Cobblestone Runway - Ron Sexsmith

Track List:

1. Former Glory
2. These Days
3. Least That I Can Do
4. God Loves Everyone
5. Disappearing Act
6. For a Moment
7. Gold in Them Hills
8. Heart's Desire
9. Dragonfly on Bay Street
10. The Less I Know
11. Up the Road
12. Best Friends
13. Gold in Them Hills (remix)

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2002

If nothing else, Ron Sexsmith conjured an evocative title for this record. Picked up after I got into Sexsmith through Blue Boy, I think there are some gems to be uncovered here despite my moving away from his music in the years since.

Former Glory is a gentle start, rough voice over a simple melody, themed of hope despite some challenges, nostalgia winning out and being a good thing. Bright and breezy in length as well as sound it is a smart little opening. I am sat here tired as a dog, all night indigestion meaning no sleep, so the gentle opener is a welcome thing.

These Days has a bit of strut to the rhythm, but I find I cannot but think of the Danny and the Champions of the World song of the same name instead. This tune is somewhat dull in comparison, but again rather gently so. The snap in the drums is nice, and the tune just about sustains itself as the song meanders on its lazy way. Ron Sexsmith is an odd duck - a prolific songwriter whose tunes have been sung by much bigger names to greater acclaim. A soft soul with a clear talent but not always with the performing chops to pull things off. For me, now, his songs here fall into the "nice" category - they're pleasant enough, but not excitingly so. Not offering anything much to get my teeth into, not offering any standout moments, structures or lines that grab attention.

His voice is not the most accomplished. Whilst I have a lot of time for unconventional voices, Sexsmith's voice on God Loves Everyone is more a question of a conventional voice that can't quite pull off what he is trying to do. It cracks a little, where a purer voice would carry the tune through. It is a shame because without those small cracks around the edges there might actually be that x-factor to some of these songs. That said, there are times when that slight broken edge actually makes his tunes. More on that later.

He returns to a more low-fi sound and twangy guitar for Disappearing Act - a more grubby sort of tune, and this suits him a bit better in my book. This tune is catchy, guitars, background keys and a rough vocal that suits the imperfect sound of the song as a whole. I rather like this one, it has a rawness to it that lends it authenticity, and connectivity. After a rather forgettable filler we hit the high point of the album - at least from memory - and this is one of those moments where the cracks in Sexsmith's voice lend gravitas to his work.

Gold in Them Hills is a wonderful, wonderful tune. Simple piano melody and his soft, stretching voice conveying a real sense of sorrowful hope - the message that, yes, things are bad now, but they'll get better. It is a really accomplished number, strings coming in to add weight to the tone, voice straining on the higher notes - conveying the importance of the message, the personal nature of it. I heard this song first in times that were less good, mental well-being wise, and I found strength in it them. Now I just find it a lovely little number.

Whilst trying to avoid a track-by-track I find myself reading a couple of other websites and getting annoyed with the way so many people on the net seem to write one-sentence paragraphs. It looks lazy and child-like to me. The odd short para to visually break up a wall of text is a good thing but every sentence being its own thing looks tacky (take note BBC online - a chief offender here). Of course, I look back up the page here and see a set of very similar length blocks and I don't think that works any better; what is that saying about stones and glasshouses?  On the Record, a perfectly OK song has changed character with a long guitar-led outro, then given way to the disco-styled Dragonfly on Bay Street. This has a difference to it that makes it quite refreshing. It's not really a disco tune, but the rhythm and bass have an electronic fuzz to them that put this musically outside the general pattern of the album. I find myself rather liking it - it's massively watered down as compared to actual practitioners of these types of tunes but that helps make it his, y'know? That, and when it ends we are immediately back into soft ballad and acoustic guitar territory.

This listen feels like it has gone on forever, but this is really quite a short album. Normally that would signify not enjoying it, but... I am?

