Bare Foot - OLO Worms

Track list:

2. I Shot Shrieff
10. Don't Touch Baby
12. Tortoise Shell
17. flakes

Running time: 12 minutes
Released 2007

A real oddity this, and a partial one at that as I only have 4 tracks which - I can only surmise - were once free on LastFM but are no longer. That must have been where I picked them up from, and I suspect because I was listening to a Fence Records radio station. I remember really liking I Shot Shrieff (just try not reading that as sheriff!) for its weirdness but probably have not listened to any of these tracks since I downloaded them years ago.

I do not remember the electro opening, but I do recall the clapping and pops that form the majority of this track. It is much faster than I recall though, and to a different rhythm. The mind and its tricks again. There is not a lot to the track really - the rhtythm, some electronics and a chanted vocal that is not present for much of the run. It is nothing like my memory, and nowhere near as interesting. Don't Touch Baby starts more interestingly, a tremourous treble and a decent if simple beat which gives way to something more driving in places. It is like stage music from a puzzle videogame or something - but in a nice way. An interesting soothing background.

I have to say I do not think the release date of 2007 can be right from memory, yet apparently I first scrobbled I Shot Shrieff in 2008 so it does fit. I have images of hearing these tracks much earlier than that - another sign of how memory misleads. Tortoise shell is more melodic until the end when it goes odd. Flakes, which rounds out the selection I have is a short track, unsavoury subject, makes me itch. Ugh. Definitely some fat-trimming here, but I rather liked 2 of the four.

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.

Ballads of the Book - Various Artists

Track list:

1. Song For Irena - Mike Heron & John Burnside
2. Steam Comes Off Our House - De Rosa & Michel Faber
3. A Calvinist Narrowly Avoids Pleasure - James Yorkston & Bill Duncan
4. Dreamcatcher - Foxface & Rody Gorman
5. A Sentimental Song - Lord Cut-Glass & Alasdair Gray
6. The Sixth Stone - Aidan Moffat & Ian Rankin
7. Girl - Norman Blake & John Burnside
8. The Good Years - Karine Polwart & Edwin Morgan
9. The War On Love Song - Sons and Daughters & A. L. Kennedy
10. The Leaving - Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson
11. Message In A Bottle - Strike the Colours & Rody Gorman
12. If You Love Me You'd Destroy Me - Aereogramme & Hal Duncan
13. The Rebel On His Own Tonight - Malcolm Middleton & Alan Bissett
14. Half An Apple - Trashcan Sinatras & Ali Smith
15. The Fire - Vashti Bunyan & Rodge Glass
16. Where And When - King Creosote & Laura Hird
17. Jesus On The Cross - Emma Pollock & Louise Welsh
18. The Weight Of Years - Idlewild & Edwin Morgan

Running time: 69 minutes
Released: 2007

A collaboration between Scottish musicians and authors, this is a quirky little compilation that involves a number of artists that I am very fond of. I have other music by most of the groups and individual musicians featured, and whole albums by more than half of them, some of whom - like Foxface, James Yorkston, King Creosote, Malcolm Middleton and Strike the Colours - are enduring favourites. The authors are much more opaque to me, the only one I recognise being Ian Rankin, who I have never read, but I have had time for in his TV appearances and because he wrote the liner notes for KC Rules OK.

I have never really listened to these songs much, though I can hear a couple of them in my head as I read the titles. This is a long haul at just shy of 70 minutes so I am settled in with a mute TV and the dregs of a bottle of wine for company. Wikipedia has this listed as a fully collaborative exercise and calls the songs poems. Apparently they were given in the liner text but I bought this digitally so I don't have that to refer to. It does not start too promisingly, the piano on Song for Irena sounding too stark, and the voice really not doing anything for me. There is better to come though as this is one of those where I have nothing else by either of the two involved. Not so the next five tracks.

