The Complete Anthology (Disc 1) - Stump

Track list:
  
1. Tupperware Stripper
2. Our Fathers
3. Kitchen Table
4. Buffalo
5. Everything In Its Place
6. Bit Part Actor
7. Orgasm Way
8. Ice The Levant
9. Grab Hands
10. 50-0-55   
11. Big End

Running time: 35 minutes
Released: 2007

Complete random insert now. Back when I was getting into Microdisney via Cathal Coughlan's solo work, Stump were recommended to me by some algorithm somewhere (I don't recall whether it was a shop or a music site). I fell for the trap, bought the recently released Complete Anthology and then... thought it was odd and ignored it. Was that a good move?

By the by, this is apparently a concatenation of two releases, Quirk Out and Mud on a Colon.

The first sounds are hardly tuneful, and the early voice sounds more like a lead in to a budget 60's sci-fi tune than a pop song... my first musical point of reference is early Pink Floyd. There are some quite funky sounds buried in this track, in and amongst the rubble of the rest, but it is hard to see myself ever choosing to listen to Tupperware Stripper again. Amusing title, though, and the drive of the rhythm is a positive that hints there may be something salvageable in the anthology as a whole. We shall see!

This listen is my New Year's Eve; I've never been a fan of this night of the year and a safe, low key solo pursuit is just the ticket... even if the content I am consuming is not immediately lovable. I like Our Fathers a lot more than the first number though - there is a more definite tune here, whilst preserving some of the interest and quirkiness. The ending is a little but anti-climactic though, and the cutover to the next track is jarring. It jumps into precisely the kind of experimental noise-pop that I was expecting from my brief experiences of Stump when ripping the CDs... and it's not a culture I buy into, though that said I think the vocals that clearly don't fit standard lines and structures provide interest and creativity; it's the music around that which lets it down.

I am more parochial about my music these days for practical reasons. I have too much, I've never liked radio and the ways that I expanded my horizons in the past are less effective now - the lists of new releases on big online stores are dominated by re-releases and multiple different formats of mainstream items which I have no interest in, so I don't get to discover. I'd like to think I would be open to new artists, new sounds etc. - certainly I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the less familiar works I have listened to - but I don't go out of my way to find them. I also just... don't get to gigs anymore. No idea what is on, where, and no-one to go with if I were make for live music retreating out of my life.

I guess it is a question of priorities to some degree, but I do think it's got harder to sort wheat from chaff because there is now so much more... and the latter has always dominated in scale.

Anyhow - meaningless digression aside, if you overlook the questionable lyrics and suppress the suspicion that they're being weird for the sake of being weird, Stump had some talent in there. There is experimentation and there is cacophony, but there are also funky structures, rhythms and good pace. Nothing can save the horrible noise of Bit Part Actor though... it's just awful. It marks the end of the first EP; the latter 5 tracks are the second.

No song I have heard so far this evening has been entirely likable, but equally not everything has been a write off. For all the noise and weirdness in the construction of the sound, I think the most dubious element of the tracks is the lyrical content. The other parts wax and wane in quality, but the lyrics are just sheer nonsense throughout, and "adult" in that particularly juvenile way more often than I am comfortable with. I find it odd that I bring that up here, but for once I actually feel able to track the words to some degree... perhaps the lack of traditional tune structures throws a little more focus on the script?

Experimentation can be a good thing, but by its nature it is hit and miss. On this disc I feel the balance is more miss than hit. For every cool hook and each sweet sound there are two or three unpalatable items - crap words, walls of tuneless sound, incoherent track structure and so on. On the plus side, the tracks have been short and the whole disc is less than 40 minutes so it's not like it's eaten too much of my life. I find that I am keeping about half of it, much more than I thought I would, because enough of the tracks contained little positives to warrant another listen. By rights I should nuke it all, really, but sometimes that spirit of experimentation is welcome, and for when it is, there is Stump.

Coconut - Archie Bronson Outfit

Track List:

1. Magnetic Warrior
2. Shark's Tooth
3. Hoola
4. Wild Strawberries
5. Chunk
6. You Have a Right to a Mountain Life / One Up on Yourself
7. Bite It & Believe It
8. Hunt You Down
9. Harness (Bliss)
10. Run Gospel Singer

Running time: 40 minutes
Released: 2010

Oh dear lord. I remember not getting on with this at all, after buying based on their cover of a James Yorkston song on the collectors edition of When the Haar Rolls In. The covers disc there led me to some beautiful things - not least Cathal Coughlan and on to Microdisney but I recall the sounds I heard as I was ripping Coconut made me sure I would never play it. Perhaps it was one bad track, perhaps there is something here... now is my time to find out.

