BBC Folk Awards 2008 (Disc 2) - Various Artists

Track list:

1. Jordan - Bellowhead
2. Bricks - Tuung
3. Bitter Boy - Kate Rusby
4. Flapjacks And Firesticks / The Minor Rigged Ship - Spiers & Boden
5. The Here And Now - While & Matthews
6. Never Any Good - Martin Simpson
7. Are We Alright - Show Of Hands
8. Dad's Gonna Kill Me - Richard Thompson
9. The Cruel Ship's Carpenter - Jackie Oates
10. Hinba - Lau

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2008

Disc 2 of the 2008 BBC Folk Awards box (Disc 1 here). Looking at the list I think I might keep more of this, but there are at least four tracks (the first 4, in fact) that are duplicates.

It has been a busy week, out the past three nights, a devil of a Bloodbowl game this evening, and off down to Surrey first thing tomorrow to see family for the day. I am looking forward to Sunday, but I thought it good to squeeze something in tonight. Jordan, from Burlesque is a track that I have seen performed live a number of times over the year, and the recording never compares. Bellowhead are right up there with my favourite artists, and this song is a good example of why. Big sounds, harmonies, melody and mood. It is far from their best, and I do not need multiple versions of it, however. The contrast with Bricks - from Good Arrows - is quite stark. This is the Tunng I fell for, found sound, kooky lyrics, fun stuff. I know they got tagged with "Folktronica" at this point, but I laugh at the idea they were up for a folk award, it just seems so out of step. I do like this song a lot, mind, with the highlight being the captured speech which is somehow masterful despite being so bland.

The Rusby track was on Awkward Annie which I listened to relatively recently and I do not have much to add. Somewhat frustratingly for my sense of correctness, I did not scrobble the last couple of listens so I have double checked that this one is being recorded. I do not know why I care - it is recorded here anyway! - but I like the idea, however fanciful, that this journey that I am taking will be (almost) fully reconstructible were anyone to go back through the tracks. Stupid, because not even I am that sad, honestly. The fourth (and possibly final) duplicate of a tune I have on its original recording is the Spiers & Boden tune, a pair of dance tunes, the first at least is not traditional as I have heard them describe its conception - I seem to recall motorway service station flapjacks being part of their touring diet. I must just not be in the mood for this right now as the tune is just bouncing off me tonight... or it was until the switch. The second tune in the set is much more of an easy appreciation - something about the cadence of it lifts my mood and the various lines going through it are a joy. It is not the last of familiarity but it is the last of the stuff I have bought more than this once.

I am not sure about this next song, a standard duet with a softly bland arrangement that I have apparently heard six times before (at least), which I do not buy. This does nothing for me and I am glad when it is replaced with Martin Simpson. I am not a great fan of Never Any Good (which I do recognise, and which somehow was voted best original song at these awards) and listening to it again now has not really changed my feelings on it, so that tells you something about how I did not like The Here and Now. So far, this disc is not looking good for a retention rate. Simpson's song is too boringly repetitive for me, and the picking of his guitar is a style that just irritates my ear. The backing vocal is Rusby, but even her angelic tones cannot lift it for me. At least you know what you are going to get with Show Of Hands... except it turns out I have Are We Alright on the one album of theirs I own (admittedly its a greatest hits so that is not a great surprise), so far all seven tracks are for the chop. There is a nice volume to this song though, big vocals to carry it. Oh, now this I will keep. Richard Thomson's effort is not a fantastic track, but it has a bluesy undertone and a catchy title. There is just about enough arrangement over the guitar bass and drums to lend some structure and distraction to the track, and hint at the folk roots that have it included here, and in places it reminds me of Thea Gilmore in terms of the tone of the piece, which is not generally a bad thing in my book. It could do with being a bit shorter, and with ending properly rather than fading out, but it is listenable enough to ensure this whole disc is not going in the recycle bin.

I knew Jackie Oates' name, and that she had sung with the Unthanks, but not that she is Jim Moray's sister. Music is a profession where everyone seems to be connected somehow. I did not know this song either as she is not someone I have ever listened to. I can hear call backs to the Unthanks' style here but it does not really do it for me as a one off. I was expecting not to like the Lau track (I have never known whether that is meant to be all caps either) from previous exposure to them, but expectations are there to be dashed upon the rocks of experience. It is an upbeat, quick and tuneful number (or set) that is actually pretty welcome, bar one discordant bit in the middle somewhere.

The time has gone rather fast as I got through this disc but I have not really enjoyed much - either turned off by the fact I have the tunes elsewhere or simply not taken with them. Only 2 tracks stand after this and the combined leftovers from the two main discs from the 2008 awards are slim pickings. I wonder if the third disc (I think young musicians, but I cannot remember) will have a better hit rate?

BBC Folk Awards 2008 (Disc 1) - Various Artists

Track list:

1. Cold Haily Rainy Night - The Imagined Village
2. Hug Air A Bhonaid Mhoir - Julie Fowlis
3. The Big Man Set - John McCusker
4. Felton Lonnin - Rachel Unthank & The Winterset
5. Unity (Raise Your Banners High) - John Tams & Barry Coope
6. Pulse - Joe Townsend & Martin Green
7. Jack Common's Anthem - Jez Lowe
8. Three Black Feathers - Bella Hardy
9. Oliver's And Two Beers - Blowzabella Featuring Andy Cutting
10. Blacksmith - Lisa Knapp

Running time: 47 minutes
Released: 2008

Now we enter the first run where I am likely to play with the order of my posts: a number of BBC Folk Awards albums. I like to think I listen to a fair bit of folk, but I rarely found myself branching out to recordings from those on these discs, more liking the ones I already knew about. I also seem to have an odd listing of these discs - I have 2 for 2011, 3 for 2013 and 1 for 2014 but none for 2012. But we start with the first of three from 2008, though I have nothing between then and 2011. It is a madhouse of disorganisation, so I'll fit them in as and where I see fit from here on I think.

I am pretty certain that I had Cold Haily Rainy Night from The Imagined Village's eponymous album before this. I remember seeing them do this piece on Jools Holland and buying the album almost immediately, then loving it for a bit. Chris Wood Eliza and Martin Carthy are the leading lights on this one, but other contributors to that project included Tunng and Billy Bragg. The lineup later changed but the later releases did not agree with me so much. This is a strident piece blending Indian strings and backing with a very British stand and deliver vocal. It has a nice roll to it, and the beat sustains it nicely. I do not need it twice though so this one can go. The next song is one of my favourite folk tunes. Julie Fowlis' bright, pacey delivery of this Gaelic tune just makes me smile. I do not understand a word of it, and I suspect if I did it would not sound so magical. Again, I have it elsewhere (on Cuilidh) and do not need to keep this version too. Really nice playing, fantastic voice and a pace to make you want to spin about though... lovely.

