and not for the first time, I find that the promise in the track is not backed up by and development so it runs the whole length on that initial form and allows you to see just how little is there. I suspect that this is one of those soundtracks that was very tightly wound to the film, simply because when you stand it alone it is so obviously... incomplete, lacking something. That invention or extra dimension that could turn what feels like a sonic mess into a carefully constructed counterpart. There are moments in some of these tunes which evoke really cool jazzy sounds but Greenwood is not a jazz man, and the tunes are not really jazz tunes, so strong foundations go undeveloped.

Would I reconsider cutting all of this if I saw and loved the film? Maybe; knowledge of how the soundtrack integrates, suits its subject, could fundamentally change my perception of it. However having looked it up briefly, I don't feel any need to go find something else to spend my time sat in front of enough to do so. I feel more than happy with the decision to simply cull this soundtrack from my library altogether. Some nice ideas, but not enough done with them; tonic shifts that were jarring, and poor man's jazz - I can't recommend it.

Blur: The Best of - Blur

Track list:

1. Beetlebum
2. Song #2
3. There's No Other Way
4. The Universal
5. Coffee & TV
6. Parklife
7. End of a Century
8. No Distance Left to Run
9. Tender
10. Girls & Boys
11. Charmless Man
12. She's So High
13. Country House
14. To the End
15. On Your Own
16. This Is a Low
17. For Tomorrow
18. Music Is My Radar

Running time: 77 minutes
Released: 2000

I was never a fan of Blur during the Britpop years, not them, not the other lot, nor the horde of wannabe copycats that peddled indie guitar music of various degrees of blandness. I did fall for Embrace briefly though - as mentioned here. I warmed to them retrospectively, though Damon Albarn's other work (I have a trainwreck of an album from Graham Coxon too). Not enough to acquire actual albums, but enough to pick up the best of. I haven't re-engaged with their reformation either.

It's been an odd week; although I've been at home all evening for the last 4 days, only yesterday, Friday, was completely clear and then I was just so washed out from work (an attempt to get away early failed) that tucking into this was not an option. I am doing so now instead of Christmas shopping or a plethora of other things that maybe I ought to do today. Oh well. Beetlebum has a scuzzy feel to it - appropriate for my low mood and layabout levels of success today - but largely washes over me without much in the way of serious consideration. It seems to me to be a bit of a strange choice to open the collection with - not particularly catchy, not a stand out for good or bad, and possessed of a long outro that makes it feel more like a closer. The polar opposite of the tight and punchy Song #2 in that regard. This is a Marmite track - not because you either love or hate it, but more specifically I can love or hate it depending on when I hear it. It suits certain emotions, situations and contexts better than others. Today's context is actually rather neutral.

We finally get to something a bit catchier; there is something about Albarn's vocal on There's No Other Way which validates the laziness I feel right now, and a reassurance about the riffy composition. I don't feel a strong connection to the track though, and I suspect this is going to be one of those really annoying posts where my dominant mood blunts interaction with the album I am consuming in any meaningful sense. Its as if I am more filling out an hour than really listening to this disc.

Overuse in adverts has not spoiled The Universal though. I never connected the tune, and thus those ads, with Blur at all at the time, because they never used the voice and I wasn't familiar with the song. OK, so Albarn's voice is kinda annoying on the chorus and the lyric leaves a lot to be desired but the core tune is so solid that it has a timeless quality to it, those iconic strings setting the whole thing up. I have been toying with the idea of another crappy project... some kind of micro-blog of all the plentiful bad ideas and stream of consciousness rubbish that my head fills up with when I am on my own - which is most of the time. I have an unquiet mind, and it drives me crazy. Sharing that madness with an uncaring world could release the pressure valve that generates such nonsense. Or not. Won't happen though - no smartphone so no access to post when my mind is at its worst - i.e. when trapped, solo, nothing doing.

I am not feeling this at all. Coffee & TV slides by like traffic outside behind a closed curtain - I am aware it is there but only dimly so. I think I don't like the song, and the occasional use of discordant sounds or effects make it worse. Be gone! Parklife slides past too, which is a more reliable barometer of my engagement level. This is another Marmite tune. I appreciate its attempt at peppiness - the clean snap and hard edges to the riffs give it a liveliness that is welcomed, but beyond that... not today.

I do dislike winter; its not been cold yet this year but the wind has been so constant, rattling around in the chimney, and the whole getting dark mid-afternoon thing is interminable. Its not a time of year I want to have to go out and traipse around shops as we are expected to do in the run up to Christmas. This year my mind and energy levels are balking even at the idea of online shopping. Bah humbug and all that. Working 2 more weeks yet; it all feels a fair way away still. I don't recognise No Distance Left to Run at all, but I like its rather downbeat air, subdued, more in tune with how I feel right now. Its down, but there is brightness there in spots - very high, very soft, keyboards giving nice clean tones. It is just enough of a sprinkle of optimism to stop the lead weights pulling it down.

