Collected - Massive Attack

Track list:

14. Live With Me

Running time: 5 minutes
Released: 2006

This is a singleton, because I bought this just for Live With Me, having all the other tracks from the compilation on their original discs. This one track made a huge impression on me when I first heard it, combining Massive Attack's core sound with the wonderful vocals of Terry Callier.

The strings have a mournfulness to them, and the beat is ominous. Callier's light but soulful voice offers a counterpart, but the lyrics are possessive, obsessive. It's a creepy track in a certain light - though probably meant from a protective, loving standpoint the atmosphere is darker than that.

I didn't but the single track back in 2006; I bought the whole 20+ track greatest hits for this one song; I scrubbed the rest from my library as duplicates long ago. I don't regret the purchase one bit. Callier's voice sets things off perfectly for me and I rather like the dark moodiness of it all despite the creepier interpretations. I do think it has dated some in the last decade, but it's still a darn fine tune.

Beautiful Skeletons - Gavin Clark

Track list:

1. Crazy
2. Spinning Round the Sun
3. Hurricane
4. Black Blood
5. Crazy On the Weekend
6. Elaine's Place
7. Never Came for Us
8. Spotlight for Sunshine
9. Stems
10. The Russian
11. Calling in the Cards
12. The Years Have Loved Us
13. When We Had Faces
14. Painted Glass
15. Raise a Vein
16. Open & Shut Case
17. Low Are the Punches
18. Never Seen the Sea
19. The Lost Choices
20. Roll Away Remain
21. Bermondsey Stutter
22. I Dreamt of God

Running time: 76 minutes
Released: 2014

So my next post was supposed to be Clayhill, which will now come next. In setting that post up I found out two things. One, that Gavin Clark had passed away 2 years ago and two, that he left this album behind when he did, so I bought it.

This is a first listen, a first listen in 3 weeks of ridiculous busy life, and a rather unknown quantity. It might have been done sooner had it not been quite so long, but still.

Crazy sounds like it must have been very early in his career. Clark's voice doesn't have the refined edge, or depth, to it that characterised the vocal that I am familiar with. The song is rather bland for it, too, but it short and past quickly. The next track is, like the first, a simple acoustic guitar tune with Clark's vocal. I recognise the song, from Sunhouse's Crazy on the Weekend.  There are a couple more here from that album, too - no surprise since Gavin Clark was the vocalist. I don't remember the tune, despite recognising it - but I suspect that the Sunhouse version has more to recommend it - a greater depth of sound, and a more mature vocal performance.

Ah, there. Hurricane (also a Sunhouse track) finally exhibits Clark's voice with the distinctions that endeared him to me on a cover of Red Snapper's Odd Man Out with his Clayhill bandmates. This tune I really like. It is also a simple number, but there is a harmonica or something in there too, giving a bit more of a layered sound. The three elements combine well and it slips by nicely. It is a dreamy number in some ways, more reminiscent of summer days than hurricane winds.

Gavin Clark falls into a sizable bucket of charismatic but flawed singers that I like. Character of voice is sometimes more powerful than pitch perfection. There is a gravelly note to it, a fag-burned, whisky soaked rawness and authenticity. A plaintive tone, a vulnerability dressed up in manliness. A warmth, a reality. When a voice like this is on song... ugh, train of thought broken by horrible overdrive and feedback screech on an electric guitar. Once I adjust to the screechy sound it's not so bad, but it stood out a mile from what went before and what comes immediately after. Not a nice surprise sound at all.

We hit a run of very short tracks - as in sub-2 minutes. I tend to find short tunes distracting... not enough time to get into them or have them really tell their tale. That said short and focused can really work. Here the tunes rather drift by - nothing particularly standing out. I find myself wondering about the whys and wherefores of these recordings. Clearly some are early demos of tunes cut later with bands, but even after I heard his voice and knew who he was, Clark had no profile as a solo artist that I was aware of - more as a voice for hire - e.g. with UNKLE.

The overall theme here seems to be confessional, almost apologetic. The soft meandering guitar work, the slow and deliberate vocals. Black Blood, with its harsh electrics feels like a massive curveball given the context of the rest thus far.