The first strains aren't exactly encouraging. There is a nice menace to the riff but the edge into the performance is a little too fuzzy for my liking, and the drowned vocal is not really my cup of tea either, though the riff dominates to such an extent its easy to overlook the vocal almost entirely. Well, this will certainly keep me awake. In now customary fashion I remark about how few posts I make here, or rather the length of time between them. I ran out of excuses, even to myself, hence I am defying droopy eyes to listen to something I have been putting off. Magnetic Warrior's cacophony is a million miles away from the cover of Would You Have Me Born With Wooden Eyes (weird song title alert!) that led me to take a punt on Coconut. The incessant noise is pulsating... I can imagine it creating a good gig atmosphere even as I struggle with it.

The second track tones things down a little to begin with, but the echoey effects around the edge of all elements of the track is really off-putting. It is clearly a deliberate aesthetic choice rather than poor recording, but it makes me feel like the songs are rattling around my skull, concussing me rather than opening spaces for me to enjoy. For all that, I will praise them for having personality. I may not like the effect they have chosen to style the opening tracks on but it gives the album identity.

Archie Bronson Outfit seem to build songs on riffs, and filling them with sound. There is a nice solid drive to Hoola and here, the echo absent except on the vocal, their strong guitar lines are better defined, better employed. A good energy sweeps the song along, and without the brain-battering fuzziness and with a few more open holes in the wall of sound I find I rather like the song that is left. Of course, it then fills in those holes no sooner have I typed that, but it remains a marked improvement.

It has been an odd week. Many board games played, many days worked from home. Today was my first day in the office for a week and I am remote again tomorrow; it's all rather thrown me some and I need to try to establish a better pattern to life again. Clear evenings, some energy and drive at weekends... these things would be nice and conducive to building a healthier lifestyle. So far my intent to get out on the bike more have been frustrated, and I can only blame myself. After another noisome number, we hit on something that reminds me a little of Devo - quirky rock, with high pitch sounds. This lacks the offense of the louder tracks, but also the personality. Whilst there are riffs here, they are less compelling even for being clearer. It ends up being a bit of a nothing track as a result, which is a disappointment as when I first heard the change in sound I thought there might be something there for me. The track drags on a little too long, just to rub that in.

This must read as a hate on. Whilst it is true that I will be culling most of the disc when it concludes, there are elements here I appreciate. The decision to build the songs around strong central riffs is a good one, and the riffs in some cases are bold ones - statement making ones - that have real power to them. Employed with more careful support I think I could have really enjoyed some of them. It's the buzzy, fuzzy constancy of the sound that wears me down rather than the core concepts. Sometimes that sheer volume and layered sound can work, drawing me into a bubble that (stupidly) makes the ringing in the ears when it subsides feel good. Mogwai do that well, I find - building noisy but demanding crucibles. Here the edge is wrong, and it sets everything out of place. It is not a million miles from something I could really like, but the couple of postcodes are far enough in the majority of cases. Bite it & Believe it steps back the right side of whichever imaginary line in the sound I am talking about. Like Hoola before this track drops some of the overwhelming elements in the arrangement. The sound and noise is still constant, but it is constrained, kept manageable by a smaller scope.

I think it is unfortunate that when the songs are most accessible, they are probably also most dull. Hunt You Down is a good example of this phenomenon as nothing here is too loud or too challenging. It slips into a nice little rhythm early. It's nice. Then it just stays there, rinses and repeats, being nice for 4:22 without once becoming engaging. I can see more to like in tracks like the opener which I actively disliked than in ones like this which are simply "alright".

Oh, now that is more application, Harnessed (one might say).

This track has the strong riff, the driving pace, the same affected vocal as Magnetic Warrior, but a sleeker construction, less noise but more sound - refining the formula into something still powerful but more pleasing. The drive, in particular, is really nice - and whilst it does rather become a loop (and no track over 5 minutes should devolve that far) the energy is indeed Blissful, relatively speaking.

OK, that is two horrible puns on the track title in two paragraphs. I should stop. I blame the YouTube video on punning that I saw earlier, and the reminder of how good the wordplay in Arrested Development is.