Putting a short line in there feels rather artificial given the previous stanza but that thought was a genuine one that hit me and I felt needed to be communicated as it is very much in the spirit of this project. Just two short numbers to go, then a remix of Gold in Them Hills to finish. The first of that trio of tunes is pitched lower and fits his voice rather well as a result, but when the vocal disappears what is left is pretty forgettable - a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde number then. This is followed by a sub 2-minute ramble with nothing much worth mentioning. The closing remix adds a tinny quality and unneeded electronic beats to a tune that was pretty much perfect as it was. There is, perhaps, also a nice tonal effect added to some of the keyboard notes, but the cost of adding this nice touch is too high.

The album goes out with a bit of a whimper really. I should perhaps cut a number of the weaker tracks here, but for some un-communicable reason I don't really feel like doing so.

The Coachlight Woods - Glowworm

Track List:

2. Contrails

Running time: 4 minutes
Released: 2007

An odd singleton now. I have no idea what this is or where it came from. Glowworm is apparently an American post-rock act, which is as much as I can find online. That gives me an idea where this might have originated - a mix tape from a friend - but no conclusive proof. Oh well, into the unknown...

It starts light, oscillating between two notes as the sound builds behind them. I rather like this, it has an airy quality to it - a lot of space in the track. It is simple rather than overwrought (as post-rock can sometimes be). I suspect an entire album of this would get to be too much but in small doses... it surprises me with a vocal, conversational recordings played over the background, which leaves a space for them, rather than a singer. Then it strips back to singular sounds, lamentations in note form, a lull before a bigger finish?

The pattern reestablishes itself at least... not for a big finish but for a relatively sudden cessation. The weakness of this closing aside Contrails is a nice little number. On another day I might have reflexively ordered the rest of the album by now but for now I have other things to do...

Club Anthems - Ballboy

Track List:

1. Donald in the Bushes With a Bag of Glue
2. A Day in Space
3. Dumper Truck Racing
4. Public Park
5. Essential Wear for Future Trips to Space
6. I Hate Scotland
7. Olympic Cyclist (acoustic version)
8. One Sailor Was Waving
9. I've Got Pictures of You in Your Underwear
10. Leave the Earth Behind You and Take a Walk Into the Sunshine
11. Swim for Health
12. They'll Hang Flags From Cranes Upon My Wedding Day
13. Postcards From the Beach
14. Sex Is Boring (acoustic version)

Running time: 65 minutes
Released: 2001

First up, this is nothing like the title suggests. If you played these in most clubs you'd be out on your ear as everyone left.

I got turned onto Ballboy by a friend who now is not, their style of self-effacing Scottish indie-pop being right up my street. Looking down the track listing, there are some top songs here, but most of my favourite Ballboy tracks are on other discs.

It starts with a jaunty little riff, a snappy drum beat and a lazy guitar hook, then dives off into a story - one of the things I like about Ballboy is the stories that manifest in their songs - about a recovering glue-sniffer. Cheery start, no really, it is. The music is upbeat and Gordon McIntyre's voice is full of positivity here, despite the lyrics. It beats the crap out of the continental covers band I saw last night, when I discovered what Twitter is really for. Acerbic one-liners when you don't have anyone around you to share the joke with.

The tone changes as we head into space for the first of two visits. Lush background harmonics and a guitar hook sit underneath a spoken monologue from the point of view of a dreamer with a love of space. Here McIntyre's voice is soothing, laid back and enjoyable as he meanders through the stream of consciousness thoughts of our narrator - whether him or a construct for the purpose of the song. He has a nice style of repeating certain lines for emphasis, which focuses you in on certain ideas in the song. All the while the harmonics and guitar circle, producing a lush carpet of sound beneath. Everything strips right back then, as we head into an acoustic number, a tired, dreamlike one at that.