Ooh, there is bit more depth and life again in The Russian. A plinky-plonky nature to the sound gives it both a hint of the Old West and a breath of new life. This time the tonal shift works because it is not a complete change of instrument - it is still very much an acoustic string-lead piece, just with the additional backing of a keyboard. Clark gives it some solemnity over the top of a simple enough but lively tune, and I find the overall effect quite enjoyable. My general opinion on this collection is that it is so-so, however my affinity for Clark's voice is such that he can elevate some frankly underwhelming songs to enjoyable pass-times. He didn't have the songwriting chops of a Tom Waits, the croon of a Terry Callier, but he had heart, soul and sincerity which go quite a long way.

I find myself without many thoughts worth sharing. Too much is either a repetition of something said above or without relevance to the tunes at hand. I would happily digress but those thoughts are rather... dull and typing anything at all pulls me out of the stupour, the gentle state of relaxation that I am finding myself collapsing in to. It is good to have got to this at last, for it is the low-key evening that I needed, yet still productive.

There is no pace to the tracks, they all seem to be sedate numbers. Lazy reverie. The pace of the album as a whole is odd - shaken up not by changes to pace or tone of the tracks (Black Blood and The Russian as notable exceptions here - for worse and better), but by the variable lengths. This last quarter of the collection looks likely to be the most samey as everything here is ~3.30 or more. To be clear I don't mind this. The gentle pace fits quite well with how I am feeling, the end of the middle day of a long weekend. I seriously doubt I would ever choose these tracks as my poison for any given scenario, but I have to say that I am enjoying not taking it too seriously, kicking back and letting it wash over me. The familiarity of Clark's voice allows for that.

Never Seen the Sea is familiar, too; it was on the soundtrack to This is England (director Shane Meadows knew Clark well) - a series I never watched, but I have the soundtrack to all the same. This track has more depth to it. It is a shame that more here doesn't have that to be honest. Clark is generally good to listen to, but a good vocal still benefits from a good crucible. I find myself checking what is left to run because The Lost Choices sounded so much like a closer, but there are a few more to go yet. There is a tiredness creeping in to Clark's delivery it seems to me... but maybe I am projecting that. A definite sad tinge to the pieces though.

Listening to dead musicians is a weird thing. It is one thing if they died before I heard them, but it feels quite different listening to those that have died since I discovered them. That goes double for those that die young. It doesn't really feel like I'm listening to a ghost, but it does rather make one think of one's own mortality. That eerie feeling is intensified on the final track, with it's title and lyrics of dreaming of God. I'm not religious at all so the thought of reaching out to something beyond the real applies to deities and spectres in equal measure.

Then all is quiet.

Central Reservation - Beth Orton

Track list:

1. Stolen Car
2. Sweetest Decline
3. Couldn't Cause Me Harm
4. So Much More
5. Pass In Time
6. Central Reservation
7. Stars All Seem to Weep
8. Love Like Laughter
9. Blood Red River
10. Devil Song
11. Feel To Believe
12. Central Reservation (The Then Again Version)

Running time: 58 minutes
Released: 1999

I used to have a giant poster of this album cover - a freebie from a gig attended in Bristol whilst a student. I used to really, really like Beth Orton's music - hence being at the gig in the first place - but I found that affinity dwindling with each album after this one, and looking back before starting this playing, I think I probably wouldn't miss it if I were to cut all albums of hers except Trailer Park (which I definitely would still miss) from my collection. That said, I am sure there are tracks in here, and on her later works, that are worth my time, so lets spend some time with her now.

I remember the primary acoustic melody of Stolen Car, but not the more haunting elements of the intro and the lonely electric guitar. As I hear it now it all floods back, and I find I still really like the song. Form filling has been put off again today; painting instead. Tomorrow is the last day of the holiday, and I now have a fair chuck of things stacked up to do... how much like everyday life. Orton sings "don't you wish you knew better by now..." - yes, yes I do. I work better with deadlines though...

I have been in a strange mood today, spontaneously dancing to the shuffle earlier whilst doing other things - very unlike me. I am now into my second glass of white (my sop to New Year yesterday, left over to this evening) and forcing myself into the mindset for a post. The guitars on Stolen Car really do sound mournful, wistful, longing. I approve, as the acoustic line cycles a pleasant hook that contrasts nicely. There is a very distinct change of tone with the next track which is far more laid back. You wouldn't know from the playing alone, but I am reminded that the pianist on Sweetest Decline is Dr John. This is a world away from his New Orleans blues, a mellow jaunt. It sounds and feels a little overdone somehow - like that mellowness is being striven for slightly too hard rather than coming naturally. I think this sense comes from overproduction and slightly too much going on in the arrangement. Bongos, strings, piano almost competing. It would be better without the unnecessary percussion I think, but it could also happily lose the strings and pare down to Orton's slightly unusual voice and the melodic piano.