It approaches time to sum up, and well... Coconut is not for me. I am less hostile to it than I thought I would be, but there are too many tracks where the sheer volume gets to me. I see nice threads running through it but ultimately too many of the songs didn't work, either noisome and violent or lacking enough beyond a riff. My ears are ringing a bit despite the fact I turned the volume way down for this one; that ain't so clever. I will however hold on to a few tracks - not really undiscovered gems, but better examples of a fine idea that didn't quite hit the mark.

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.

Black River Falls - Cathal Coughlan

Track list:

1. The Ghost Of Limehouse Cut
2. Officer Material
3. The Bacon Singer
4. Black River Falls
5. Payday
6. Dark Parlour
7. Out Among The Ruins
8. God Bless Mr X
9. Frankfurt Cowboy Yodel
10. NC
11. Whitechapel Mound
12. Cast Me Out In My Hometown

Running time: 51 minutes
Released: 2000

Ah, now I get to revisit a real gem, a true favourite. Black River Falls might be 15 years old now but its been in my life a bit less than that. I've written briefly on Big Sleeping House about how I stumbled on Cathal Coughlan and his fantastic singing as a result of a cover version on a special edition I bought because James Yorkston is one of my favourite ever music people (even if his most recent work drifts out of my interest more than I would like). Coughlan absolutely nailed his cover of Tender to the Blues and so I just had to go find more of his material. Whilst I love Microdisney as a result, it is this album as my perceived pinnacle of his solo work that shines brightest and longest, and it has a timeless quality to me.

It is from here I took the title for my Albion game - Out Among the Ruins - and from the very opening thrum of The Ghost of Limehouse Cut through to the sinister sounds of Cast Me Out In My Hometown it is a magnificent aural journey we make, traveling on the back of that rich and emotion-filled voice. The first number is an example of crime that doesn't pay, a nice tempo, a threatening riff, real darkness in the construction. This post is coming 3 days later than planned after evenings wiped out by bad circumstance. A pity, as I was really looking forward to to doing it Wednesday evening. Now it's Saturday and I am just about starting to feel human again. Coughlan's acerbic vocals are perhaps not what you might think of as relaxing, but there is a warmth in there too. Somehow he manages to be both welcoming and dismissive at the same time.

Officer Material has a very different feel, wistful, and more melodic. I really like the lilt of this one, gently rolling with a much slower pace to the song and open and accessible passages, not closed off and tense as in Limehouse. The piece degenerates a little in its closing but not enough to make me think anything other than fondly of it, before a driving percussion and stand-up (I reckon) bass combination comes in to drive The Bacon Singer. This tune was never the favourite others here are and I am forever thinking this track is actually on Foburg rather than Black River Falls. It moves at a clip, which I rather like, but it is the chorus that falls slightly flat for me. I do love the mic-drop at the end though, and the way that gives way to a really tense acoustic guitar opening for the title track.

Black River Falls gives Coughlan ample license to show off his vocal talents. Light little guitar, haunting strings, melody floating up and then diving down, there is drama in this telling. It feels like a performance or a tale to be shared rather than a simple song, the atmosphere dripping off it is just fantastic, mournful and compelling without being overpowering. I am hard pushed to call a favourite tune from the disc because it is filled with moments like this, and the next tune up is no different. A really solid base, with a nice little melody layered on it, then expression galore from Cathal's voice. Payday is a dark song, dark and slightly crazy. I think my love for these songs can be tied up nicely with my appreciation of the dark, thematic aspects of  urban fantasy/modern occult stories. They share that atmosphere and tension, yet with moments of lightness that surprise you. The capacity of music to create vivid imagery never fails to astound me. A strong lyric can help a song build a really clear picture but it is far from required. 

I am but half-way through but it feels like it will be over too soon, cocooned as I am in wonderful swirling melody and most pertinently the highs and lows of Coughlan's vocal. Out Among the Ruins is another real favourite, again combining a light touch composition with air and space with expression that goes from intense to soaring. There is a line in there that mentions Opus Dei that makes me long to run a conspiracy game, but it was the title itself (also a chorus lyric) that flooded to mind when I was thinking about how I might structure a game in Albion - a post-environmental apocalypse Britain where modern life has returned to renaissance-level technology, even though the song itself does nothing to speak to that. 

