Complete Peel Sessions (Disc 5) - The Wedding Present

Track list:

1. John Peel Introduces the Wedding Present
2. Silver Shorts
3. Love Machine
4. Snake Eyes
5. Sports Car
6. Convertible
7. Click Click
8. My Favourite Dress
9. Real Thing
10. It's a Gas
11. Skin Diving
12. Sucker
13. Corduroy
14. Mini Prize Draw

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2007

So, with disc 4 of this box set we moved out of the studio and into live performances. This disc is a complete set from a 1996 BBC event, topped and tailed once more with John Peel himself. A few familiar tracks pop up again, but there are many here that haven't been heard on the previous 4 discs too.

After a break of three weeks I finally make the time for this one. I can't plead "too long" or "too much Wedding Present" because in the first instance this is a short gig set, and in the second I've hardly heard any of them in weeks. I managed to make myself (temporarily) sick of PJ Harvey's seminal Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea to and from work in the interim though!

John Peel introduces the set, then the first actual number has a tortuously long intro, but it sets up a peppy sound that the recording makes feel sparse, but I suspect in person it was a bit busier. The tune ends with an outro to match the intro... so the song itself is sandwiched between repetitive cycles that don't quite work for me. Thankfully Love Machine is straight into the meat of the song so the experience isn't repeated.

Clocks have gone forward, evenings have some light again. Hopefully this marks an uptick in weather, warmth and ultimately mood. I've been struggling for sleep lately and with work being full on I have been escaping my evenings in the cyclical grind of turn based strategy rather than more creative or expansive pursuits. I really like the lighter touch on the outro of Love Machine, sure the guitars come in for a final thrash but the tenor is nice. The crowd sound like a rowdy bunch; Gedge gives it a bit of chat between numbers (a line or two, no more), and then we're off again. The sound on this recording makes the guitars a little flat. I can hear the start of the spangly sound I associate with The Wedding Present, but it is strangled out rather than soaring free. Snake Eyes comes and goes in less than 2 minutes... it feels half baked.

The crowd noise is voracious between tracks but they drop to silence whilst the band are actually playing. It makes me wonder if this is natural or something engineered. Really like this version of Sports Car, even as I don't recognise the song from disc 3! Again, though, after the main vocal is done, the tune loses its interest. I've never seen the Wedding Present live; I don't think I've ever seen footage of them playing either... but I can imagine that David Gedge must be a pretty magnetic performer. His vision and person drives this vehicle and makes it work.

Oops! Click Click has a false start, with a predictable reaction from the crowd. Some kind of technical hitch... festivals! When it does get going the growl on the guitar part feels closer to the pickup for the recording. It's a glorious rumble, slightly fuzzy in shape but full of character, and as if to spite me for the last paragraph here it is the vocal that lets down the backing - though the tune is still better when both are in play.  Isn't it funny how taste goes in waves? I've been mostly listening to growling guitar based indie in the last week or two and forgoing the jazz and folk that formed my mainstay for much of the last year. I've been skipping more folk song on shuffle than in a long while, looking for something louder, brasher and something that will give that kick.

This is hitting the spot from that point of view.

A few of these songs have Gedge's voice backed up by a female singer; she sounds as if she's closer to the mic somehow, despite clearly being backing it doesn't always come across that way, especially on Real Thing and I find that quite jarring. The track lengths here are misleading with significant downtime scattered through the set. Much less annoying if you're actually in the audience... but there we go. I find I am warming to the sound on this set though, it has a warmth to it, which makes those guitar riffs comfortable.

Over the course of the box set (with one more to finish) we've definitely moved from a raw, too bright, too strong sound to a rounder, tempered one. The way the guitars are used hasn't changed that much, but the tone they impart has. They're still bright and breezy but they're also controlled, not overdone. They're not the star, and everyone has accepted that. There is room for them to be slower, not 100mph all the time. That said, right now I think I hanker for some really loud stuff... not a good desire to have this late on a Sunday, but the growl on Corduroy is perfectly aligned with that desire. As it fades back down a bit to allow the vocal to breathe the tune loses the immediate appeal it held in the moment, but finds a new happy medium.  This is the final number, after this is a recording of a prize draw, closing out the disc. Festivals!