Tender is... I am not sure it is likely to survive the day. It is a mix of a nice cadence with a tuneful, if muted, singing, and horrible harmonies, really annoying lines and alternate vocalists. Listening now, the tune just does not work. When Damon is singing on his own in the verse, there's a nice little semi-country feel to the music, the rest of the time there is some presence or other that sets my teeth on edge. Oh, and then there is the fact it goes on for 7 minutes 40 seconds, slowly spinning round between the shorter pleasantries and the longer stretches of needling. I don't think I can put up with that again. And that, (absent) ladies and gentleman is only half way.

I am grateful for the staccato and electronic sounds of Girls & Boys mixing things up. It is a complete palette cleanser after the tedium of Tender. Its not a song to hang much cogent discussion on (though to be honest the paras above probably prove I am not up to cogent discussion!), and you can definitely criticise it for its uniformity and lack of change up once it establishes itself, but in the context of the rest of the album, it's a really well placed number, stirring this listener, ending in good time and giving way to a tune that I completely fail to recognise until the words hit my ear. I think I generally prefer Blur when they inject some kind of catchiness, which here is provided by the nah-nah-nahs and the bass hammering note after note.

I didn't recognise She's So High at all, passed me by. Country House next, its not a good song but it has that catchy rhythm which makes it far more engaging than several better tracks and I find myself enjoying its breeziness up until the point that they inject a slow sad sound in the middle of it. That passes quickly but the mindless magic has been punctured by the abrupt nature of the switch in tempo and mood and I find myself wishing it over before it finishes. The final quarter of this disc is made up of track titles I don't know, but unsurprisingly To The End is more familiar once it starts, if only in the chorus. I like the more open sound of this track, the greater arrangement - with the core band part being relatively small or simple, though the drums get a bit too repetitive for my liking. The soaring strings my favourite touch, though Albarn's more open singing helps too. Ah yeah. Should have recognised On Your Own as a title - never mind. No, this one I don't like, maybe I had blanked it. Rhyming psycho killer and gorilla sums it up. Oddball. I don't see anything in this.

I feel like I should be near the end, but the last three tracks are all over 5 minutes long so there's almost half an album to go by the measure of some recent listens. The first of those three is a distant song - music seeming much closer to the ear than vocal. It feels muted or matured somehow, more rounded. I rather like the way the zenith points seem to have the guitars rebelling against that maturity rather than working within it, making their mournful cries heard and carrying more weight for it. The song rather peters out, which is a shame but it was a nice little surprise for me. Whilst I did not recognise This is a Low even after it started, I do recall For Tomorrow now I hear it. I don't think much of it as it seems to be caught between two (or even three) stools. Catchiness, poppiness, and the rounder more mature sound. There are bits and bobs from these three approaches sprinkled over this track and it manages to satisfy none of the aims. The la-la-las in the chorus feel out of place in the open arrangement, likewise the Madness-esque trumpets are a giant WTF in context. Its a mess, really. I'm sure people that very much enjoy Blur can find more to like amidst the different elements here but for me? Trying too much, managing nothing, overstaying its welcome.

The last track starts really... well, contrary to any expectations I had. This is not one I was ever familiar with and it sounds like it has rocked up here from another album and another band. It develops nicely though, an underlying groove that I can appreciate. And just as I type that it gets interrupted by what sounds like a long loud fart. Like Country House earlier, this sudden intrusion breaks any sense of connection to the track and snaps me out of the groove. Now I hear it from the outside it doesn't feel like it has enough craft to draw me back in... until I suddenly am recaptured by a pivot point. This is a really frustrating track and it will have to go... too much mediocrity built around a couple of very solid patterns. I don't like being sucked in and spat out; I'd prefer to be kept at arms length throughout, able to appreciate it from outside, than constantly be readjusting my position on something like this.

As the surprise wears off, and the silence (laptop fan background noise) returns as the dominant sound in my ears I find myself feeling... not a lot. There are some tracks on here that I really like, there were a few I really didn't, and a bunch that I recognise mostly as the background sounds to my teenage years - no strong feelings. It's alright, I guess, but Albarn has done much better since.

