Buena Vista Social Club - Buena Vista Social Club

Track list:

1. Chan Chan
2. De Camino a la Vereda
3. El Cuarto de Tula
4. Pueblo Nuevo
5. Dos Gardenias
6. ¿Y Tú Qué Has Hecho?
7. Veinte Años
8. El Carretero
9. Candela
10. Amor de Loca Juventud
11. Orgullecida
12. Murmullo
13. Buena Vista Social Club
14. La Bayamesa

Running time: 60 minutes
Released: 1997

This is one of the albums that I have very strong memories around. It was a common player in my 2nd year student accommodation as it was one both myself and my then flatmate had a strong affinity for, especially having seen the accompanying film. I return to is sparingly these days - as with everything! - and really it is only the immediate opening of Chan Chan that sticks with me. That said, there is more to the disc than that.

Still, it is there we start, strong chords, considered rhythm and then the harmonious vocal. Takes me back a good few years. Timeless, though - definitely dated, but not in a way that suggests irrelevance any time soon. I cannot understand the first thing about the lyrics, but I can certainly appreciate the lyricism in the delivery - a nice flow to the chorus phrases both in terms of emphasis and rhythm, and the horns that answer it are gorgeous. The track that follows up has a much lighter, carefree feel. It isn't as visceral, not as immediately affecting. It is accompanied by the chirping of some kind of local insect providing a live percussion to go with the digitally served main attraction. It is bright outside, but was supposed to rain today - a stroke of luck in what has been a depressing couple of days. I am not really feeling this track though. Its gentle inoffensiveness is just a bit too bland, and it is this blandness which allows the insects outside to intrude.

In truth their incessant calls at mid afternoon are something of a surprise; I am more used to these things happening at dusk. I lose track of them as El Cuarto de Tula starts - this is a more vibrant number, more engaging and enjoyable. A stronger rhythm and bolder sounds (horns, more horns!) makes for a better piece, though I now find my ear inexorably drawn to the drums and caught in a loop that suddenly seems to dominate the track. This song goes on a fair while, so that domination is not appreciated... I can't blame the musicians for where my ear has happened to fall though.

The Buena Vista Social Club story is an enchanting one, a relic of the strange timewarp that was (and to a degree still is, I guess; I wouldn't know) communist Cuba. Good music helps one engage with stories, and this story was very much built around the music and its appeal. I would certainly recommend checking out the film if you have any curiosity about the music. In isolation on the soundtrack, you get only part of the picture - albeit the most significant part. Pueblo Nuevo is a nice piano number. I was - in accordance with the biases I have expressed many times before - very much drawn to pianist Rubén González, just shy of 80 at time of recording, and this playful little tune is a good example of that affinity. The keys appear to wander all over whilst drums and guitars provide a  suitable backdrop for such meandering. You can certainly imagine this being played by much younger men in a lively Havana bar for appreciative crowds, but perhaps the most golden moment in the tune is how it closes, wonderfully bringing that wandering to a point, swelling, signalling the end and then accepting the (imagined) applause.

The album is stacked with longer tracks towards the start and we now hit a run of shorter (sub 4-minute) pieces, racking through them. I am partial to Dos Gardenias - horns once more, but also the theatre in the vocal. It is funny, though how for most of these tunes I cannot associate the sound to the given track name. I can recognise them as they start, but not pull from memory. I find myself liking the more piquant guitar tracks, where the pluck has a bit of bite rather than a languid air. If the guitar contents to be support, fine - by all means keep things loose and gentle - but where its melodies are the lead, that spice and intent is vital to carrying an interest. That said, whilst that edge is present on Veinte Años, the pace is a little too relaxed for my taste, even before the sound is ruined by a car alarm blaring off somewhere nearby.

The alarm continues through the opening dark thrum of El Carretero, which is a shame. This track has a drama to it. Despite a very simple basic form there is an energy to it, a pulse, a closeness. It is rather magical, and the hum in the primary vocal line in places sets this off nicely. The track that follows tries to re-bottle that lightning with a slightly different rhythm. In truth it suffers for following on so immediately; it is far from a bad tune but it is less interesting for the similarity.

