Contact Note - Jon Hopkins

Track list:

1. Circle
2. Second Sense
3. Contact Note
4. Searchlight
5. Symmetry
6. 100
7. Glasstop
8. Sleepwalker
9. Reprise
10. Nightjar
11. Black and Red
12. Luna Moth

Running time: 61 minutes
Released: 2004

OK, so I'm actually excited to give this one a listen. I don't think I've ever really given much time to Contact Note before, but I love Jon Hopkins' work (and am annoyed that my pre-order of the physical release of Singularity hasn't shown up yet; Amazon seem to be losing the plot slightly of late). My challenge to myself is to do this on a weeknight; did I?

Incidentally, I love the cover of this one. The lighting, the colours and the image all. That said, given the choice of subject I do wonder why the album wasn't named after the final track.

I did not manage to make this midweek in the end, and I found myself putting in two inserts before it after a couple of new purchases, but it feels like it could be a good album to round off a sunny weekend. Circle has a simple rhythmic loop that is easy to get sucked into whilst Hopkins weaves patterns over it. It feels optimistic, but it loses its way a bit when the structure that did so much to bring me in to the track is swapped out for another, leaving the latter part of the track feeling stale and distant. Its a perfect example of my fickleness I guess; it wasn't a seismic shift or anything, but it was enough for it to lose me.

I am rather disappointed by the opening to Second Sense too... not only do I not get on with the vocal insertions but it is a little too rhythm-led this time, and those rhythms can't sustain much on their own. It gets better when there's more melody added, or tuned up perhaps.

I discovered Jon Hopkins not through electronica, but through his production of low-fi Scottish indie peeps. Now Hopkins is well known for his collaboration with King Creosote, but it was his work on And the Racket They Made (from Bombshell) that really resonated with me, some years before Diamond Mine appeared. There it was his use of space more than anything else, the sparseness, the knowledge of when to dial back and support. I hear the roots of that sparseness here. Sure, there is always something going on, but there are passages when one element or other drops out or reduces to a low level that make you consider what was there, or what might be there.

I like, too, that Hopkins can take you on a journey, and may be specifically looking to do so if I recall discussion of a later work, Immunity, correctly. There it applied to the whole album, mirroring the structure of a night out, here I apply that more at the single track level.

I found this last night, too; putting thoughts to words to describe music dominated by electronic elements is surprisingly hard. Describing some of the sounds defies words, and you can't fall back on mentioning the instrument part either, because there's nothing there to identify in the same way that more... organic(?) music has. Don't get me wrong, I am not claiming for a second that non-electronic music has any primacy of place or anything like that, just suggesting that it is probably easier to describe.

There are some very different sounds on this disc, tonally I mean. 100 comes across bright and radio-friendly, almost "pop-y" which is a bit of a tonal jump. It's a good one though, breathing a life into the middle of the disc with its bold central theme. I am surprised to find I've only listened to it 6 times before as it is immediately familiar, the kind of track that could easily become an earworm. Tomorrow, as well as work I am expecting a delivery of English wine (it's getting better, they say...) and a man coming to fix my fence. It'll be nice to gain back a feeling of space in my back garden, especially given the fantastic bright, dry May we seem to have had this year. If I could bottle a day like today and carry it with me... warm but not too warm, bright, blue, full of life.

Enough whimsy. Except that the music seems to have gone that way, too... all plinky strings and xylophones.

Personally, I can't help but feel Hopkins is at his best when understated and downtempo. That isn't to say that he can't make some great tunes with more life in, but there are plenty of people who do that really well. Crafting truly engaging tracks that suit less full on moods and moments takes effort. It's easy to get tone in the right ballpark, but few manage to elevate that into something truly enjoyable in the way Jon Hopkins does. I know it's not on this disc, but I remember when I got Immunity and first heard the title track... I was absorbed, smitten. It probably helped that it includes a re-imagining of a King Creosote tune, again, and that it took me far too long to pin down what, so I had to listen to it over and over to confirm that it wasn't just similar to, but actually was the main lyric from Carbon Dating Agent (which I always loved, but since has become one of my all time favourite tracks).