De Rosa were briefly a favourite. I loved Prevention a lot. Now their effort plays I recognise it from past listens. It is line with much of their library - alternating sparse instrumentation with richer, louder choruses and a straining voice that communicates a sense of pain to me even if the lyrics do not explicitly support that. I quite like this tune until a crescendo of rattles that irritates me and takes me out of the mood. I love the title the write gave to the poem put to music by James Yorkston, it tickles my cynicism about organised religion. However the song itself is not a patch on the favourites of mine from amongst JY's own tunes and I find myself glad as it ends. We get a dramatic change of tempo and tone with Foxface's contribution, speeding things up nicely. Foxface are one of those bands that I wish had made more (widely accessible) music. I have one album that I love to death - This Is What Makes Us - and this tune evokes that strongly. Not always the most musical, with some of the vocalisation quite punchy and discordant, even overbearing in places, they put heart into the recording and it shines through.

The snooker's tied at the half way break, apparently. Mute talking heads momentarily distract my eye as Lord Cut Glass winds up, slowing things down again. I do not think he really has the singing chops for this style of piece - slow, orchestral, almost non-existent behind the vocal. The tune when the song finishes though? Very nice. I am not taken with the Moffat/Rankin track which follows. I find Moffat's work post his split with Malcolm Middleton inconsistent - like some, loathe some. This falls into the loathe category from a performance standpoint. My sense of the next track is turned from "oh, this is alright" to "ah, right, no" when I Google Norman Blake and get Teenage Fanclub. I have never got on with them as a group and silly though it is finding that out affects my ability to enjoy this song. It is funny how little biases like that can completely change our perceptions of things. We like to consider ourselves rational in our likes, dislikes and decisions, but something that I was enjoying just became something I was at best lukewarm to not because it changed but because I found something out - and not something horrific, offensive, criminal etc. which could reasonably be expected to change perspective.

Humans are strange creatures.

I am not a fan of Karine Polwart - though she does combine well with other musicians on Side Show by The Burns Unit. The song here is more typical of my experience of her - a voice that is not quite interesting enough to make up for not being perfect and dull arrangement. Add some off-kilter harmony here and it is a sure fire miss. We are getting to half way, and so far it is a mixed bag. Sons and Daughters disappointed me when I bought This Gift, but I kept their contribution to a Domino Records sampler, and I like the form of their effort here. It has a nice rhythm driving it and the vocal has an edge of desperation or urgency (hard to tell which) that works with the beat to enthral. Snooker is underway again; it makes for a good silent companion to this - enough to draw my eye up occasionally but nothing that demands concentration or attention. I should feel much better than I do; today was a good day - boardgames in the morning then clearing boardgames off shelves so I can create the space for new shelves to slot in when they arrive on Wednesday. Yet I feel a little restless, unfulfilled, and Alasdair Roberts is not helping with that. Probably fairer to blame the wine. Knowing the musician is definitely affecting my appreciation. The intro to Message in a Bottle (not a cover of that other one) sets me in goosebumps even though it is actually quite plain. Why? Because it is a Strike the Colours song I did not know I had; I love Jenny Reeve's voice a lot and the material recorded under this name holds a place in my heart. A quick search suggests there may be another album on the way; yay! It is hard to describe why this fills me with quite so much joy but I can perhaps sum up by saying she does what I would consider "perfect pop" - slightly twee, heartfelt, not over-produced or mass market.

I recognise If You Love Me You'd Destroy Me when it plays, and it seems I have loved the track on LastFM, but never actually investigated Aereogramme any further. They are now 7-8 years defunct but I do indeed like this track and if it is reflective of their wider catalogue then it probably is worth going back to take a look. Middleton's song is odd - lyrically it feels like it could be one of his own, musically it is slightly removed from what I am used to of his solo work. This is backwards to how the collaboration thing worked here. Never mind... the spoken section in the middle catches me by surprise (it should not, Arab Strap and all). Interesting, but would never be a favourite. Snooker has swung towards the guy that was down early. More Arrested Development after this I think - I am into season 3 and the ridiculousness of Wee Britain and Charlize Theron playing a woman with a child's IQ. Near the end of the re-watch then. What next? A change of tone to Black Mirror, I think! The digression arises from a song by a group I do not know barely making any kind of impression at all until the oddly misplaced Hawaiian guitar shows up, and not in a "so stupid its cool" way like with Laika and the Cosmonauts. Various Artist posts are great for random name dropping since there is no tag to go with them. Frank Sinatra! Cher! Springsteen! Ben Folds! Three of the previous 4 do not feature in my library.