I do not know the next tune, but I recognise McCusker by name. The levels on this recording seem wrong, with the fiddle so loud as to drown out its accompaniment which lends it an overly harsh edge, at least in the first tune in the set. It seems silly to criticise the star for wanting the stage, but there is taking the stage and frightening others into the shadows and that first tune verges on the latter for me. It then improves a lot as the next tune kicks in. I have to say I generally prefer it when tune sets are listed with all their titles though, because it helps identify the same pieces by different musicians. The tone changes then as a song from The Bairns which I listened to recently is included. Another to go for duplication and I have to admit to a strong temptation to skip on here. That is against the spirit of the project though, so I do not, though I do rather space out. It is a long track, and relatively recently heard. The intro/outro does make me think of Careless Whisper though, probably because I was pointed to an odd version of it today on G+:

Now we come to three in a row that mean nothing to me - not the artist names, nor the songs. Genuine surprises in store, perhaps. Unity does not strike me as folk really. I can see why it counts and I am far from a purist in this regard, but it reminds me more of Van Morrison than anything else, then something else that I cannot put my finger on. I am not taken with the song though. It falls into a decent enough outro, but everything that preceded it gave me a "meh" reaction so I think I will pass. Pulse starts interestingly, plucked strings and a dark wandering theme... but the interest is lost when it does not go anywhere in good time. I keep expecting a track to start but instead it is permanently stuck on intro mode. If I were a proper writer I would chuck in an acerbic simile here but instead I explain what I would do were I better at this. Brief flashes of interest do spark later in the piece but it really feels like an unfulfilled promise, hanging open and dirtying the air between once-friends. Oh did I find a simile? It is cut like a ribbon at a ceremonial opening.

Jez Lowe's effort is much more recognisable. Acoustic strumming, light singer/songwriter fare with a Celtic air to it which makes me think of The Waterboys. Light and forgettable, but totally pleasant, it would be much more effective in a live performance - but then so much music is. I think it is particularly true of folk though. Bella Hardy disappointed me when I picked up her debut; yes she was young and yes she wrote Three Black Feathers but I far prefer Jim Moray's version of the song, and Ruth Notman's debut at a similar age captured me more. Here the accompaniment (primarily a harp, I think?) is too sparse for me. This goes because I have it elsewhere, and it may go again when I get to that but I will re-assess at that point. I think that this next track was responsible for possibly one of my worst purchasing decisions. Oliver's and Two Beers is a pleasantly raucous tune that has a decent melody and a nice buzz to it. The Blowzabella album I picked up on the back of it (a rare case of using these awards gubbins as a sampler) was pretty bad, so much so that I cannot remember the name to bold it and set up for a future link. Actually I think I might get rid of this, it is not so enticing 6-plus years on when I have had more folk exposure and bad experiences. This collection is looking very thin after I get through with it. The final tune here is by Lisa Knapp and again I have it elsewhere on Wild and Undaunted which, whilst I can bold it ahead of a link, may never get linked because W is a very long way away indeed. I love Knapp's voice, her breathy style and this song shows it off nicely without being a favourite of mine (that would be the title track from Wild and Undaunted, which I can listen to on repeat for a long while quite happily).

I am left with two tracks here - McCusker (because the second tune in the set rescued it) and Lowe. Everything else underwhelmed or is owned elsewhere. I wonder if the other BBC Folk Awards albums will get quite so gutted?

Batcat EP - Mogwai

Track list:

1. Batcat
2. Stupid Prick Gets Chased by the Police and Loses His Slut Girlfriend
3. Devil Rides

Running time: 14 minutes
Released: 2008

Batcat. I was blown away by the sheer noise of this track on a couple of occasions, once so much so that I misidentified it as something else in a classic case of hearing what I wanted to hear not what was actually there. The other two tracks I do not recall at all, and I suspect it is not worth me keeping two copies of the title track (I have The Hawk is Howling, too) but we shall see.

The start is electric, but it is not until the snarl of the theme and the percussion arrives that the wall of wailing noise really establishes itself. This recording of Batcat seems to lack some of the edge that I associate with the album version... maybe I am mistaken about its volume and power, I will get to find out eventually, but this is definitely very slightly unfamiliar. I listened to The Hawk is Howling a lot when it came out so that is a surprise to me. Still, the basic structure is the same - five and a half minutes of constant roiling noise that smashes you in the face and pins back your ears. Every so often a more tuneful passage is incorporated into the mix, but this is a track not at all about melody. Cacophony, controlled aggression. I like it a lot as a change from my comfort zone - not much of what I listen to has this much sheer volume to it.

Track two is, I guess, meant to be a funny title. I might have seen it as such a few years ago, but now not so much. The idea it conjures is amusing, the unnecessary misogyny of chucking in "slut" is not. I am all for insults but... As for the tune? Much more melodic than Batcat, softer and tuneful in a way that does not really seem to gel with the violence of the title. There is no sense of the urgency of a chase, or the sorrow of a breakup here, though there is an awful hanging note to end which is held for far, far too long. Maybe that is meant to be the regret/remorse? Devil rides is stripped back musically, but has a vocal. The tune is pretty neat (reminding me more than a little of a couple of other Mogwai tracks the names of which escape me just now) but the song I have less time for. Or, well... the singer. His voice has a horrible edge to it that rubs me up the wrong way. I am pretty sure it is not one of the group, but someone brought in for that song, since Mogwai's other vocal tracks do not engender that sense of unpleasantness.

Anywho - no deletions just yet. With my ears still ringing after Batcat despite the two songs since, I will wait and compare the versions when I hit the album proper.

The Basement Demos - Matt McIntosh

Track list:

1. What It Means To Bleed
2. New England Rain
3. Graceless
4. Bless Your Heart
5. In This Town
6. They're Everywhere (interlude)
7. Lock & Key
8. World Stands Still

Running time: 23 minutes
Released: 2008

OK, so this is a completely random thing. I have no record of it, but I think someone pointed me at this on LastFM when it was all free, but it is free there no longer so... I have no idea why anyone would point me at this guy, his past work and band affiliations not being known to me or in a field that I ever followed. Still, I have them, so I must listen, that is how this works.

This is a home recording, raw not overproduced. Driving guitar and a gravelly hoarse voice that is breathy, reminding me of E from Eels. Keys join in, plinking away over the rhythm set up by the strumming. It all feels a little bit formulaic, pleasant enough but not arresting. I do like the raw nature of it but the composition and delivery fall a little flat. The second track feels like it goes on forever - a repeated pattern over a vocal that is barely more than a strained whisper. If there were a touch more variety in the instrumentation it would work pretty well, but alas it is just a little too empty for too long. By the time the variations arrive the song is too sullied to be fully redeemed.

McIntosh's vocal is pleasing - I am a bit of a sucker for a dark, broody delivery. Not screamed, not shouted, but contained anger, angst harnessed for effect. This presents me with a quandary, because I like the raw nature and the singing, but what I feel the songs need is... more production. Or at least more people involved. The slightly dull edge to everything works but there is not enough there for it to be effective, and I am not finding this predominantly one man and a guitar effort quite interesting enough.

Bless Your Heart has a bit more to it - keys and some other form of percussion - the overall sound goes in the right direction, keeping the rawness whilst growing in volume, but the song and performance unfortunately are less interesting. It also somehow runs into technical difficulties in WMP and is captured as another play of the opening track despite the fact I have not touched the playlist this time. Oh well. In This Town has a nice dirty, gritty air to its main guitar line, but suffers from a pretty dull arrangement. Overall this feels like a "nearly great" effort. There is something to like in every track here, but I am not finding anything to love. It does amuse me that the song tagged with (interlude) is longer than two of the other seven tracks though.