Snacking on flapjacks at this time of the evening probably isn't wise; they don't go that well with the wine for a start.

There are some nice elements here, but since Stolen Car finished it has never been more than "nice" - which is to damn with faint praise. I wonder if, perhaps, in another mood I would more easily overlook things that currently are slapping me around the face. The depth of production is a mile away from the last thing I listened too with its multiple layers and rich sounds and I find myself pining for the simple and genuine sounds of James Yorkston's record. Whilst Beth Orton has worked with some electronic music folks over the years, I am moved to suggest her solo material benefits most from a more minimalist approach. She has an interesting voice, one with an edge to it and a hint of dis-tunefulness and real emotion, pairing that with a simple guitar melody offers the chance to show it off more. 

I start suddenly; I am feeling cold though the room is at temperature (I've upped the thermostat now though) and it has not been that cold outside over the new year. Maybe there is a draught. I need to fashion an early night tonight and... oh carp; just remembered what I have forgotten to do today. Time for a brief interlude.

Fault corrected I resume with Pass in Time - which runs 7 minutes in length. This album is made up of longer than average tunes, there's only one below 4 minutes and the average is almost five. I think that is counting against it a little in this listen. I am not convinced these songs need to be drawn out as much as they are - and it is the first half that are longer. Ooh! Hey, that is the late lamented Terry Callier on backing, with his utterly brilliant and soulful voice. He can lift this track just by humming at the right points. That I love how he and Orton synergise (remember Best Bit) can't disguise that it is stretched past the necessary though. After the song finally closes, we hit the title track, and this does give Orton's voice the room to be the star. Soft programming and sparse bass create a crucible for a rather fragile-sounding song and I find myself smiling, enjoying it again. It suffers a bit more from the over-tinkering with arrangements as it progresses but it never gets too busy to detract from the central song.

I remember being young and angry and stupid and penning a diatribe to a radio station for playing some horrid electro-mix of this song instead of the album version once. The mix concerned was tripe, stripped out all the space that is what makes this work. Fragility needs the right support, and here the vocal really needs that openness. I am still angry and stupid, but far less young these days; I don't write to radio stations because I don't listen to them (except for sports) and I refuse to engage with Twitter or Facebook which seem to be the only modes of feedback these days. Ugh - try making a really cogent argument in 140 characters. That said, this long form pretty much debunks my ability to make cogent arguments in any medium. Oh well. I have been enjoying some good criticism of late - catching up on Errant Signal, which dissects videogames nicely in ways that I find fascinating. YouTube is becoming a more regular form of entertainment than TV for me now, even though I am pretty set in my ways and not one to over-subscribe or jump on bandwagons.

Back to the music. A series of tracks that flood back into my memory as they play have come and largely gone. I like the familiarity, but I am not over-sold on the specifics. I don't find any of them hard to listen to, or actively distasteful, but equally I do not find myself moved to comment on anything about the tunes either. I close my eyes and try to immerse myself in Blood Red River to form a more communicable opinion but it sort of slides off around me. I don't know if that says more about me or the music. I am slightly more taken with the opening of Devil Song where primacy is given to a simple voice/guitar combination. The form of the guitar work here appeals to me far more than the song itself. I like the crucible it creates, the timbre and the framing.

Feel to Believe is a pleasant surprise. I recognise it once it starts, but the name meant nothing. It has a more upbeat tone to it and that feels a little overdue somehow. There is a touch of awkwardness between one of the choruses and the next verse - the tune loses its structure and tempo and falls into limbo a bit before pulling it around by returning to the tone that was set at the start. Orton's voice sounds strained and emotional here - it adds an undercurrent to the piece that I appreciate even as it sounds less tuneful than on many of the other tracks.  I think I have a thing for unorthodox voices.

We end with a mix of Central Reservation which starts to fill in the spaces around the vocal more - electric pacing elements are introduced as percussion, the beat is rather annoying and distracting, but the song actually works with the higher pace. I prefer the more sparse version earlier on the disc by far, but the verses and choruses do actually fit well enough in the busier environment created for them here. I actually find myself more attracted to the words in this context, but the voice in the previous one. Odd dichotomy that. The disc ends horribly with a fade out rather than a proper ending, leaving me to consider the whole. There is no doubt that for me it doesn't stand up to the love I once had for it, that in places it is over-produced, over-long or otherwise disappointing. But there is also magic buried in here - a couple of complete tracks, or just moments or movements within others. I could axe it and not miss much, but I really wouldn't mind hearing just about any of these tunes again.