The next couple of songs are probably the weakest on the disc, but I would still choose to listen to them over much else that I have waded through in recent posts. At the risk of becoming repetitive, which even the best creators do sometimes (and I am not that!), it is all in that voice. There is no end of expression in there, depth and range that gives us tenderness, sadness, tunefulness and anger, oh my the anger. This is not screaming mindlessly. No, this is rage enunciated and delivered with precision and disdain. I am fond of a little bite in my music... the principled angst that appears on early Thea Gilmore records was one of the main draws for me. Coughlan takes that to another level. Where conveyance of that bite is often reliant on sharp and witty words, lest the song not carry a tune well, here I get the impression he could make a child's bedtime story sound like the world's worst insult whilst still keeping impeccably in tune and building an audible pleasure.

I am mildly distracted by both hunger (I am snacking on crackers, not great for me, but tasty!) and the closing moments of the first quarter final of the Rugby World Cup where Wales are just edging South Africa somehow. I think part of my problem is that I am very familiar with these tunes - the disc has been in my automotive selection for as far back as I can remember and it regularly gets pulled out of the 50 or so offering to serenade me as I make my way to work. As the disc winds down (in concert with the Rugby where the Springboks have just taken the lead at last) we are treated to a slow, descriptive number with menace present in the cleverly used guitar. I am struck by how much atmosphere is smashed into these tracks with relatively little instrumentation. A few well-chosen notes are all that is needed to create that tense, gloomy and oppressive sound - as typified by the final number. This sort of composition is simply made for Coughlan's voice and it delivers time and again on this record. So there, a true favourite, and one that I would heartily recommend anyone who likes broody atmospheric songs, performed with an unmatched aplomb and which manage to enthrall rather than overwhelm.

Big Sleeping House - Microdisney

Track list:

1. Horse Overboard
2. Loftholdingswood
3. Singer's Hampstead Home
4. She Only Gave In To Her Anger
5. Gale Force Wind
6. I Can't Say No
7. Angels
8. Mrs Simpson
9. Armadillo Man
10. And He Descended Into Hell
11. Rack
12. Big Sleeping House
13. Back To The Old Town
14. Send Herman Home
15. Town To Town
16. Begging Bowl

Running time: 62 minutes
Released: 1995

Ah Microdisney. I got into them through the retrospective double album Daunt Square to Elsewhere after loving Cathal Coughlan's contribution to the special edition of When the Haar Rolls In, where he covered James Yorkston's song Tender to the Blues, and his solo work. Black River Falls is a real favourite.

I loved Daunt Square so went looking for more, only to find most of it out of print (a couple of albums have been re-released since). So although many of these tracks I already had, I was pleased to find this best of which, nevertheless, offered me tracks I did not otherwise have access to.

This version of Horse Overboard is tonally different from the Daunt Square version and - having heard the other first, I prefer that to this. The song is a typical example of the somewhat off-the-wall lyricism of Microdisney. There are stories in there, there is feeling, but it is all dressed up in somewhat absurdist imagery. I find this rendition of the song too slow. The tun is all there, and OK so its in a slightly different style, but its the lower pace (or at least the feeling of it) that makes me not appreciate the song so much.

Loftholdingswood has a similarly modified tone to the music to the other two versions I have (Daunt Square and The Peel Sessions). Again the effect is to make it feel like the tempo is lower behind the lyrics and the top notch delivery of them. That said, I think this is pretty much my #1 Microdisney song, the chorus resonates with me in both literal and acerbic interpretations, I find it clever. Meanwhile the composition behind it is pleasingly simple but staggeringly effective. Simple loops, melodic though. It all hangs together nicely. This is not my preferred version of the tune though. We then dip into invective and the glorious disdain that is Singer's Hampstead Home. OK, so it's not exactly big or clever to write songs to launch into other people in your industry as this tirade, reportedly aimed at Boy George, does but the song itself is gloriously poppy whilst thriving on the back of Coughlan's animated vocal. The man can really sing. It is the way he manages to be so tuneful but still convey anger and other negative or destructive emotion that keeps me captivated.

I am less fond of Microdisney's slower numbers. In my epoch-dismissive way I think it shows up the limitations of 80s tone and pop composition. The (I reckon) synth drums and slightly tinny pop sounds are much better employed at higher pace and with a bit more going on. Gale Force Wind starts as I finish that sentence, and is a good example. This tune is so 80s it is amazing. 80s in tone, 80s in composition, 80s in how much it rails against the age - capitalism, AIDS etc. Its like the decade in microcosm. If I had to pick one song to sum up the world during the first 10 years of my life, admittedly as someone who generally dislikes the 80s music he is familiar with, this would be it. The moment I actually realised what this tune spoke to lyrically I was completely re-sold on Microdisney all over again.