Did I say something to like about every track? That streak looks like it will broken by Lock & Key. I do not like the playing here, and the song is very dull for a minute and a half before it gets some tempo - the last minute does offer something more palatable but not enough to excuse an opening that was simply unpleasant. Generic as the hook sounds, World Stands Still is a much peppier end to the selection and this has some real charm to it before the abrupt end and fall of silence.

I am presented with a decision here. Each track did offer something of interest, but was it enough to keep? I think on balance probably not, and yet I am stayed by the fact that whilst I got all these tracks free, they are free no longer. Might I want to come back to this? I think on balance probably not for most of it - there is a little bit too much missing or out of place on each track to really say that I enjoyed this brief listen. It was pleasantly diverting but not gripping or compelling so I think I shall say "thanks, but no thanks" and trim.

The Barometric Sun - Deepspace

Track list:

1. Hymn 1 (Through the Barometric Sun)
2. The First Glimpse of the.....
4. Crysanthenum Ocean
5. In the Outer Reaches
7. Endless Glass Metropolis
10. Silence
11. Dream (The 49th Sheep)

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2007

A quick follow-up to The Barometric Sea, I can only guess that The Barometric Sun was meant as a companion piece, especially as it was within a year. I have 7 tracks from this disc. 5 are free right now, and 2 must have been in the past.

It has been a busy week, so I haven't got to many of these. Out Monday, guests Tuesday, unexpected co-op with a friend on Wednesday and my weekly Blood Bowl game on Friday. I did squeeze in a post on Thursday though. Today was a family birthday so it has been tough to find time to just sit and listen until now when I have that chance. It is late(ish) on a Saturday evening and I have just watched something about rebuilding a Spitfire - I am suitably relaxed.

The first impression generated by Hymn 1 is good. There is more body to this than some of the other Deepspace pieces I have on file and that is appreciated. It is still a soundscape, still inherently lonely, but the depth adds warmth to that so it is not so stark and distant as I felt some of The Barometric Sea was. Less ice floes, more beach or valley flooded with morning light. Some chimes kick in near the end that remind me of those of Big Ben which is an odd juxtaposition, and then we move on to a first glimpse of something. Here the artist proves that, like my younger self, one can be careless when typing an ellipsis. I swear I always used to end up with four periods, here he uses five. The track itself carries on the theme. It felt like a return to emptier sounds for a brief moment, then the additional embellishments showed up, including sampled (?) voice - choral singing by the sound of it. This definitely evokes Vangelis with the atmosphere created totally in line with the Blade Runner aesthetic. The song feels like it goes on forever, but it is actually shorter than the first track. I suspect that means that under the general appeal of the image it creates there is not too much to sustain affection. In any case, I am glad when we move on.

Crysanthenum Ocean - oops, looks like that is a typo in the title - feels like sci-fi videogame music from a downtime cutscene or, more likely, a front-end menu. It seems to fall into a cyclic pattern that fails to enthral. The warmer tone is still present but the ambience of this one is flat for me. What follows is more bombast than I would have expected, louder and stronger notes than have been stock-in-trade until now. This is a nice change, with the intricacies introduced in the fades, the lulls. I realise that I use "swells" a lot in writing - but perhaps I do genuinely see music as waves, building and crashing, rippling and calming. It feels truly appropriate here as there is the sense of a crescendo then a diminuendo on each tonic shift. It creates a really comforting sound space, an aural pocket of calm, a rhythmic effect of relaxation. I like this a lot, right up to the point where it seems to dead-end very suddenly. That ending was a shocker.

LastFM has b*****ed itself up again - it seems to do this if I remove a track from my library whilst it is in an active playlist - and thinks I am hearing Silence when actually it is Endless Glass Metropolis. Too bad, I was going to tag the title for its awesomeness. I would not want to live in a city of glass, but the image that generates is certainly one in keeping with the future/sci-fi ideal, supported by the sounds crafted here. I should really pass on these tracks to the gamers I know who love sci-fi RPGs, I think they would get far more atmospheric use of them than I would as I have never been particularly drawn to that genre (as a whole). Actually, I'll be fair on LastFM, looking more closely it seems to be picking up the problem from WMP giving bad information. You might have thought that the player would load the info of the track when the track starts, not somehow manage to display the info for another track altogether because it pre-loaded it then somehow skipped in the playlist. Actually I would have thought that, until I started working in software design by accident and optimisation (and some methods to achieve it) became a relevant concern. Still, it is an error.

Silence is not, well, silent. It is certainly emptier than the other tracks thus far but even then it contains some pretty bold notes. It feels slower rather than colder or less involving, no obvious rise-fall-rise-fall wave pattern here - more a sense of pulses through empty space. There are background transitions and a reverb effect that underlies most of the piece but they fade and merge together. We wake up from Silence and enter into a Dream. It does not immediately strike me as dream-like or particularly relevant to sleep though after a while it does pick up that sort of fuzzy, intangible quality that is alike the soft focus effect often used visually to depict dreams on screen. It also breaks down as a theme a bit by the halfway mark and feels like a different piece to the one I was listening to a moment ago. I do not really care for the switch initially either, but it pulls around. The second half of the piece then rushes by in a sense of swirls and twirls, to the point that when it ends I am abruptly catapulted out of whatever semi-conscious state my mind had fallen into.

Overall, I think this was better than The Barometric Sea, but less good than Another Empty Galaxy; I like the warmer sounds and appreciated the visuals my brain supplied on hearing it more than the cooler, isolation-based ones that accompanied the last post. I would not say Deepspace is genius, but he has something in these pieces alright that can really make for surprisingly engaging experience.

The Barometric Sea - Deepspace

Track list:

1. Energy Failure On The Sibelius
2. The Astrology
3. Sol
4. The Barometric Sea
5. Leaving The Hub
7. The Drop Of Nowhere
8. Euphandemonium
11. Map Of The Pleiades

Running time: 55 minutes
Released: 2007

A return to Deepspace, whose ambient track Another Empty Galaxy I rather enjoyed. This time it is more free tracks from a different album. Not an entire free disc this time, but most of one. I had 5 tracks already, 3 more were free which I have just grabbed, and a final 3 were not. I can guess this will be more ambient material but not at its themes.

Immediate electrics hum and give a deliberate (I would guess) sense of being underwater through an intangible oscillating quality that seems to slow everything down. It is quite an oppressive piece, atmospherically speaking and veers into discord in places. Energy Failure on the Sibelius is not winning me over, but I could see it being decent mood music for a deep-sea or deep-space adventure. There is a part of me that thinks I should be assigning tunes like this some metadata, or maybe just to a playlist, to take advantage of  actually listening and building a picture of them because thematic background music is a plus in at least one of my hobbies. I have to say though, I think I will stick with simply deleting it this time.

The Astrology is the first of the longer pieces (there are three around 10 minutes each), and it starts more promisingly but then fails to build on that. A haunting tone is all well and good but it does not play with it enough to create lasting interest. I got really into Another Empty Galaxy but somehow I am not feeling the same draw here. I don't know if the cold outside seeps in a bit with these vast empty sounds - this tune reminds me more of icy wastes than any other kind of land- (or sea-)scape. And as I commit that, something else is added to make it feel a little less empty. A mechanical kind of chugging bass loop. Maybe a caravan of some sort, slogging across the floes. Repetitive as it is, this loop really adds depth to the track and lifts is enough to make it work.