Nor will some of these artists once I am done with this play through. I should really have been deleting as I go to better remember but I have not got around to it, preferring to make stupid comments in text no-one will read. I think the wine has gone to my head. Surprised at the lack of typos then.

Ah, Where and When. This really is a King Creosote song in structure and tone, it would not be out of place on one of his earlier studio albums. This guy... his voice just slays me dead - a mix of perfection and pain. Broken and beautiful, and with a knack for the catchy hook, what really draws me to him (not evidenced here) are his lyrics - particularly on KC Rules OK - and raw emotion. The song seems to go very quickly here, and before I have finished writing about KC, Emma Pollock has shuffled in to replace him. This was one of the songs I could hear prior to the listen. Pollock has a couple of songs I really like, and a load that I do not. This one walks the line between the two. The surprise package here for me is the Idlewild track. I think when they were fêted I did not realise how folksy they were and they slid by without me ever paying any attention. I do not feel inclined to look up any more but I like the gentle, traditional-sounding roll here. It is also the end of the disc, which comes as a bit of a surprise. The snooker is still going and the wine has barely gone down (I drink slowly these days). Now I just have to work back through and take out the chaff.

Ballad of the Broken Seas - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

Track List:

1. Deus Ibi Est
2. Black Mountain
3. The False Husband
4. Ballad Of The Broken Seas
5. Revolver
6. Ramblin' Man
7. (Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?
8. Saturday's Gone
9. It's Hard To Kill A Bad Thing
10. Honey Child What Can I Do?
11. Dusty Wreath
12. The Circus Is Leaving Town

Running time: 42 minutes
Released: 2006

So from an oddball to an odd couple. I cannot for the life of me think why I first picked up music by Campbell and Lanegan, neither of whom were on my radar in their other guises before I did so. However I seem to recall fond memories of their chalk and cheese duetting, with some stand out songs (albeit maybe not on this album). This is also, I think, the 100th listen of the project. Go me.

Lanegan is gravel-like, Campbell a waif. Him in aggressive rock, her twee indie-pop. This has no right to work - pretty much what all the reviews said. Yet somehow whatever weird fate drew them together turned up trumps. Right away the contrast works. The music is fairly drab to start with, but the real versus the ethereal, dark versus light, of the two voices sets things apart as intriguing and very listenable. The first two songs, at least, are just as dull lyrically as they are musically, and the second drops Lanegan as a vocalist - which happens a fair bit on their collaborations considering he gets equal billing. Without the two singers contrasting each other Black Mountain really has little to recommend it.

The double act is restored for The False Husband, which takes the stark difference further, but accompanying Lanegan with dark, empty brooding notes, and Campbell with a friendlier melody. It is hauntingly brilliant in its simplicity, with her bits being really enthralling... and then they overlay and it is almost perfect. with 3 or 4 different strands to follow you end up getting lost and wondering at the tangle. It has been a sparse week for me and I should have got to this sooner, except that I have been recaptured by Arrested Development and have prioritised my full re-watch of that series (minus the online-only fourth season). As much as I am enjoying that, I regret not having done this one last night when I was a bit more awake and - in truth - quite antsy for something more active to do. It would have both calmed those thoughts and satisfied the itch. The title track is achingly melancholic - I could see it overlaying end credits as the devastation of a tragedy is revealed.

Revolver continues the cinematic theme, this stark tune, with its echoes of westerns, could likewise be accompanying something on screen - except for the vocal, a true duet, which detracts from that angle a bit. Here our singers are paired but it does not work quite as well as some of the call-response or different vocal pieces. Example - the cover of Ramblin' Man, with Lanegan carrying the song, and Campbell husky underneath his main verse. Oh, and hey... Andrew Bird is not the only whistler. It is just a pity that some of the composition and playing is not a bit more daring. There is a fair amount of dull music here, saved noticeably by the song. I guess this was a conscious decision to not overbear the duet with anything that would detract from it but I just feel it represents a bit of a lost opportunity to do something really special not just a good curio.