I seem to be writing about anything except what I am hearing, but this has always been about where my mind goes from the music that I input as much as (or more than) about recording facts about what I hear.

There is a symmetry of sorts to this album, the first three and last three tracks have similar but reversed patterns of length, and as Nightjar begins it gives the impression that this will take the listener on a journey in the way that Contact Note did. I hope so, anyway because as it starts it is a little caught in between. Not super-sparse and considered, but not really enough going on to draw interest. On cue it opens up into a really nice simple piano, which in turn fades into more rhythm. It's not a high tempo journey, but it's going to some varied places.

Black and Red stands out as a complete oddity, blindsiding me with a load of found sound, a darker tone and not nearly as much coherence as I have come to expect from this artist to go with the absence of traditional tune, rhythm and structure. There must be a story behind this track - which ends with perhaps the most chilled sound of all of them - because it's so utterly out of place in other respects.

By ending as it does Black and Red dovetails nicely into the final track, a dreamy and ethereal number that I might appreciate more in another mood, or on another day. And that is all I could think of to write in those final 5 minutes... it must be time to start thinking about sleep and the week to come.

Carbon Glacier - Laura Veirs

Track list:

1. Ether Sings
2. Icebound Stream
3. Rapture
4. Lonely Angel Dust
5. The Cloud Room
6. Wind Is Blowing Stars
7. Shadow Blues
8. Anne Bonny Rag
9. Snow Camping
10. Chimney Sweeping Man
11. Salvage a Smile
12. Blackened Anchor
13. Riptide

Running time: 39 minutes
Released: 2004

I think my first exposure to Laura Veirs must have been through LastFM. All I remember is that something drove me to pick up July Flame which I absolutely adored and from there I picked up a smattering of her other work, but never went all in. This is one of a number of other Veirs albums I did pick up. If I enjoy this as much as I think I might, I may have to fill the back-catalog holes. Thirteen tracks in thiry-nine minutes is a fair clip, so lets get to it.

Ether Sings has a stronger emphasis on the vocal than I would expect. I am not sure it works that well; Veirs' voice is an odd one and this sort of strong vocal centre does not suit it that well in my view. The backing is a cute little guitar loop and some odd electronics which lend the piece a Jeckyll and Hyde quality to it. I would file the song under interesting rather than good. The second track also has Veirs' vocal as a loud centrepiece. This track uses that better though, with a more piecemeal backing that sort of fits around her. It is immediately more appealing, even though that backing is also somewhat untuneful in places.

It is the day after the clocks went back. 4pm and the skies are already starting to darken. I hate this time of year. It will be worse tomorrow, when I expect it will be largely if not entirely dark before I leave work. Joy. I am hoping that there are some nice songs in here to help take my bitter mind off the impending dark winter. Rapture has a nice echoing effect to it, the vocal is softer, which I think suits it better, and it has a sense of narrative to it - quite apart from the lyrics, the different strands of the arrangement, and different phrases of the composition carry this over. I rather like it.

I can't shake the feeling that this weekend has been a bit of a write off. After a nice evening of boardgames on Friday night I feel that I have managed nothing in the time since. I don't even feel rested after taking advantage of the extra hour to stretch to almost 11.5 hours in bed. My eyes are drooping now as they were yesterday when I listened to Cara Dillon. I find my tired head nodding along with The Cloud Room though - this has a nice energy to it. A simple lyric performed with a distinctive voice, and a strong, if unadventurous, backing makes the chorus very appealing, and the weaving of electronics in the arrangement offset the rest of the sounds well enough to keep it interesting.