The Blues Brothers Original Soundtrack - Various Artists

Track list:

1. She Caught The Katy
2. Peter Gunn Theme
3. Gimme Some Lovin'
4. Shake A Tail Feather
5. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
6. The Old Landmark
7. Think
8. Theme From Rawride
9. Minnie The Moocher
10. Sweet Home Chicago

Running time: 40 minutes
Released: 1980

Classic soundtrack time. The Blues Brothers was one of my favourite movies growing up, the anarchic chases and other silliness was undoubtedly one draw, but it's impossible to escape the power of the music in shaping the film. I haven't watched it in years, and the aforementioned silliness would probably make it hard for me to sit through it now (though I do, of course, have the DVD), but the love of the music is still strong. So strong, in fact, that I am making time for a second listen today.

The staccato riff that forms the opening to She Caught the Katy immediately transports me back, sets the mood. I think I have a Taj Mahal version of this song around somewhere but its this recording that is the one I remember and refer to. The Blues Brothers may have stemmed from a comedy skit but the love for their source material is clear, and their rendition of the Peter Gunn Theme is movie gold. This is one place where my youthful love of the saxophone is still alive and kicking, whilst that riff... well its so iconic that I can almost forgive the incessant nature of it, not once breaking stride in the duration of the piece until the climax. It must be dead dull to play but it is the rock around which the rest can build.

Then we hit Gimme Some Lovin'... these tunes are all standards now, what can I really say? I've mentioned before that the best song from the movie is not actually on this OST (I also strangely said that the Peter Gunn Theme was the best on the disc; huh), but it's hard to say that it's missing given the energy put into the songs that are represented here. I'm not as fond of GSL as I once was, it feels a little bland now, but by contrast I'm far more engaged with Ray Charles' Shake a Tail Feather. The organ keys just brought a beam to my face, and the picture of a poor neighbourhood gathering in the street to dance along to my mind's eye. I think it's the rhythm that really grabs me now though, high tempo, peppy and reinforced by the horns.

Everbody... starts with the intro from the film, which probably sets this version apart from any other recording of the song, It gives the track a clear nostalgia pull even beyond the music itself. The transition into the chorus is just magic, whilst the base pattern is merely so-so, that switch elevates the number. I generally find celebs taking on music to be a bit... eh (though I have at least one example beyond The Blues Brothers to contend with going forward), but here they are backed by professionals who made their living off tunes like these and the enthusiasm is the selling point.

I wrote earlier about Joni Mitchell's Blue that I own it because I felt I ought to. I now run into the converse of that; I don't have any James Brown aside from The Old Landmark despite his iconic status as I was growing up (I wonder if it has faded some since; he does not seem as immediately relevant to the 21st century somehow... which is probably a shame). Brown is followed by Aretha - another of the stars here that I almost feel I should have invested more in. Think always used to be my favourite track from the film - it came on the back of the "four fried chickens and a coke, and some white bread, toasted" line (since parodied - as indeed the whole film was - by Pratchett in Soul Music, the main reason young me loved that book so much), as much as the performance I suspect that sold me. The power of this number though... it takes me back to my childhood in a nice fleeting sense.

It saddens me that whilst the Rawhide theme made it on to the OST, the version of Stand By Your Man did not. Visually the Rawhide theme works better, Jake cracking the bullwhip and all, but on record its pretty dull. I never saw the show, was never a fan of westerns, and can't relate to the tune in any way beyond the scene from The Blues Brothers; it falls flat. That can't be said for Cab Calloway's number though... from the big wailing horn in the intro to the flapping lips and fast paced scat and the recorded audience participation (well, engineered somehow I suspect but still). I remember knowing this song before the film somehow - my dad must have had it on tape or something, or perhaps more likely my memory is compounding the fact I know it exists separately with hearing Calloway recordings since. In any case, it is a nice rendition of the song.

Sweet Home Chicago was the other number that tussled for "favourite" status with Think. I just loved the long lead out that plays over the brothers' escape, but that sort of thing has lost its magic for me now and actually the song is rather rigid and formulaic. It seems to lack some of the energy and enthusiasm that keeps the earlier recordings vital, though the image of Ackroyd and Belushi "dancing" down the catwalk and back is a hard one to keep out, and it does raise a smile.  Hah! The tune actually gets far more interesting in the lead out even now. Not enough to be a favourite, but it gets noticeably better after the vocal ends and the musicians take up the challenge of filling space. I'd take She Caught the Katy over this as the best of the Blues Brothers tracks on the soundtrack though - there is just something about that intro that nails an atmosphere that the rest of the disc does just enough to hold up, but not quite enough to match.

The final track always felt a bit tacked on. Jailhouse Rock performed by prisoners. Hur hur. I just have no engagement with the track. It's not bad, per se but just frenetic for frenetic's sake and it is not a tune that I have other versions of or any investment in. Actually I think it is quite bad. Cacophonous. A blaring end I could do without, and that is with it ending a note before I expect the big jangly chord finish.

