Bellowhead Live - The Farewell Tour (disc 2) - Bellowhead

Track list:

1. Let Her Run
2. Old Dun Cow
3. Rosemary Lane
4. Moon Kittens
5. The March Past
6. Byker Hill
7. The Wife of Usher’s Well
8. Jack Lintel
9. Black Beetle Pies
10. Greenwood Side
11. Sloe Gin
12. London Town
13. New York Girls
14. Frogs Legs & Dragon’s Teeth

Running time: 63 minutes
Released: 2016

Part 2 of the long goodbye (part 1 here). I am apparently going to be traipsing 80 miles each way to see them one last time this week. Having failed to get tickets for the Oxford show, a friend secured a pair for the "bonus" date inserted in Southampton after the original tour was announced.

Disc 2 opens with Let Her Run, an energetic number with a heavy beat pounding to establish a rhythm. The pace though is enforced by the vibrancy of the vocal. Looking down the track list for this half of the Farewell Tour, there are a few track names I can't place because despite years of following Bellowhead religiously I have hardly ever listened to, or looked at the track lists for, any album since Matachin. As a result tracks like Old Dun Cow, Moon Kittens, Jack Lintel which haven't formed staples of the live shows I have seen in that time are... not strangers but not recognisible by name either. The first of those relies heavily on the brass to create a punchy structure. The tune becomes familiar in places, but whilst I like the bright blaring crescendos and I think this allows Jon Boden to grandstand nicely it is actually not really reflective of the tunes I most love Bellowhead for. When it devolves to folk-orchestra disco music it... well, it works and would be pretty easy to get caught up in live but at this recorded distance, not so much.

Rosemary Lane is Scarborough Fair by another name and another tune, as the band like to remind audiences. Unless that is I am mistaking that introduction for another song. Familiarity is one thing, reliability of memory is another. What saddens me today is that after Wednesday is gone I don't know when I will next see live music. For the last few years Bellowhead have been a much needed outlet there, a rare point of intersection of taste with friends of similar availability, and for an active group coming anywhere near to close to me.

Oh, Moon Kittens is familiar by sound, so it has been part of recent shows; I can't help but think James Bond theme, there are similarities in the primary melody and actually the bass-treble balance and separation is similar to at least some Bond film music, if not the main theme. I should be able to pull out the particular theme song (I suspect I have it on David Arnold's reimaginings album Shaken & Stirred) but... bah. Thus far this set has been of the more bombastic variety, but The March Past takes us into dance tune territory, and immediately rockets to the top of my appreciation list for the listen as a result. I don't recognise this at all, but hey... even as a fan of them in general I can say that many dance tune sets feel very very similar. The appeal lies not so much in the specific tunes, notes or time signatures, but the general energy, positivity and the happy and celebratory genesis of the concepts. 

I think I may have written before about my self consciousness and the inability to let myself go, even in a crowd doing just that. I should by rights detest tune sets for making me feel that acutely, but somehow despite the regret that engineers in me the geniality of the tunes themselves, the vital nature of the playing and everyone else enjoying them manages to leave me with a net positive. 

Byker Hill has a much rockier sound to it, not quite so much that you don't notice the folk roots, present in the lyrics but discernable within the maelstrom of sound from the arrangement too. I have never been a big exponent of this particular song but it far from the weakest track here. This disc includes probably Bellowhead's worst track, a horrid sounding number arising from experimentation with discordant sounds. Actually it surprises me quite a lot, speaking of discordant numbers, that Little Sally Racket does not appear on either disc. The song is so-so, but the sight of a man playing two saxophones at once was a regular highlight of live renditions whilst it remained a popular closer. 