What follows that is stripped right back, and feels bare by comparison. There's a hint of the old west to Wind Is Blowing Stars to my ear - probably coming through from the way the fiddle is used to add a strained note here and there under the main tune. The tone of the album has been jumping around a bit, for sure, and it goes dark and bluesy next. The nicest touch is the addition of a deep male voice following Veirs' lead and providing an aural shadow, to go with the name. The haunting nature of the music is nice, but the vocal contrast - her bright and clear, him dark and looming - is what makes the song shine. I sit, largely spellbound whilst it plays out. I'd like to place that shadowing voice but I can't. What I can say is what it reminds me of, and that is the combination of Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan.

That masterful track is followed by a breezy instrumental - again playing with stereotypical western-y themes, with a somewhat honky-tonk key line. It is a brief interlude before Veirs' voice returns, offset by a gentle guitar and cymbals that evoke crashing waves. A sad song I think, though I don't make out enough of the lyrics to be sure. I love it when the arrangement picks up more, rounding out the sound and coalescing it into a stand out track. Snow Camping - you should try it.

Random thought: My fingers smell faintly of vanilla, popcorn eaten before I started this post.

There is a wonderful tone to the guitar on Chimney Sweeping Man. There is a slight echo to Veirs' voice here - an effect I think she must be fond of, but one that works very well with her singing voice so I cannot blame her for that. It contrasts the simple clarity of the melody nicely. I think, with a few still to go, that it is fair to say I really like this disc. Not as much as July Flame, but then it hasn't had the same crack at inveigling its way into my musical consciousness so that isn't really a surprise. Nothing here stands out quite as much as my favourite Veirs track, Summer is a Champion, but the general quality is high.

That said, there is a discordant edge to Salvage a Smile, a tightness to the strings that sets my teeth on edge. It makes for really tough listening, a screech of discomfort behind her words. Thankfully the track is short, and is washed away from my thoughts with the opening breaking waves of Blackened Anchor. This, too, has a tightness in the strings that form part of the opening swell, but here it is controlled - edgy, but emphatic and not unpleasant. It reminds me a little of the opening credits to Black Sails, which I really should get back to as I enjoyed season 1 a lot. The tune is an instrumental, and over quickly so I am into the closer.

Riptide is a simple guitar and voice effort, a nice roll to it, and a bit more depth after the first verse is done. Simple tapping percussion is a nice change, and I love her voice here. Slightly more rounded, very well fitted to the tune behind it. It is a chilled exit to the album, which has flown by. I really should look up her other works and fill out my holdings. There is just something about her take on Americana - for that is the easiest genre label to apply, if not a completely accurate one - that resonates well for me. The song leads out with a long instrumental, strings partnering the guitar and simple rhythm; the end arrives suddenly and without fuss, plunging me into the hum of my CPU and the tapping of these keys.

Laura Veirs (I keep typing Veris - darn fingers!) is great, guys. Check her out.

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.

Breathe Easy - Dan Lyth

Track list:

1. Breathe Easy

Running time: 3 minutes
Released: 2004

Random singleton now. I can only assume this was a free download from somewhere; I don't know where. I only have the title track from this EP and nothing else by Dan Lyth to suggest how or where I came across him.

Acoustic guitar, a simple hook. A geeky comic-book lyric. A voice that sounds like it is straining to be able to sing at all delivering a whispered style. It feels like a nothing track to me. A bit further in and the arrangement gets more interesting, some nice background tones, but the foreground is not for me. A little flat and bland, and over in a jiffy. One for the recycle bin.

The Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004 - Lamb

Track list:

1. Cotton Wool
2. God Bless
3. Gold
4. Gorecki
5. Little Things
6. B Line
7. Lullaby
8. Bonfire
9. Heaven
10. One
11. Gabriel
12. Angelica
13. Til The Clouds Clear
14. Wonder
15. Please
16. Stronger

Running time: 71 minutes
Released: 2004

Lamb. Not sure why I have this... probably led to it via other "trip-hoppy" groups. Lamb were never a group I was abreast of when they were current and I have never really listened to this after acquiring it so whilst I have a reasonable idea of what sort of thing this disc contains, I am far from familiar with any of its contents. Depressingly it runs to over an hour, which means it is probably too long since my last post. If not, consider this more evidence of how I prepare the content for this backwater.