Big Box of John Lee Hooker (Disc 6) - John Lee Hooker

Track list:

1. Who's Been Jiving You
2. Prison Bound
3. Little Wheel
4. Goin' Mad Blues
5. Mean Old Train
6. Baby Lee
7. Howlin' Wolf
8. Me and My Woman
9. Miss Rosie Mae
10. Canal Street Blues
11. You Can Lead Me Baby
12. Miss Eloise
13. She Left Me By Myself
14. Run On
15. Don't Go Baby
16. Crying All Night
17. Miss Sadie Mae
18. Mad Man Blues
19. Burnin' Hell
20. Talkin' Boogie
21. Grievin' Blues
22. Please Have Mercy
23. Twister Blues
24. Give Me Your Phone Number

Running time: 70 minutes
Released: 2013

So we reach the last, and longest, of the discs in the Big Box anthology of late Blues legend John Lee Hooker. I have it in my sights.

An odd thing to be choosing to start this at quarter past 9 on a Monday evening, but whilst I worked late-ish today and didn't have the energy to cook (takeout to the rescue, as I failed to get shopping on the way home too) I am actually rather relaxed. The relatively high pace of our opening number is a good thing and makes me immediately feel positive about starting this exercise. I am sure doubts will follow but for now we are good.

Prison Bound starts as if it is going to just be guitar, before a very off-tone piano is crammed into action. This produces a really striking sound. Either it is all the recording equipment leaving a lot to be desired, or the tuning is bloody awful. However its off in a really quirky way. Thinking about it, it could have been a particular characteristic of pianos of a certain origin and era; I have only ever heard this kind of shonky tune carried on pianos in westerns or similar golden age films. Whatever the cause, I celebrate it, because the track is enjoyable as a result.

Little Wheel sees Hooker's voice taking on some depth and (I would guess) age. The recording sounds more recent too, better sound quality, more depth of support. I would guess at 70s or 80s for this cut, where the earlier provenance of many tunes was obvious. I don't have a practiced ear for these things but the cleanliness of the recording stood out a mile. It means (I think for the first time) I am keeping 3 in a row from one of these discs. It's been the strongest opening so far, and I wonder if it can keep that up. Hiding away all the best stuff on disc 6 of six? For shame. I recognise a couple of the song titles here as repeats from the prior discs but I don't expect to remember the tunes themselves when I get to them just through the sheer volume of John Lee Hooker songs I have listened to in the past few weeks, throwing a serious curveball at my LastFM artist tracking for the next 3 months!

Its not a serious complaint, but is does jokingly illustrate that this is a rather sharp divergence from my normal and varied diet of different musical foods. After the strong start, the next two tunes do nothing for me and I feel my eyes drooping. Was this a mistake? Nah, what else would I be doing at this time eh... getting frustrated by something, I'm sure. Just occasionally, when I know that no-one I know is around, living on my own gets to be a burden. Of course, were I not alone here I wouldn't have got away with giving in to my lethargy on the way home so... chalk up the wins, and overlook the loss! Baby Lee has a nice little roll to it, a very simple rhythmic hook but it's melodic rather than percussive and even though it repeats a lot it is light and sparse enough to just about pass the interest test for the first two minutes. The third minute though... no, it is just grating on me too much by now with the novelty worn off and nothing of interest structured around it to give the track any craft. Such a shame when something like that feels fresh up front but goes stale so fast through lack of any help. Alas the tribute to Howlin' Wolf also fails to deliver anything noteworthy, and so from three in the bank, we have 4 in the bin. It threatens five as the opening to the 8th track is low key and my fears are realised as this devolves to formulaic patterns that I am long tired of now. To be fair there is a little more playing around the central theme here than there has been in discs past but the whole presentation of the track fails to excite me.

The first (to my immediate knowledge) of the repeats now raises its head... or maybe not. I assumed that Miss Rosie May was a repeat of Rosie Mae from disc 5 but the slight change of title leaves that open to uncertainty. What I can say for sure is that it fails my interest test this time, even as I kept its cousin... for my own sanity that sways me against them being the same song. Canal Street Blues must be, though - that's not a title that gets replicated by accident, right? I am pretty sure I rather liked the other version though, and this falls flat, hard.