Not sure what to look for in my library to pick up from there. The prize draw recording by the way has Peel and Gedge talking for 3 minutes, complete with Fast Show references and farce. The two clearly got on very well.

One to go.

Blood Speaks - Smoke Fairies

Track list:

1. Let Me Know
2. Awake
3. The Three of Us
4. Daylight
5. Blood Speaks
6. Take Me Down When You Go
7. Feel It Coming Near
8. Hideaway
9. Version of the Future
10. Film Reel

Running time: 43 minutes
Released: 2012

Hmm, I guess it must be three years since I last went to a festival then, if this came out in 2012. I say that, because I am pretty sure I picked this up of the back of Latitude that year, and a quick Google suggests - thanks to preservations of the lineup - that I am right. God, that makes me feel old.

The musical structure that kicks us off is interesting, lush rounded sounds that sound pretty good this Sunday morning. Alas it is spoiled some when the vocal comes in and obliterates the fullness, puncturing it by dominating and, in my opinion, not fitting with what was there at all. When the track returns to instrumental the interest returns; completely frustrating this, there is a lot to like but it is placed behind a screen of disinterest. Is that going to be a pattern?

The vocal is less immediately irritating on Awake, so hopefully it was a specific confluence of factors. Here the loopy themes are integrated better with the voice, at least until the two singers harmonise - then they push out the accompaniment again. Normally I like a good harmony but here I don't feel either of the singing voices on exhibit are particularly good. I am definitely more drawn to the atmospheric guitars, wrapping around like smoke in a burning room, enveloping the ear, so things that detract from that are damaging to my appreciation of the track. This is definitely better than Let Me Know, though so there is hope.

Engaging guitar swells are the defining feature here. It isn't something that normally grabs me, but there is something attractive about these riffs. There is something PJ Harvey-like about The Three of Us and it is better again. If each track continues to improve on the last, by the end of the disc it will be seriously good. I find myself listening more closely, and then pull back to the observer's view that allows me to type as well. The reason? The interest falls down on closer scrutiny - there is too much repetition in the structuring of the lines to stand a determined inspection, but the fact the atmosphere is created by repeats is secondary to the nature of the atmosphere itself on first contact. I prefer the latter position here.

The pattern of constant improvement is broken, alas. Daylight is so utterly bland that my mind wanders off and by the time I re-focus to start describing why I dislike it it has finished and I never have to listen to it again. The title track also does not grab me much - it seems to have ditched the strongest parts of the earlier songs, putting far more emphasis on the vocals. It does manage to create a bit of tone, a full shimmering sound accompanies the lyrics, but I can't escape the fact that I really don't rate either of the Smoke Fairies as singers when the vocal is placed so front and centre as it is here. That it then descends into repeating one (nonsensical) line over and over just seals its fate. Get out! At least the hooks come back when it ends, but I wonder if this couplet have soured me.

I'm sat here with a peppermint tea in dirty (painting) clothes. Not because I have been or will be painting, but because today is all about cleaning. This listen was supposed to be my "me time" - to make me feel human between extracting myself from my bed and getting on with the business of the day. I could have done with a positive impression to kickstart the chores but so far I am cutting more than I shall keep. There are little nuggets of pleasantness in and around these tunes and I can see why I might have enjoyed a live set and been prompted to pick it up, but there are too many low points to go along with that and since The Three of Us those weaker moments have overrun and outnumbered the positives. Tracks four through seven all for the chop.

I feel like Hideaway is the album in a nutshell. Interestingly rich guitar gives brief hope to begin with, then a voice stretched way past its ability to be musical tramps in and ruins all sense of enjoyment. The track then evolves and the voice integrates better as it goes, but so does the interest in the tune wane. Ultimately it is a disappointment. I could get a similar vibe from Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea without the weak points. Much as I love that album, not many things make me actively think "I wish I was listening to PJ instead".