Nostalgia - sometimes it should be left alone. Sometimes indulging ain't so bad. This falls on the second side despite my strong suspicions that the film itself falls on the first.

Blue - Joni Mitchell

Track list:

1. All I Want
2. My Old Man
3. Little Green
4. Carey
5. Blue
6. California
7. This Flight Tonight
8. River
9. A Case of You
10. The Last Time I Saw Richard

Running time: 36 minutes
Released: 1971

So I move from one classic to another; different genre, but same level of distance between me and the disc. However Windows Media Player must be the only entity in the world that would think that "Blue" should be listed after "Blue [X]" when sorting alphabetically. At least, I hope so because man, that makes no sense to me.

This album is a classic example of something I own because I thought I should own it, though that said it is not the only Mitchell album I have so I guess I thought something of it... time to find out whether I still do or not.

The jangling nature of the tightly stretched guitar on All I Want is a bit too bright for my morning mood, and Mitchell's wandering voice has a bit of a sharp edge to it when it goes into the higher registers, but despite these little grievances there is something essential about the way they combine. The minimalist approach can fall down pretty easily but here it seems to add gravity and weight to what is a somewhat flighty tune. I don't know whether this is confirmation bias or something else, but it seems to share that virtue of accessibility with Blue Train. Folk - especially 70s folk - had a bit of a retrospective reputation for disappearing from relevance, though I guess being '71 this probably predates that slide from the public consciousness.

I doubt that we will see much like this again somehow - the high floaty voice and a simple piano melody on My Old Man sounds like the sort of thing that would be rejected out of hand by modern music for being uncomplicated. Perhaps the stripped down sound will come back round - people do still try it and largely fail, after all - but here it seems to be nailed on. This doesn't disappear or shrink in the way I often find such noodly little numbers doing. The strong timbre to the guitar helps - it's not soft and receding and sucking the vocal down the black hole of anti-sound. The edge to her voice, similarly, guards against the shrinking violet syndrome. The sense is of a woman standing proudly in the spotlight, rather than a performer lurking in the half-light on the edge of the beam, which is how I see a lot of similar attempts. There is a natural confidence that comes through.

Switching tack a second, I am surprised given the title and indeed the rather morose-looking Joni in the cover image, that the first four tracks here are all relatively bright and joyful. I came into this expecting a sombre affair and I don't find myself mired in despair at all. The title track has a mournful air to it, but even then the piano melody and the style of the vocal delivery work to ameliorate the sadness some. There is real warmth in those keys even as the melody they create is tinged with regret, and with the exception of the highest, most warbly notes, the same could be said for Mitchell's voice. I find her singing hard to love. Those strayings into the upper limits of her range have the effect of nails down a chalk board in the middle of a fascinating lesson - little moments of excruciating discomfort peppered through songs and tunes that otherwise I really enjoy and engage with. I can completely see why this is a classic, even as I cringe from the slide effects on California - too many bad associations with 80s movies.

The higher pace and lower rumble of This Flight Tonight is a welcome change-up. I am reminded of some John Darnielle-penned numbers. I really didn't expect to connect Mitchell to The Mountain Goats here, but the aesthetic, including the tinny edge to some of the recorded elements is really a very good fit, even if the vocal approaches are chalk and cheese. Huh, two mentions of chalk in the same post. It being December, the similarities between River and Jingle Bells in the opening bars of piano are obvious for the first time, and with the month referenced in the lyric it is clearly a deliberate choice that somehow works. As an aside I bloody hate Christmas music - anything I can do to avoid it, I will. Beyond that I find this to be the least interesting of the songs I have heard this morning. Whilst the piano melody is nice, the song itself is dull and does not seem to come with the same sense of self-assurance that I would use to characterise the prior performances. In other words it trips around the edge of the pit of disappearance.

That makes no sense outside the context of this post, and even within it's a stretch. Ah well. Case of You is a very recognisable chorus, but the verses always seem to fade from my memory. The song is slower than I would have thought just from the recalled chorus, and a little plodding if I am honest. The same tune, the same words, with a little more pace. I suspect that might break it, actually, but it feels like something is missing and my first instinct is that it is an urgency that a higher tempo might address. What do I Snow.

As the last tune picks up, I find myself having reconnected with this. Whilst I may have bought it because I felt I should have (or at least hear) it, it now stays because it is every bit the masterful work that it was talked up as. I can certainly see why I went on to buy more Joni Mitchell records, despite her work all predating my life. I would never put this up as a favourite, or something that I am likely to listen to often. Alas, the modern mode of musical consumption probably renders most of these tunes pretty inaccessible. Something like Blue works far better in its original form - appreciated in flow and as a whole. That alone means it will probably quickly return to "forgotten" status, but does not provide a driver to exclude it from my collection. If anything, this instead suggests to me that the way we (or at least I) tend to consume music today is detrimental to our appreciation of some forms. I suspect I am far from alone in having most things be a shuffle of some kind now, and albums like this make me wonder what I may be missing as a result.