...

I wrote the paragraph above as I was setting up this post, immediately on finishing the last one.I predicted a long gap but even I didn't expect a whole month. June was a disaster of small things mounting up, and the early part of July has been dominated by recovering from finally sorting those things out. Hopefully I can establish some kind of rhythm again, though with the Ashes on radio to dominate my listening and a frankly poor run of things to get through before the interesting albums start again I have a degree of self-doubt there. Anyway, enough babbling and whinging, get on with it Graham!

We start with a dingy hook and a light vocal piercing the darkly reverberating space it leaves. I know none of these tracks, so this is a voyage of discovery as well as an attempt to kickstart the stalled project. Structure of electronically produced percussion is added, but the vocal is left to carry the tune on its own for the most part. It's a very odd introduction but not unwelcome. There is something trance-inducing about the percussive edge and darkly swirling sounds melded with it. Not brilliant or inspired, just a bit different and interesting in a way that, say Tricky's Angels With Dirty Faces was not for me. It loses my interest at the end of Cotton Wool by adding fairground-like pipes; ugh. I think the thing this most reminds me of, as God Bless begins, is the tracks that Sinead O'Connor recorded with Massive Attack on 100th Window. Whilst I would not say anything here is as accomplished as Massive Attack at their best, they probably do provide the best touchstone. Lamb are a little more pared back and stripped down though.

My feeling is that these two opening tracks have both been a little too long for their own good, and a glance at the player confirms they are both 5+ minutes, giving plenty of time to get a bit stale despite having reasonably solid core themes and ideas. I particularly like the vocal, much lighter than I was expecting, soft edges rather than a harder tone, and this contrasts the often very stark backing. These tracks are crafted to showcase the vocal component in places and do so effectively. I am not completely sold on the composition and arrangements yet.

Gold continues the trend of being just too long and - frankly - a bit too samey. Now we hit Gorecki, which a quick search indicates is their "signature". Backing of softly applied strings creates a crucible for the singing early on, overworked percussion joining to smear the contrast later. The piece does not work for me... too similar, nothing standing out, same faults at the prior tracks. I feel like I am still on the start line with this listen. The main problem is that whilst the sparse arrangements were interesting up front, there really isn't any long term engagement there, I can find more interesting programming elsewhere. I will say I love the singing but other than that? Patience wearing thin. At least the tracks get a bit shorter from here... hopefully punchier and more memorable too.

Ah, Little Things is familiar - more urgent, a more understandable percussive form to it. Fast, immediate and grungy. As a mood piece, very nice threat and edge to it. Not a comfortable listen but all the better for that. The central section, which drops the voice, is a little bland but without it the skittishness would not be quite the same. The jump into B Line is ugly - the start of the new piece really leaving a lot to be desired and just when I thought it might be getting better it devolves into a sonic mess, a pattern that unfortunately repeats again within the same track.

So far this is not creating a positive impression; I am left with the thought that if this is their best of then what was the main corpus of their work like?!

Lullaby is braver, better. Stepping away from mediocre beats that override as much or more than they support. Instead we have the voice sitting in a well of orchestral strings, the singing bringing the darkness along with a hint of bass line. Maybe this marks a swing in the pieces, as Bonfire seems to be a step in a similar direction, a slight dissonance with the echoing vocal, twice recorded, and atmosphere and tension building. Strings and piano taking over the accompaniment from clicks, whirrs and beats. My complaint, because I have to have one, is that lyrically it is rubbish, losing a lot of the impression that the voice makes to inanity. Shame really, I can see so much that is right in here, but the results seem to be dominated by the bits that are wrong.

I am only half way through. My stamina for this is waning - I have not sat at these keys trying to concertedly type for this long in a while... other than writing up my ongoing Albion game when sessions happen, but that has been as affected by recent events as this blog - not having the mental energy to approach writing up the material amidst a need to keel over after getting in the door. I digress because it feels like Lamb have, too. Heaven sounds like it should have been done by someone else - too light, too floaty - it does not fit with what has been, and does not address my problems with what I have been hearing.