We then get a novelty track, where Coughlan is replaced by a (to me unidentified) female singer who sensually spins out a number that is so cheesy it has to be a complete piss take on the part of the band. This interpretation actually makes it amusing and enjoyable, and based on the other output of the band there is no way I can take it at face value. That is followed by Angels, a song I haven't listened to much as I think I only have it on this compilation; it feels like a little bit of a nothing song in the context of the tunes around it. Not bad, but not stellar like Mrs Simpson which follows on its tail. This track is another real favourite, despite my earlier assertion that I do not like the slower tracks as much. This gets away with it because it is not as full of pop sounds, and is more a fully composed and arranged number, the strings that support the main themes are superb at framing the lyrics, delivered as ever with excellence. I think I also bring more to this track because of the construction of the album on Daunt Square, where it culminates a run of four favourite tracks.

Ah, Armadillo Man. This song makes me smile in its caricature of an American anti-communist, gun-nut. It is all too cheery for a song about the absurdity of the Cold War, and Microdisney have form for that... Town to Town (coming later) is cheery even in the face of Armageddon, or nuclear winter anyway.

Despite finding slower songs weaker, in general, I can't bring myself to divest of tracks like She Only Gave In To Her Anger or And He Descended Into Hell, or indeed Angels. I am also finding myself reticent to make the decision to cull the tracks that I have other, preferred versions of. I suspect this is because I actually want to maintain as much of a representative picture of Microdisney as I can because I wasn't there at the time they were producing this material, but 2 decades on from that they became real favourites in a way that endures.

Rack is stunningly good, again full of question, anger and incredulity at the powers that be. Angry demonstration is not something I think is generally successful, but channeling that vitriol through the medium of music is powerful when you have a voice as good as Cathal Coughlan's to spit those lines out. Again it is a nicely arranged piece with an integral string theme that picks up the all too catchy structure of the bass and turns the song as a whole into something transcendent. At least for me. The title track is a sad song really, but there is nothing sad about its construction. Another example of being upbeat about things that really we should not necessarily be upbeat about. These tracks later on this disc don't have the odd differences from the versions that I first heard that were present on the opening couple. Listening to this rendition I can't identify any obvious variation from the recording on Daunt Square to Elsewhere that I first heard. This makes Rack and Big Sleeping House candidates for cutting in a way that Loftholdingswood clearly is not. I don't think I will though; I like weighting the old RNG of shuffle a bit in favour of tunes I really dig.

Two more tracks that I believe I have only on this disc now, and both are catchy in different ways.  Back to the Old Town is punchy rhythmically in a way that is uncharacteristic of the group. The vocal is very consistent, but the structure of the song is a nice change up. In contrast, Send Herman Home is very much the epitome of Microdisney, bright pop sounds layered underneath a song with a message; that it opens and bridges with what I can only assume is a send up of the late Reverend Ian Paisley (the less said about that man, the better) leaves me in little doubt that this is another "sound friendly, hide the meaning" song. I might be way off base, and there's nothing quite like half-arsedly interpreting something 30 years after its creation to make you look a fool!

There's Town to Town; so relentlessly nice in tune and tone yet so amazingly bleak when you listen to the words. It is an astonishing contrast - instinctively you might think it would be a mess but there is real craft in the pairing and the dissonance you expect it to cause just never arises. At least it doesn't for me. Ooh, there's a real feeling in the mouth organ that opens Begging Bowl; that's a really nice touch, the fading, unclean edge to the sound that is missing from other versions of the tune. It soon becomes an irrelevance to the rest of the track - the sound does not make another appearance - but it puts me in a good mood to enjoy what I normally consider to be one of the weaker tracks that I still listen to a lot.

Overall I am not sorry I picked up this compilation for what amounts to three tracks I really like and four that are not as strong as the material I had already. That said, whilst I would happily recommend Microdisney to anyone, I would also counsel picking up Daunt Square to Elsewhere over this if you want a snapshot of their career.

