Awake but Always Dreaming - Hannah Peel

Track list:

1. All That Matters
2. Standing on the Roof of the World
3. Hope Lasts
4. Tenderly
5. Don't Take It out on Me
6. Invisible City
7. Octavia
8. Awake but Always Dreaming
9. Conversations
10. Foreverest
11. Cars in the Garden

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2016

So I had a random shuffle on. Started with some Red Snapper, but quickly ended up in Singer-Songwriter land, through Lisa Knapp and Alessi's Ark. This last one made me think it had been a while since Alessi's last album, and I searched to find that she'd released one 2 days ago. Coincidence. Cue an instant purchase, download and play (spoiler: it's good!). From there I got sucked on to LastFM and exploring similar artists. Seeing a bunch of people I like a lot in that list I took a punt on Hannah Peel who also showed up and sounded interesting. So here I am, much later on.. and with that long rambling intro, lets see how the promise plays out.

We open with some very spangly electronic notes, then add an ethereal voice.  I can both see why the genre tag on this says "Dance & DJ" and why that tag is utterly wrong. There are bits in and amongst it - chiefly the voice and the tone of it - which make it clear why Peel was put up as similar to Alessi's Ark, but the overall style and direction are quite different. Not bad, just different.

I am happier with the opening of the second track. This is more like what I was after when I bought this album... then I realise my mistake. And old and common one relating to not removing shuffle. Start again. The actual second track is and interesting one. Slow, sparse, measured. It could be an epic soundtrack, the gravitas from the pacing really needs a visual. The vocal is a bit disappointing, but the atmosphere created on the tune is one I like a lot, one that is then shattered by the change in track as we head back towards the sound we opened up with.

This flip-flopping I suppose gives me something to moan about... but actually I don't want to moan. I rather like the flow. Hope Lasts is a good example of something that I would run a mile from on the radio, but in context here, I find myself really enjoying its cheesy synths and brighter tone. As we head into December things that bring brightness and warmth are well received. The short days, miserable skies and chilly temperatures all sap at my will to live. Little things like the right tone of music can make a big difference to how I feel in the depths of winter. The right tone isn't always light and bright - dark, cold and distant can sometimes be what I need - but right now? Yeah, light and bright please. It's like sometimes you're really wanting familiarity, and other times really interested in exploring new stuff; same deal.

So far this new stuff is working quite nicely - though I am not under any misconceptions that it will become an instant favourite or anything like that. There are some glaring flaws for a start, most notably the lyrics tending to the samey and repetitive, but there are some very nice sounds to sit behind them and the package averages out in the positive.

Invisible City is the track it shuffled to after the opener. I really like the keys on this, and the stately pace. The vocal drips honey, a luscious warmth even in its detachment. The tone is enveloping, a blanket against the outside world. Best track yet - and one I can genuinely see myself loving after a couple more listens.

As I find myself attuning to Peel's style, it grows on me. I like how she mixes up her sounds a lot, how the various bits and pieces fit together, and how she clearly cannot be labeled as mono-dimensional. There are tracks here that skip around several different styles, sounds that come from all over the place, and yet... they sound whole and as though they belong. Sometimes however the cadence of the piece is not quite right. The title track seems to have far too much empty space in it, too much track length to run out, meaning much of it is plodding, too sparse. Through it she is building up the layers of sound but for my money not really doing enough with them and it all feels quite staid, which given the variety of sounds is quite a feat in itself.

When Hannah Peel brings out the piano keys though, there is a nice satisfying resonance to them. She doesn't over-elaborate, using simple and amply-spaced notes to give a solid foundation. This is not complex note-wrangling, but it is really nice craftsmanship (even if the layers on top of the keys sometimes let down). She seems to use the piano structurally, thus creating tunes you think you could play, a deceptive and effective bluff, because the piano alone tells you nothing of the track as a whole.


The second really long track on the album starts much more promisingly, but loses its way about half way through its almost 9 minute duration. But you know what? I really like this album, despite the obvious weak spots.

 

It closes with an odd duet, charmingly odd. Overall, it's a winner.

The Best of Van Morrison - Van Morrison

Track list:

1. Bright Side Of The Road
2. Gloria
3. Moondance
4. Baby Please Don't Go
5. Have I Told You Lately
6. Brown Eyed Girl
7. Sweet Thing
8. Warm Love
9. Wonderful Remark
10. Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile)
11. Full Force Gale
12. And It Stoned Me
13. Here Comes The Night
14. Domino
15. Did Ye Get Healed
16. Wild Night
17. Cleaning Windows
18. Whenever God Shines His Light
19. Queen Of The Slipstream
20. Dweller On The Threshold

Running time: 76 minutes
Released: 1990

So when I mentioned Van Morrison on my Best of Friends listen, it probably sounded like I wasn't keen. In fact the two tracks he appears on are two that I kept from that disc, amidst cutting half of the tunes from my collection. There are plenty of ways to damn this guy with faint praise but whilst his style is perhaps a little samey from piece to piece he pulls off that laid back atmosphere so darn well. I like and respect that, even whilst I am not overly familiar with too many tacks in specific. A few of these - Gloria, Baby Please Don't Go and Here Comes the Night are credited as Them, so predate Morrison's split from that band.