Went out swimming earlier, first time in a long time. Tired now, so I find my eyes wanting to shut as the simple keys and guitar combination lulls me into relaxation. The guitar in particular is soothing, simple patterns of repeating notes at a slow enough pace to make every pass out but insistent enough to not leave holes in the sound. When that bottoms out for the final part of the track it feels slower, duller. Thankfully Ballboy tend to drift around in terms of tempos and fullness of sound, and they follow that sparser number with a lush, expansive one. Strings, guitars, drums creating a backdrop for the vocal - somewhat swallowed by the enveloping soundscape, until they leave him clear to sing over an acoustic for the chorus. One of the things I like about Ballboy is the way they use these lush sounds to support a singular and often quite lonely song, one that could just as well be told with one guitar. And then they switch between modes simply and effectively.

There is also the natural urge to self-deprecate. It is a British thing, not restricted to Scotland, but these guys do it very well. I must have mentioned here before how this sort of doing oneself down resonates with me.

After some very spangly sounds on our second space-themed track we hit the number that was my first introduction to Ballboy. I Hate Scotland (from a Scot, remember) is a grungy repeating low guitar riff, a dirty kind of sound, supporting another monologue, about how modern Scotland doesn't always meet expectations or standards. That said, it begins with a hark back to childhood and school PE lessons. The darkness in the thrum contrasts with the clarity of the spoken vocal. It frames the mood of the lyric, without overpowering it, crafting a powerful overall effect. There are lighter injections into that underlying noise, the equivalent of choruses I guess. I prefer the darker moments though if I am honest. After laying out his mind on Scotland, the narration returns to the PE analogy. It's a little non-sensical, giving everything up for the equipment and ability to execute a singular exercise... I guess I see it as calling back to a perfect moment, a point of pure exhilaration.

There is life in the action of their guitars. I don't play, but I imagine that most of these songs are pretty simple, musically. Rather than going for great technical challenge they focus things down and execute well. Keep it simple stupid, and do it perfectly. Of course as soon as I type that it goes off at the speed of lightning. Whilst fast is not necessarily complex, I guess, it torpedoes the confidence I had in my statement all the same. The opening sentence of this paragraph remains valid though: the band give it some and when they want to the really drive pace through their strumming. It reminds me a bit of The Wedding Present (which I am pretty sure was a reference point at the time I was introduced).

Oh, spangly. I don't really recognise the opening to Leave the Earth Behind You and Take a Walk into the Sunshine. The general form of the track is very recognisably Ballboy, but for whatever reason I think I have not heard this so much. McIntyre's voice here is more ethereal and removed, perhaps fitting for a song which seems to have some existential angst to it ("are you happy with your life" indeed?), but the guitars fall into a familiar pattern. My complaint about this track is that it drones on a little bit - 8 minutes without any real change-up is too long however comfortingly familiar the sounds are. I am tired of it by 6 minutes for reference.

I get the impression that the end of this album will arrive quite suddenly, as the track lengths drop off a bit from this point. That said, I find Swim for Health to drag me down, the horn that has appeared for this track not really fitting - not carrying the burden of the tune as well as the guitars, which have been relegated to support acts. We lurch from that to a stripped back downbeat song. They'll Hang Flags From Cranes Upon My Wedding Day sounds like a positive title but the song has a weary air to it that means it comes across as more circumspect.

The closing is rather low key, too. There's a sense of resignation to Postcards from the Beach, clearly a break-up song, and Sex is Boring is... I dunno. I know the song, I like the song musically but it's a weird one, as it's opening line suggests the listener take him back for BDSM, that he then claims will be dull and unrelated to his purpose for visiting. It progresses into an angry diatribe or rant and, well... I ran out of words, and ran out of time as the song concluded, and with it the album. There are a few sketchy points on this one if I am honest - or maybe its my post-exercise brain failing me.

Closing Time - Tom Waits

Track List:

1. Ol' '55
2. I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You
3. Virginia Avenue
4. Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards)
5. Midnight Lullaby
6. Martha
7. Rosie
8. Lonely
9. Ice Cream Man
10. Little Trip to Heaven (on the Wings of Your Love)
11. Grapefruit Moon
12. Closing Time

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 1973

[Geordie accent]Day three in the Big Brother House[/Geordie]... or the third successive day I get a post done, anyway.