As it ends, I have a moment where everything is borked - I'm listening to one track but it is reporting and recording another; I do not know whether I am coming or going. So I sort it out by deleting the album and re-downloading everything except Sibelius and sort it out, listening to the end of The Astrology again as a result, but that's an acceptable enough price. Only the LastFM scrobbler does it again as Sol starts, recording it as The Astrology again. Some odd things have been happening recently; most Mawkin:Causley tracks were scrobbled twice during that listen a couple of weeks back. I'll put that aside though and go by the on-screen in WMP. Sol then. It is vaguely reminiscent of Vangelis in some respects and I approve.

Yup, every track now seems to be scrobbling as the one before it. Oh well. This is a lonely pursuit at the best of times, albeit one that through its engagement wards of loneliness, but tracks like this really emphasise the feeling. I can see this as being stuck on a rock in the middle of nowhere, looking out over vast swathes of nothingness, a big empty sky above and no landmarks to guide. Bleak, that's the word. And yet there is a warmth of sorts to the music itself that undermines that sense, even as it creates it. Since the opening track, I have fallen in to rather enjoying this again. It does help that I can see other uses for it but there is enough here to be oddly fulfilling in its own right. Leaving the hub is suitably dark, trepidatious mood to it, that you could see it as a fearful step into the unknown. It reminds me a little of prog rock, with long-held chords transitioning from one to another, but this is stripped back not embellished so the comparison quickly falls down.

The tracks have definitely gone a little darker to my ear; The Drop of Nowhere is less interesting as a result. Perhaps my attention has wandered a little, but this track is more of a drone with not enough to lift it or provide gems that sparkle against the black backdrop. Euphandemonium (great title!) lifts things a bit, which is welcome, but only brief. The strains that gave it the lift fade fairly quickly then linger there just in the background a bit in a way that makes the track really not work for me. Then it is over, for this is a short song, and we are on to the final piece, the "bonus track" - this is also shorter and has more obvious instrumentation rather than the strict ambience of prior tracks. The sustained chord is a little wearing though and this will be joining a few of its disc-mates in my recycle bin. For the second time tonight, too!

All in all this was a hit and miss set of tracks with the middle better than either end. Another selection of Deepspace's freely available work, The Barometric Sun is next, unless I fiddle with the order.

Bare Foot - OLO Worms

Track list:

2. I Shot Shrieff
10. Don't Touch Baby
12. Tortoise Shell
17. flakes

Running time: 12 minutes
Released 2007

A real oddity this, and a partial one at that as I only have 4 tracks which - I can only surmise - were once free on LastFM but are no longer. That must have been where I picked them up from, and I suspect because I was listening to a Fence Records radio station. I remember really liking I Shot Shrieff (just try not reading that as sheriff!) for its weirdness but probably have not listened to any of these tracks since I downloaded them years ago.

I do not remember the electro opening, but I do recall the clapping and pops that form the majority of this track. It is much faster than I recall though, and to a different rhythm. The mind and its tricks again. There is not a lot to the track really - the rhtythm, some electronics and a chanted vocal that is not present for much of the run. It is nothing like my memory, and nowhere near as interesting. Don't Touch Baby starts more interestingly, a tremourous treble and a decent if simple beat which gives way to something more driving in places. It is like stage music from a puzzle videogame or something - but in a nice way. An interesting soothing background.

I have to say I do not think the release date of 2007 can be right from memory, yet apparently I first scrobbled I Shot Shrieff in 2008 so it does fit. I have images of hearing these tracks much earlier than that - another sign of how memory misleads. Tortoise shell is more melodic until the end when it goes odd. Flakes, which rounds out the selection I have is a short track, unsavoury subject, makes me itch. Ugh. Definitely some fat-trimming here, but I rather liked 2 of the four.

Bang Goes the Knighthood - The Divine Comedy

Track list:

1. Down in the Street Below
2. The Complete Banker
3. Neapolitan Girl
4. Bang Goes the Knighthood
5. At the Indie Disco
6. Have You Ever Been in Love
7. Assume the Perpendicular
8. The Lost Art of Conversation
9. Island Life
10. When a Man Cries
11. Can You Stand Upon One Leg
12. I Like

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2010

The Divine Comedy. I remember taping (yes, cassette) National Express off the radio years and years ago - tapes were already well on the way out! - but never really picking anything else up. I also remember not getting tickets for a Ben Folds tour because it was co-headlined by The Divine Comedy and the person I would have gone with being very anti.

Yet Neil Hannon has always struck me as a top bloke - a view he confirmed by admitting to a love of cricket with The Duckworth Lewis Method. This is the final (or latest, if they are not defunct) Divine Comedy album and the only one I have - bought because of TDLM.

We kick off with a pacey number which brings to mind of American crooners of the 50s more than a modern recording. The lyrics are more modern, mind, and the structure of the song (or rather the lack of it) is definitely not a throwback. It does seem to go on for an eternity though, but when it ends we get a reaction to the global financial crisis with a title that for any Brit definitely reads with a W. I find it hard to describe the style, but I think it is fair to say this is music in support of lyrics not the other way around, and Hannon is a man with something to say.  Generally (I always want to add an extra e to that word when I type it) there is tempo in the tune, and an airy arrangement with orchestral backing as called for. Jeez that is a nonsensical sentence; oh well.

It is cheery, not too serious, even as the message of a song may be a serious one, the arrangement is rarely less than positive in tone. Of course, as I type that the title track comes on and raises an exception. Will I never learn about speaking too soon? In other news, my first 2015 purchases have just dropped through my door (on a Sunday... how the world has changed) so the library will continue to grow as I go. I do suspect I am deleting more tracks than I am adding, but that is not reflected at the level at which I am conducting this project.

At the Indie Disco namedrops a load of 90s and noughties indie bands, and is a return to a more familiar happy-go-lucky sound. I think I would have hated this 20 years ago, been indifferent to it 10 years ago. 5 years ago when I picked it up and today? There is something nice and uncomplicated about it. I would not want all of my music to be this ... I don't know what the word I am looking for is. The nub is that as a change up this is really rather pleasant but it would get boring fast if I had too much of it. I think my ears may have been opened a little bit by getting into other indie-pop acts.

Fairly clever, fairly twee, fairly pleasant and pleasing enough that I am largely carried along by the wave of good feeling, especially when the tracks get a little more jaunty. OK, I am past half way now and there is a degree to which it becomes a little samey - but is an acceptable kind of sameness because fundamentally it is positive, happy music. I do not think I would ever sit down to listen to this album as an album again, but equally I am not feeling any drive to trim the songs from my collection. I can see their value as palette cleansers amongst a wider library. I am not finding much of note coming to mind as I listen though, just a few bits to back up the impression of Hannon I came into this post with.

You know what? I have found something more that ties back to the earlier point about old time American singers - lighter subject matter, vaguely comic with a purpose of entertainment. Light entertainment. And oh my god that is an unpleasantly piercing note held for far to long. That has to go, no place for that at all. Still, one bad apple does not mean the whole bunch is tainted, and the final song on the disc quickly pushes the horror out of my mind with another lightly entertaining positive song.