My largest complaint going into this listen is becoming as repetitive as some of the formulas used by those I have listened to recently: the length. 76 minutes plus change for the write up is a lot of "switched on" mental time to find these days.

Bright Side of the Road lives up to its name, a bright and breezy track with a head-noddy impulsion it is exactly what would would expect and opens a nice easy listen, before we're dumped into Gloria. This song is obviously well known and classic - but I would never have known that it had anything to do with Van Morrison and I will probably forget the link within 10 minutes of finishing this entry. The style is so completely different from his solo material, much rockier, edgier, livelier. Bright Side... was just that, but it didn't have the energy and zest that Gloria brings. Its a shame it is quite so short.

Moondance is... odd. Morrison's voice here is obviously younger than I am used to - there is less of a growl to it and it loses a lot of desirable character for that. The song itself is jazzy/bluesy easy listening and I am not that enamoured, especially not of the flute or whatever light woodwind provides the whistling treble. It's all so cheesy and unnecessary for me. We are landed in blues-land again with a cover of Baby Please Don't Go which has a really good roll to it and a dirty grungy element to the sound quality which adds to rather than detracts from the qualities of the song; this one I like a lot.

The tempo and mood change completely as that song closes and we enter the realm that I most associate with Van Morrison, easy listening ballads delivered with a distinctive and mature voice. I could take or leave the musical accompaniment, but the vocal characteristics that define Have I Told You Lately are the reason that I have this best of. I have never been inclined to go out and acquire the individual records Morrison has made over his career, but I really fell for his delivery when I heard Philospher's Stone on the Wonder Boys soundtrack. I had been aware of him before that, but never exposed to a song in a way as to really pick up on his ability.

It is safe to say I like distinctive voices. I prefer when people sing in their own voice rather than a put on generic "Americanised" accent which seemed to happen a lot when I was younger (and perhaps still does to a degree in music that gets a lot of mainstream radio play; I wouldn't know). I also have a fondness for gravelly voiced individuals. Van Morrison ticks both of these boxes so I am prepared to overlook some of the compositions which are functional rather than interesting in their own right most of the time. Case in point - Sweet Thing has a constant thrum going and very little variance throughout, it functions purely as a base over which the vocal can sit. Actually in this instance I think the volume is a little too loud on the main hooks and it manages to dull the song.

Oh now that does not work for me at all. Warm Love sounds like Morrison is singing with a throat infection - not the fact its scratchier, but the opening verses sound like a strangle. Its a strained edge that again takes away from the natural characteristics of his voice that appeal to me. Thankfully the strain disappears in the chorus but the damage is done and even the fact the backing picks up a little more interest as the song goes on cannot save my impression of the track.

Wonderful Remark starts, well, unremarkably, but there is an injection of interest after about 70 seconds or so along with the chorus, the horn section just lifting a track which was flat to that point. There is a lot to like about the chorus, which is just as well really because there is not much else of interest about the song. At least the most interesting thing about the song is part of the song, unlike with Jackie Wilson Said, where the most interesting thing about it is the classic Top of the Pops blunder that involved putting up a picture of darts player Jocky Wilson when a cover of this tune was performed by Dexy's Midnight Runners. The song passes me by whilst I confirm that it was the cover and not Morrison himself performing beneath the wrong image.

Gale is not a word you often expect to find in song titles, it doesn't much conjure an image conducive to musical accompaniment. This song works based again on the interest supplied by the horns. I am starting to see a pattern here with the repetitive nature of the compositions though. Each song is different - I have no problem with overall lack of differentiation here - but within each track there is precious little variation, and over-reliance on patterns played over and over.  Thankfully when our artist is on form you don't notice it so much because the essential nature of his vocal grasps your full attention, but on the weaker tracks or where there is a few seconds with no lyric it niggles at my appreciation.

The final Them track is less interesting that the prior two. It has the same jangly guitar and brighter, quicker nature in places, but it lacks something intangible needed to elevate it. Frankly I don't think I will listen to Here Comes the Night again, and I am OK with that. By immediate contrast Domino is more brass-based and when the horns blare up it is close to the best thing on this playlist.

Pure cheese! Did Ye Get Healed is so muzak it hurts. Not just the floaty easy listening style tune, but with the backing vocals of shrillness invoked it smacks of elevator or bad telephone hold music. That gets even worse with the sax solo on 2 minutes or so. I just cannot take this song at all seriously, and it has to go. The last quarter of the disc begins better - a more vital hook, a slightly muted sound and vocal forced out with slightly clipped pace, the sound builds and expands. This is genuinely enjoyable for more than just Van Morrison's central performance. A very odd decision on the 3 minute mark though - introducing some new horrible sound to what had to that point been great. It means the lead out of the track is almost a write-off, even though the imposition doesn't last long.