I am not so actively or clearly picking up on a flatness of sound with this set compared with the first disc. I don't know why that is. It could be that I am overall less familiar with the specific tracks, or just in a more forgiving mood. Or the recording could genuinely be better. Who knows. To my surprise Jack Lintel is the type of Bellowhead tune I really like. It is an instrumental with a soaring melody as the dominant feature from Revival. I don't think I have ever seen this live, and as mentioned above I have not listened to the later albums much in other contexts either. I missed a trick there. I should skip the horror that is Black Beetle Pies - the outright worst thing they have done. Cacophony and screech. I think it constitutes an interesting experiment, and I applaud the thinking that got them to go there, i.e. not to be static, but to look for new things to do, but the result is simply not something I have ever enjoyed. Here the recording doesn't do the unpleasantness justice as it seems distant, moderated, softened somehow. I am left to wonder whether that is because the band performed it differently, whether the discomfort the tune can cause in an audience doesn't carry to the microphones or whether post-production (live recording or no) has cleaned it up some. It is by far the most palatable rendition of the song I have heard, but that is not really saying much. 

Greenwood Side leads us into what is an extended lead out. Sloe Gin was a live staple for too long, London Town is a crowd pleaser and the one-two of New York Girls and Frogs Legs & Dragon's Teeth has formed a standard encore for a couple of years. As a result I find myself feeling that I know what is coming and somewhat detached from the listening process, even as Greenwood Side is another track from Revival that I have less exposure to. I think my mood has changed as I feel impatient for the listen to end - an irritating, nagging feeling. I doubt that I will get another listen in for a week after this (and given it was 10 days before the couple I fit it this weekend) as I have a really busy time ahead. I could conceivably have plans every evening this week and all 3 days of the coming long weekend. In practice that means I am dumping out of something; probably the opportunity to play Bloodbowl in person  tomorrow. I used to play in an online league, which I may have mentioned in much earlier days of this project; almost 2 years going now.

Sloe Gin gets its traditional intro - Boden pointing out the repetitive nature of the trombone part in the lead in. Most of the preamble to tunes has been scrubbed from the recordings, there is no banter with the crowd. The difference here is that it happens over the start of the set. Actually I find myself enjoying it despite myself. This set of tunes had got really stale hearing it over and over for years but I find that having not been exposed to it for a while some of what made it a staple and a crowd favourite is restored. 

London Town is very flat on the recording, much of the tune is hard to hear, whilst the recording focuses on Boden's voice. It does capture him instructing the crowd (as if they need it) on how to participate... this is always one of the best numbers in a live show despite its longstanding nature (it comes from debut album Burlesque). I can't hear the crowd singalong at all on this recording which is a real shame. They should be loud and proud. They probably were. I suspect we'll hear them later in the song where it is left to them to sing but... that just means they've been excised in production. Yep. Sigh. There is one really long note in one particular chorus; it's always astounding how it is held, especially towards the end of a set... I can tell I am getting older as each time I saw them I could hold on slightly less amidst the crowd of voices. Yeah - I can sing along, but not deign to move; how does that work? If I knew I might have resolved it by now. New York Girls comes in and it does feel a little remote. I am heartened to hear what sounded like Paul Sartin getting the biggest hand as the attributions were done - though I suspect that was mostly because he was the last of them called out in that sequence. 

The closer is a pair of tunes that have a really complicated dance associated with them. Jump up and down as madly as possible. The list of things that astound me about the band includes the fact that they can, whilst playing, manage to do this more comprehensively than I, or many others in their audience. Despite my getting impatient with this listen in places, I find the hour has gone past really rather fast. Despite feeling remote, not really getting the full sound and generally feeling a bit useless today - it's spring, a little more warmth would be nice - the tunes have flown by. I am sure the same will be true on Wednesday when I am more enveloped, for the last time. I doubt that in most situations I would choose these live recordings over the studio albums - the flatter sounds and odd balancing are off just so - but this will go live in the car for convenience.

Farewell Bellowhead.