Finally a little more life. Its a simple little number but You Can Leave Me strikes a good note immediately, and only improves as an economically used piano joins in, soft and quiet over the structure. The vocal here, too, is key. Whilst the music is patterned to a fault the variety comes from the stresses and strains in the singing and those light touches that almost sound faint enough to have been captured from the studio next door. It all adds up to a nice little song, and one to break a long run of binned tracks. I am approaching half way through and my feel is that this disc generally is later recordings than the others. Maybe that's why it was organised this way, I don't know, but there are (I think) more electrified numbers, more bite to the guitar as a result. It doesn't always make for better tunes, alas. I thought it was going to be a write-off when it started, but She Left Me By Myself actually catches me sweet as the body of the track comes in and the sense of joy from playing is carried through the recording. The song isn't fantastic, and the playing probably not his best, but there is energy in this tune and a sense of fun that is often missing. That's not a massive surprise, it is the Blues after all, but with it injected here the tone is improved and that improvement carries straight through to Run On. This is another electrified track with a clear recording and decent backing. Energy and pace are once again slightly lifted and there are moments here and there where Hooker's voice sounds almost as good as Terry Callier used to.

Huh, a classic track. That snuck up on me. Mind you, as played here it has none of the snap of the properly classic renditions and Don't Go Baby is going out the digital door into the trash. The playing is almost not there, the majority of the track is carried over just by what sounds like stomping. Its all very disappointing as with a bit more life the song can fly. It's almost as if the disc is mocking my assertion that these are later recordings with a couple of these that surface now. I feel my foot tapping along to Crying All Night even as my head is thinking nothing of it. Its an odd dichotomy but I think at this point I am going to go with my head; the foot could be a side-effect of sitting cross-legged on a squashy sofa and typing on a coffee table.

Regardless of what happens with the rest of this disc, I have probably just about saved enough of the tracks from across the Big Box of John Lee Hooker to have justified the purchase. I am less enamoured of the whole working day (or near enough) I have effectively spent ploughing through it but I do think that my library will be better for it, and I feel a little more enlightened than I was before I started, having exposed myself to a large corpus of work that had essentially been boiled down to one song that does not appear on this collection in my mind. I suppose the a small annoyance is that the Big Box followed so close on the heels of The Best of Friends thus concentrating my exposure to Hooker further than the collection alone would manage. I would be astonished if the back-to-back nature of these listens hasn't coloured my impressions of the music some - the vitriol I spewed at one aspect in particular would probably have been much reduced if I hadn't been exposed so often in such a short time. Incidentally whilst it has reared its head on this disc, it is conspicuously absent for the most part so I have had to find other reasons to justify my dumping songs from my hard drive. It's not hard to find a justification that stands up, mind; flimsy is fine.

Into the last 5 tracks now and is it wrong that I have a palpable sense of excitement about the prospect of listening to something else? I haven't looked ahead since this marathon started, and I'm sure the capricious nature of the universe means I have a couple of old stinkers just around the corner to sour the thought but... no. No negativity please. That no negativity rule has kept my fingers still over the last few tracks as the Big Box comes to a conclusion with a quiet slide off stage rather than a bang. It would be too much to expect a crescendo over 6 hour-plus long albums though so I'll forgive the curators that.

All that remains to do is say farewell to John Lee. He goes out asking for our phone number - demanding really. Alas the demand, like much that came before it, is not one I feel any obligation to entertain. There is no doubt that the man was very, very good at what he did, but there is also o doubt that most of it was simply not up my street.

Best Bit EP - Beth Orton

Track list:

1. Best Bit
2. Skimming Stones
3. Dolphins
4. Lean On Me
5. Touch Me With Your Love

Running time: 24 minutes
Released: 1997

Staying in 1997 for what I think is a little gem. I loved Beth Orton's debut LP Trailer Park, still do to a degree, and I love the voice of the late Terry Callier, who guests on two of these songs (one being a tune of his). I base the gem comment on just 3 of the 5 tracks. Of the other two, one is from Trailer Park and I cannot remember the differences in the versions, and the other I recall nothing. It should be a short, sweet reconnection.