Going back in time to before I was born, to old, old Waits material, not much of which is immediately familiar to me by name, though Waits is Waits. I expect these to rattle through; 12 tracks in 45 minutes. Short, radio friendly lengths.

The first thing that hits me is that the recording level is quiet. I have to turn the volume up to get a good read on Ol' 55 as it starts. It sounds... more melodic and standard than the Waits material I am closer to. I am, sadly, interrupted even before this first track is done. Another mid-tune pause then.It strikes me on resuming the play that I do recognise the song, or at least it carries one of those "familiar" vibes - you know the type: can't place it exactly, but sure you have heard it several times before. The sort that make you go "Oh, that's what it was" when you find out or remember.

This, then, seems to be Waits before Waits became what he is known for now - all gruff and dark and experimental. Whilst it is no surprise that a younger Tom Waits had a slightly more tuneful voice than the one I became accustomed to from his later work, I am slightly surprised by the melodies being more traditional in form. As I finish typing that sentence we hit the start of Virginia Avenue with its bluesy sway. Oh, yes please. more of this. Perhaps not the best fit for the blue skies outside but a glorious sound and mood all the same. I had been starting to feel more human again, but a bad night's sleep last night has set me back a bit on that score so the low tempo and laid back rhythm induce a yawn - of genuine sleepiness not boredom.

I suppose I might have been really harsh on this in another time. Words like "generic" and "ten-a-penny" and other such epithets for common forms of easily accessible music may have spewed from my fingers or my mouth. I find myself shying away from such vitriol these days; whilst I am as averse to mass-manufactured music as ever, I am more chilled about it just not being for me. With respect to these Waits tunes though... well, I don't have tonnes of stuff like this as my library doesn't skew towards 70s easy listening. The combination of the performer's magnetism, the scarcity of such tracks in my collection and my belated recognition that accessible or popular doesn't have to be bad... well, I can just sit back and enjoy it for what it is. On that score, I don't think it is a patch on, say, Alice (my personal high water mark for Waits, as I am sure I have said before) but it is a nice collection of songs all the same.

The last paragraph reads like a sum-up, but I am only half way through, and finding my ear drawn to the piano on Martha. It doesn't sound completely in tune... it has an echoey, off-note quality to it that reminds me of the piano tunes played in saloon scenes in westerns. A particular affectation of American playing, it seems to me, whether a style affected by the pianist of a deliberate tuning I cannot tell, but I don't associate this kind of "swimming pool" sound to any European artistes. The two tracks named after women seem to merge together in my consciousness, though the twangy-ness of the piano is definitely toned down on Rosie, and it is only the slow, appropriately lonely sounds of Lonely that snap me out of a haze.

Here Waits sounds distant, and with only the piano keys for company he creates an impression of himself on a big stage in an empty auditorium, a sole spotlight on him, a shred of sound just about carrying to the exit that you watch from as he plays, slumped over the keyboard in despair. Say what you want about Tom Waits, his ability to conjure images in the mind of this listener is pretty much second-to-none. We are through that charade and onto an unexpectedly jaunty track, that only gets jauntier as it gets past the intro, doubling down on the jaunt? I like that, and find my foot tapping its appreciation, too. What a contrast from track to track. Out-back mercy-killing in the middle of nowhere to life and soul of a happening party in the blink of an eye.

I really like how this album shifts around tonally. Bluesy for the most part, there are jazzier numbers and plainer "entertainer" faire too. The mix means that none of them get too much - and you don't end up lamenting that Waits is not really a bluesman, or a jazz cat or whatever, but his own thing altogether which takes in aspects of each. On this collection I find myself most drawn to the slowest, lowest tracks, even when Grapefruit Moon has Waits' voice at its wobbliest. The laments, that's what hit me, regret dripping from every note. As Sinatra once sang: regrets, I've had a few (that's a tag I didn't expect to be using).