One of the reasons that my listens have been sparse of late is that, in summer, primacy goes to listening to the cricket. Test Match Special is the pinnacle of radio as far as I am concerned, but after play finishes (often quite late) I am loathed to listen to anything else in an active capacity. I bring this up because were I not abroad and unable to access the netcast of commentary I would not be fitting this in now. England are doing pretty well, it seems from text commentary; just as they did in the Rugby yesterday. I half regret not being able to follow properly for a brief moment - but then remind myself of the climate and other benefits of being away and forget. Off to the islands tomorrow; can't wait. On the record Candela finished and the much more gentle strains of Amor de Loca Juventud emanate from my speaker. I am a little disengaged from it again - too "nice" for the here and now.

Not that "nice" is a bad thing. Nice makes great fire-and-forget background music, which fits nicely with one stereotype of this sort of Latin number - itinerant musicians playing for their supper whilst tourists dine. Unfortunately Orgullecida has a little too much of this, exacerbated by the almost Hawaiian trills. The horns save it, because when the main theme is taken up by brass rather than string it is much more enjoyable, more contrast and purpose. We are nearing the back end of the disc now, and we dive back into another piano-led number. It is a little rambling - and not in the joyful, engaging way of Pueblo Nuevo. It is a more sombre song, as the vocal performance makes clear, carrying as it does a hint of melancholy. Then it is gone. The title track which follows has a degree of strut to it, whilst it is slow and relatively sparse and quiet compared to the brash boast of Chan Chan, there is something similar in attitude if nothing else. The piano reminds me of Monk for some reason, the fluid nature of the play perhaps?

This feels like something that should have a very deliberate dance to accompany it, not something that should languish at the back end of the album. The impact and nature of the piece are diluted somewhat for me coming, as they do, after a few slower pieces without the same intensity. Something about the pace not feeling quite right.

The final number is the shortest, a slow harmony that - it seems to me - should never be sung before sundown. It has a nice sound, one that evokes closing time. Appropriate then that it should close the album and this listen. I have largely enjoyed this, as indeed I expected to, but I did find that it drifted a bit in the middle. A strong start and a strong end, with some highlights scattered in between make Buena Vista Social Club a welcome part of my library; it is a classic that deserves some occasional love.

Bubblegum - Mark Lanegan Band

Track list:

1. When Your Number Isn't Up
2. Hit the City
3. Wedding Dress
4. Methamphetamine Blues
5. One Hundred Days
6. Bombed
7. Strange Religion
8. Sideways in Reverse
9. Come to Me
10. Like Little Willie John
11. Can't Come Down
12. Morning Glory Wine
13. Head
14. Driving Death Valley Blues
15. Out of Nowhere

Running time: 49 minutes
Released: 2004

I can only have this because I adored the contrast that came of the combination of Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. I would never have come across him were it not for the partnership with Campbell, whose waifish voice is a polar opposite to his gruff drawl. I don't figure that I listened to this much at all, and I suspect I may be cutting a fair bit, but time to give it a shake.

The start is not what I expect. A soft, tinkling piano, isolated and alone. This is soon replaced by a slow and deliberate riff and drum pattern, then Lanegan almost speaking - there is just a hint of musicality in the delivery - a lyric over this low slung considered structure. I rather like it. I am away on holiday, in Greece. I have not got to these pages recently. My nation is imploding - politely and less so. I am trying not to let short-sightedness and xenophobia ruin my break. That is proving tough.

Hit the City is harder, more insistent, more reminiscent of the grungy rock that I was expecting. The edge isn't really there - it has a muted tone, a fuzz, and the hammered guitar chords are subservient to the dueling voices as Lanegan is joined by a female accomplice. It is a short tune, and we're past it before I know, and into a deliberately paced, bluesy structure which, whilst quite simple and unengaging in itself, seems to work really well with the gravel-toned croon that lies above it. There is a definite primacy of the voice here - the compositions are leaving it a lot of space and appear to be kept simple to allow it to shine.

I find myself wanting to vent about the stupidity of Brexit, the ridiculousness of those with the least to gain voting down those with the most to lose. The smug and the vile amongst the leaders. I don't wish to do so, though. Despondency is high on the list of feelings just now, but I am in a lovely climate, not currently at work... more established rants can wait. Positivity is more becoming, in general, though negativity screams loudest. Lanegan has growled his way through Metamphetamine Blues whilst I have been vacillating on that point, and I am now faced with One Hundred Days which has a much lighter feel to it, cleaner and aired well without really shaking up the basic format. A touch more top end, and a touch more duration to explore the theme further. This is really rather nice. Simple, not special, but rather nice.