The plucked hook of the title track is one of those that sit with me long term, and there is something wonderfully affirmative about the song. The tempo is positive, the vocal intuitive, the themes catchy and these things coalesce into a very pleasant and ultimately accessible piece. I find myself nodding along and tapping a foot until the latter stages. It is hardly a groundbreaking song, but its structure is pretty well managed. Late in the run there is a whispering over the top of it and the vocal degrades to non-lyrical notes, but the flow of the song remains so it is somewhat excusable. It isn't an approach that always works out well, but it is one that Orton used a fair amount, and it opens Skimming Stones too.

As this second track gets moving it does rekindle some kind of memory of it, but one that seems to be limited to the vocal lines and the structure behind the verses. The musical structure of the song was lost to my mind - and listening to it now, I think that's because there is not much there worth remembering. In places it supports the vocal well but when left to stand alone it is decidedly underwhelming - over reliant on simple and unengaging snippets rather than building a nice layered tune. As the song departs - overlong at just under 6 minutes - the best bits of the EP come in.

Dolphins - of which I heard the original only recently on the soundtrack to the film Calvary (its great, highly recommend) - is a gentle arrangement, and a sublime duet. Orton's voice - with a slight tight strain to it - contrasts wonderfully with Callier's warm croon, and both are offset by the arrangement, a sort of constant and comfortable crucible in which their words can burn bright.

After the dolphins depart we have a cover of one of my favourite Callier songs. Lean On Me is just a wonderful, wonderful song. Or rather it is a fantastic chorus supported by a really pleasant tune, decent verses and one of my favourite vocal performances in all of music. Yes, the song perhaps is a little over-reliant on repeating "Lean on me" as a lyric if you are being picky, but I defy anyone to has an ounce of soul to listen to that chorus the way Callier's voice carries it and not smile a little. OK, there will be some sourpusses out there who wont get it, but that is there problem, not mine.

Just like that we arrive at the final track, a re-imagining of a song from Trailer Park. The original was all dark, backed by a lot of electronica. Here we are much brighter, Orton supported only by her guitar line. It actually makes for a pretty good contrast with the album track (at least as I can think back to it without playing it). I think I prefer this version, there is more positivity, more hope and optimism, a stronger performance enabled by the lack of anything to obscure it. I was not expecting this at all, and am really pleasantly surprised. Not only is the vocal clearer and brighter but the guitar melody, which I think is unchanged from the original release is much firmer, confident and forms a bigger part of the piece. The overzealous strumming that form the close feels a little too put on, unnecessary given the tone of what had gone before, but then again it also ushers in the silence that is the end of this listen.

I am in two minds about whether to ditch Skimming Stone; whilst I like the vocal the arrangement leaves me cold, and it is long for what it is. Writing that out, convinces me that it really ought to go. There is no question that the other 4 tracks are keepers; as I said up front, this is a little gem - just like the lettuces I bought this morning.

Alive - Terry Callier

Track List:

1. Ordinary Joe
2. Step Into The Light
3. Lazurus Man
4. Lament For The Late A.D.
5. African Violet
6. You're Gonna Miss Your Candy Man
7. What Colour Is Love
8. Dancing Girl
9. People Get Ready
10. I Don't Wanna See Myself

Running time: 71 minutes
Released: 2001

Terry Callier is one of my favourite vocalists of all time. He came to my attention in a duet with Beth Orton (Lean On Me - a Callier cover) and I instantly loved his voice. I smiled every time I heard him. His passing at 67 in 2012 was a sad day.

This album was passed to me by a friend who had bought it and not got on with it very well. Unsurprisingly, given the title, it is a live album. Two of the songs stand out to me at a glance: Ordinary Joe is pretty much the definitive Callier song and Don't Want To See Myself was my favourite track from the first album of his I picked up. They bookend these performances; lets find out what lies between them.

I love Ordinary Joe as a song it is just so uplifting whilst having an edge of self-deprecation. This delivery though is a little too quick - the tempo is higher than recorded versions and it spoils the cadence of the lyric a bit for me. The arrangement is also damaged a bit by the pace. It is a fully understandable difference from record to performance but a regrettable one - especially given the extended duration which calibrates as less song, more tune and it is the song I adore. It still has me tapping my foot, but it is a tempered pleasure, not an unbridled one.