Alba - Markus Stockhausen and Florian Weber

Track list:

1. What Can I Do for You?
2. Mondtraum
3. Surfboard
4. Ishta
5. Emergenzen
6. Barycenter
7. Emilio
8. Possibility I
9. Befreiung
10. Resonances
11. Die Weise Zauberin
12. Synergy Melody
13. Better World
14. Zephir
15. Today

Running time: 61 minutes
Released: 2016

Another new purchase now. Popped up when browsing online shops, had an interesting title which made me look, and an interesting description that made me buy. First listen time.

When I wrote the intro for the last post, I figured that I would be finding more time to listen. Instead I have been short of it. This disc arrived more than a week back now and I have accumulated drafts from new purchases; time to start knocking them off.

This opens quietly, tensely, trembling. It is a soft and warm sound, but neither of the leads. They arrive later - a high pitched, colder, piano, and a Davis-like horn. I think this is a really strong start, a mournful loneliness in there belies the atmosphere in my living room with a muted TV showing pictures of an FA cup semifinal in the periphery of my vision, and the day being as bright now as it has been at any point. The music though is my immediate concern, and one that intrigues and pleases without dragging my mind into the lonely states that I hear. The second piece starts with a starkly clear, crisp piano tune. The trumpet layers in on top. These pieces have a certain soundtrack-like element to them in places, long distance shots, people moving in the distance, but disengaged from our viewpoint.

The name of this album appealed and drew me in as I was browsing, as Alba is an old name, a Gaelic name, for Scotland, as used in the Albion RPG which I am still occasionally running. I wonder if the two Germans behind this music knew that - about the name, I mean; clearly they know nothing and care nothing for my game! I don't think the themes here evoke imagery of the crags and lochs though. It seems an unlikely inspiration, though would fit with the sense of isolation the early tunes convey and perhaps with the snow-blown image on the cover. The third track blows the atmosphere though. A more staccato, more involved, piano tune here is energised, busy it a way that the first two were not. It reminds me of another modern jazz record that I have, but I don't remember if it is GoGo Penguin or Roller Trio. This tone is misplaced here, not fitting given the slower and more considered sounds before and, now, afterwards. Surfboard feels like it has been dropped in from another album, without comment or particular thought - an impression that was there at the beginning of the piece, but cemented by Ishta's return to the initial feel.

I really like the slow, lonely sounds here. I wonder though whether they would still appeal if this wasn't new to me. I think so. Whilst I don't see myself coming back to this over and over as I do with my favourite piano jazz (two albums from Esbjörn Svensson Trio in particular - Seven Days of Falling and Tuesday Wonderland), in the right moods I could see myself looking out time to listen to this again. There is a sedate pacing to the themes here, even when the melody is busy and full of notes. We seem to rely more heavily on the piano than on the horn here, which makes sense... the keys provide more structure, the brass injects presence. When it appears the tunes change noticeably, it dominates.

Barycenter is an interlude - a frenetic piano tune for a minute. It again breaks the tone set by what came before, and what follows. A second occurrence of this is suggestive that the break is intentional, but I am struggling to see what it adds to inject these incongruous numbers. Emilio returns us to a slower and more thoughtful piece and is immediately more pleasant for that. I was expecting Possibility I to be another fish out of water based on the name but whilst it is short it doesn't break the feel of the overall piece so much, and nor does Befreiung despite having a faster pace, a warmer feel and sunnier outlook. This still oozes the relaxed air, though the key part has more urgency and the trumpet plays more positively.

The brighter tone is temporary though as the Resonances are sparse. This time it is the trumpet left to its own devices, plotting its lonely course through a sea of silence. Two minutes fly by, and for the first time I am feeling the obligatory 40s LA vibe that all jazz of a certain type seems to evoke, those dark overhead pans from black and white movies, sleazy joints and private dicks. The feel continues into the following tune, dissipates part way through as the music returns to the themes and feel that have dominated the majority of this disc, then surprises me by re-emerging again. I rather like that as I was caught unawares by the subtle tonic shifts. This is definitely a slow ablum; in that, it feels like a little bit of an antidote to the modern world. For the most part though it does not sound dated or out of place.