Occasionally the tunes do elevate above the humdrum, but not often enough. Saturday's Gone has a much lighter touch, and whilst it remains a very simple piece it feels as though there is a degree more sophistication about the song. Unfortunately it is another with no Lanegan, and the novelty of the lighter touch wears off after 2 1/2 minutes as the dull repetition of the rhythm gets to me. This is a relatively long track at 4 1/2 minutes plus and it definitely starts to drag well before the end. The album is a curious whole for sure. Duets, solo songs, and now an instrumental; when the music has been the weakest part of the disc so far, an instrumental is definitely something it did not need. Oh, it is a pleasant enough piece, in a really bland and inoffensive way and if I heard it whilst out and about I would not mind it. Here, though, it is as welcome as a hole in the head - after all it is a track where our stars are not bouncing off each other. I have a feeling that the follow up, Sunday at Devil Dirt was a better album than this one is. It could be my memory playing tricks again by I hear strains of songs with more urgency, more craft put into the music, in my mind when I call it forth. Ballad of the Broken Seas is, overall, a little too twee and a little too laid back to really shine despite the obvious chemistry between the pair. Nothing gets above walking pace, nothing gets in your face and nothing really embraces the sedation to enhance it. It gets caught in no man's land - interesting, but not as good as it could be, and prone to dropping the interest for idle absent-mindedness.

The tracks with both vocalists are just better, and the more prominent Lanegan is the better. I like his deep, dry voiced delivery and it is a better counterpoint to the gentle strumming that is all most of the music amounts to than Campbell's softer distant trilling. The high points of their interaction make it a worthwhile listen, even if I have culled a full third of it after this. The collaboration promises much, delivers on a little of it, and (I hope - since I have more to come in future) holds some back for later arrivals. It is no less conceptually odd a pairing after listening to them, though - however well their voices link up.

Balkan Beat Box - Balkan Beat Box

Track list:

1. Cha Cha
2. Bulgarian Chicks
3. Adir Adirim
4. 9/4 The Ladies
5. Shushan
6. Ya Man
7. Gross
8. Sunday Arak
9. Hassan's Mimuna
10. Meboli
11. La Bush Resistance

Running time: 52 minutes
Released: 2005

This is an oddball and one I cannot think why I have. I suspect it must be something I picked up after getting into Beirut and loving the balkan-themed tinge to their work. This is nothing like that and, if my memory is anything close to accurate, it will be gone by the time I hit publish on this post!

We start with a cock crowing and a beat kicks in with some rudimentary overlay which gradually offers a little more as well as a horrible vocal that appears sporadically. In truth it is less annoying than I thought it would be, but equally it does nothing for me and sets a tone of prospective boredom rather than one of unpleasantness. Am I in for a long hour?

I like the themes appearing, which do indeed remind me of the first times I heard Beirut, but not the specific presentation of them here. A little too persistent, a little too much of a tremor coming through from all the instrumentation. Jaunty is all well and good but it can be taken too far. I find myself tiring of the structure of the tunes more than anything else, with the rhythms particularly to blame here, hammered home with less subtlety and a little more repetition than I would like.

There is no doubt that the aesthetic, pointed and stylised as it is, makes for an acquired taste. On the one hand there is something compelling about the muted and staccato tunes, chants and obvious performance element that this material would have been rooted in. On the other it is awfully oppressive after any period of time, boring away at the same spot over and over in a way that can easily infuriate. I am 3 complete tracks in and my head is already pounding from repeated sounds. As with a number of other things I have listened to, I find myself disappointed, seeing potential but having it overshadowed by a facet of the composition that I cannot live with. I am in for a long one, but for different reasons than I thought.

9/4 The Ladies actually softens a lot of the problems, at least compared to the first three tracks. As a stand alone track it is much more palatable, rebalancing the presentation to date. I have a weird moment during Shushan where the rhythm reminds me quite strongly of a Busta Rhymes song from way back (maybe I will remember which when I come to Extinction Level Event) but the very fact my mind wandered in that direction tells you a lot about how I am not engaged with what I am hearing right now. In fact, it is largely blurring into a continuous drone over which I occasionally hear something that stands out and drags my mind back to what I am supposed to be doing - almost invariably it is not a good type of drag back, either.