I can see why my friend passed on this with the review of "it's too jazzy"; there is a definite light jazz vibe about the instrumentation and an hour and more of it may well wear me down, let alone someone who is not keen on jazz in the first place. I can cope (for now), largely because Callier sings more on Step Into The Light, though it is too much repetition of the title phrase for me to hold it up as a good song. Repetition that is mirrored in the arrangement.

All the tracks are too long here - an affectation of arrangement and live performance for sure, but a 10 track record should not go on for 70 minutes when your tunes are normally sub 5 minute length. That this one does even with one track that runs only for 68 seconds is not a good sign. Oh well - I can always switch off and enjoy the voice. Lazarus man (and Callier was, career-wise - with a long break from recording and performing) is half sung, half spoken, but shows off Callier's soft, expressive and soulful voice brilliantly in both moods. My only issue with it is the length, and to avoid repeating that about each track I should stop typing now... Seriously though, stretching tracks like this just leaves us with dead loops, repeats and rambling passages that lose their way.

Lament... is a tribute, apparently to an unarmed man shot by New York police. Police carrying guns is still thankfully rare in the UK and I hope that can continue for my lifetime but I am far from convinced that it will. I say that not to denigrate those police that do carry (here or elsewhere) but I remember when I went to the US actually feeling less safe seeing police with firearms walking around. It is a visceral thing, and not buying in to the idea of a cycle of escalating violence - after all if one "side" carries, then the other will more likely do so too.

African Violet... I could have sworn I had other versions of this song, but apparently not. Oh wait - somehow, probably thanks to me misreading/mistyping, I have it down as American Violet on Fire on Ice (great album). Duly changed. Stupid fingers and eyes making mistakes years ago when I originally ripped all my CDs. I find the version on Alive too full of dead space, filler sections... I am sounding like a broken record again. As it ends and segues into You're Gonna Miss Your Candy Man the pace and tone changes up a gear. This is a nice lively opening. I have this track down as You're Goin' Miss Your Candyman more than once in my library and that returns hits on the web too; I suspect the source of my track list was wrong. Not Amazon this time though, but I still cannot be bothered to change it now I have noticed. It is a livelier track, and I needed that. There is still too much repetition though, the bass and rhythm sections are particularly guilty of that here. The song has a decent groove, but too long without modifying it dilutes that effect. Thankfully the whole tune is a bit shorter and overall I think it is my favourite so far on the album. The quicker pace is not maintained though, to my chagrin.

Dancing Girl is not a tune I recognise (I appear not to have a recorded version of it) but it is a good vehicle for Callier's vocal, with a low-level accompaniment behind it that is in places reminiscent of certain film soundtracks. The song is 11 minutes, but really it feels like more than one track as the tone and instrumentation change so the length does not come across. Actually the track flies by much faster than some earlier (shorter) tunes and suddenly we reach the closer.

I Don't Want to See Myself was one of the stand-out tracks on Lifetime, the first Callier album I bought, and this performance, whilst it contains longer bridges, is pretty true to my memory of the recording. It is a nice way to close - higher tempo, more upbeat. The bass errs on the side of cheesy at times but that is forgivable. It is not a fantastic tune, but it is a good one that leaves me smiling.

All in all, Alive definitely has its faults, but I find it hard to part with any of the tracks here. I do not have any other live work by Terry Callier, and there will be no more to replace this with something better - may he rest in peace. I challenge anyone to listen to Terry Callier and not fall in love with his voice, the man had more soul than many much more acclaimed stars. He remains a firm favourite, with much better albums to come in due course.

100th Window - Massive Attack

Track List:

1. Future Proof
2. What Your Soul Sings
3. Everywhen
4. Special Cases
5. Butterfly Caught
6. A Prayer for England
7. Small Time Shot Away
8. Name Taken
9. Antistar

Running time: 73 minutes
Released: 2003

I've been away a bit, not jacked the project in quite so soon. Back from a 5 day jaunt to Scandiwegia to see an old friend and the 4 kids they have had since we last met. Squeezing this in before I am off away again - this time to my niece's 4th birthday party. Life is busy sometimes, just not often.

Everyone (pretty much) thinks Massive Attack peaked with Mezzanine. They are probably all right.* Seeing them play Bristol Student Union just after that album was released is still a highlight, 16 years on.

My memory tells me that there are good songs on 100th Window, which was what followed, but also some weaker material. And the 19 minute length of Antistar reminds me of hidden track nonsense.