The dark tone comes back with One, and is welcome. I have a fondness for slightly grubby sounds that evoke shady back alley deals, conflicts barely held back and danger in every shadow. I think it appeals to the gamer in me as the dirty darkness is pregnant with potential drama. Alas I am not convinced that there is enough to this to make good use of those themes. Just a little too... repetitive? Maybe. Too derivative? Well what isn't? Hard to put my finger on it. Gabriel, like Heaven ditches that tone and as a result sounds like a thousand and one other songs that I cannot name and have no desire to listen to again. Bland, not bad, everything it does done better somewhere else by someone else.

Is this best of really that bad? Probably not. I think in other circumstances, perhaps in the context of the original albums, I might have had a more positive response to Lamb. Angelica sounds awfully familiar... must be the Debussy sample that has been used elsewhere. Actually I think this track really works, uses the sample well.

The tone definitely seems to have shifted. In place of the darkness and electronica now we have light acoustic ballads? OK then. Musically it is plodding, unpromising to start, but interesting when the thrusting percussion appears unexpectedly... the only constant seems to be the pleasant singing voice. Veering from bland and boring to over-stimulation would work better for me if the two poles were placed slightly closer together. Contrast is good, but this feels more like a bait and switch than a coherent whole.

Wonder reminds me of How Do from Becoming X, so similar is the structure, the lightness and indeed the contrast with most of the rest of the album the song is being consumed with. Its not as good as the Sneaker Pimps track to my mind, and I really don't need both of them. Wonder just feels a little bland somehow.

I am glad to be winding down this listen, less glad to have had my fears for it be proved true. A couple of tracks will be held on to but the majority are for the bin. I really must sort out a better writing position if I am going to keep going with this (and that is still the plan, despite the long hiatus) as my back is aching an hour into this listen. I don't know what to do about that because it's just so convenient having a laptop on my coffee table for general use.

As for the remaining tracks... Please is just dull, bland. Stronger, which will end this post starts promisingly but ultimately does not grow as it could. The electro-funk bass which kicks in for the final third feels like it has warped in from a completely different genre but does at least bring a little more depth and so, maybe, just rescues the song from the precipice of disappointment.

Overall? Yeah, this does not do it for me. Couple of highlights, but mostly chaff. I found the transition in style over the course of the album interesting, suggesting that tracks were arranged chronologically to some degree, and there were good points - be they specific ideas, good use of vocal or whatever - scattered around the various tracks. Overall, though, it just lacks something intangible, never quite up to enough to make it stand out or to raise Lamb to the bar set by their contemporaries or genre neighbours.

Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do - Sigur Rós

Track list:

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

Running time: 20 minutes
Released: 2004

Happy New Year and all that.

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

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

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

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

Aw C'mon - Lambchop

Track list:

1. Being Tyler   
2. Four Pounds in Two Days
3. Steve McQueen
4. The Lone Official
5. Something's Going On
6. Nothing but a Blur From a Bullet Train
7. Each Time I Bring It Up It Seems to Bring You Down
8. Timothy B. Schmidt
9. Women Help to Create the Kind of Men They Despise
10. I Hate Candy
11. I Haven't Heard a Word I've Said
12. Action Figure

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2004

Following the largesse of Christmas (way down on previous years; very little alcohol because I was driving home at the end of each day; not over-stuffed with food) I have split out the double album into its constituent parts. No You C'mon will appear much later. I fell in love with Lambchop's alt-country sound with Is A Woman, but recall being less than impressed with either part of this as a follow-up release. I remember virtually none of it, to be frank, and whilst I must have heard plenty of the songs here on random play over the last decade I am drawing a substantial blank on anything past that initial opinion. So this could be interesting.