Blue Train - John Coltrane

Track list:

1. Blue Train
2. Moment's Notice
3. Locomotion
4. I'm Old Fashioned
5. Lazy Bird

Running time: 42 minutes
Released: 1957

A jazz classic next. I used to be really hot on saxophones but I got won over by the trumpet. I don't think I've ever really given Coltrane the same sort of chance I did Miles Davis, for instance. It will be good to actually give this a real, knowing, chance.

The opening refrains are iconic, but I could never have placed them by name. Instantly recognisable when they hit my ear, I feel like a dunce for not being able to call to mind the sounds of this album. Admittedly it does not take long for the tune to extend beyond the limits of my familiarity, but that start is so strong. It has been a busy week, out or engaged every night except Monday. Saturday now, and it has been a pleasingly lazy day. I feel like I really ought to have found the time for this earlier in the day, but there's no real reason for that kind of self-demeaning attitude.

I find Coltrane's horn a little over-eager. The structure created by the bass and drums, and reinforced by the soft background keys, is a nice slow and steady one for the most part and yet the sax is frenetic in places - a nervous energy and pace about it that makes it hard to love. When he plays at the same tempo as the support, the quality of the tune grows and it shines. Oh, sure - you can denigrate it as "trad jazz" if you don't like the form - but to my mind one of the things about the true jazz classics is that they are accessible to a fault. Far from the ridiculous stereotypes of performers disappearing up their own behinds (which no doubt happened for some, as it does with some modern musicians) in their pretentiousness, the best and most well received, long lasting, jazz is easy to relate to rather than built around incomprehensible time signatures and self-absorbed solos.

The first couple of bars of Moment's Notice are equally very recognisable. Could it be that I have heard the openings a lot and skipped the rest? Possible. For as much as I just said the best jazz is accessible, I do find that as a rule it fits in a shuffle less well than most other forms. Here there is more urgency to the drumming and so the fast pace of the saxophony (no, I know that's not a word, although apparently it is a group; hello one-tag wonder!) is more appreciated here. I don't feel the same affiliation to these tracks as I did (and maybe will again) with those on Kind of Blue, there isn't that same instinctive connection with Coltrane's melodies. I suppose it would be fairer to compare like with like, and reference other saxophonists, but the truth is that whilst I have a best of Charlie Parker I don't really have much else driven off the power of sax. I have to say I do like the way Coltrane book-ends Moment's Notice though, the return to the same theme that opened the tune making a nice and neat closure to the track.

I suppose we should expect a track titled Locomotion to be pretty pacy, and Coltrane does not disappoint us there. I think his sax is upstaged by the trumpet with which it divides early melody duty, but I think that probably just reflects my post-teen shift in appreciation. Nevertheless this is, for me, a more engaging track. I find myself really liking the rhythm and pulse of this one, as opposed to more distantly appreciating the prior two tunes. Despite it being 7 minutes long, this is all I find the time and presence of mind to type before it ends (perhaps I was enjoying it too much to type? Lets go with that) and we shift down the gears for I'm Old Fashioned, which is - or rather was - apparently a standard. This has a nice laid back atmosphere to it which I appreciate here, and the horns are appropriately dulled and subdued. It's making me a little sleepy, but I wouldn't call that a bad thing at all. This, again, is the accessibility of great jazz all over. The pattern is instantly hooked in, the mood is consistent and supported by all parts. You could say that should be true of most music, and you'd probably be right to. It is the kind of tune I can see people not getting into, but at the same time I can't find anything objectionable about it at all.

Just like that I am on to the last track. Lazy Bird picks up the pace again and this time I feel that it strays into bland background filler territory. I am not sure why, but I fail to perceive the same craft here that was obvious through the prior tunes. Maybe it is the glass or two of wine that has gone to my head or the jolt out of the relaxed mood the alcohol and music, in combination, had achieved by the end of I'm Old Fashioned, but this tune feels far more generic at the start, and then when it devolves into "everyone needs a solo" - including bass and drums - I feel my ties to the track slipping. That said, the 7 minutes is over in a flash!

Either I was blanking out (and honestly I have not had anywhere near enough to drink for that!) or actually this album is a masterful example of sucking you in. The relatively sparse comment on at least 2 of the tracks despite them being twice the length of your standard pop song confirms my ear was pretty much hooked, and my mind with it. I rather enjoy that, even if I can't say that the album consciously stands out and shines for me. Would listen again.