Big Box of John Lee Hooker (Disc 2) - John Lee Hooker

Track list:

1. Sally Mae
2. Hobo Blues
3. Poor Joe
4. Maudie
5. Landing Blues
6. Huckle Up Baby
7. She Ain't Good for Nothin'
8. The Road Is So Rough
9. Hoogie Boogie
10. Love Blues
11. I Had a Dream
12. I'm Gonna Kill That Woman
13. Whiskey and Wimmen
14. Forgive Me
15. Dusty Road
16. 609 Boogie
17. Queen Bee
18. Union Station Blues
19. Questionnaire Blues
20. My Baby's Got Somethin'
21. It's My Own Fault
22. Louise
23. How Can You Do It

Running time: 68 minutes
Released: 2013

Part 2 of the Hooker marathon, and no blow.

Crappy joke out of the way, on with the show. Sally Mae is sung in a way that does not sound like John Lee Hooker to me. There were hints at variation on the first disc, and this song reminds me of some amalgam of bluesmen rather than any particular individual. Something in the communication of the lyrics is lighter, more open than I would have expected. The recording is also quite clear - no crackle, which I would expect to be there (on evidence of disc 1) for very early stuff.

Hobo Blues follows a similar pattern, the voice perhaps a shade back towards the familiar, before the imperfect recordings show up - there is a hiss and wheeze about Poor Joe, a sense that the guitar is perhaps slightly out of tune; the latter is likely an illusion created by the former. All three of these first few tracks are failing to set my ears on fire. I am off work today - planned leave to recover from the 500 mile round trip at the weekend for which I was behind the wheel - and it has taken me until gone 17.00 to get around to doing anything productive. Well, aside from shopping that is. 

I am hoping that, as with disc 1, the breezy nature of the disc with short songs coming thick and fast, will override my apathy and inure against the boredom of the long player. That might require some more interesting tracks though. Maudie is the first to show promise but it ends too soon, fading out whilst it seems to continue on. Unsatisfying; as is the number following it. Despite a nice muting distance between the voice and its support and the recording - giving an impression of 50's radio - the song itself makes me feel more like sleep.

Whilst not being productive, I have played through episode 2 of Life is Strange and hot damn that has one great scene that justifies the season purchase price on its own. Could any of the tracks here do similar for this disc (if not the whole set)? 

Huckle Up Baby and She Ain't Good for Nothin' appear to share a very similar approach to the guitar and structuring the support for the words, albeit at very different tempos. They are a strange pair to put back-to-back like this as the similarities are so strong. In a random link, it reminds me of two tracks from disc 1 of the Microdisney anthology Daunt Square to Elsewhere (Michael Murphy and Love Your Enemies) which also evoke very similar patterns in two consecutive tracks. Similarity like that is the last thing I need when I am still failing to fully engage with a listen, so I am glad when the next tune in sequence is more distinct. The Road is So Rough is also the first track on this collection that has me thinking I will hold on to it. Not sure what works here - the slightly deeper sound (a bit of additional support?), the positive bias because of the change-up, or something else? 

It doesn't really matter but it seems to have been a watershed. The intro to Hoogie Boogie already sounds better for following on and despite the fact the pattern of play feels like it was employed earlier on the disc it maintains that freshness. High tempo, low volume guitar, the air is as much formed by the tapping or clapping as by the guitar and very distant voice that occasionally mumbles something. Yet as quickly as the interest zipped in, it rushes out with the arrival of Love Blues which returns to a plodding approach which sounds a little stale. Hooker's vocal here is warm, though and again has a timbre that I would not associate with him. It is not enough to save the song for me but there we go.

Most of the journey back yesterday was taken up with discussion of music tastes, favourites and sharing influences - it probably accounted for two thirds of the total on the road time, discovering interesting touch-points and much-expected divergences. After two tracks of engagement, I find myself again diverging from the contents of this disc. I find too many of the tracks over-repetitive, a fault which becomes less excusable when that repetition is in evidence between tracks as well as within them. This sort of sameness was bound to be a problem for me at some point over the Big Box and I am not surprised to run into it here.

Of course, no sooner have I mentioned that, than a track that steps away from the themes that have repeated comes on. Whiskey and Wimmin seems to be more a classic 12-bar structure to my untrained ear, or at least identifies easily with that form of the Blues. This constitutes a bit of a change-up for Hooker though, and it is a welcome little insertion. The problem is again the fact it seems to end mid-stream, fading out whilst continuing unheard as the next song plays. Worse, it is a one-song interlude as Forgive Me immediately returns to as good as the exact same pattern to the guitar as was present on the tracks preceding W&W. As soon as I hear the little riff I switch off out of the over-familiarity born from boredom rather than knowledge.