So far, however, Gross has been anything but. This track seems to have ditched the incessant repeats of single notes in favour of actual tunes and melodies whilst keeping the distinctive tones that lend the music its Balkan identity. This I can approve of. In fairness, I could see everything I have heard here so far going down brilliantly with the right crowd getting up and engaging by dancing, spinning, clapping and whooping along whilst sinking generous amounts of alcohol, but ultimately that is not me here now on my sofa on a January evening as the temperature outside sinks and the first snow for a year or more is on its way. The second half of this album seems to be less demanding than the first, or maybe I am accustomed to it now and the pounding has receded some.

Oh, now that is interesting. A genuine change of pace which feels like it has been a long time coming. Much more airy rhythm giving a feeling that things have opened out a bit and sped up. For the first time I hear a real change in the tone and thrust of the music - the construction too. I am not sure I like the result in Hassan's Mimuna but I do appreciate the difference which is, as much as anything else, a result of a much softer percussion and not using the harsher sounds for structure for the majority of the piece. I am caught slightly off guard by Meboli starting as an homage to jazzy drum and bass but there is really nothing to the track of note - at least not understanding the vocal. The end of the album is definitely in a very different mould to the start - much more relaxed, smoother, "cooler". I do not really feel it does that cool well enough to recommend it but it does at least show range, and a better use of the dominant themes than simple mash it into the skull omnipresence.

So, what to do with this lot? Well most is going. I think I might just keep 9/4, Gross and Sunday Arak which seemed to walk the line of interest and offensiveness the best. The rest I have no place for.

The Bairns - Rachel Unthank & the Winterset

Track List:

1. Felton Lonnin
2. Lull I
3. Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk
4. I Wish
5. Blue's Gaen oot o' the Fashion
6. Lull II: My Lad's a Canny Lad
7. Blackbird
8. Lull III: A Minor Place
9. Sea Song
10. Whitethorn
11. Lull IV: Can't Stop It Raining
12. My Donald
13. Ma Bonny Lad
14. Fareweel Regality
15. Newcastle Lullaby

Running time: 65 minutes
Released: 2007

This was actually the Unthanks' second album, but the first that captured my attention. I am not sure whether it was before or after their Mercury nod that I picked it up or, if before what drove me to do so. My appreciation or otherwise of these northern songstresses waxes and wanes quite a bit. I have seen them perform and loved it, but I have also skipped through track after track without paying any attention at all. I am curious what forcing myself to listen to them will reveal in terms of engagement and enjoyment.

It is a slow start this, with the opening track taking time to get moving - and even then it is not the most urgent of tunes. Dialect rules here, very affected north eastern delivery but it is very clearly in dialect and not in accent - though the two are clearly related. There are long instrumental periods here, and the arrangement is a little too sparse to really support that. It has a slow movie soundtrack air about it in those segments, not the theme I would really expect to accompany a folk song about cows, so it does have some interest, but it drifts too long, unfocused, rather than giving a tight rendition. And then a "Lull" - one of four interludes. I have never understood why these need to appear on records, and especially not so close to the start, or so close together. To be fair, it is a much more engaging interlude than many, and at a minute and a half it has time to deliver something.

Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk is a song that I am primarily familiar with through James Yorkston, but it is good to hear it sung from the female perspective that its narrative conveys. The piano accompaniment is really nicely played here, soft and supportive, and the main theme is carried well. There is a decent acceleration and shift in gear for the arrangement as the song progresses, but the vocal loses something of its allure when the pace picks up. Overall I think I prefer Yorkston's recording but this is different enough to maintain both happily. I Wish is very nicely performed. My problem with it is the slow, drawn out performance - there is no energy to it, no demand to be paid attention to whatsoever. It gets weirder about two thirds through when frantically whispered lines appear over a fake-tension key line - it is just at odds with the delivery, and really the song would have been better shut down at that point.