I prefer the slower pieces, the really sedate ones. There is a depth to the sound that belies the sparse arrangement as the interplay between our primary actors fills the stage masterfully. Some of the themes are empty enough that it allows my mind to wander along with my eye, and I suspect I am missing some finer points, but the best thing I am finding in these pieces is a sense of peace. The playing still calls to mind Miles Davis more than I was expecting going in. I would naturally have expected a bent towards a more European or Nordic sound. Meanwhile the piano reminds me of latter-day Herbie Hancock, as this is not really piano-led jazz in the same way as Svensson's was. Here the magic is all in the combination, the whole, and the spaces they leave for each other, which brings me back to the Davis reference. It may not be the horn playing itself, it could be the construction of the pieces as a whole harking back to specific moments, likely from Kind of Blue. For shame I can't give a clear reference to back that up, alas.

And just like that I am approaching the end of this one. The hour has zipped by faster than I was expecting and despite the often sedate pacing it hasn't dragged once. There were low points - particularly that first injection of pace and energy which really wasn't needed - but overall I was very impressed and taken with both the individual pieces and the general theme that the album shot for. The final short number finishes very abruptly (if something so stately in pace can be abrupt), which is a little jarring. Still nothing like as jarring as the couple of tracks that broke ranks on pace and tone, though. I am not going to ditch them offhand - first listen and all - but may do in future.

Bellowhead Live - The Farewell Tour (disc 1) - Bellowhead

Track list:

1. Roll Alabama
2. 10,000 Miles Away
3. Lillibulero
4. Betsy Baker
5. If You Will Not Have Me, You May Let Me Go
6. Jordan
7. Haul Away
8. Captain Wedderburn
9. What’s the Life of a Man?
10. Let Union Be
11. Whiskey Is the Life of Man
12. Fine Sally
13. Gosport Nancy
14. Parson’s Farewell
15. Roll the Woodpile Down

Running time: 62 minutes
Released: 2016

I should not really have bought this. I don't really need more versions of these tunes, and have seen all of them played live from time to time. However I figured that buying it would be convenient for the car - stuck as I am in the age of physical media. However I don't have the discs yet - so I have to deconstruct the single large track list from the download. It would have been a 2 hour listen without breaking it up and, much as I love them... finding that kind of time for a listen is simply not going to happen.

I have mentioned Bellowhead in several other posts, but not (quite) reached the first of their studio albums in my alphabetical run through yet. It's literally the next but one at time of composition... and there's a second due before B is done. This, then, jumps the queue - what with the title being something I'd have passed a while back. It also makes the next couple of weeks a bit folk packed.

We start with Roll Alabama, one off Revival. Its possibly one of my favoured songs from their late life as it espouses the themes that I most enjoy in Bellowhead songs. They can get quite raucous at times but I have always had a penchant for the tunes with a more melodic touch, soaring fiddles crafting a comfortable tune space and the other parts of this eleven-piece construction fitting within. As much as I love Bellowhead, I really had to force myself to sit here and listen tonight. I left Sunday on the basis that I had quiet evenings Monday and Wednesday to find the time for two. I missed Monday too, wrong headspace, and tonight my inclination is to curl up and piss away my time rather than apply it. Not sure why, just feeling listless. I am also finding it hard to find much to write here for some reason, actively steering away from discussing the tunes, and generally failing to produce. Maybe this is a fools errand.