At Least For Now - Benjamin Clementine

Track list:

1. Winston Churchill's Boy
2. Then I Heard A Bachelor's Cry
3. London
4. Adios
5. St-Clementine-On-Tea-And-Croissants
6. Nemesis
7. The People And I
8. Condolence
9. Cornerstone
10. Quiver A Little
11. Gone

Running time: 50 minutes
Released: 2015

So as is traditional for me at this time of year, I have perused the list of Mercury nominated artists and picked up the ones that interest me. Including, this year, the winner. I am already certain that I won't want all of this from the samples I have heard, and if I had the patience to listen via streaming services before committing then, well... I wouldn't be here doing this now, would I?

I was interested not because it won, but because I saw it described with an emphasis on the piano melodies. On the evidence of the opening track (some horribly mangled English in the opening lyrics that reference Churchill's famous speech about the Battle of Britain aside) there could well be something to back up that initial interest. However this listen is going to be a challenge - I am battling not just the habitual tiredness that I can never escape (even after 12 hours in bed!) , but also a hangnail or something that means that it hurts whenever I use the little finger of my left hand. As that happens a fair bit when typing (a!) this could be a painful stretch.

First impressions are mixed. The language mess-up on the one hand balanced by a nice melody on the other. By the time the second track is well underway I am pretty sure I don't much like Clementine's voice, though I see some traces of Nina Simone in his vocal approach and appreciate the way his words are shaped, the actual sounds produced leave me a little cold. The structure of the tunes though... that is very likable, particularly the more upbeat opening to London. This song finds me less alienated by his singing voice too. Now the disc won the Mercury prize, I half expect this tune to crop up everywhere as backing music to adds, TV trails etc. It has that kind of universal appeal - the same sort of draw as To Build a Home by The Cinematic Orchestra, which also ended up everywhere after Ma Fleur was released.

Adios is a clear step down for my money - the move to a staccato style of playing makes for a far less engaging melody and it is really only the melodies that I am interested in here. This track redeems itself with a second half a world away from the first, and crams 3 movements into 4 minutes, an interesting contrast to the sameness of some things I have listened to recently. I haven't heard much more random than the 1 minute long insert with hyphens that is St-Clementine-On-Tea-And-Croissants; it just seems completely out of place and adds nothing. There is no tune, just a strained voice and a lyric that leaves much to be desired.

Thankfully it does seem to be a random insert because the next track is back to a pleasant melody. Like most so far it is piano-led with strong backing from strings and percussion, and here Clementine manages to make his voice fit well to the point that it no longer grates on me. Rather than the piano, this track is made by the string arrangement, the keyboard providing bass structure as much as anything else. The tracks seem longer than they are - not because they are dragging (as has been the case on some prior listens) but because they achieve the change ups and movements. My head has gone. It happened about the same time yesterday evening too - I just simply crashed and started feeling ready for bed very early in the evening. Yesterday I had an excuse of being busy with people all day, today I've done very little but recover and yet it still hits me. I am afraid that makes this listen largely void - I can barely concentrate all of a sudden.

The opening of Condolence is pretty special, high tempo but low key. The roll of the track continues after the vocal starts but it loses some of its hypnotic magic. Still a fine track though, my favourite so far. I find myself with little to say - tiredness, no doubt. I am very much on the fence about some of what I am hearing. Not all of the tracks have managed the different movements or got the balance between melody and structure, or allied well with what is not the most natural singing voice I have ever heard. I think I am going to have to listen again sometime soon, in a different mood, at a different time of day (of year? Winter gets to me so...) before rushing to judgement. However there is no way this would have been my British album of the year, though I have not bought that much this year it seems, my favourite release from 2015 has been Bashed Out; I called it as a potential album of the year when I picked it up months ago, and for me This is the Kit has not been topped. I find myself surprised that At Least for Now actually won the Mercury Prize, but also happy that something like this could win.

I feel that if his voice were a touch more musical then this could have been a lot more approachable. Getting past the rough edges and distinctive accent is causing me some issues, keeping me at a distance. I am happy to report that I didn't get turned off by anything in a big way, which I expected to from the track previews I had heard, except for the crazy out-of-place interlude. Wow, that is a lot of waffle for nothing really. More digression than discussion. Long story short I need to give Benjamin Clementine another chance.