Ballads of the Book - Various Artists

Track list:

1. Song For Irena - Mike Heron & John Burnside
2. Steam Comes Off Our House - De Rosa & Michel Faber
3. A Calvinist Narrowly Avoids Pleasure - James Yorkston & Bill Duncan
4. Dreamcatcher - Foxface & Rody Gorman
5. A Sentimental Song - Lord Cut-Glass & Alasdair Gray
6. The Sixth Stone - Aidan Moffat & Ian Rankin
7. Girl - Norman Blake & John Burnside
8. The Good Years - Karine Polwart & Edwin Morgan
9. The War On Love Song - Sons and Daughters & A. L. Kennedy
10. The Leaving - Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson
11. Message In A Bottle - Strike the Colours & Rody Gorman
12. If You Love Me You'd Destroy Me - Aereogramme & Hal Duncan
13. The Rebel On His Own Tonight - Malcolm Middleton & Alan Bissett
14. Half An Apple - Trashcan Sinatras & Ali Smith
15. The Fire - Vashti Bunyan & Rodge Glass
16. Where And When - King Creosote & Laura Hird
17. Jesus On The Cross - Emma Pollock & Louise Welsh
18. The Weight Of Years - Idlewild & Edwin Morgan

Running time: 69 minutes
Released: 2007

A collaboration between Scottish musicians and authors, this is a quirky little compilation that involves a number of artists that I am very fond of. I have other music by most of the groups and individual musicians featured, and whole albums by more than half of them, some of whom - like Foxface, James Yorkston, King Creosote, Malcolm Middleton and Strike the Colours - are enduring favourites. The authors are much more opaque to me, the only one I recognise being Ian Rankin, who I have never read, but I have had time for in his TV appearances and because he wrote the liner notes for KC Rules OK.

I have never really listened to these songs much, though I can hear a couple of them in my head as I read the titles. This is a long haul at just shy of 70 minutes so I am settled in with a mute TV and the dregs of a bottle of wine for company. Wikipedia has this listed as a fully collaborative exercise and calls the songs poems. Apparently they were given in the liner text but I bought this digitally so I don't have that to refer to. It does not start too promisingly, the piano on Song for Irena sounding too stark, and the voice really not doing anything for me. There is better to come though as this is one of those where I have nothing else by either of the two involved. Not so the next five tracks.

De Rosa were briefly a favourite. I loved Prevention a lot. Now their effort plays I recognise it from past listens. It is line with much of their library - alternating sparse instrumentation with richer, louder choruses and a straining voice that communicates a sense of pain to me even if the lyrics do not explicitly support that. I quite like this tune until a crescendo of rattles that irritates me and takes me out of the mood. I love the title the write gave to the poem put to music by James Yorkston, it tickles my cynicism about organised religion. However the song itself is not a patch on the favourites of mine from amongst JY's own tunes and I find myself glad as it ends. We get a dramatic change of tempo and tone with Foxface's contribution, speeding things up nicely. Foxface are one of those bands that I wish had made more (widely accessible) music. I have one album that I love to death - This Is What Makes Us - and this tune evokes that strongly. Not always the most musical, with some of the vocalisation quite punchy and discordant, even overbearing in places, they put heart into the recording and it shines through.

The snooker's tied at the half way break, apparently. Mute talking heads momentarily distract my eye as Lord Cut Glass winds up, slowing things down again. I do not think he really has the singing chops for this style of piece - slow, orchestral, almost non-existent behind the vocal. The tune when the song finishes though? Very nice. I am not taken with the Moffat/Rankin track which follows. I find Moffat's work post his split with Malcolm Middleton inconsistent - like some, loathe some. This falls into the loathe category from a performance standpoint. My sense of the next track is turned from "oh, this is alright" to "ah, right, no" when I Google Norman Blake and get Teenage Fanclub. I have never got on with them as a group and silly though it is finding that out affects my ability to enjoy this song. It is funny how little biases like that can completely change our perceptions of things. We like to consider ourselves rational in our likes, dislikes and decisions, but something that I was enjoying just became something I was at best lukewarm to not because it changed but because I found something out - and not something horrific, offensive, criminal etc. which could reasonably be expected to change perspective.

Humans are strange creatures.

I am not a fan of Karine Polwart - though she does combine well with other musicians on Side Show by The Burns Unit. The song here is more typical of my experience of her - a voice that is not quite interesting enough to make up for not being perfect and dull arrangement. Add some off-kilter harmony here and it is a sure fire miss. We are getting to half way, and so far it is a mixed bag. Sons and Daughters disappointed me when I bought This Gift, but I kept their contribution to a Domino Records sampler, and I like the form of their effort here. It has a nice rhythm driving it and the vocal has an edge of desperation or urgency (hard to tell which) that works with the beat to enthral. Snooker is underway again; it makes for a good silent companion to this - enough to draw my eye up occasionally but nothing that demands concentration or attention. I should feel much better than I do; today was a good day - boardgames in the morning then clearing boardgames off shelves so I can create the space for new shelves to slot in when they arrive on Wednesday. Yet I feel a little restless, unfulfilled, and Alasdair Roberts is not helping with that. Probably fairer to blame the wine. Knowing the musician is definitely affecting my appreciation. The intro to Message in a Bottle (not a cover of that other one) sets me in goosebumps even though it is actually quite plain. Why? Because it is a Strike the Colours song I did not know I had; I love Jenny Reeve's voice a lot and the material recorded under this name holds a place in my heart. A quick search suggests there may be another album on the way; yay! It is hard to describe why this fills me with quite so much joy but I can perhaps sum up by saying she does what I would consider "perfect pop" - slightly twee, heartfelt, not over-produced or mass market.

I recognise If You Love Me You'd Destroy Me when it plays, and it seems I have loved the track on LastFM, but never actually investigated Aereogramme any further. They are now 7-8 years defunct but I do indeed like this track and if it is reflective of their wider catalogue then it probably is worth going back to take a look. Middleton's song is odd - lyrically it feels like it could be one of his own, musically it is slightly removed from what I am used to of his solo work. This is backwards to how the collaboration thing worked here. Never mind... the spoken section in the middle catches me by surprise (it should not, Arab Strap and all). Interesting, but would never be a favourite. Snooker has swung towards the guy that was down early. More Arrested Development after this I think - I am into season 3 and the ridiculousness of Wee Britain and Charlize Theron playing a woman with a child's IQ. Near the end of the re-watch then. What next? A change of tone to Black Mirror, I think! The digression arises from a song by a group I do not know barely making any kind of impression at all until the oddly misplaced Hawaiian guitar shows up, and not in a "so stupid its cool" way like with Laika and the Cosmonauts. Various Artist posts are great for random name dropping since there is no tag to go with them. Frank Sinatra! Cher! Springsteen! Ben Folds! Three of the previous 4 do not feature in my library.

Nor will some of these artists once I am done with this play through. I should really have been deleting as I go to better remember but I have not got around to it, preferring to make stupid comments in text no-one will read. I think the wine has gone to my head. Surprised at the lack of typos then.