I am more enamoured of Version of the Future for some reason. The track just holds together a little better I think - the vocal is much improved and whilst we don't have the warm enveloping richness in the backing that we had on the early tracks there is just enough there to give it a sense of place and purpose. The improvement in the singing is unreal - earlier it felt like they were straining, aiming at some kind of waifish vision, haunting. Here its a much more "normal" singing voice and suddenly it doesn't annoy me or try to be something it isn't. Alas they don't persist in that vain and the ethereal attempts are restored for the final track, and with it my sense of being let down. The atmosphere is "nice" on Film Reel, but it is uncontextualised noodling which means it feels like a teenager sat in their room feeling sorry for themselves more than something that should actually have been recorded. This purchase was a mistake.

Angels With Dirty Faces - Tricky

Track List:

1. Money Greedy
2. Mellow
3. Singing the Blues
4. Broken Homes
5. 6 Minutes
6. Analyze Me
7. The Moment I Feared
8. Talk to Me (Angels with Dirty Faces)
9. Carriage for Two
10. Demise
11. Tear out My Eyes
12. Record Companies
13. Peyote Sings
14. Taxi

Running time: 59 minutes
Released: 1998

Massive Attack have already appeared in this project; this album is from an alumnus of the same scene in Bristol. My first exposure to Tricky was unknowingly through Massive Attack; the first exposure I actually recall was not much liking the video for Makes Me Wanna Die... That said the video I can find online for that song doesn't match the one in my memory, so it is probably another track I am thinking of, even if none of the titles seem right for the memory. 

I somehow missed his earlier solo work, but picked it up later after moving to Bristol for uni. None of the track titles here jump out at me with recognition, and before googling to grab the track list (you don't think I type them all out each time do you?) I had no idea that PJ Harvey appeared on any of his material. So despite owning this, I am pretty ignorant of it. Time to change that.

OK, the first thing I notice is a lot of disruption of the sound. Not sure whether this is a deliberate decision in the creation of the track or an artefact of preparation and presentation. It is most audible in Tricky's voice on Money Greedy; the song itself I find lacking, a dull riff/rhythm combo and not much else of note going on for a whole 5 minutes. The same problem affects Mellow - the music on the track just does nothing to excite me. The whispered, husky vocal is interesting (if indistinct), and provides a USP for the tune, but it is not enough in and of itself to sustain interest.

Singing the Blues is the third track in a row that gives me the same problem. The groove, the hook, the beats - that is pretty much all there is to these tracks, no melody at all. That is not a problem if those things are stellar, but what I am hearing falls short. Repetitive, too consistent, ultimately boring rather than unpleasant. I hope for an upturn as the album moves along but a strong pattern would need to be broken for that to happen. Even PJ Harvey's tones cannot snap me out of the drudgery - her vocal on Broken Homes is within the range of what you might expect but it is saddled with the same uninspired backing, only lightened in places by a harmonic backing vocal. I could simply not be in the mood for dirt and grime, but more pertinently I think what I am hearing is more a child of its time and has not aged well.

Aha, a more interesting track? Maybe. Tricky brings his familiar vocal style to a party with a faster beat. Unfortunately the track is still lacking anything else for these to play off against and so 6 minutes also falls flat for me: the rhythmic pattern can only sustain interest so far. I doubt at this point that I will be keeping any track from the album. Half way through and not even green shoots of change, of any extra depth to the tracks. It just hit me that this is drum'n'bass-like, but with the bass recorded low enough to be barely audible over the drums, and both parts relying far too heavily on a single loop. I am sure there is a lot more depth here than I am giving it credit for, but I just cannot hear it, and the patterns are too dull to draw me in.

I have zoned out; droned out my brain by attending to other things. There is little here of interest to the modern me. The last two tracks are listed as "bonus" numbers, but they feel like penalties. In truth, I doubt I ever listened to these tunes much even when I picked the album up and I will not miss them. I feel like what is here... well, it sounds like the top half of every song was simply forgotten, not recorded, not mixed. Some of the percussion/bass interplay is reasonably good and if there was almost anything else going on over it the songs could be transformed to my ear. Alas, that was not there and my last hour has been pretty much an aural endurance trial as a result.

I acknowledge that I am not the target audience, that my need for a bit more going on over the base provided is my issue, not the artist's, but whilst I am no longer completely ignorant of this album, it was so much not to my taste that in some ways (like having the last hour back) I wish I was.