These tracks generally come across better when there is more obvious band support. Dusty Road is a case in point, as the clear presence of drums and some form of treble (the fuzzy recording and the background noise of a washing cycle finishing up prevent any attempt at identification) immediately elevate the track. It is gone before it begins, but I am fine with that, and welcome its brief and bright burn along with the fact the follow up has a better tempo. The recording really is terrible for clarity, but the buzz and crackle and enforced softness on certain elements give a sense of place and context to 609 Boogie that I rather like. There is also a familiarity to the scale-based keyboards here that gives me a nostalgia for when I used to learn.

After a couple of enjoyable tracks we return to the predictable and over-used hook structure. It is not the same hook each time - there are differences in the precise notation from track to track - but the overall form is the same. Burst of playing, tapping out a rhythm, emphasised downbeat. I lack the words to really describe the nature of these things but I am positive that most would know what I mean if they heard these particular tracks back-to-back, side to side like I am - even if they appreciated the result more.

I suspect that this response of mine hits, again, upon an oft-mentioned limitation of the format I am using: lack of lyrical focus. I suspect that what differentiates Blues songs like these are the images they conjure lyrically, layering different stories over a common base to create pieces that feel more different than they do from a solely musical standpoint. There isn't a lot to be done about that. Listening without typing and writing up afterwards wouldn't work and wouldn't set what I am doing out from reviews. I would lose any real specificity that way, not to mention take twice as long over posts. I do wonder, though, what difference actually being able to interpret and comment on words might make. Alas - as came up in the car-based discussion when it turned to music to work to - it is difficult to concentrate on more than one stream of words at once.

In some ways the most interesting thing about these last two discs in combination has been the impact of the different recordings - massive differences from track to track really throwing up some discussion points. On Its My Own Fault for instance there is a really striking echo effect that hits the vocal in particular, and the guitar a little, but the keys are untouched. They are also really distant and quiet in comparison, and it is hard to know whether the soft sound is intentional, or whether they just messed up the vocal takes or what. I rather like the result, not because it is a pleasant contrast to hear, but because it is so very different to the flawless leveling of more modern music.

Either the end of this disc is much better than the start, or I have adjusted to the Blues and am being more forgiving now. The final 4 tracks are all engaging and enjoyable in different ways and as the listen winds up I am feeling far more positive about it than I was at half way. Yes, I am jettisoning over half these tracks, but retaining a nucleus of short bluesy numbers that might crop up in my future listening plans too. I am one third through the Big Box now and unlikely to manage another listen until the weekend, so I should make it half way through without breaking the order at least.

The Bends - Radiohead

Track list:

1. Planet Telex
2. The Bends
3. High And Dry
4. Fake Plastic Trees
5. Bones
6. (Nice Dream)
7. Just
8. My Iron Lung
9. Bullet Proof ... I Wish I Was
10. Black Star
11. Sulk
12. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 1995

A classic now. 20 years old. I caught High and Dry on shuffle on my MP3 player whilst travelling to (or from) Greece and I remember thinking then that the song holds up well, so I suspect the same is true of the album as a whole. Time to find out.

I haven't tagged this as a favourite because, to be honest, I have hardly listened to any of these tracks in a very long time, that chance play above aside, but as soon as I hit play I am reminded that whilst I am always searching for new stuff, or cycling through other artists, there is something here. This is Radiohead at their most accessible, many might say best (personally I am torn on which release I prefer). Yorke's voice, the helicopter-blade like whirr, the rumble... Planet Telex brings everything back. 20 years, eh?

The truth is that I did not immediately get Radiohead, it took the osmosis of hearing my brother's copy of this album from his room next door a lot for the quality to sink in and have me go get my own. I want to say it was the melody of High and Dry that sucked me in, but it could have been the edginess of Just; I don't remember that clearly. The title track is all nasal whine, harder guitars than I remember. It really is a long time since I listened to this. Somehow Radiohead are a group that have never made it into the pile of discs I carry round in the car. Maybe I thought I had moved on, but that's just crazy talk... you don't move on from enduring quality.