Ah, Where and When. This really is a King Creosote song in structure and tone, it would not be out of place on one of his earlier studio albums. This guy... his voice just slays me dead - a mix of perfection and pain. Broken and beautiful, and with a knack for the catchy hook, what really draws me to him (not evidenced here) are his lyrics - particularly on KC Rules OK - and raw emotion. The song seems to go very quickly here, and before I have finished writing about KC, Emma Pollock has shuffled in to replace him. This was one of the songs I could hear prior to the listen. Pollock has a couple of songs I really like, and a load that I do not. This one walks the line between the two. The surprise package here for me is the Idlewild track. I think when they were fêted I did not realise how folksy they were and they slid by without me ever paying any attention. I do not feel inclined to look up any more but I like the gentle, traditional-sounding roll here. It is also the end of the disc, which comes as a bit of a surprise. The snooker is still going and the wine has barely gone down (I drink slowly these days). Now I just have to work back through and take out the chaff.

Ballad of the Broken Seas - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

Track List:

1. Deus Ibi Est
2. Black Mountain
3. The False Husband
4. Ballad Of The Broken Seas
5. Revolver
6. Ramblin' Man
7. (Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?
8. Saturday's Gone
9. It's Hard To Kill A Bad Thing
10. Honey Child What Can I Do?
11. Dusty Wreath
12. The Circus Is Leaving Town

Running time: 42 minutes
Released: 2006

So from an oddball to an odd couple. I cannot for the life of me think why I first picked up music by Campbell and Lanegan, neither of whom were on my radar in their other guises before I did so. However I seem to recall fond memories of their chalk and cheese duetting, with some stand out songs (albeit maybe not on this album). This is also, I think, the 100th listen of the project. Go me.

Lanegan is gravel-like, Campbell a waif. Him in aggressive rock, her twee indie-pop. This has no right to work - pretty much what all the reviews said. Yet somehow whatever weird fate drew them together turned up trumps. Right away the contrast works. The music is fairly drab to start with, but the real versus the ethereal, dark versus light, of the two voices sets things apart as intriguing and very listenable. The first two songs, at least, are just as dull lyrically as they are musically, and the second drops Lanegan as a vocalist - which happens a fair bit on their collaborations considering he gets equal billing. Without the two singers contrasting each other Black Mountain really has little to recommend it.

The double act is restored for The False Husband, which takes the stark difference further, but accompanying Lanegan with dark, empty brooding notes, and Campbell with a friendlier melody. It is hauntingly brilliant in its simplicity, with her bits being really enthralling... and then they overlay and it is almost perfect. with 3 or 4 different strands to follow you end up getting lost and wondering at the tangle. It has been a sparse week for me and I should have got to this sooner, except that I have been recaptured by Arrested Development and have prioritised my full re-watch of that series (minus the online-only fourth season). As much as I am enjoying that, I regret not having done this one last night when I was a bit more awake and - in truth - quite antsy for something more active to do. It would have both calmed those thoughts and satisfied the itch. The title track is achingly melancholic - I could see it overlaying end credits as the devastation of a tragedy is revealed.

Revolver continues the cinematic theme, this stark tune, with its echoes of westerns, could likewise be accompanying something on screen - except for the vocal, a true duet, which detracts from that angle a bit. Here our singers are paired but it does not work quite as well as some of the call-response or different vocal pieces. Example - the cover of Ramblin' Man, with Lanegan carrying the song, and Campbell husky underneath his main verse. Oh, and hey... Andrew Bird is not the only whistler. It is just a pity that some of the composition and playing is not a bit more daring. There is a fair amount of dull music here, saved noticeably by the song. I guess this was a conscious decision to not overbear the duet with anything that would detract from it but I just feel it represents a bit of a lost opportunity to do something really special not just a good curio.

Occasionally the tunes do elevate above the humdrum, but not often enough. Saturday's Gone has a much lighter touch, and whilst it remains a very simple piece it feels as though there is a degree more sophistication about the song. Unfortunately it is another with no Lanegan, and the novelty of the lighter touch wears off after 2 1/2 minutes as the dull repetition of the rhythm gets to me. This is a relatively long track at 4 1/2 minutes plus and it definitely starts to drag well before the end. The album is a curious whole for sure. Duets, solo songs, and now an instrumental; when the music has been the weakest part of the disc so far, an instrumental is definitely something it did not need. Oh, it is a pleasant enough piece, in a really bland and inoffensive way and if I heard it whilst out and about I would not mind it. Here, though, it is as welcome as a hole in the head - after all it is a track where our stars are not bouncing off each other. I have a feeling that the follow up, Sunday at Devil Dirt was a better album than this one is. It could be my memory playing tricks again by I hear strains of songs with more urgency, more craft put into the music, in my mind when I call it forth. Ballad of the Broken Seas is, overall, a little too twee and a little too laid back to really shine despite the obvious chemistry between the pair. Nothing gets above walking pace, nothing gets in your face and nothing really embraces the sedation to enhance it. It gets caught in no man's land - interesting, but not as good as it could be, and prone to dropping the interest for idle absent-mindedness.

The tracks with both vocalists are just better, and the more prominent Lanegan is the better. I like his deep, dry voiced delivery and it is a better counterpoint to the gentle strumming that is all most of the music amounts to than Campbell's softer distant trilling. The high points of their interaction make it a worthwhile listen, even if I have culled a full third of it after this. The collaboration promises much, delivers on a little of it, and (I hope - since I have more to come in future) holds some back for later arrivals. It is no less conceptually odd a pairing after listening to them, though - however well their voices link up.

Balkan Beat Box - Balkan Beat Box

Track list:

1. Cha Cha
2. Bulgarian Chicks
3. Adir Adirim
4. 9/4 The Ladies
5. Shushan
6. Ya Man
7. Gross
8. Sunday Arak
9. Hassan's Mimuna
10. Meboli
11. La Bush Resistance

Running time: 52 minutes
Released: 2005

This is an oddball and one I cannot think why I have. I suspect it must be something I picked up after getting into Beirut and loving the balkan-themed tinge to their work. This is nothing like that and, if my memory is anything close to accurate, it will be gone by the time I hit publish on this post!

We start with a cock crowing and a beat kicks in with some rudimentary overlay which gradually offers a little more as well as a horrible vocal that appears sporadically. In truth it is less annoying than I thought it would be, but equally it does nothing for me and sets a tone of prospective boredom rather than one of unpleasantness. Am I in for a long hour?

I like the themes appearing, which do indeed remind me of the first times I heard Beirut, but not the specific presentation of them here. A little too persistent, a little too much of a tremor coming through from all the instrumentation. Jaunty is all well and good but it can be taken too far. I find myself tiring of the structure of the tunes more than anything else, with the rhythms particularly to blame here, hammered home with less subtlety and a little more repetition than I would like.

There is no doubt that the aesthetic, pointed and stylised as it is, makes for an acquired taste. On the one hand there is something compelling about the muted and staccato tunes, chants and obvious performance element that this material would have been rooted in. On the other it is awfully oppressive after any period of time, boring away at the same spot over and over in a way that can easily infuriate. I am 3 complete tracks in and my head is already pounding from repeated sounds. As with a number of other things I have listened to, I find myself disappointed, seeing potential but having it overshadowed by a facet of the composition that I cannot live with. I am in for a long one, but for different reasons than I thought.