Ah, a bit more rhythm and pace. A soft-sung harmony and a bright melody - there has not been enough of this. It slows down when it swells in volume but the injection of some tempo is welcome, and it returns outside of the chorus. I have to say I prefer my folk with a bit more punch. Faster, lighter, brighter, bolder. Laments have their place and can be wonderful but the main attraction of traditional music for me is the music that reflects the joy and community that spawned tunes, bound people together and so forth. Dance tunes, feel good music. The songs do not have to be happy but having life to them helps. Tenderness is great and all, but give it to us with a tune and a structure and some energy and I will be happier. Their rendition of Blackbird has enough of these pieces and it is a treasure.

It is also half as long as the majority of the other pieces, and I think that is my biggest disappointment with this disc thus far: the tunes are spun out, worn thin by the end. The songs are always nicely sung, and well played, but several are performed so sedately that nodding off is a real danger, and the next one does not start soon enough to jolt you out of that sedation. That some, like Sea Song, meander to their ends, disappearing with a whimper, exacerbates this. The disc clocks in at 65 minutes; had the songs been arranged with the urgency to bring it in at 45 it could have been wonderful. Of course, it would not then have the hallmarks that make the Unthanks stand out - bold vocals with arrangement to support them and a slow deliberate delivery that really does let their voices stand out.

I am conflicted in how I feel about this one, perhaps more so than with any of the albums I have been through yet. I think that, as I wrote in the opening paragraph here, the Unthanks are very variable in appreciation - and I have little doubt that this style is much more effective for a live audience where it is easier to get drawn into the performance (which is ever impressive) rather than becoming concerned with the shortfalls of the construction as I am here. I find there are little sections or passages here that I love - there is an instrumental bridge in My Donald that is strikingly lovely, for instance, lost in the midst of 8 minutes of wandering - but overall I am not really feeling this as an album to listen to other than in an audience were they to play it all live.

There are some fine songs here - Blackbird, of course, but also Fareweel Regality where the rise and fall of the vocal through the chorus is softly lilting magic. Alas the presentation as a whole does not, I feel, support them well. I wish the beauty of the individual performances - singers and musicians - on the album were better combined into a greater whole but unfortunately the worth of The Bairns is, I would say, significantly less than the sum of its parts. It seems fitting that it ends with an overlong, under-interesting lullaby.

Badger Stamp Records Compilation 2008 - Various Artists

I only have one track from this compilation - Bellshill Station Fast by The Just Joans (length 2:34). There are others available free according to the listing on LastFM, but the download links were non-responsive when I just tried them so I am not too bothered about filling out the freebies. There's no cover either, so I am dispensing with the post structure for this micropost.

Strumming their organ then charmingly off-key singing. The Just Joans come across as a novelty act with their accessible indiepop about the little things in life; I do not mean that in a sneering way either. I like this well enough but it is nothing special, gone too fast for me to really register any of the specifics.

Bad As Me - Tom Waits

Track list:

1. Chicago
2. Raised Right Men
3. Talking At The Same Time
4. Get Lost
5. Face To The Highway
6. Pay Me
7. Back In The Crowd
8. Bad As Me
9. Kiss Me
10. Satisfied
11. Last Leaf
12. Hell Broke Luce
13. New Year's Eve

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2011

Waits' most recent, and I would guess last (but who knows?), album. I am missing the three "bonus tracks" listed on his website. Ah well. I do not recall getting on with this much and can only hear one of the songs in my head as I look at the track list, which is a sign of unfamiliarity. I wonder whether this will change that?

It has a high strung start. Punchy repeated notes at high tempo and growled vocal. There is none of the delicateness of Alice here. I cannot say I like Chicago much, but it has an energy about it. Repetition seems to be a feature. A similar recurring note is used in Raised Right Men. This appears to be all about Waits' voice, no bad thing, as there is virtually no composition (I almost prejudicially left "music" here, but that would be too hyperbolic and "grumpy old man" of me). It is more rhythm and a background noise to frame the vocal against. So far it does not work for me, not even a little. Perhaps that is why I have a lack of familiarity. The third track softens the impact a little, there is more musicianship and more of a tune to the backing here. We still have a strong repetition to advance that theme (not a single note this time though) but it is muted, reduced and blue rather than insistent, front and centre and demanding. It is a better track for it, though the breathless singing Waits effects here is not him at his best.