Blue Roses - Blue Roses

Track list:

1. Greatest Thoughts
2. Cover Your Tracks
3. I Am Leaving
4. Can't Sleep
5. I Wish I...
6. Coast
7. Does Anyone Love Me Now?
8. Doubtful Comforts
9. Rebecca
10. Imaginary Fights

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 2008

For the second time in recent days, two things in a row with the same duration (assuming I don't slam Benjamine Clementine in between, at least). I have a vague recollection of why I bought this - some Amazon recommendation or other based on other female singer/songwriters. That's not much of a stretch, as it is a musical furrow that I have ploughed regularly in search of new material over the years, mostly coming up disappointed as not much lives up to early Thea Gilmore for me. I don't really recall how any of this goes though and I'd rather not prejudge it.

We open with a piano melody. I guess by default I was expecting guitar so that was a nice surprise. The vocal is a little too ethereal for my liking, floral in places it does not always mesh ideally with the stresses on the notes beneath. The melody has nice crescendo and diminuendo, filling out growing in volume and then retracting back to simple quiet notes. The volume (in terms of mental space) is well aided by the vocal, even if it it is a little too shrill here and there. I end up on the fence over the song, but I think the melodies show promise.

There is a longer lead in to Cover Your Tracks, a nice combination of keyboard and violins. Oh, wait; it wasn't a lead in, it was the entirety of a short tune. Huh. No. It was the lead out to Greatest Thoughts - I did not see that, and it didn't feel like a lead out. There appeared to be a clean break before the melodies struck up. Interesting. When Cover Your Tracks starts for real it is a spangly plucked melody, nice. The vocal is piercingly high when it starts but there is a good sense of emotion in Laura Groves' voice as it moves over the registers with the tune. After the initial line, which felt far too high to be comfortable I rather like the singing here. In places it swamps the guitar, but that just makes the plucking more special where it recaptures the ear. Again we have a weird break mid-piece and what seems to be a new melody strikes up, but here it is more clearly a bridge.

I think this style may wear on me over 45 minutes. Nice little moments, but a little same-y in album form, perhaps and three quarters of an hour is a long time for the higher-reaching strains of her voice to worry my tolerance for high pitches. I have been sleeping like garbage this week too, so my patience is somewhat eroded through tiredness. Nothing like a nice lie-in on a Saturday to redress that, but I shall not be getting one because there is fun to be had. Can't Sleep seems like an appropriate song to start up as I am digressing into my poor sleep cycle, though the song itself is fairly snooze inducing. A simple picked melody with a bit of string support, it is not particularly stirring and as much as the pattern is pretty, I can't stare at it for ever. I find my mind drifting away because of the twee-ness.

I think these songs are too long for what they are. 5.00, 5.16, 6.53 - its a long time for tunes that lack many layers or changes of tone. I didn't write anything specific about I Am Leaving but it was the best of the tracks to date because it got through itself before the construction got dull or the voice wore on me, thus leaving the soothing melodies - Groves constructs hooks nicely - to have their positive effect before moving on. To be fair, I Wish I... feels as though it is trying to justify the longer run and I am better inclined to it because it is piano-led and less reliant on pattern. Changes of tempo help break it up, giving us movements. I take a moment to check Blue Roses' similar artists on LastFM and scratch my head; there is very little Alessi's Ark here, and definitely no She Keeps Bees. Not enough This is the Kit either. For all that, and despite the 7 minutes, I Wish I... is very nice.
 
There is something here. As much as I am not particularly enamoured of her singing, with too many high notes for my liking, I do like bits and pieces of what Groves has done here. If there was a bit more depth to the tracks - a little more to back up the nice little central themes - they could be really very catchy and memorable. As it is the veneer feels a little thin, there is not quite enough to the tracks for them to catch in the way their hooks warrants. I like the way she uses her voice, even if I think most of it is pitched too high for my taste - when she changes pitch, tone and tempo there is a real warmth to it but most of the time it has that slight warble and coldness of strain in the pitch. The biggest disconnect is between the voice and the tune behind it though; it feels like one is drawing you in whilst the other is keeping you at arms length with all its might.

That dissonance is a shame; if the two elements were more in concert then one or two of the songs here might just be elevated. It just feels a little too cobbled together to be really impressive, too shy to make the most of its positive attributes. In general I prefer the piano tunes to the guitar numbers, just reflecting my bias for the keyboard. I find it easier to forgive the repetition that sometimes creeps into the hooks because it is slightly more disguised. Mostly I found this listen too slow. I started it tired and ended it tireder. I can't say I really enjoyed it, whilst at the same time not really disliking it either. I think that ends up rather damning it with my disengagement, which is a pity because - as I said before - there are some great little elements here. Not ones I will be coming back to revisit though.