The title track, Closing Time, is an instrumental, sad and listless - it doesn't hit the moody notes of Grapefruit Moon or despondency of Lonely but it carries that same kind of regretful air from first note to last, and it seems a fitting way to close a disc.

The Clock Comes Down the Stairs - Microdisney

Track list:

1. Horse Overboard
2. Birthday Girl
3. Past
4. Humane
5. Are You Happy
6. Genius
7. Begging Bowl
8. A Friend with a Big Mouth
9. Goodbye It's 1987
10. And
11. Harmony Time
12. Money for Trams
13. Genius
14. 464
15. Goodbye It's 1987
16. Horse Overboard

Running time: 73 minutes
Released: 1985

Microdisney. Genius that I was too young for at the time and which I have since come to adore. My copy of this is a re-issue with bonus tracks - alternate versions. I have the majority of these songs on the Daunt Square to Elsewhere best of anyway, and/or on Big Sleeping House too, but sought out original material for what I was missing. Less than I would have thought, to go by the track list.

This album starts with a trio of tunes I am well acquainted with. Light pop-y tones, spangly little guitars, snappy beats and Cathal Coughlan's vocal... lovely and lyrical, yet far from the sweetness and light you get from tone alone. This is an 80s I could have stomached; the majority of stereotypically 80s fare leaves me cold. Ever since I first heard Microdisney I have felt that the juxtaposition of nice clean and wholesome tunes with such dark and acerbic lyrics was a stroke of genius. Look this way, don't see what we are really doing. Entice with the shallow, reward with depth.

This is comfortable, familiar. Birthday Girl, then Past... the other way around than on Daunt Square, but that's a minor quibble. They both fit squarely into the mould - pop songs with dark centres. Approachable and identifiable, pop-filled with personality. The version of Past here sounds a little muted to my ears, the intro not having quite the same resonance to it that I am used to. Subtle differences in the recording perhaps, or just an artefact of it not being the disc-opener? The tune is just so... nice and enticing, I guess. The lyrics are sad and despairing, threatening, defeatist even but Coughlan's singing is pitched so well as to make it engaging and poignant without making it anything other than an enjoyable pop song at the same time.

Humane is the fourth track, the first that I don't really know (we have another triptych of familiar tunes to follow it). This sounds tinny by comparison to what came before, thinner. The vocal is edgier, less melodic, but just as pointed. The tune is definitely less immediately engaging - in places it sounds flat and repetitive, the workload and heart of the track shifted to the singing. The long bridge with no vocals... no, the long outro as it turns out tries to do something to liven up the accompaniment but frankly it feels a little weak. Perhaps that is just unfamiliarity winning out in the bias stakes because as soon as Are You Happy starts I am back in my comfort zone. I do prefer the lusher background sounds. This song is slower, a stately pace giving lots of space between lines, letting the vocal breathe. It's never been amongst my favourite Mircodisney tunes but I find now that I really like this effect and the lack of sparkle in the tune is apt.

This is becoming a blow-by-blow, if only because my head is emptying as I relax as a result of not being at work. Genius sounds different. I guess that makes sense in that the other version of this tune I have was presumably recorded live - it is on The Peel Sessions. Here it has a sort of stately edge to it, a slower tempo than I associate with the chorus when I hear it in my head. Oh, definite difference... a verse in the middle is pretty much spoken here where it is very definitely sung in the other version. This feels flatter to me, but then we get a nice melodic outro which pulls the whole tune up with its peppy, light touch.

It does not surprise me that Microdisney weren't a big hit at the time, any more than it surprises me that clever songwriters of my era seem to fly under the radar. That said, there are clearly enough pop sensibilities in these tunes that you could see many of them as radio hits - not all of them, by any means; the slower tunes are not for the mass market, but the livelier numbers could have belted out from radio sets all over and not been out of place.