9/4 The Ladies actually softens a lot of the problems, at least compared to the first three tracks. As a stand alone track it is much more palatable, rebalancing the presentation to date. I have a weird moment during Shushan where the rhythm reminds me quite strongly of a Busta Rhymes song from way back (maybe I will remember which when I come to Extinction Level Event) but the very fact my mind wandered in that direction tells you a lot about how I am not engaged with what I am hearing right now. In fact, it is largely blurring into a continuous drone over which I occasionally hear something that stands out and drags my mind back to what I am supposed to be doing - almost invariably it is not a good type of drag back, either.

So far, however, Gross has been anything but. This track seems to have ditched the incessant repeats of single notes in favour of actual tunes and melodies whilst keeping the distinctive tones that lend the music its Balkan identity. This I can approve of. In fairness, I could see everything I have heard here so far going down brilliantly with the right crowd getting up and engaging by dancing, spinning, clapping and whooping along whilst sinking generous amounts of alcohol, but ultimately that is not me here now on my sofa on a January evening as the temperature outside sinks and the first snow for a year or more is on its way. The second half of this album seems to be less demanding than the first, or maybe I am accustomed to it now and the pounding has receded some.

Oh, now that is interesting. A genuine change of pace which feels like it has been a long time coming. Much more airy rhythm giving a feeling that things have opened out a bit and sped up. For the first time I hear a real change in the tone and thrust of the music - the construction too. I am not sure I like the result in Hassan's Mimuna but I do appreciate the difference which is, as much as anything else, a result of a much softer percussion and not using the harsher sounds for structure for the majority of the piece. I am caught slightly off guard by Meboli starting as an homage to jazzy drum and bass but there is really nothing to the track of note - at least not understanding the vocal. The end of the album is definitely in a very different mould to the start - much more relaxed, smoother, "cooler". I do not really feel it does that cool well enough to recommend it but it does at least show range, and a better use of the dominant themes than simple mash it into the skull omnipresence.

So, what to do with this lot? Well most is going. I think I might just keep 9/4, Gross and Sunday Arak which seemed to walk the line of interest and offensiveness the best. The rest I have no place for.

The Bairns - Rachel Unthank & the Winterset

Track List:

1. Felton Lonnin
2. Lull I
3. Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk
4. I Wish
5. Blue's Gaen oot o' the Fashion
6. Lull II: My Lad's a Canny Lad
7. Blackbird
8. Lull III: A Minor Place
9. Sea Song
10. Whitethorn
11. Lull IV: Can't Stop It Raining
12. My Donald
13. Ma Bonny Lad
14. Fareweel Regality
15. Newcastle Lullaby

Running time: 65 minutes
Released: 2007

This was actually the Unthanks' second album, but the first that captured my attention. I am not sure whether it was before or after their Mercury nod that I picked it up or, if before what drove me to do so. My appreciation or otherwise of these northern songstresses waxes and wanes quite a bit. I have seen them perform and loved it, but I have also skipped through track after track without paying any attention at all. I am curious what forcing myself to listen to them will reveal in terms of engagement and enjoyment.

It is a slow start this, with the opening track taking time to get moving - and even then it is not the most urgent of tunes. Dialect rules here, very affected north eastern delivery but it is very clearly in dialect and not in accent - though the two are clearly related. There are long instrumental periods here, and the arrangement is a little too sparse to really support that. It has a slow movie soundtrack air about it in those segments, not the theme I would really expect to accompany a folk song about cows, so it does have some interest, but it drifts too long, unfocused, rather than giving a tight rendition. And then a "Lull" - one of four interludes. I have never understood why these need to appear on records, and especially not so close to the start, or so close together. To be fair, it is a much more engaging interlude than many, and at a minute and a half it has time to deliver something.

Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk is a song that I am primarily familiar with through James Yorkston, but it is good to hear it sung from the female perspective that its narrative conveys. The piano accompaniment is really nicely played here, soft and supportive, and the main theme is carried well. There is a decent acceleration and shift in gear for the arrangement as the song progresses, but the vocal loses something of its allure when the pace picks up. Overall I think I prefer Yorkston's recording but this is different enough to maintain both happily. I Wish is very nicely performed. My problem with it is the slow, drawn out performance - there is no energy to it, no demand to be paid attention to whatsoever. It gets weirder about two thirds through when frantically whispered lines appear over a fake-tension key line - it is just at odds with the delivery, and really the song would have been better shut down at that point.

Ah, a bit more rhythm and pace. A soft-sung harmony and a bright melody - there has not been enough of this. It slows down when it swells in volume but the injection of some tempo is welcome, and it returns outside of the chorus. I have to say I prefer my folk with a bit more punch. Faster, lighter, brighter, bolder. Laments have their place and can be wonderful but the main attraction of traditional music for me is the music that reflects the joy and community that spawned tunes, bound people together and so forth. Dance tunes, feel good music. The songs do not have to be happy but having life to them helps. Tenderness is great and all, but give it to us with a tune and a structure and some energy and I will be happier. Their rendition of Blackbird has enough of these pieces and it is a treasure.

It is also half as long as the majority of the other pieces, and I think that is my biggest disappointment with this disc thus far: the tunes are spun out, worn thin by the end. The songs are always nicely sung, and well played, but several are performed so sedately that nodding off is a real danger, and the next one does not start soon enough to jolt you out of that sedation. That some, like Sea Song, meander to their ends, disappearing with a whimper, exacerbates this. The disc clocks in at 65 minutes; had the songs been arranged with the urgency to bring it in at 45 it could have been wonderful. Of course, it would not then have the hallmarks that make the Unthanks stand out - bold vocals with arrangement to support them and a slow deliberate delivery that really does let their voices stand out.

I am conflicted in how I feel about this one, perhaps more so than with any of the albums I have been through yet. I think that, as I wrote in the opening paragraph here, the Unthanks are very variable in appreciation - and I have little doubt that this style is much more effective for a live audience where it is easier to get drawn into the performance (which is ever impressive) rather than becoming concerned with the shortfalls of the construction as I am here. I find there are little sections or passages here that I love - there is an instrumental bridge in My Donald that is strikingly lovely, for instance, lost in the midst of 8 minutes of wandering - but overall I am not really feeling this as an album to listen to other than in an audience were they to play it all live.

There are some fine songs here - Blackbird, of course, but also Fareweel Regality where the rise and fall of the vocal through the chorus is softly lilting magic. Alas the presentation as a whole does not, I feel, support them well. I wish the beauty of the individual performances - singers and musicians - on the album were better combined into a greater whole but unfortunately the worth of The Bairns is, I would say, significantly less than the sum of its parts. It seems fitting that it ends with an overlong, under-interesting lullaby.

Badger Stamp Records Compilation 2008 - Various Artists

I only have one track from this compilation - Bellshill Station Fast by The Just Joans (length 2:34). There are others available free according to the listing on LastFM, but the download links were non-responsive when I just tried them so I am not too bothered about filling out the freebies. There's no cover either, so I am dispensing with the post structure for this micropost.

Strumming their organ then charmingly off-key singing. The Just Joans come across as a novelty act with their accessible indiepop about the little things in life; I do not mean that in a sneering way either. I like this well enough but it is nothing special, gone too fast for me to really register any of the specifics.

Bad As Me - Tom Waits

Track list:

1. Chicago
2. Raised Right Men
3. Talking At The Same Time
4. Get Lost
5. Face To The Highway
6. Pay Me
7. Back In The Crowd
8. Bad As Me
9. Kiss Me
10. Satisfied
11. Last Leaf
12. Hell Broke Luce
13. New Year's Eve

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2011

Waits' most recent, and I would guess last (but who knows?), album. I am missing the three "bonus tracks" listed on his website. Ah well. I do not recall getting on with this much and can only hear one of the songs in my head as I look at the track list, which is a sign of unfamiliarity. I wonder whether this will change that?

It has a high strung start. Punchy repeated notes at high tempo and growled vocal. There is none of the delicateness of Alice here. I cannot say I like Chicago much, but it has an energy about it. Repetition seems to be a feature. A similar recurring note is used in Raised Right Men. This appears to be all about Waits' voice, no bad thing, as there is virtually no composition (I almost prejudicially left "music" here, but that would be too hyperbolic and "grumpy old man" of me). It is more rhythm and a background noise to frame the vocal against. So far it does not work for me, not even a little. Perhaps that is why I have a lack of familiarity. The third track softens the impact a little, there is more musicianship and more of a tune to the backing here. We still have a strong repetition to advance that theme (not a single note this time though) but it is muted, reduced and blue rather than insistent, front and centre and demanding. It is a better track for it, though the breathless singing Waits effects here is not him at his best.

Get Lost sounds like a 60s tune revived and twisted, I can almost see people in black and white doing cheesy dance crazes to the ridiculously quick limited tone pattern except for the darkness of the atmosphere it generates. So far I have not liked anything on this disc, but I am finally hearing promise, a step back from the repetitive, a simpler sound, more space. Face to the Highway may overuse the song title in the lyrics but its construction is much more to my taste. As it goes on, the repetition is there, a march-like beat, but it is mostly a very soft but layered backing and a less forced-sounding Waits in a more familiar delivery. Better. Much better. Pay Me does hark back to Alice a bit, lyrically and thematically it would fit there, even if the music is less atmospheric than those pieces. It still touches on vaudeville, conjures an image of steam organs and mechanical dancing puppets and un-tuned pianos - charming in a shabby kind of way.

Phew, the album has picked up a bit. The start was really harsh, offensive to my ears, but now it seems to have mellowed and settled into a more relaxed mode - strumming, gentle tinkling, and carefree crooning. I get a weird Buena Vista Social Club type air from Back in the Crowd, despite it not being particularly Latin in influence - I think it is the slightly tumbledown impression, with an effect that sounds a little like rain dripping through an incomplete roof. It is a charming track.

I spoke too soon. I am not really surprised when the title track heads back to the style that set me on edge earlier - the title dares it to really. It is not so loud though, and less obviously repetitive. Lyrically more interesting and delivered with an urgency that is much more interesting, but ultimately - and it may be my mood as much as anything - it does not excite me. Kiss Me is classic Waits, rambling with very little to distract from his voice and the pleading story he has to tell. The sparse instrumentation works well for him, especially when it is soft and receding into the background too. We seem to be in a more bluesy mood all of a sudden. The change of style is welcome to a point, but ultimately I am not satisfied with Satisfied - on the one hand I like the bluesy edge, but on the other it remains too samey and the levels of discordance and punchiness somehow just nail a frequency that sets my teeth on edge. The mood and structure of the song I like, but the execution left my ears wanting to shut down.

Last quarter now, and it is an odd duck. The repeated note (pair) theme is gone and dead long ago, but the songs weave from stridency and noise to stripped back lament (to be fair, this is not odd for Waits) in a way that does not feel coherent. One moment you are listening to a pleasant song, well crafted, the next a noisy mess that challenges you. I must admit, I am not up to much of this particular challenge, at least not this evening.

I prefer Waits in thematic mood, tumbledown and touching; dreaming of despair. Less so in aggressive dissonance. I wonder if this album was one hurrah too many, whether my ambivalence to listening tonight sours me, and any number of other thoughts as to why Bad As Me just does not cut it for me. I cannot really say. There are some very nice songs here, but there are also ones that made me want to shut down and walk away. Now that the disc has finished, I have the luxury of doing that.

Baby I'm Yours EP - Math and Physics Club

Track list:

1. Baby I'm Yours

Running time: 2 minutes
Released: 2007

I only have the title track from this EP, which is free on Last FM along with 2 other tracks from Math and Physics Club (I have them, too). i can only assume they were recommended based on someone I actually listen to, so I simply grabbed free stuff, because I do not know this band at all.

I debated crunching the three together but it makes for a titling and labelling nightmare so I figured I would do them separately. Three short posts instead, then; this one is especially short as this song is less than 3 minutes long.

It is twee indie-pop, which makes sense for both the band name and the likelihood of me having picked up some random track somewhere. The jangly guitars and percussion are quite nice, the singing less so. It feels a bit light... like a cut down Allo Darlin' (which is likely where the recommendation came from). Unfortunately cut down too far to be enjoyable enough to make it worth keeping.

Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do - Sigur Rós

Track list:

1. Ba Ba
2. Ti Ki
3. Di Do

Running time: 20 minutes
Released: 2004

Happy New Year and all that.

We loop back to Sigur Rós for the 4th time for what is, after Von, probably the work of theirs that I am least familiar with. I want to say this is an oddity that I have never really listened to but that is not 100% true. Wikipedia has it down as composed for something else, which makes sense but rings no bells for me. I can hear the odd words of the album title in my head though so I have definitely listened to it before. It is a relatively short and simple start to B though so here goes...

It starts plinking away quietly, a fairly neat little repeating pattern that grows stronger whilst stars fall around it until eventually some more instrumentation is added and I get that uncanny sensation of familiarity... has this been used in popular media and if so what? My Google-fu is too weak to work out if so. Perhaps it is just prior random plays that my memory is bringing back now that I hear the tune. It still leaves me unsettled a touch though. The track itself is enigmatic; nice, but not engaging; interesting but dull in different ways. It is not a composition that would sell me on Sigur Rós, but it is one that knowing their material, I can enjoy. The tracks run together (in so far as that can be said for anything as sparse as this), but Ti Ki takes on a more childlike feel than Ba Ba as there is no central theme or melody. It is much more "play with chimes and clicks" - so much so that when stronger notes appear in the second half of the track I am taken aback. They stop as suddenly as they arrive though, leaving an eerie space behind them. Then they return and a theme is finally born. The clicks and chimes are really wearing on me by now, but the theme is nice; the reverb/echo on it makes it sound like it happens in a big empty space and that is an effective atmospheric. I cannot say I like the piece much though.

Di Do includes the "vocal" - the album name repeated in fractured fashion, with some recording artefacts by the sound of it - over the same starfall chimes that have been a constant through this mini-album, there is a bit more drive underneath this one, a shaky percussive effect introducing drive before the theme arrives, and the blurring of the vocal loops builds an oppressive feel. The chimes disappear before I notice them being gone, replaced by louder "bongs" - like clock bells. The distorted electronics are unpleasant. Oh my, this is awful and damn close to unlistenable. Its a shame, because before that distortion took over there was a more rounded piece waiting to take shape.

Sigur Rós or no, I cannot see any merit in keeping Ti Ki and Di Do. Ba Ba is nice enough once it gets going but the other two feel like something far removed, for different reasons.