Lillibulero is a tune I never really got on with, too much of the song consisting of repeating some iteration of the title loudly. It has some more accessible elements too but it is one of the blander songs for the nonsense chorus. I think I am also impatient for the next tune; Betsy Baker is one of those songs I fell in love with the first time I heard it and it employs Paul Sartin and his oboe is glorious fashion. The song itself is a little blah, but the melody behind the chorus is to die for, a lushly arranged effort with a floating tune and a strong body of sound supporting it. This recording doesn't do it justice though - the levels seem to take away from that oboe part which is where my ear is normally drawn. The whole song sounds very different actually - from both the album version on Broadside and from the umpteen times I have seen it live. It feels a little clipped and flat. The wonderful melody is still there but somehow the sound doesn't blossom in the same way it does if you are in the audience in person. I can't remember how many times I have seen these guys play but for the last few years they have, alas, been the only gigs I have got to - I don't have the right friends or the right tastes to get to see much; I went through a phase of going to things on my own a few years back, but it's not the same as with company, and certainly rules out longer journeys. I am sad about the split of the band - a couple of years after John Spiers and Jon Boden stopped touring as a duo too. It means still fewer gig opportunities, and removes a convenient method (and excuse) for keeping up with an old friend who I have only seen at gigs for a while now.

If You Will Not Have Me, You May Let Me Go is a spiky little jaunt, dance tunes being a large part of the repertoire. It makes me want to hop about like a madman, but I am both too uncoordinated and far too self aware to ever really let myself go there, even in a horde of folks doing the same thing. I always end up feeling quite alone in crowds for this reason. My connection with whatever thing the crowd is there for seems to manifest in a very different way to the norm. I find this quite sad, but even several years of loud and energetic folk gigs haven't stamped that feeling out of me. Jordan goes all the way back to Burlesque, which was my entry point to the band. I liked folk, I liked jazz - they were fusing them supposedly (or rather adding aspects of the latter to the former, with a horn section). I was hooked.

Haul Away is a staple of the live show, three tunes in one. The opening always sends shivers down my spine. Some of the songs they played a lot got old (Sloe Gin really got on my wick by the time they stopped doing it live) but this one is always a crowning moment, with a generous sing-along in the middle of two dance tunes. The first builds tension, released by the vocal, the second leads us out merrily. Here, too, the recording seems flat; I'm not sure if the acoustics were not great on the night, the post production is highlighting the "wrong" bits for my taste or what but there is a detachment, and a monotone to it. I guess I'm so used to being in an audience absorbing this that colours my perceptions, but I don't remember other versions of the tune being so lifeless. And it is not that the performance on the night was lifeless - I can hear them going for it as ever; I think it has to be in the recording, and the specific emphasis that was captured for this release.

Yeah, there's something flat here alright. Even on the "quiet" number of Captain Wedderburn, the tuneful chorus (the only bit of this song I really like) comes across poorly despite the absence of other sounds to compete with. The song also manages to suck out the rhythm I had got into with its more stately pace, and I feel disconnected from my activity once more. However this next tune is interesting. I don't recognise it by sound or by title... I don't think I've seen them play What's the Life of a Man? and clearly I have not listened to Broadside very much, for this comes from there. Of course, Bellowhead were never really about the albums. As much as I enjoyed Burlesque and the follow-up Matachin, the three that followed never saw much play as record does not match up to live. That is true in the case of most bands, but doubly so here. I'm in danger of writing the Broadside listen up here before I get to that, but that album in particular had a contrast between some very nice tunes (Betsy Baker) and really obnoxious discord (Black Beetle Pies) and so didn't warrant much listening in album form.

Let Union Be is a crowd participation number at live shows. I can still use the present tense as there are a handful more dates before they crown their career in Oxford next month... tickets were impossible to grab for that, alas. There was no preamble on this recording and no obvious sound from the audience on the first chorus, again leaving the impression that this recording is a little flat. I do hope the audience weren't tuned out in post production or asked not to sing along on the night... they are clearly audible in applause at the end of the song so I guess it was the latter.

I am finding this all a little surreal, it's like an out of body experience somehow. Vagary of recording or whatever other cause, the sense of detachment I have from the sound, amplified by the lack of depth conveyed on the tunes and my familiarity with most of the numbers in live performance... I feel like I am reliving a memory that I never had. I feel like I am watching my own view on TV. I feel... isolated. The discs arrived today; as well as 2 CDs the package offers a DVD and a booklet of photos of them performing from odd angles. It's quite a nice offering and I am not sorry I picked it up despite my growing ambivalence about the particular realisation of this recording.