The songs are clever, on-the-nose. The dark anger, acid and indignation are concealed under a veneer of wholesome pop. I imagine that a lot of the lyrics are incredibly pointed - though it is not always clear, through the fog of 30 years passing (and, perhaps, my not being Irish) what they were pointed at. In some cases it is very clear indeed either directly from the lyrics or through documentation of their targets (though my go-to examples are noticeably not from this disc). I find myself looking up and finding a song I really don't recognise playing... Harmony Time and Money for Trams are two tracks that I don't have in other forms, and the former came on just now. It has a different feel to it, faster-paced, skinny guitar, synthetic keys, a rough-and-tumble rhythm. It almost feels like an improvised tune cribbed out at the end of a concert rather than a planned recording. There is something about it that reminds me of For Those of Y'all Who Wear Fanny Packs - a Ben Folds Five tune where the trio were pissing about in the studio, which was released as part of Naked Baby Photos.

Money for Trams was, I guess, the original end point of the album. This has a slow pace and a cop-show edginess. Vocals are spoken with a PA-like effect. It feels like tense movie music. After a bit of a pause in play - things come up even during time off it seems! - I resume and the same repeating bassline meanders along. Coughlan screeches something over the top, a very different tone of voice to the majority of the lyrics here. All in all I think the song is pretty dull, then we are into the bonuses, which a bit of Googling suggests are Peel Session tracks... so I have these elsewhere.

Genius is indeed faster, and better for it. 464 was not on this album; in fact it seems to only have been on the Peel Session - a bonus track then in truth, though one that made the later anthology. I find myself too much in a stupor to offer much on these closing numbers... though when Goodbye It's 1987 starts playing again it hits me that this was not on the Peel Sessions disc I bought so... well. You know - I can't actually compare the two versions on this disc even. I don't specifically recall enough of the first time it came about. I guess I have been stuck in a relaxing reverie. This second version is light-touch and open, soft and... lazy? Lazy in a good sense - like a Sunday afternoon: easy and to be left to wash over you.

I get the feeling I should perhaps kill some of the duplicates but I also don't feel moved to do so. As I stare blankly at the screen, Horse Overboard finishes for the second time, and suddenly I am done. Ho hum.

Clean the Night - eagleowl

Track list:

1. Clean the Night
2. Life We Knew

Running time: 8 minutes
Released: 2014

Ah eagleowl (small e because all their promo stuff eschews capitals; alas I capitalised the tag some time back and cannot seem to correct this). One of my favourite bands all told. I bought this earlier this year - not realising they had made anything available since This Silent Year in 2013. I routinely find myself listening to shuffles just of eagleowl tracks - there is something very pleasant and rewarding about their understated compositions that just chimes with me. These two tracks cost me the best part of a tenner (I did get the physical picture disc for that, too, mind).

I am doing this on the first day on my Grecian holiday for the year, good intentions to do it earlier dashed by tiredness. Now, with a 30 degree plus sun outside the slow, dark, moody tones of Scotland feel a long way off. There is, though, a definite comfort in the simple guitar hook, the droning strings and the accented vocal. I am starting to unwind after the travel yesterday and the joy of not having anything to do today, and whilst incongruous with the Mediterranean weather, the post-folk refrains of Clean the Night are joyous invitations to relax. There is a soothing quality to the primary male voice in particular, but that is backed up well.

The second, shorter, track is more peppy to begin with - the snatched chords brighter and happier even as the words reference scattering ashes. The upbeat nature of the song shines through, little hook repeating, the layers of dark strings from the first tune absent for the most part. There is a constant chorus of "oohs" from the female vocalist giving a nice contrast to the male-led song and whilst by the time it closes I find the track a little repetitive I cannot hold this against them. eagleowl bring me joy... I rather wish there was more.

Clayhill - Clayhill

Track List:

1. Figure Of Eight
2. Northern Soul
3. Mystery Train
4. Face Of The Sun
5. Grasscutter
6. Funny How
7. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
8. Disscordents

Running time: 36 minutes
Released: 2005

And so I come to a draft that has been sat around for a couple of years.