I can't see the title Cleaning Windows without thinking of George Formby, this in turn means that I cannot take the song seriously. Which is a shame because for all that the subject matter is dreary, the hook and character of the chorus is really catchy - not something I would chose to listen to often, but a nice change up in a shuffle or good background music. Now that is a hook I wouldn't have placed here. The opening refrain of Whenever God Shines His Light is immediately familiar but never in a million years could I have paired it with its artist or the song that it opens. It is a comfy little loop though and essential enough that it is easy to forgive the cheesier elements added as the tune continues. That said, the song should stop more than a minute before it does because the meat of it is over, and the lead out is several repetitions too long.

There is a much more melodic hook in Queen of the Slipstream and it is nice to hear the primary structural element in the upper register for a change, and for it to drop out and then reappear later. This strikes me as a more crafted composition than many of the tracks preceding it... right up until the halfway mark where there is just too much going on at once for this sort of gently plodding song (and I mean that in an endearing kind of way). The latter half then again just lasts too long again, making the end a blessing.

The final track, Dweller on the Threshold is a familiar one, bits and pieces of which are really nice (I love the soft trumpets), some of which is really dull (the beat) but which overall sums up the overall thrust of Van Morrison's music quite nicely. Over-reliant on a stunning vocal to create most of the interest, prone to lapsing into repetitive blandness in the rhythm section and liable to include little bits of joy amongst the brass. A light cull is all this receives then, 5 tracks binned, thrice that retained. I may trim back further in future as I am already losing the definition for some of those songs I did not call out by name above; I wonder how damning that is?

Bang Goes the Knighthood - The Divine Comedy

Track list:

1. Down in the Street Below
2. The Complete Banker
3. Neapolitan Girl
4. Bang Goes the Knighthood
5. At the Indie Disco
6. Have You Ever Been in Love
7. Assume the Perpendicular
8. The Lost Art of Conversation
9. Island Life
10. When a Man Cries
11. Can You Stand Upon One Leg
12. I Like

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2010

The Divine Comedy. I remember taping (yes, cassette) National Express off the radio years and years ago - tapes were already well on the way out! - but never really picking anything else up. I also remember not getting tickets for a Ben Folds tour because it was co-headlined by The Divine Comedy and the person I would have gone with being very anti.

Yet Neil Hannon has always struck me as a top bloke - a view he confirmed by admitting to a love of cricket with The Duckworth Lewis Method. This is the final (or latest, if they are not defunct) Divine Comedy album and the only one I have - bought because of TDLM.

We kick off with a pacey number which brings to mind of American crooners of the 50s more than a modern recording. The lyrics are more modern, mind, and the structure of the song (or rather the lack of it) is definitely not a throwback. It does seem to go on for an eternity though, but when it ends we get a reaction to the global financial crisis with a title that for any Brit definitely reads with a W. I find it hard to describe the style, but I think it is fair to say this is music in support of lyrics not the other way around, and Hannon is a man with something to say.  Generally (I always want to add an extra e to that word when I type it) there is tempo in the tune, and an airy arrangement with orchestral backing as called for. Jeez that is a nonsensical sentence; oh well.

It is cheery, not too serious, even as the message of a song may be a serious one, the arrangement is rarely less than positive in tone. Of course, as I type that the title track comes on and raises an exception. Will I never learn about speaking too soon? In other news, my first 2015 purchases have just dropped through my door (on a Sunday... how the world has changed) so the library will continue to grow as I go. I do suspect I am deleting more tracks than I am adding, but that is not reflected at the level at which I am conducting this project.

At the Indie Disco namedrops a load of 90s and noughties indie bands, and is a return to a more familiar happy-go-lucky sound. I think I would have hated this 20 years ago, been indifferent to it 10 years ago. 5 years ago when I picked it up and today? There is something nice and uncomplicated about it. I would not want all of my music to be this ... I don't know what the word I am looking for is. The nub is that as a change up this is really rather pleasant but it would get boring fast if I had too much of it. I think my ears may have been opened a little bit by getting into other indie-pop acts.

Fairly clever, fairly twee, fairly pleasant and pleasing enough that I am largely carried along by the wave of good feeling, especially when the tracks get a little more jaunty. OK, I am past half way now and there is a degree to which it becomes a little samey - but is an acceptable kind of sameness because fundamentally it is positive, happy music. I do not think I would ever sit down to listen to this album as an album again, but equally I am not feeling any drive to trim the songs from my collection. I can see their value as palette cleansers amongst a wider library. I am not finding much of note coming to mind as I listen though, just a few bits to back up the impression of Hannon I came into this post with.

You know what? I have found something more that ties back to the earlier point about old time American singers - lighter subject matter, vaguely comic with a purpose of entertainment. Light entertainment. And oh my god that is an unpleasantly piercing note held for far to long. That has to go, no place for that at all. Still, one bad apple does not mean the whole bunch is tainted, and the final song on the disc quickly pushes the horror out of my mind with another lightly entertaining positive song.