In contrast to the middle part of the disc, which was packed with longer tunes, the songs are now flying by. Only a couple left, a tune then the big single. I have always had a soft spot for the dance tunes, because at their best they are all about melody. A strong theme and various movements around that offering support. They swell and subside in really nice and easy to relate to patterns, and you can let your ear latch on to the central strand and follow it to its conclusion. I find them great for stopping my head running away with other thoughts and almost inevitably end up smiling as they crescendo. Disc 1 ends with Roll the Woodpile Down, which again has a lovely melody from Sartin's reed. When those tones fly out over a string base I love Bellowhead more than ever. I missed that this was a huge hit because I don't listen to the radio, but seeing crowds lap it up over the past 4 years its hard to deny the appeal. I doubt that most people are drawn by the particular element that grabs me, but that's fine. I suspect I might be the odd one thinking the best thing in a folk arrangement is woodwind, but there we go. It gives a very definite end. In my experience it is rarely the tune to end on - disc two closes more as I would expect though.

So, a little flat compared to being there in person, but even flat Bellowhead are a treat greater than many. For another month or so until there is only this, and memory, to fall back on.

Atomic - Mogwai

Track list:

1. Ether
2. SCRAM
3. Bitterness Centrifuge
4. U-235
5. Pripyat
6. Weak Force
7. Little Boy
8. Are You a Dancer?
9. Tzar
10. Fat Man

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2016

Is this my first 2016 release? I think so. It's not the first album I've picked up this year but its the first that appears here due to alphabet. This is also my first listen to this as I have yet to own it a week. One song popped up in a shuffle but I've not yet paid the purchase any heed.

First listens rarely offer best value, but I'll head into this one, as I don't yet feel like making dinner. Ether starts rather remotely, not what I would expect from Mogwai, a drone and tinny electronics over it. I guess style has to mix up for soundtracks though, and it is plenty accessible. There are echoes of Vangelis in this first piece as the softly melodic theme arrives, the backing evokes the same sculpted spaces the Greek manufactured for scores such as 1492 or Antarctica. As the piece builds there is a little more evidence of the guitar-based instrumentals that Mogwai are known for, but it never departs from the original course enough to indulge those elements.

The film this soundtracks was apparently an Auntie documentary on the atomic age. Passed me by entirely, but explains the title. I think it is safe to say by the midpoint of SCRAM that this is not a work that I would recognise as Mogwai if I didn't know it was them. It fits into a black hole of a genre of thematic instrumental music... pretty clearly soundtrack material without being easily definable as anything else. I find it loopy, with little hooks to fall into. Patterns take over and run my mind as I fall, trance-like, under its spell. To call the themes dark would be to sell short the night. It isn't insufferably dark though, just predominantly. I have to say I think Bitterness Centrifuge would make a great band name; its a pretty awesome track title and I find it conjuring pictures of emotional chemistry labs. Dystopian future, anyone? This track is slower, more menacing in pace, fuzzy, unclear. Deliberately so, and with a number of different strands competing for attention as lighter top end lines arrive to brighten the overall mood of the tune. I could see this growing on me quite a lot.

U-235 may relate to something of the here and now, but the edgy staccato of the tune definitely has me thinking megacorps and rain, persecution and cyberware. This is dark future RPG music and could just as easily be soundtracking an after-dark incursion into a guarded warehouse looking for some secret and dangerous new technology. Very apt. Pripyat is the number that I have heard once before and it starts now, foreboding in tone, slightly Gothic feel to it. This goes from cyberpunk to sci-fi, and then back. The overwhelming feel of oppression ebbs and flows through this track based on what the primary electric "tune" is doing. A murderous hum around just about every sound on this record would drive you to distraction were it not so clear that it is intentional. A nice light evening does not really suit this, but there we are.