Blue Lines - Massive Attack

Track list:

1. Safe From Harm
2. One Love
3. Blue Lines
4. Be Thankful For What You've Got
5. Five Man Army
6. Unfinished Sympathy
7. Daydreaming
8. Lately
9. Hymn Of The Big Wheel

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 1991

Ten years ago this would definitely have been tagged as a favourite. Now I'm not so certain. I pretty much guarantee I'll love it, but it isn't a disc I return to often. I have the original, not the remastered version and I think that I got into this through my brother - not unusual way back when; though he is younger than me he bought more music than I when we were in our teens. To think this is almost 25 years old now... its a true classic, but how does it listen this much later?

Two full albums in a day... I could be listening to this year's Mercury winner (which I need to do some point soon having picked it up, and it being an A), but the only reason I am doing this post now is that I want to hear these tunes.

The bass riff that forms the structure of Safe From Harm is iconic, Shara Nelson's vocal is amazing. Talk about setting a tone in the first 30 seconds. The periphery of the bass is incidental. There's stuff there but that riff is so strong. I have the disc of the samples that inspired Massive Attack somewhere in the future so that I can appreciate the source but there is no doubt at all that this stands as a shining example of how to sample and enhance. At 5 minutes the track feels short, compared with the tunes I listened to earlier which overstayed their welcome. I really should tag this "favourites" after all so I have. It only took 10 seconds to convince me.

Horace Andy appears for the first time on One Love. It never ceases to amaze me how many Massive Attack tunes are made or broken by this man. Either by the application of his vocal, or by virtue of being re-imaginings of songs from his past. There is a cool menace in the track here, and that combination of words is not a natural one. It's funny what the slightly tipsy brain will produce. In addition to wanting, and indulging, to listen to this now, I have a) just watched ep. 3 of London Spy - some very nice scenes - and seen trails for Luther and Line of Duty, two shows I am very pleased will reappear on screen soon. It's been a good evening in that regard.

Blue Lines sees us exposed to early Tricky for the first time, less angry here than on his own stuff. The interplay between the vocalists is nice, backed by a very chilled rhythm. Its a style that is really hard to deliver well - there is almost nothing to it in places. Many imitators since have failed to pull off the heady blend... just recently I branded Abraham lazy and faddish for their light-touch downbeat electronica. This is how to achieve that chillout goal whilst still being engaging. Do it first.

The sweet transition into Be Thankful for What You've Got is a magical moment. It's born from a pointed end to Blue Lines, and the immediate uptake of a rhythm so funky its not funny. Like much of the work that covers Horace Andy, this is not sample so much as cover, which I had never really appreciated. The original is on Protected so I'll compare and contrast in, I dunno, a decade? I am sure I've said on these pages before that I went to uni in Bristol, and in my first year there, after Massive Attack released Mezzanine I stayed late in the run-up to Christmas to see these guys play the Student Union. It remains a fond, if faded, memory. Later, when I was studying in Bath, I used to travel over to Bristol every week to game. On my way from station to location I walked through the parts of the city that spawned the Bristol Sound, and in that way you do, you think you see local celebs from time to time. Don't know if I ever really did though. Thought I saw Beth Gibbons of Portishead in a sandwich shop once too. Hah.

Five Man army comes and goes, a nice groove but really just a fill-in before the undoubted high point of Unfinished Sympathy. This really is a modern classic, a truly iconic tune in more ways than one. I get goose pimples as it starts, that off-kilter tapping, not quite tuneful bells and the sampled "hey hey hey hey". It is the start of the strings and the vocal that really set things moving though. Nelson's voice creams it, soulful and yearning, the strings speaking to loss. There is one moment at 2:24, when the piano comes in for a quick bridge that I always loved. It has less impact now, perhaps because I was so anticipating it. It's amazing the interplay between the percussion, which is tense and snappy, and the tune which is laid back and easy. They bottled something and released it here. 

Daydreaming has never really worked for me - as a concept or a song. The backing track just doesn't quite do it for me. Here the rhythm of it gets overpowering, a loop too far in terms of its impact on the experience for me... its very easy to get sucked into that beat pattern and miss everything else, which is what happened to me just now. Lately changed it up and I suddenly snapped out of a wander. This has the same problem of an over-bearing central hook, but manages it better through strings and another Nelson vocal which follows the pattern of the rhythm in an interesting way.

The album ends with another high point. The Hymn of the Big Wheel is just a gorgeous little rhythm behind a very simple tune, but it owes all of its magic to Horace Andy's vocal. Man, I love the way he sings this. All love, released; free. In truth, re-tagging it as a favourite is probably a bit of a push. There are to my mind four stand out songs on this disc: Safe From Harm, Be Thankful... Unfinished Sympathy and this. It's less than half of the album, but these tunes are timelessly good and elevate an enjoyable if somewhat surpassed effort to something that few discs can really claim to match: genre definition.