Future Proof confirms that initial thought - I have always liked this track. It is dark and brooding, good mood music for an urban or cyberpunk RPG session, with the electronic clicks reminiscent of background static in a slightly frantic percussive manner. The light airy vocal, disconnected from the ominous track enforces that sense of unease; it works for me. We then move on to the first of 3 tracks voiced by Sinéad O'Connor.  I think that, at the time, I did not realise all 3 tracks with female vocals were O'Connor - not sure why. I certainly did not realise at the time that Damon Albarn (credited as 2D from Gorillaz) was involved, but back then I thought Blur were shite and nothing of Albarn as an artist. Times change us. I am not fond of What Your Soul Sings, I just find it really bland - lyrically, vocally, musically, it is just dull. It is also too long, but that makes it feel such a relief when it gives way to Everywhen. I fell in love with Horace Andy's vocals the first time I heard him on a Massive Attack record (probably One Love or Hymn of the Big Wheel from Blue Lines), and picked up some collections of his reggae recordings later on, to find that several Massive Attack songs with him doing a new vocal are pretty much re-recordings. I do not think Everywhen is in that category, but I could be wrong. It plays a bit like a less urgent Future Proof, with an unsettling, dangerous air, a floaty voice and relatively clean sound in place of the more chaotic opener. I would say it is a slightly more hopeful track, but it is hope stemming from darkness all the same, and a rich darkness at that. It is probably the best track on this album for my money, and my instinct is that 100th Window's bolt is now shot.

Special Cases is more O'Connor; it is less dull than What Your Soul Sings and there is much more going on but I still cannot find any love for it. The doomy theme continues, which makes it powerful background sound, but for actually listening to? No thanks. I do not own any Sinéad O'Connor records and do not find her voice doing anything for me, though I do think A Prayer for England utilises her better (or perhaps it is just a better song). As Butterfly Caught starts, I find myself not recognising it which is slightly disturbing, and the first of what I guess will be many such experiences of going "oh, that's not what I thought it was" for this project. Not knowing stuff before I get to it is one thing, but not recognising something I thought I knew is different, unsettling. Like this track (which I recognise once more once the vocal comes in). An edginess and paranoia flow from my speakers, quite at odds with the brightness of the day outside. It is midmorning on a Friday - not the ideal time to immerse oneself in the themes of this record.

My time in Brizzle was right at the tail end of the Bristol sound ("don't call it Trip-Hop") era. Mezzanine was just out and was the end of that era of Massive Attack, Portishead had gone on their long break etc. I also lived in very different parts of the city to those that spawned the edginess. Still, I feel a degree of affinity to the place and the music it spawned even now, when it is a part of my life that is fading in memory - contacts lost, friends rarely seen etc. Listening to these bands brings back those thoughts.

Yeah - A Prayer For England is just a better song. There is purpose in the driving bass, menace even. That links with the urgency of the vocal and the lyrics and the slightly shorter length to produce a much more compelling listen. There is almost a relief when it gives way to the more chilled Small Time Shot Away; chilled, but still dark. More cyberpunk mood music. Albarn's backing vocal is so indistinct that I miss it even knowing it is there now - I mean, it is audible in places, but hard to tell who it is. The last 30 seconds of the track are really weak... continuation for continuation's sake and I am definitely relieved when Name Taken starts. It is another slow dark menace sound, rather than urgent dark menace (this album only has two flavours). Andy is back, again floating over the music angelically, reinforcing him being up there as one of my favourite male vocalists of all time - along with the sadly missed Terry Callier - who, of course, provided the vocal on Massive Attack's Live With Me (along with Paradise Circus from Heligoland, which was used as the theme for the BBC's Luther, the only great tracks Massive Attack produced since Teardrop). I am certainly struggling to find too many other names to challenge those two on a purely vocal level.

Ah, now we're into the dregs. Antistar just started and I cannot find much to like in its opening refrains. Calling the bolt shot after Everywhen was harsh as although the middle of the album is not superb it generally retains a level of interest and is certainly keeping a consistent theme which makes the album as a whole a very attractive keeper. The vocal mellows Antistar a bit, but not enough to make it a good listen; the menace is still there though and I realise that for proper mood music I would want to dump the vocal anyway as it would be a distraction. Too bad.

Right, now to see about this secret track bullshit. It actually starts fairly promptly - which is good - but as I recalled it is just a loopy, oscillating, bassy sound which lasts far too long. It ceases to be interesting almost as soon as it starts and... zzz

* If anything, it was earlier.