The opening is different from what I would expect, a lot more orchestral. I like it - strong melody with a busy and well constructed general sound to back it up. Only... well, I keep waiting for it to grow, change and flourish. Whilst it does change, it feels too little too late, or in the wrong direction. It is a nice piece, but it disappoints through inhibition - a failure to go on to the grand things the opening lines hinted at. Ah well. It is an instrumental piece, and we do not get to hear Wagner's voice until track two. This is a short number, which works really well. It has an old movie score feel to it, and is gone before you know it whilst leaving a good impression. More songs should do that: impress a strong image on the listener and leave it with them rather than drawing it out, diluting the effect.

Lambchop are pretty recognisable through tempo as much as anything, a gentle sway, a hint of swagger in the cool of the vocal and separation between the melodies and the main structure of the songs. It is the vocal that really sells them for me, though. The strains and refrains are nice and all, but there is something about the delivery of their words that sticks with me and warms the cockles of my soul a little. Of course. With this project no sooner have I typed a paragraph based on the songs to date, the next one starts and blows my words out of the water. The Lone Official sounds nothing like what I expect from Lambchop and has very little in common with the attributes I just listed as their identifiers. I like that. That sense of surprise, that constantly having my opinions and thoughts challenged and changed. That seems to be the primary joy in a lot of these listens, quite apart from actually taking the time to try to appreciate what I have. That said, I do not like the tune much. It is another instrumental, a bit faster, but with a dull structure and the same repetition and failure to evolve as was evident in Being Tyler, so I am grateful when the vocals come back with Something's Going On.

I glance at the track list, and find we are entering a zone of interesting titles after this song which, whilst lyrically very boring, does return to the exquisitely crafted musical space that originally sold me on Lambchop. Soft strings, percussive guitar, laid back gravel voice - they add up to a comfort sound. I find myself surprised that I do not listen to them more, and have not picked up any releases since Aw C'mon/No You C'mon. Maybe I should remedy that but there seem to have been quite a number...

I think maybe some  of the reason is that the bits I like are the bits that tend to the samey. This runs counter to my normal self-image of my musical consumption, but as I age and examine what I like and why, a sense of familiarity is definitely one of the traits I now find endearing. I guess there is at least a grain of truth to the idea that you fix your musical tastes somewhere in your 20s - ancient history now; I have never liked that idea, but it is certainly true that I find less new stuff now that I used to. That idea saddens me.

Meanwhile Kurt has continued serenading in his distinctive style, the strings have continued somewhere over his shoulder and guitars and drums encircle him loosely and time has passed agreeably. The tracks whistle by - and not in an Andrew Bird kind of way - as most are fairly short and sweet. That, too, is a nice touch that distinguishes it a little bit from Is A Woman, where longer tunes lent a different overall vibe. My inclination is to say that album is better than this one, but at this point it would be entirely based on memory and assumed familiarity; certainly it is fair to say that I appreciate the differences, even whilst liking this most based on some of that which is the same. Another difference here is the blend of instrumental pieces amongst the songs. Some work better than others, but it is a good way of changing up, breaking the mood and preventing every track blurring together.

Blurring together... hah. The second time I have been immediately contradicted by the experience. I have just somehow lost 1-3 tracks in a blur as my mind went elsewhere for a while and now the disc is almost done. I do not begrudge it that though, for though it is certainly not a quality that one would actively look for, the fact that nothing bad jumped out to break the reverie I found myself in at least means that a consistent level was maintained. I am thinking though that blurring is probably one of the reasons that I have not listened more. To contrast, I have been listening to Fiona Apple's early albums in the car over Christmas and there is no way those songs blur at all. Two albums of superb songs with a strong voice and distinct characteristics, both Tidal and When the Pawn... are discs that I return to time and again because they offer something more than just the familiarity that is the biggest draw here.

I have, in the end, decided to pick up some more Lambchop releases, but I left others based on reviews of the same sameness that I have identified as liking here. The problem with sameness is that it is OK within an album, but I do not need it across albums. Sameness is a reason to stick, not to twist. I hope the purchases will justify themselves, but if not they will likely slot in to a nice comfortable place to blur into what I have just been through.