Weak Force has more in common with Mogwai's non-soundtrack work immediately. A much clearer sound and electronics following a pattern which suits them. It is lacking in bold guitars though so it probably wouldn't stand out as a Mogwai track in a shuffle. The piece is possibly the "nicest" so far, but it is also the dullest. The dirty air, drones and other artefacts that cloud the previous tunes are noticeable by their absence, and that absence is to the detriment of the track. It leaves fewer rabbit holes for the ear to draw you down, creates fewer images in my head as I listen. I find myself bouncing off the cleaner sound quite hard, it is out of place, not suited. The opening to Little Boy is much more promising. This has a nice clean melody, but a droning sound is back to frame it, and there is another guitar line layered in there. This is richer, lusher, easier to connect to. The melody is one of loneliness, something I have felt today... its been an odd one. The changeable weather - first bright, then wet, and with the wet a darkness that belies the time of day - has directly impacted my mood, as has my inability to get anything done since 11ish. The morning was great; the afternoon not so much, yet I have had "leisure time" and talked to friends during that time. I find myself too complex and it blights certain aspects of my life. Ho hum.

A more subdued track next, more loneliness, a contrast begging me to close my eyes and risk falling asleep at an inopportune time of day. I don't feel like the album jumped here suddenly, and yet neither did I really have any expectation of, nor notice, it turning to these understated slow and emptier tunes. I rather like the effect, but I suspect that whilst the growling, droning tracks might grow on me, these removed numbers will likely never be better than they are on first exposure - less intricacies to learn perhaps? 

Do you ever think you are drinking too much? I have that feeling all the time, and yet this week as many days have passed with me taking none than taking any, and if any just a single beer. I constantly worry I might be prone to alcoholism and yet only ever indulge in moderation. Just throwing that out there, as Tzar winds down and we approach the finale, Fat Man. Lost and lonely piano melody wandering. It is left I think a little too long without significant company. When it gets companion sounds to wrap itself in and co-exist with the piece comes alive in a very... human kind of way. Alas I find that most of it is just a bit too slow, a bit too sparse, to hold my interest.

I think a second, and third, listen are in order to get the best out of this album - the same holds true for most, lets be honest. First time through, give me the dirty, fuzzy, busy sounds over the cleaner and clearer ones, though. 

Bring Me Sun for Breakfast - Thumpermonkey Lives!

Track list:

1. My Reality is Stronger

Running time: 8 minutes
Released: 2007

Random interlude for a LastFM sourced singleton now. I have no idea what to expect here, I only know that I got to Thumpermonkey Lives! somehow via their version of folk standard Tam Lin. I have just the 8 minute opening track, but there are 4 more available on Bandcamp.

I am struggling to stay awake after a long weekend roleplaying and forcing myself into this listen to postpone my bedtime a little longer. My eyes want to close, and my mind is already shut for business so this may not make much sense. On the plus side it's only 8 minutes to get through.

Unsupported guitar chords; it sounds like it can't decide whether it wants to explode into some jangly Laika and the Cosmonauts style pop or some cheesy Hawaiian movie music. Instead it evolves an understated vocal, a subdued feel. It is a sparse piece - not at all unpleasant, but really odd in its construction, the tension between what is actually delivered and the sound it seems to want to explode into but never does. I hear echoes of And None of Them Knew They Were Robots in there too. The vocal gets less dull over the course of the track, but it wanders all over the shop in terms of tone - weird, understated, angry, punky, Bowie, and a few other flavours on the way. Weird harmonisations in places - by 7 minutes the track generally has a bit more life to it, some heavier chords, a bit of bite, and yet... that is the point the vocals go higher pitched. Very incongruous. This is like a stereotype of prog rock in its oddity, it's inability to settle on what to be. I find it diverting for the full 8 minutes, but a little too random to want to keep.