I think I was off with my prediction of cuts. A third of the way in there is no knife to wield, and no realisation of the apprehension I had that this would be full of harder rock numbers that bored or turned me off. No, this seems to strike a more mellow chord - slower, more considered and crafted, not rocket-fuelled, rage-filled angst. The overall tone has been lighter than I expected, too. There are moments of darkness in the playing, but the application of the voice has been more nuanced. That said, I don't like Sideways in Reverse at all - here the track is taken over by dull guitars, a perfect example of what I just said hadn't been present. Thankfully the following tune appears to head back to sparse instrumentation, crucible for a slower vocal, again a duet.

Lanegan seems to be good at atmosphere, I want to say laconic, but that isn't the right word at all, neither is sardonic. What is the expression for this sort of lazy drawl... deliberate but effective. I can't think of one that encapsulates it right. At moments he sounds Waitsian, at others more like E, from Eels. In all things I find him more interesting the slower he seems to pace his delivery - a quicker roll to Like Little Willie John makes the song less enjoyable, and the less said about Can't Come Down the better. There will be some excisions, just not too many.

Sombre reflection suits him, considered and clear threads of guitar, simple and sparse drum patterns and long vowels. This isn't exciting music, but rather soothing. There is a melodic quality to Lanegan's vocalisation, despite the roughness around the edges; if that roughness was planed out then it wouldn't have half the appeal. I recognise I have a bit of a thing for whisky-soaked, cigarette-smoked, gravel-strewn throats. Huskiness, imperfection... humanity. I even find myself getting into the groove of Head, which is richer in composition.

My immediate reaction to the driving pace of Driving Death Valley Blues is to flinch away. This is a generic American rock form that I am not overly keen on. It delivers on energy and repetition, fine if either of those things are your jam, but not on the interest or craft or construction that draws me towards people with Lanegan's type of voice. The closing track which follows it though... light acoustic lead in, contrast with the voice, and then with bass and drums, it all works much better. Light and dark, substance and shadow. Theme, presence. Not enough vocal - the long instrumental middle is lacking something - but that voice appears again to bring us to a close. Overall I have liked this, though enough of it fell flat to be a bit of a frustration. I'm not about to go look out his work with Queens of the Stone Age, for example, but... when it is geared more towards the cooperation with Campbell... I'd happily take more of that.

Bryter Layter - Nick Drake

Track list:

1. Introduction
2. Hazey Jane II
3. At the Chime of a City Clock
4. One of These Things First
5. Hazey Jane I
6. Bryter Layter
7. Fly
8. Poor Boy
9. Northern Sky
10. Sunday

Running time: 39 minutes
Released: 1971

From one white boy with a guitar to another - but there I think the similarities start dying out. I waver on which of Nick Drake's material I like best - though reading down the track list I see three particular favourites. I actually listened to this a couple of days ago, whilst preparing the house to have 5 friends round all day, because I'd been wanting to sit and listen since I saw it was up next. This time, I'm here and can write.

The Introduction is a pleasant guitar melody and a swell of strings. The thing about this Drake album in particular is the arrangements, the depth beyond his guitar. They are lush, peaceful and serene - far from the stereotype of dark and troubled songs with a lone guitar flickering alone. I always found it odd when part II of a song appeared before part I - as with Hazey Jane here. I have always adored the roll of II; I don't think its his best track, but there is a nice lilt to it, a thrum in the guitar lead, and a buzz in the horns. It is a nice, breezy number and plenty accessible. Drake has one of those timeless voices; because he died so young he is remembered young, pictured young, heard young. That youth, to me, is epitomised by the vocal here feeling fresh, still, some 45 years on.

I love the use of strings here. The arrangements are simply superb, and the sax that offsets Drake's voice on At the Chime of a City Clock is weighted nicely too. I'm not a huge fan of the wandering saxophone like this, but it is judged well for the most part. One of These Things First has always been a favourite and its the piano line that makes it so. The guitar wanders and provides the lower end, but its when the piano hits the high notes that I smile the most. Listening closely, I find the drums a little too prevalent for what is a rather staid rhythm, but that really is quibbling. A little further from the speaker, or a little less concentration and they would fade back into the wider arrangement.

It's impossible to sit and ruminate on Nick Drake and his music without coming back to the tragedy of his death, the sheer popularity of his music in recent years and the complete obscurity at the time. It's a well trodden path, written about with more care, knowledge and aplomb than I could muster. What astounds me is the idea that something this easy paced, beautifully arranged and accessible could have bombed. I got into Nick Drake at university. I hadn't heard of him at all before then, but a friend had all of the studio albums and I picked them up not long after he introduced me. I am guilty of not returning to them often enough; this listen is proving that. The title track is an instrumental which surprises me - I don't remember enough of the less famous tracks; Bryter Later, Fly, Sunday... all had no imprint in my mind before this unlike, say, Northern Sky - which has been flying round my head for about 3 days now.

Fly is, actually, not that nice. Certainly it is a big step down from what has been before. The intimacy of the vocal is different, and the playing supporting Drake feels less apt, despite being provided by two well known musicians in their own right (and the same pair that support Northern Sky, to come). I think its the vocal recording that makes this feel weird. Oh well - a step down from lofty heights still leaves plenty to enjoy. Poor Boy is one of those songs I don't recognise from the name, but I do from the sound. The backing singers, the sax part, the piano... it comes together nicely, and again has a gentle roll to it. Its a long track, and I found myself staring into space for most of it, ears loosely tracing the patterns of the tune, dimly aware of its progress. I snap back into focus for the beginning of Northern Sky which really is the most beautiful track... There is a haunting element to the vocal here, offsetting a truly glorious melody - largely provided by the piano, but the construction of the bass part is crucial too. If you only listen to one Nick Drake song... make it this one. I am not convinced it is my favourite (I have a very soft spot for Place to Be from Pink Moon as my gateway), but it is, I think possibly his best.

Sunday is positively ghastly by comparison, which is to say that it is a perfectly serviceable instrumental lead out. In another context it would be a very enjoyable little tune, but it feels like such a climb down here - even at its zenith. I find it appearing to go on forever (it is under 4 minutes); it just feels like the album ended already. Now that it has, I think I need to repeat Northern Sky one more time...

Brushfire Fairytales - Jack Johnson

Track list:

1. Inaudible Melodies
2. Middle Man
3. Posters
4. Sexy Plexi
5. Flake
6. Bubble Toes
7. Fortunate Fool
8. The News
9. Drink the Water
10. Mudfootball (For Moe Lerner)
11. F-Stop Blues
12. Losing Hope
13. It s All Understood
14. Flake (live)
15. Inaudible Melodies (live)

Running time: 53 minutes
Released: 2001

OK so. This takes me back. Not quite to 2001 as I came to it later than that. In 2002-2003 I found myself in an inadvisable situation which, amongst other things, exposed me to Jack Johnson. For whatever reason I picked up this, and On and On, so my first impressions must have been good. However since then he's pretty much been an auto-skip. Forcing myself to listen (and because I have the British version, I get two bonus live renditions; woo!) is a good way to confront the biases I may have built up.

I have been quiet here of late, and this post is overdue. Busy as the weeks are, a long weekend would normally have offered me the opportunity to make up for no evening posts, but a combination of a 6 1/2 hours of driving (plus knock on tiredness) and my antipathy for this particular listen put paid to that. Still, here I am to buck it up. There is a lazy feel to the opening guitar line, an almost smug laziness in fact. It's as if it thinks it is so cool it doesn't have to try, so doesn't. I can't tell if I hate it or secretly admire it. So empty and yet...

It feels a little like a busker on the street, tapping into something done by someone else, not quite delivering but giving you enough to recognise the quality of the source material. Here I find myself bouncing off Johnson's voice rather hard, but finding an affinity for the slow sway of the tempo. So, a nice clean and clear opening then.

Middle Man is immediately less interesting. More standard in its construction, i.e. a little busier, and higher of pace, it doesn't have the easy rhythm of Inaudible Melodies, the magical timing and that sense of self importance. That quality is repugnant, but it often exists because there is something else special that leads one to believe in it. Posters tries to recapture it, but ends up feeling very, very dull. This does try to rebottle the playing from the first tune, but falls into a structure that has less room for it. I am still bouncing off the voice, too, which has a more important role in this track, rendering the guitar to a sideshow. I can see why people liked this a lot, but each track seems to erode my patience with it further. It is like an amalgam of several different artists, stealing little tricks from several different places - Sexy Plexi brings to mind 4 or 5 other musicians or groups in turn. It feels ripped off, or like a homage to something, rather than its own thing.

Short week this week - not only was there a bank holiday on Monday, I'm off on Friday too, going to the UK Games Expo. Then hosting friends on Saturday. I'll need to flop on Sunday, for sure. It's also been an odd week - finding my TV aerial broke piled another thing to do on top of booking a dental appointment and the thing I find myself forgetting every bloody day... to get on to someone about fixing my boundary fencing. I am utterly incapable of getting that sorted out; at a time when calling would be possible I put it down as something I must do, then promptly forget until a time like now - an evening when calling a tradesman isn't on. Argh!

Ugh. Bubble Toes. Stupid goddamn nonsense. The insouciance that is the predominant theme conveyed by Johnson's style has been growing more irritating with every track since the first, but when met with wordless choruses it reaches a zenith of annoyance. This song is just awful, and yet a centrepiece. Thankfully all of these tracks are quick, past and gone in short order - not because they are actually that short (Bubble Toes is just shy 4 minutes), but because they are easily tuned out.

The next track actually recaptures a bit of the style and swagger that put me on the fence about Inaudible Melodies. Whilst this, like the tracks before, is based on simple looping guitar hooks, it has the right spacing. The timing of the switch from one riff to another, the overall tempo. An easy sway. It makes things accessible but also generates that feeling of effortlessness. I guess it is impossible to not connect the form of his music with Johnson's surfer background. It has that stoner / dropout ease to it, the low key tone that you imagine just sitting on a beach after dark around a fire pit with friends might bring. It permeates, overloads and beats down any attempt to really get invested. It's all too laid back. I have to be fair and call out what I like, too; the edge to the sound on Drink the Water - provided by the bass part - makes this track more interesting, at least for the first 30 seconds or so. After that point you have basically heard the whole thing. I am far from done with this listen yet, but I feel the same for the album - a taster is more than enough to know what the whole thing is like.

I am getting no enjoyment. A sense of distance instead. I am inured now to the bits I don't like, and there is so little left once they are removed. It is just... bland. I think that very blandness was possibly the root of his success. Not offending the maximum number of people, and getting picked up through familiarity. What is distinctive as a one-off is utterly samey in quantity - that sense of style that makes Jack Johnson tunes very recognisable becomes a formula stuck to so rigidly that if you've heard one you've heard them all. Sure, there's some variation in pace between tunes, but the compositions barely shift. Of course, as I say that we get a track that has a different base - much more weight on the percussion come Losing Hope; the elements here are all the same though, it's just the weightings that changed slightly. It was a surprise at start, but it falls into the same repetitive patterns as prior tracks pretty fast.

There is no question that Johnson has something; his style is a real asset, if you like that sort of thing. I find myself not liking it, and cursing my younger self for buying into it based on association with what brought him to my consciousness in the first place. Whilst I freely admit I am a lazy so-and-so, the ultra-laid back "aren't I cool" sense I get from JJ's vocals and the predominant tempo of his works set my teeth on edge a bit. I was never "cool"; I never will be. I'm happy in my nerdiness, which makes a self-satisfied sounding dude like Johnson anathema to me. I am into the two live tracks now; the screaming of the crowd is so out of place with the over-relaxed nature of the tunes. They're so sedate that whilst I can see (and vehemently disagree with) the reasons people like this stuff, I can't for the life of me how anyone gets into it enough to vocalise, be it scream or cheer, in response to it. Its very nature is low key, not hype.

This is a clear out. The second bonus track is a version of Inaudible Melodies and, hearing it again after being exposed to almost an hour of Johnson with nothing else in between, it has lost its swagger and with it any appeal.  The crowd of screaming fans really doesn't help there, but mostly its my fatigue. Yes - this could be a case of confirmation bias, but frankly I don't care. Good riddance surfer-dude.