This post almost appeared titled incorrectly as "Acoustic", for that is how it lived in my library for too long. In sourcing the track list and image I realised my error and re-titled it appropriately so that it can appear in the right place at the right time. It is an acoustic album and "Acoustic" is often added to the name in references, it would seem. Oh well, correction made.

Clayhill are made up of bassist Ali Friend (of Red Snapper and The Imagined Village), vocalist Gavin Clark (Sunhouse, UNKLE) and Ted Barnes (who did work with Beth Orton, as well as solo). Friend's name may have been enough to get me to look them up, but I think I cottoned on to them via Red Snapper's Redone - an album of remixes and a notable cover of Odd Man Out. It isn't credited as Clayhill, but it is Friend, and Clark for sure; not sure about Barnes. The latter's voice was stunning and I was hooked.

This is the first midweek listen I have managed in I don't know how long, and I am able to fit it in only because I bailed on a roleplaying session after three really bad nights of sleep. I am far too busy to find time for everything I have to do and everything I want to do, and getting the rest and recuperation I need to function. Oh well; the late Gavin Clark delivers a soft, almost apologetic song over a simple guitar hook supported by Friend's upright bass. Figure of Eight is a tune based on simplicity for the most part. The trio play off each other well. The bass is subtle and fills in the gaps behind the guitar, which is plucky and bright as it slides under the nasal, drawn out tones of our vocalist. 

As much as I like Figure of Eight, there are two tracks on this album I really adore. The first is Northern Soul - though I am more familiar with the original recording on Small Circle, it is impressive how well the sound transfers to the striped back version here. This song has a punchier hook, a twangier bass, a firmer vocal and a chorus that strikes a chord even though I am a softy southerner not a hardy northern type. The little fussy, busy bits of guitar work are a joy and I imagine they had great fun recording this track - it has that kind of positive energetic style coming through the speaker. The other song that matches this is their cover of The Smiths' Please Please Please... (The Smiths, for disclosure, are not a band I have in my library - though like every human being alive I have a soft spot for the guitar on This Charming Man).

Ali Friend is a musical chameleon - a running thread through disparate groups in my collection, popping up backing people unexpectedly. I love his bass work. Videos of live sets and tracks from Red Snapper burned that love into me a long time ago and it has never left. The sorrowful twang that he gets onto some of his notes here is gorgeous and dovetails nicely with the hurt that Clark injects into his long vowels.

This is exactly the type of low-key music I need on a night like this. I go on holiday in a week, but I have a ton of stuff to wrap up before then... and my ability to do so may well depend on how well I can relax and find sleep this evening. Anything that helps me drift into a loose state is good, and there is a nice laziness to Clayhill's music that helps the mood. It's not chill out fare really, but the tones are low and soothing. The vocal is often challenging and emotional but it is the frequency of the instruments that I find cathartic - mostly the bass, but the guitar doesn't wander off too much either.

I am not that keen on Grasscutter, possibly because it features on three of the 4 Clayhill albums I have and as such it comes up more often than it should. It also devolves into repetition too much for my liking. I think I might trim this version. We then hit the final trio - songs which do not appear on the other Clayhill discs. Funny How doesn't ring any bells for me until Clark hits the chorus and then it finds familiarity. I really like the interplay here, but above all it is the tone - pleading yet wronged, defiant yet downcast. I find little contrasts like that throughout the song, which is a nice touch in my book, and makes up for the fact it sits between me and the heartbreak of Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want.

Slow, deliberate, nail through the hand hurt. Every note and word here is pitched for maximum emotional impact. As someone who has gone through periods of depression in the past where it felt nothing was going my way the song resonates. As alluded to above I am not really familiar with the original, but this is frankly so good that I don't feel the need to be. Here - I am feeling like sharing the love:

The final track is always going to be a bit of a come-down after that. It is a slow, slow number. Very sparse, drawn out words. I like it, but I miss most of it as I got distracted by a work email, just as the US working day is closing. Oh well (I seem to say that a lot).