Get Lost sounds like a 60s tune revived and twisted, I can almost see people in black and white doing cheesy dance crazes to the ridiculously quick limited tone pattern except for the darkness of the atmosphere it generates. So far I have not liked anything on this disc, but I am finally hearing promise, a step back from the repetitive, a simpler sound, more space. Face to the Highway may overuse the song title in the lyrics but its construction is much more to my taste. As it goes on, the repetition is there, a march-like beat, but it is mostly a very soft but layered backing and a less forced-sounding Waits in a more familiar delivery. Better. Much better. Pay Me does hark back to Alice a bit, lyrically and thematically it would fit there, even if the music is less atmospheric than those pieces. It still touches on vaudeville, conjures an image of steam organs and mechanical dancing puppets and un-tuned pianos - charming in a shabby kind of way.

Phew, the album has picked up a bit. The start was really harsh, offensive to my ears, but now it seems to have mellowed and settled into a more relaxed mode - strumming, gentle tinkling, and carefree crooning. I get a weird Buena Vista Social Club type air from Back in the Crowd, despite it not being particularly Latin in influence - I think it is the slightly tumbledown impression, with an effect that sounds a little like rain dripping through an incomplete roof. It is a charming track.

I spoke too soon. I am not really surprised when the title track heads back to the style that set me on edge earlier - the title dares it to really. It is not so loud though, and less obviously repetitive. Lyrically more interesting and delivered with an urgency that is much more interesting, but ultimately - and it may be my mood as much as anything - it does not excite me. Kiss Me is classic Waits, rambling with very little to distract from his voice and the pleading story he has to tell. The sparse instrumentation works well for him, especially when it is soft and receding into the background too. We seem to be in a more bluesy mood all of a sudden. The change of style is welcome to a point, but ultimately I am not satisfied with Satisfied - on the one hand I like the bluesy edge, but on the other it remains too samey and the levels of discordance and punchiness somehow just nail a frequency that sets my teeth on edge. The mood and structure of the song I like, but the execution left my ears wanting to shut down.

Last quarter now, and it is an odd duck. The repeated note (pair) theme is gone and dead long ago, but the songs weave from stridency and noise to stripped back lament (to be fair, this is not odd for Waits) in a way that does not feel coherent. One moment you are listening to a pleasant song, well crafted, the next a noisy mess that challenges you. I must admit, I am not up to much of this particular challenge, at least not this evening.

I prefer Waits in thematic mood, tumbledown and touching; dreaming of despair. Less so in aggressive dissonance. I wonder if this album was one hurrah too many, whether my ambivalence to listening tonight sours me, and any number of other thoughts as to why Bad As Me just does not cut it for me. I cannot really say. There are some very nice songs here, but there are also ones that made me want to shut down and walk away. Now that the disc has finished, I have the luxury of doing that.

Baby I'm Yours EP - Math and Physics Club

Track list:

1. Baby I'm Yours

Running time: 2 minutes
Released: 2007

I only have the title track from this EP, which is free on Last FM along with 2 other tracks from Math and Physics Club (I have them, too). i can only assume they were recommended based on someone I actually listen to, so I simply grabbed free stuff, because I do not know this band at all.

I debated crunching the three together but it makes for a titling and labelling nightmare so I figured I would do them separately. Three short posts instead, then; this one is especially short as this song is less than 3 minutes long.

It is twee indie-pop, which makes sense for both the band name and the likelihood of me having picked up some random track somewhere. The jangly guitars and percussion are quite nice, the singing less so. It feels a bit light... like a cut down Allo Darlin' (which is likely where the recommendation came from). Unfortunately cut down too far to be enjoyable enough to make it worth keeping.

Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do - Sigur Rós

Track list:

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

Running time: 20 minutes
Released: 2004

Happy New Year and all that.

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

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

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

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