It is a bit of a struggle to think what to write on this listen though. What can I say about this disc, these tracks, that hasn't been said before and better by others? High and Dry started just now and its given me goosebumps. Again. Something about this track strikes close to home even now - whilst two decades have passed, I retain some of the same vulnerabilities that I did as a teenager. They are perhaps not on display as much, and more adroitly handled as an adult but some triggers can bring them back and music has always been very good at poking holes in any facade that I might try to put up. The best strikes at you emotionally and I feel some of those strikes very acutely. Nostalgia this ain't - there is no fondness looking back on some of the memories that these tunes stir. Fake Plastic Trees is forever associated with one of the biggest emotional "bangs" that I have ever experienced, a difficult day with an explosive conclusion, pouring rain and an inner turmoil that took me a goodly long time to get over. Its funny to think that this morning, before I sat down to do this, I was trying to remember which track that was and couldn't, yet as soon as it starts playing...

Yeah, I have a lot wrapped up in this one, but its all history - maybe that explains some of why I do not listen to it much anymore though I have certainly never consciously avoided it. Looking back now is weird - for as much as it brings back strong impressions, emotions and feelings I am detached from them, in a better place despite the flaws I share with my younger self.

Ah, Bones. I couldn't hear this track in my head from reading the title - but now its constant rumble is ringing in my ears it is welcome. I like tracks like this that snarl and roll. I never got into all-out noisy thrashing of metal, grunge or any of those harder, rockier movements but crafted loudness like this retains a feral appeal. I think this track appeals to the same part of me that loves the noisier end of Mogwai's output, for instance. For tunes like this, if your ears aren't still hearing the track 5 minutes after it finished then what's the point? I never had much time for (Nice Dream) and had pretty much forgotten the course of the song, which is better than I remembered.

That intro - just so immediately, viscerally, appealing; combine with the self-deprecating/insulting lyric and mix. Just is still a heady cocktail of thoughts, but listening now I hear the composition of the second verse for what feels like the first time. The chorus, the bridge, these sections are the takeaways. The blandness of the accompaniment to that second verse has always been excused by the power of the rest of the track, so intoxicating. Less so this time through, it is not as strong a song as I recalled.

That is not something I would say for My Iron Lung - this song I think has got better with age. Of all the tracks on The Bends this best hints at where the band were going and where they came from all at once - the early career in microcosm. I don't have enough of the reviewers chops to explain why in a way that would convince anyone who did not already hold the opinion, but there is something about the contrasts, the wailing intro, the down and dirty midsection, that give me that impression.

Now this will be more interesting for me; I pretty much always passed on Bulletproof so I come to this track colder. I suspect that 20 years on I will like this more than I used to. The hooks underlying the chorus appeal more now - weird comparison time, they remind me of Microdisney's twee-but-angry 80s constructions. I don't think its a great song, but yes - more time for it now that I did have. I can't write more on that though because it's past and gone, and Black Star is pumping out. This was, I think, my favourite track when this album was contemporary. The chorus is constructed in a way that really appeals, tight, constrained and angsty, whilst the verses are more of a plaintive, open sound. I like the contrast, I have always liked contrasts like this in my music and whilst this is not the most stark of differences, it points to an element that I can trace through much of my collection (one high point being The Phantom Band track Folk Song Oblivion from Checkmate Savage where happy-clappy choruses accompany dark, brooding menace in the verses).

Sulk, how I used to live up to your name. Used as a crutch much? Sure, but no more. This time through I am just enjoying the swell, the pulse of the melody, more than the lyric or the harsher guitar in the midsection. I think this may be Yorke's finest vocal performance on the album, personally. And just like that we are leading out. Well, fading out - the loopy guitar on Street Spirit is an all time classic to the point that if I asked you to recall the song how much of the rest of the arrangement would you be able to describe? Not much, I would imagine - certainly I couldn't. I am hearing things now that I really did not recognise from memory at all. Some of the top end, the structure of the percussion, backing strings. I almost wish Yorke wasn't singing over it, and just as I think that, he isn't because the disc is done.

That's something else worth noting - these songs are all, to a one, in that sub 5 minutes "radio friendly" length bracket. None overstay their welcome and the time has flown by as a result. Not really enough time to write much about any of them as they played, and certainly no time to be bored. The album definitely holds up, though I am surprised that Just is the song that does so the least for me, perhaps because I have since found other tunes that scratch that itch better. My takeaway from this? I am not sure really, but it has left me with the nagging feeling that I should not be so quick to discount some of my older physical discs from doing duty on the commute.

Postscript: after publishing this post I was checking other #Radiohead tagged posts on G+ and found a link to this, which is funny enough that I have to share: