The Best of Sam & Dave - Sam & Dave

Track list:

1. A Place Nobody Can Find
2. Good Night Baby
3. I Take What I Want
4. Sweet Home
5. You Don't Know Like I Know
6. Hold On, I'm Comin'
7. Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody
8. You Got Me Hummin'
9. When Something Is Wrong With My Baby
10. Small Portion Of Your Love
11. Soothe Me
12. Soul Man
13. May I Baby
14. I Thank You
15. Wrap It Up
16. Still Is The Night
17. You Don't Know What You Mean To Me
18. This Is Your World
19. Can't You Find Another Way (Of Doing It)
20. Soul Sister, Brown Sugar
21. Come On In

Running time: 56 minutes
Released: 1969

Old school now, going back to a decade before I was born when Rhythm and Blues was still a meaningful term. I grew up watching the Blues Brothers regularly, and my favourite piece of music from that film - Peter Gunn theme aside - was not on the soundtrack (here). It is, of course, Hold On, I'm Comin', leading up to the drive-through destruction of a shopping mall. I think its fair to credit my appreciation for this era and genre of music to my youthful exposure to that film.

Whilst close to an hour, this album is made up of a lot of shorter songs and I expect it to fly by. In that it is a product of its time - its funny how the attitude of broadcasters to song length changed, gradual creep in tolerance to now. Pity decisions can't just be taken on the basis of taste/quality rather than a secondary characteristic like duration, but still. That paragraph has taken pretty much all of the first song, one I don't know well. To be honest it was nothing special, and I expect that to be a trend here through the lesser known tracks. That said unless something really bad stands out I am not even going to consider cuts here. As a change up from my normal fare these tunes are welcome even if I am not loving each and every one. Aesthetically they are a world apart from much of my library and they are appreciated on that level for the change of tone and mood. There is a relaxed air associated with listening to these tunes in the modern world, at least for me.

That seems odd in that they are packing quite a bit into a short runtime, but they speak of a much different life. The pressures for people back in the 60s, particularly African Americans, are a world apart from the pressures of anyone in the first world in the 2010s and this was how they wound down and enjoyed themselves. In some ways I long for that sort of detachment from this world... this electronic milieu we find ourselves in, and the sheer pace of day-to-day life in the internet age.

It really doesn't hurt that the harmonies are so good, voices complementing each other so well that you are drawn to that and almost ignore the often very simple and repetitive arrangements. I love the fact that they can get away with calling themselves simply Sam & Dave - that would never fly in 2015. I can't think of a duo so concisely named since the awful Mel and Kim in the 80s (but I am sure there are plenty in scenes that I am not aware of). When the backing picks up, with a bit more energy, volume or other additions to the arrangement, the quality soars. You Don't Know Like I Know is the first tune on the album that I really fall into digging, and it is followed immediately by my favourite. The hook that opens the track and forms the chorus just kills me, and the staccato behind the vocal in the verse is almost as good. Hold On is just sheer cool and it can't help but make me smile. The end of the weekend is almost upon me, but with a long drink to hand and music like this to enjoy it feels like it will last a long while yet.

The simplicity of the formula is remarkable. Now and again it gets more involved, but as a base it really is limited. The short length of the tracks is a real boon in that sense, each on ending before the patterns are fully internalised and dissected as too repetitive. The downside is that most of the songs, if not all, end on an annoying fade out, denying proper closure. Ah, Humming. There is a certainty to this track, a purpose, driven by that bass. It's easy to say with a detached air, separated by 50 (!) years, but this one of the the essences of cool.

I am less enamoured by the more ballad-like When Something Is Wrong With My Baby, also the longest number on this listen at 3.18. It just seems to lack something in comparison. Perhaps with my slightly alcohol-addled brain I need a bit more pace, a bit more bass, and a little more groove. I think it is just a bit too sparse, as the following track immediately appeals more despite some similarities in the vocal approach. It is that touch faster and the arrangement a bit more interesting. Still a fairly significant drop in perceived quality from the high points of Hold On and Humming. Soul Man still to come should reach those heights again though, as does Soothe Me. The opening is underwhelming but once it gets into the swing, there is just something essential about it. I find putting words to what appeals here difficult - there is just something magic in the combinations that make the song significantly greater than the sum of its parts. Pretty repetitive, uninspired lyrics and simple arrangement shouldn't necessarily make for a classic but they do here.

The opening refrain from Soul Man is a classic, and this song is up there with my all time favourites, the chorus sax just magic, the lyrics relate-able the groove innate. I have The Blues Brothers version of the song, which probably resonates more for me for familiarity's sake but the song itself is so amazing and the difference between the versions small. The preference is simply exposure. I am always associating the song with Otis Redding for some reason, but I have no version from Redding, and no idea if his performing it is figment of my imagination or not.

I Thank You is another classic that I only recognise by music, not by name. The insistence of the bass really working here. Oh, man - a bit more modernism injected later on through some sort of organ and a guitar line that sounds fresher and the song is lifted to another level. I love finding little things that I don't recall when going through these listens. I also just love finding myself compelled to listen to things that I would normally overlook. The horn section on Wrap It Up is like Hold On... all over again and the song is just so darn cool, but it is not one I was at all familiar with at all. Finding a real gem only to lose it in the depth of my library again is a little disappointing but at the same time the sheer joy of the pleasant surprise of finding it in the first place is hard to exaggerate.

Generally the faster tracks resonate more than the slower ones. Ballads prey on my loneliness a bit, speak to companionship I don't have, relationships I don't understand on a visceral level but simply end up envying. I think there's more to the difference than that - the harmony maybe doesn't work so well with a slower, sparser support too - but it is hard to look too far past the colour my situation brings to the interpretation. I'm not complaining though, to go by the ballads, being able to relate may not always be a good thing!

The life and love in these pieces is a cut above the John Lee Hooker numbers I listened to yesterday. Even though there are similarities with regards to how formulaic the output can be, Sam & Dave's material has something more vital, a little more pep that makes it that much more accessible, more desirable and more immediately lovable. For all that this disc is just a best of, it is a little gold nugget that I really should polish and show off more often. It is so hard to feel sorry for yourself or negative in any way when you hear music as vital as this. It may be almost half a decade old (and some of these songs no doubt more than that) but it still feels young and relevant to me - I reckon a lot of modern musicians could do a lot worse than hark back to this sound, and harking back has been a big thing recently.

Coming to the end now, and I suspect it might be quite a crash back to reality. Listening to this has transported me away from my sofa for an hour, wrapped me in a blanket that felt like social company. A little injection of joy, pumped out by horn section. More of this, please!

I can't help but hear "light sabre" instead of "life saver" on Come On In though, which ends the listen on a farcical note. Oh well.

The Best of Polish Jazz 2005 - Various Artists

Track list:

2. Jazz is Cool - Pink Freud
10. Conversations With a Life Jacket - Pink Freud

Running time: 10 minutes
Released: 2005

This is random. Two tracks that must have been freebies, both from Pink Freud - which truly is inspired as a band name. I guess I have this as a result of getting into Skalpel and then finding download links somewhere. The full album itself was 18 tracks and included other artists, but I never picked it up, so I am left with a short stub to examine.

The 10 minutes here is actually closer to 11 and breaks down into 7 and more than 3 1/2 in the order listed. Why WMP doesn't round up is beyond me. Jazz is Cool is definitely of modern sensibility, all programming around a solid drumming and Scandinavian trumpet - think Molvær. As the track gets going the influence of the DJ increases, samples and/or scratching added to the mix. The feel is a little kitchen sink in some ways, busy for busy's sake. Some of the less organic sounds are not exactly ear-friendly and yet, the structure of the track creates a laid back overall mood with a little bit of progression.

I think it does a bit too much though, really - it might have been better shorter, or with more clearly defined boundaries. Still, a reasonable track. Conversations With a Life Jacket is very different, a glassy, fragile sound opening it up into a softer, late night track; at mid-morning, this is probably not the ideal listening hour. This is much more melodic, less concerned with being on it, more considered listening. There are hints of programming here and there, an influence that grows over the course of the number, but it is in essence a neat bassy loop with the trumpet leading the melody. I am quite taken with it.

Both tracks offer something, and whilst I think the first strives too hard to deliver it, that does not stop me liking it. All in all a good little interlude, and what I heard streaming when searching for the origins of this disc suggests that the wider album is possibly worth picking up.

The Best of Friends - John Lee Hooker

Track list:

1. Boogie Chillen
2. This Is Hip
3. The Healer
4. I Cover The Waterfront
5. Boom Boom
6. I'm In The Mood
7. Burnin' Hell
8. Tupelo
9. Baby Lee
10. Dimples
11. Chill Out (Things Gonna Change)
12. Big Legs Tight Skirt
13. Don't Look Back

Released: 1998
Running time: 63 minutes

It's another long one, darn it.

Basil Brush must have liked this guy, Shahid Afridi too. Other famous names associated with Boom Boom out of the way in crappy uninspired fashion (see I know I am bad at this writing lark), John Lee Hooker's classic track figures here, but not on the 6 discs of the eponymous Big Box I have coming up far too soon for my liking. Not sure why I have so much of Hooker. Whilst iconic, my impression is one of conservatism and staid music, if backed up by good vocal. Still we'll see how misguided I am, or not, here.

This album has Hooker playing with others; I don't remember who, and though Carlos Santana is listed as composer in some of the track data I couldn't vouch for the accuracy of that (and I suspect I wouldn't recognise his style to confirm it later). Whilst I have the disc somewhere, I don't find myself motivated to check.

A whole month's rain fell in a summer's day yesterday, today is brighter, but it comes at the end of a week that felt long, with two cancelled social events and work that picked up towards Friday afternoon rather than winding down into the weekend. That last weekend I did not get enough sleep to catch up on the prior week leaves me feeling washed out. Boogie Chillen is actually fairly upbeat, pacier than I would have expected, so helps to shake off the reticence with which I approached starting this hour-long blues fest. This is Hip feels formulaic, slower by a touch, but falling into repetition fairly early with a hook that does little to inspire me. To be fair, whilst the rhythm of the piece stays rutted fairly well there is more variation around it over the course of the track and it is never an unpleasant experience, just never a particularly engaging one either.

OK, I was wrong, Santana is easy to pick out. Just think M&S food ad. I actually find this sort of overwrought virtuousity tedious, high pitch, minimal accompaniment because the guitar has to be the star. It lends itself to boring situations, and therefore ends up boring me right back even as the stage light is shining on the lead. It feels to me almost as if this particularly masturbatory playing comes with a derision for musicians playing other parts. I know that can't truly reflect any of the masters of this craft, and that actually it says more about my preferences and prejudices than anything else but... yeah. Not a fan.

So why, you might ask, if I have had two nights of social engagements fall through, did I not get to this during the week rather than wait for the weekend? The answer in two words: Rocket League. The most fun game I thought I wouldn't like I can imagine, and one of the free PSN freebies for July. Both cancelled evenings turned into RL nights. Confused, is that Van Morrison? Sounds like him, and now I am motivated to get the disc to check... yes it is. Saw a couple of other recognisable names whilst I was at it but I am not clear what it might mean for my enjoyment of the album. I Cover the Waterfront is very VM in tone musically as well. This does not feel like Hooker's blues. I find it soothing, soothing enough that it has reminded me just how tired I was immediately before starting this post.

Ah, there is Afridi. It is impossible not to like this track. Hard to love it, but impossible not to like it. Classics are generally considered classic for a reason. This recording has a busy arrangement, much more going on than my memory typically associates with the song, and a sort of swampy air to the main guitar line, is it deliberately slightly off key? Not sure, but it works well enough, organ blaring as we get into the denouement, the song closing off before it can get old.

Old is how In the Mood starts and I would guess how it stays too. It's an age-old song subject but more usually younger and more vitally approached. Works a bit better for being a duet, the female voice (Bonnie Raitt) offsetting Hooker's well. That said, this is precisely the staid and conservative approach to blues that I mentioned in the introduction. Pedestrian-slow, strictly formulaic, and simply arranged. It has its time and place, but for me that time is past. I don't mean that blues like this belongs in the past, just that appreciation of it is behind me now. The track that follows addresses one of the issues I had - the pace is much higher - but despite a more animated guitar style the rigid structure reinforces the impression that even when tracks are being reworked with different players the dominant direction of the effort is keeping things in check. A conservative nature showing through. You would expect that, for all that others are involved his name above the door. The others are just guests in Hooker's house.

Tupelo is stripped right back, and actually here is where the more formulaic approach works better, the gentle riffs and foot-tapping presenting just enough of a stage for the basically spoken vocal. My first impression as the track began was a weary one, but as it progressed I got more into it and it is unquestionably the most enjoyable number heard today. For all the negativity that readers might pick up on here, I don't really dislike anything on this album, and perhaps tellingly I find myself more willing by this point to nod my head along with the patterns of Baby Lee. I wonder, then, how different the first half of this post would be if I were to start the listen afresh. My mood has changed a little, and maybe it is adjusting itself around my environment - the most significant part of which is the music that is now my main focus.

Dimples - I would never have recognised the track by name, but musically and lyrically it is distinctive as another straight up classic. Isn't it funny how through popular culture we can develop intimate familiarity with things without ever knowing them by name? Marketing bods have worked that out, of course - hence jingles like that soddingly annoying hook they play at lots of cricket matches and everyone cheers. Happily I couldn't tell you what it's for. I was happy when, earlier in the summer, I heard Graeme Swann railing against it on Test Match Special and pleading for people not to engage with it.

Back to more Santana-isms. For the record, the change of mood hasn't made this style any more appealing. It just makes me think of delicious looking ice cream and over-priced pre-prepared meals. And hairy old men pleasing themselves in ways I would really rather not think about (and I say that as a hairy soon-to-be-middle-aged,-but-by-outlook-already-old man). Thankfully that is the last of that. For lead out we have two longer numbers. 6 minutes is an awful long time for blues songs that rely on the exact same rhythmic approach for their duration. There are limits to what can be done to alleviate the tapping away that such strongly structured rhythms do to the skull - variation in the treble is massively important, variation in lyrics too. Alas, Big Legs, Tight Skirt has none of the latter and this really kills the track for me as it lets the constants of the composition wear me down. I think my energy for this task is almost used up, but like the cyclists over in France the key is having the tank run empty at the point the stage is broken.

The last number has more of Van Morrison's looser, organ-driven background fodder and laid back vocal. Very different from the tracks more immediately Hooker's but constructed under similarly predictable formulas. In the right mood... anything can be good. It feels like a closer so it is appropriately located and it sways by slowly, waving goodbye as the album slides out of time and into memory.

Time and a place; some of these tracks transcend that, others feel like that is somewhere I might visit on another day. A third set, the casualties of this listen, are either rooted somewhere I cannot see myself going or set off down a path to somewhere I never wanted to go in the first instance. What a convoluted pile-of-tosh sentence that was! Oh well, we've reached the end, the pruning hour and about 50% of tracks are cut loose. Up next... a weird one.

The Best of British Folk [Castle] - Various Artists

Track list:

1. Streets of London - Ralph McTell
2. Colours - Donovan
3. Light Flight (Take Three Girls Theme) - Pentangle
4. Needle of Death - Bert Jansch
5. Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway - The Humblebums
6. Mirrors - Sally Oldfield
7. Candy Man - John Renbourn
8. The Times They Are A-Changin' - The Ian Campbell Folk Group
9. I'm So Confused - Mick Softly
10. Boadicea - Dave Swarbrick
11. Both Sides Now - The Johnstons
12. The Alchemist and the Pedler - Dransfield
13. Bright Phoebus - Mike and Lal Waterson
14. Timeless and Strange - Keith Christmas
15. Stargazer - Shelagh McDonald
16. Breakdown of the Song - Decameron
17. When I Was on Horseback - Steeleye Span
18. Fiddler's Green - Tim Hart & Maddy Prior
19. Mary Skeffington - Gerry Rafferty
20. Matty Groves - Fairport Convention

Released: 1995
Running time: 79 minutes

What to say about this? It was probably a mistake, a quick unthinking purchase when I first realised I was getting into folk. It certainly feels that 1995 should be more like 1975 in terms of release and that this represents as much of what was wrong with folk music than what is right about it but we'll see. I recognise a few of the performers and a couple of the songs. Will this turn into the rag on cluelessness hour?

We open with Streets of London, a classic of sorts. Actually not a bad song, but I cannot hear it without thinking of a Big Train sketch where McTell is forced to just repeat it over and over as none of his audience know anything else. Video embedded below. That rather makes it a throwaway, pleasant roll that brings a wry amusement. it is not a song that grabs me and demands full attention, promising great reward.

Donovan. The name is synonymous with the less than enlightened folk that the filled wilderness years before the revival of the 00s that persists to date. I have never heard him before other than perhaps on Top of the Pops 2 with some shoddy faux-comedic captioning. I am not impressed. I will state now that I am sure my prejudicial attitude to this material will colour this listen, but I am not going to apologise for that.

The Pentangle track starts as a mess but improves when the vocal joins in, despite its rather airy tone it seems to bind the disparate threads of the music together. There are bits and pieces of interest in the composition but as a whole it falls flat for me. Ah, that is a bit better. Bert Jansch has a (very) little of Nick Drake about him, as much in the intonation as anything else. Not the voice or the delivery as a whole, but the cadence on certain words matches my metal recollection of Drake here and there. Alas it is nowhere near as enduring, and as the song wears on the performance starts to grate a little. The picked guitar is repetitive to a significant degree and the singing voice is harsher than I would like and I find myself happier once it ends.

That is not to say what starts next impresses immediately. It has that same comfortable impression: aiming to, and hitting, a very specific but very bland note. It tries to dispel this thought by the inclusion of brass and/or woodwind - which works to a point - but I find this uninspired TV theme tune music, as if it is aiming for the lowest common denominator of "not disagreeable" rather than shooting to impress.

If it weren't for the sleigh-bells and a horridly warbling vocal, Mirrors might have been interesting. That vocal is worse for the effect of the recording, self-echo or something. The rhythm here is more interesting, a little Latin in places, even, but there is no redeeming the bells. Ugh.

 

 Big Train does Streets of London

Candyman returns to a picked guitar and vocal - it is precisely the kind of blind Dylan-copy I expected to find on this disc. All the same idea, but with none of the craft or genre-defining pioneering, which makes it apt that the next track is a cover of The Times They Are A-Changin' that, by introducing a pretty bad harmony, hand-bells and a depth of accompaniment that overpowers the melody makes for a horrid experience. It is not even that I hold Dylan on a pedestal; I have a little, not much. This though? This is travesty. Of music. How it got on to any "best" anything is beyond me.

Almost half way through in terms of tracks, but alas not close for time. Yes, I am wishing it were over already. My evening plans broke down last minute, which is where I found the time to do this listen, started on impulse when I knew I wouldn't be going out. I have, again, been neglecting my self-imposed workload in favour of simple recovery or being busy. I'm So Confused drifts by almost unnoticed, and then we hit a fiddle tune, Boadicea.  This I like more and could see myself not skipping if it came up in a shuffle. It has enough of a tune that I can excuse the somewhat out-of-place electric bass, the little loopy "pause" being particularly effective for my taste. Glad this hasn't been a total waste of time, then!

It's funny that the "Best of British Folk" involves covers of notable people from across the Atlantic, eh? First Dylan, now Joni Mitchell. I figured this for a cover when I heard it start, but wouldn't have known of whom without Google - though I do apparently have another version of this song on Herbie Hancock's tribute, River. It isn't amongst the couple of Mitchell albums I have though. It breezes by, nothing noteworthy beyond its obvious non-traditional provenance.

We are back to quintessentially English folk-rock blahdom with Dransfield though. Straight out of the inoffensive middle of the road blandness that characterised a decade or two of "folk" on these shores. Twee guitar riff, boring rhythm, darkness-infused vocal that is occasionally used to add dramatic stress (or rather fail to). This is symptomatic of why folk fell out of fashion, obliterated by more energetic and inspiring performances in other fields. Seven and a half minutes of dreary droning, its enough to drive me to drink. Thankfully I picked up some Hoegaarden in my monthly shop on the way home, so that isn't all bad!

With the Watersons I am on more familiar ground, but ground I tread warily. I both recognise their role in preserving British folk traditions and indirectly helping forge the revival and find myself not really liking their work a lot of the time. I have more than a couple of albums by, or inspired by them though so Waterson is a name that will appear again on these pages.

Honestly, what kind of name is Keith Christmas? One associated with blandness and very stereotypical delivery that completely conjures the beardy weirdy freak image of 70s folk, detached from the real world rather than rooted in it, even when spinning tales of the fantastic. If you can't tell, I don't much like Timeless and Strange - the title is the least boring thing about it, and even that is awful. Timeless this isn't; Forgettable and Bland would be a more apt name. Musically, Stargazer is similarly uninspiring. Vocally it is the most interesting thing thus far on the disc and pleasant enough to override my initial detachment with the arrangement. There are echoes of Mitchell, or perhaps some other luminary I cannot place here too in the first half of the track. Alas the second half is completely devoid of interest as the vocal dies out and is replaced by some chanting that is background to the still uninspired tune. I got my hopes up for a second there; lesson learned.

Oh dear, how totally... I have no words. Decameron's effort is a commentary on the music industry, a meta-song. It is also awful; it may be lyrically amusing in its effect but again it just smacks of blandness, lack of craft and turn up bash out musicianship.

Oh now, that's interesting. I am pretty sure I have heard these lyrics before in a different context, because I don't recognise When I Was On Horseback as performed here, or as a title. Steeleye Span, though... the name is very familiar. Memories of my dad's record collection - he's a big Fairport fan too; took my brother and I to Cropredy, along with some Greek guests, almost 20 years back now; a better experience than you might think based on my notes here! Anyhow, I don't think much of this piece, but I found the familiarity of some of the lyrics interesting. Not too surprised though, folk songs are like that - the same song recorded with very different tunes and variable lyrics that overlap but don't mimic.

Nearing the end now, not much more to endure. I fist typed "enjoy" then, but that certainly wouldn't be accurate. I am more relaxed now than when I begun, so the exercise has not been in vain. It is one more album chalked off, and a bad, long one at that. The next disc has to be more promising, right? This ends up, predictably I guess, with Fairport Convention. I should be scathing as they are the epitome of the bland folk rock I despise... but, well. I think there is a mitigation: this whole genre was to some degree others copying them after their success. That said, I don't much like the song, the long lead out in particular. I end with this disc all but wiped out, only Boadicea and Streets of London kept. Onwards to better things I hope.

The Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004 - Lamb

Track list:

1. Cotton Wool
2. God Bless
3. Gold
4. Gorecki
5. Little Things
6. B Line
7. Lullaby
8. Bonfire
9. Heaven
10. One
11. Gabriel
12. Angelica
13. Til The Clouds Clear
14. Wonder
15. Please
16. Stronger

Running time: 71 minutes
Released: 2004

Lamb. Not sure why I have this... probably led to it via other "trip-hoppy" groups. Lamb were never a group I was abreast of when they were current and I have never really listened to this after acquiring it so whilst I have a reasonable idea of what sort of thing this disc contains, I am far from familiar with any of its contents. Depressingly it runs to over an hour, which means it is probably too long since my last post. If not, consider this more evidence of how I prepare the content for this backwater.

...

I wrote the paragraph above as I was setting up this post, immediately on finishing the last one.I predicted a long gap but even I didn't expect a whole month. June was a disaster of small things mounting up, and the early part of July has been dominated by recovering from finally sorting those things out. Hopefully I can establish some kind of rhythm again, though with the Ashes on radio to dominate my listening and a frankly poor run of things to get through before the interesting albums start again I have a degree of self-doubt there. Anyway, enough babbling and whinging, get on with it Graham!

We start with a dingy hook and a light vocal piercing the darkly reverberating space it leaves. I know none of these tracks, so this is a voyage of discovery as well as an attempt to kickstart the stalled project. Structure of electronically produced percussion is added, but the vocal is left to carry the tune on its own for the most part. It's a very odd introduction but not unwelcome. There is something trance-inducing about the percussive edge and darkly swirling sounds melded with it. Not brilliant or inspired, just a bit different and interesting in a way that, say Tricky's Angels With Dirty Faces was not for me. It loses my interest at the end of Cotton Wool by adding fairground-like pipes; ugh. I think the thing this most reminds me of, as God Bless begins, is the tracks that Sinead O'Connor recorded with Massive Attack on 100th Window. Whilst I would not say anything here is as accomplished as Massive Attack at their best, they probably do provide the best touchstone. Lamb are a little more pared back and stripped down though.

My feeling is that these two opening tracks have both been a little too long for their own good, and a glance at the player confirms they are both 5+ minutes, giving plenty of time to get a bit stale despite having reasonably solid core themes and ideas. I particularly like the vocal, much lighter than I was expecting, soft edges rather than a harder tone, and this contrasts the often very stark backing. These tracks are crafted to showcase the vocal component in places and do so effectively. I am not completely sold on the composition and arrangements yet.

Gold continues the trend of being just too long and - frankly - a bit too samey. Now we hit Gorecki, which a quick search indicates is their "signature". Backing of softly applied strings creates a crucible for the singing early on, overworked percussion joining to smear the contrast later. The piece does not work for me... too similar, nothing standing out, same faults at the prior tracks. I feel like I am still on the start line with this listen. The main problem is that whilst the sparse arrangements were interesting up front, there really isn't any long term engagement there, I can find more interesting programming elsewhere. I will say I love the singing but other than that? Patience wearing thin. At least the tracks get a bit shorter from here... hopefully punchier and more memorable too.

Ah, Little Things is familiar - more urgent, a more understandable percussive form to it. Fast, immediate and grungy. As a mood piece, very nice threat and edge to it. Not a comfortable listen but all the better for that. The central section, which drops the voice, is a little bland but without it the skittishness would not be quite the same. The jump into B Line is ugly - the start of the new piece really leaving a lot to be desired and just when I thought it might be getting better it devolves into a sonic mess, a pattern that unfortunately repeats again within the same track.

So far this is not creating a positive impression; I am left with the thought that if this is their best of then what was the main corpus of their work like?!

Lullaby is braver, better. Stepping away from mediocre beats that override as much or more than they support. Instead we have the voice sitting in a well of orchestral strings, the singing bringing the darkness along with a hint of bass line. Maybe this marks a swing in the pieces, as Bonfire seems to be a step in a similar direction, a slight dissonance with the echoing vocal, twice recorded, and atmosphere and tension building. Strings and piano taking over the accompaniment from clicks, whirrs and beats. My complaint, because I have to have one, is that lyrically it is rubbish, losing a lot of the impression that the voice makes to inanity. Shame really, I can see so much that is right in here, but the results seem to be dominated by the bits that are wrong.

I am only half way through. My stamina for this is waning - I have not sat at these keys trying to concertedly type for this long in a while... other than writing up my ongoing Albion game when sessions happen, but that has been as affected by recent events as this blog - not having the mental energy to approach writing up the material amidst a need to keel over after getting in the door. I digress because it feels like Lamb have, too. Heaven sounds like it should have been done by someone else - too light, too floaty - it does not fit with what has been, and does not address my problems with what I have been hearing.

The dark tone comes back with One, and is welcome. I have a fondness for slightly grubby sounds that evoke shady back alley deals, conflicts barely held back and danger in every shadow. I think it appeals to the gamer in me as the dirty darkness is pregnant with potential drama. Alas I am not convinced that there is enough to this to make good use of those themes. Just a little too... repetitive? Maybe. Too derivative? Well what isn't? Hard to put my finger on it. Gabriel, like Heaven ditches that tone and as a result sounds like a thousand and one other songs that I cannot name and have no desire to listen to again. Bland, not bad, everything it does done better somewhere else by someone else.

Is this best of really that bad? Probably not. I think in other circumstances, perhaps in the context of the original albums, I might have had a more positive response to Lamb. Angelica sounds awfully familiar... must be the Debussy sample that has been used elsewhere. Actually I think this track really works, uses the sample well.

The tone definitely seems to have shifted. In place of the darkness and electronica now we have light acoustic ballads? OK then. Musically it is plodding, unpromising to start, but interesting when the thrusting percussion appears unexpectedly... the only constant seems to be the pleasant singing voice. Veering from bland and boring to over-stimulation would work better for me if the two poles were placed slightly closer together. Contrast is good, but this feels more like a bait and switch than a coherent whole.

Wonder reminds me of How Do from Becoming X, so similar is the structure, the lightness and indeed the contrast with most of the rest of the album the song is being consumed with. Its not as good as the Sneaker Pimps track to my mind, and I really don't need both of them. Wonder just feels a little bland somehow.

I am glad to be winding down this listen, less glad to have had my fears for it be proved true. A couple of tracks will be held on to but the majority are for the bin. I really must sort out a better writing position if I am going to keep going with this (and that is still the plan, despite the long hiatus) as my back is aching an hour into this listen. I don't know what to do about that because it's just so convenient having a laptop on my coffee table for general use.

As for the remaining tracks... Please is just dull, bland. Stronger, which will end this post starts promisingly but ultimately does not grow as it could. The electro-funk bass which kicks in for the final third feels like it has warped in from a completely different genre but does at least bring a little more depth and so, maybe, just rescues the song from the precipice of disappointment.

Overall? Yeah, this does not do it for me. Couple of highlights, but mostly chaff. I found the transition in style over the course of the album interesting, suggesting that tracks were arranged chronologically to some degree, and there were good points - be they specific ideas, good use of vocal or whatever - scattered around the various tracks. Overall, though, it just lacks something intangible, never quite up to enough to make it stand out or to raise Lamb to the bar set by their contemporaries or genre neighbours.

The Best Imitation of Myself (Disc 3) - Ben Folds

Track list:

1. Unrelated
2. Best Imitation of Myself
3. Rocky
4. Boxing
5. Julianne - Ben Folds Five
6. Evaporated - Ben Folds Five
7. Alice Childress - Ben Folds Five
8. Barrytown - Ben Folds Five
9. Amelia Bright - Ben Folds Five
10. Tell Me What I Did - Ben Folds Five
11. Rock Star
12. Losing Lisa
13. Break Up at Food Camp

16. Hiro's Song
15. Wandering
16. The Secret Life of Morgan Davis
17. Such Great Heights
18. Bitches Ain't Shit
19. Time
20. Sleazy
21. Because the Origami - 8in8
22. Stumblin' Home Winter Blues - Ben Folds Five

Running time: 77 minutes
Released: 2011

We reach the end of Ben Folds pretending to be himself with a rarities disc. Some of this is likely to be quite bad, other bits are probably gold dust. I don't recall a lot of the specific versions of better known songs here, or indeed many of the others so whilst this disc is one of the reasons I bought The Best Imitation of Myself, it is relatively unexplored compared to the other two.

Again it has been an age since I managed to post anything. I thought that after buying the car I would be freer mentally. Alas between work, ants and being the victim of petty vandalism I have had more on my plate than I would have liked - especially as resolving it has taken much longer than expected. Oh well, Ben to the rescue now.

We open with a really short unfinished piece, then launch into the title track for this collection. I guess this is a late recording - if I had the discs to hand I could check - but its brighter, lighter than the version I am familiar with, adding strings. Its all very... over the top in a sort of manicured way. Precision and propriety is not what Ben Folds does but here things sound too exact, too sculpted. Its interesting but incongruous. Rocky is new on me - in that I have it nowhere else, and I don't know it well enough to have preconceptions. It sounds like Ben Folds Five (eponymous album) era. College rock. Bright, breezy but kinda wistful. I like it. The cadence of the chorus is pleasing, even if the piano is perhaps a little too dominant. The track does feel like it goes on for ever though. It is only 4 and a half minutes, but the two before are short enough that this feels like a lifetime.

Boxing; great song. Said it all before. I am not immediately clear on what makes this version different but I do not have it tagged as Ben Folds Five, so I suspect there are some subtleties in the bass/drums on the band versions that I don't pick up on. There is some harmonisation in the choruses here that is different in a nice way, but the line that stabs me through the heart every time I hear it does not have the same impact in this rendition. Most of these versions are, I will guess now, not quite up to the ones that got published and released. There may be some charm here and there, but generally... something lacking. Julianne seems to back up this view as, whilst being more musical than the final album version, it lacks pace and energy. I might not like the song much, but at least it has some life in other performances. Here it is just flat.

The next song sinks in with its opening chords. Evaporated is a rare thing: a Ben Folds Five track I love to bits that I haven't yet written about on this blog. This feels a little under-produced compared with the version that concludes Whatever and Ever Amen but the song is fundamentally the same, a beautifully constructed tale of sadness and regret. I find myself silently mouthing along with the lyrics out of habit, mind unable to do much else. I haven't listened to this song for a fair while and whilst it is much as I remember, and I remembered that I loved it, I seem to love it more than I remembered. Or maybe it just feels appropriate after a crappy week or two, though I don't think I have much to regret per se. That it then drops into Alice Childress is pretty good sequencing I think, keeping some semblance of continuity in tone and theme. I am so wrapped up in this now, just unable to find words to communicate that. Maybe they will start to flow as we move through, or perhaps not.

Barrytown is another one I do not recognise; it feels raw, unpolished. WMP suggests it is a cover, but I don't know of whom. It does have very "Foldsian" feel to it, the structure of the lines, the exuberance, the rhythms... if it is someone else's song, this certainly has Folds' stamp on it. Weird, the bass sounds muted towards the end. The track has breezed by and it is replaced by another one I don't recognise - one written by drummer Darren Jesse (preceding one penned by bassist Robert Sledge). Amelia Bright is a bit too thin, body-less. There's nothing to not like, but by the same token there really isn't anything to find to applaud either. I worry that the rest of this disc might be like that, but I am hoping that there is a bit more good stuff in here too.

Tell Me What I Did sounds like... well it feels like I have heard this a hundred times before in other Ben Folds Five songs, yet at the same time I cannot name one that would validate that comment. It is a sense not of déjà vu, but déjà entendu. I spent the whole bloody track trying to remember the French for "to hear" and had to look it up in the end. Good job I'm using that education, eh? In my defense it was almost 2 decades ago now.

Rock Star is a song I have always had time for, self-awareness is rare enough in the general population that I don't expect to see it in anyone in the public eye, but Folds has always had that side to him - the same one that produces the self-deprecation of Rocking the Suburbs that is so inherently endearing to me as a Brit. This version of the song fades out weirdly in the middle though, or so it feels, and Folds launches into Losing Lisa. This is a tune I have always liked but this particular version changes the lyrics in a place or two from the released album version and I think the song suffers for it. The arrangement is also slightly softer, leveled differently or something. There is a vim missing, and with it an impact. Still a very nice piece of music though even if it sounds like it was recorded on the tinniest microphone he could find.

We blast through a crappy mall-based dumping song - not really much to recommend in this. It feels 2 decades or more out of date, like it should be on the soundtrack of Kevin Smith's Mallrats. I am astonished to find on a quick Google that this was an outake from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner rather than earlier. Then I have to adjust the pasted track list below the image as Hiro's Song (boring, sorry) comes before Wandering not the other way around.

Wandering I love. I have this on an EP somewhere that may surface later and I think that is probably the better version but I find this song touching in the extreme. The chorus really gels for me, a plaintive, regretful voice over a wonderfully judged piano, softly melodic, conveying the tone perfectly. Ben Folds has never been the worlds best vocalist, but it is easy to forgive him that when he composes and writes (co-with Darren Jesse here) as well as this. Ah, yeah - thought so. The other version is definitely better. Here the midsection is a little out of kilter with the verses and chorus, the tone shifted by the arrangement. Still, it is very much the same song, and the last lines of the final verse are still a hammer blow.

We get a music-hall (or should that be stupid sitcom credits sequence?) inspired number next, inserted here in what feels like a really inappropriate change of tone. This song could only be American in its composition, even before it gets to the crackpot lyrics. I don't like it at all - its a childish attempt to be funny that just misses the mark for me. Morgan Davis can take his secret life elsewhere.

I own a best-of from The Postal Service (great band name, I think) thanks to this next track, where Folds covers Such Great Heights. The arrangement is not as immediately pleasant as I remembered, and the verses are terse and tenser than I recalled, but the chorus I love. Folds manages to create the same sense of constriction, claustrophobia and edginess through incredible staccato key mashing that the original managed with programmed sequences (though his version gets some of that later), and the song itself carries with it enough that any half-faithful rendition is going to be worth your time.

We stay in covers-land for Bitches Ain't Shit. The song itself is really not up my street at all, though I do remember seeing Folds perform this live, just him and his keys and being amazed by the performance; somehow he manages to sell it as a soft piano ballad. Its remarkable genre-busting work, but yeah... there's nothing admirable about the source material, laden with all the misongyny you would expect from the title. I don't think any less of Folds for covering it - I am pretty sure it is deliberately ironic - but once you have heard it once, the impressiveness of his work with the song is completely overruled by the offensiveness of the lyrics. I won't miss it.

Time comes and goes - not sure what is different about this from the version on Songs for Silverman. I haven't listened to that album for an age, something I should perhaps remedy once my car is drivable again. I like the song, like most of the album, but it doesn't stick in my mind quite as much as others. It is a brief respite before another genre-twist. Sleazy is pretty ....ing bad. I am not familiar at all with the source (unlike Bitches Ain't Shit) and so anything Folds brings in transposing this song is lost on me and I am just left to interpret what I hear in a more literal way. This has none of the class of the other rework, none of the musicality in the result. Its just a sonic mess with nothing to recommend it at all.

Because the Origami is by 8in8; 8in8 is Ben Folds with a couple of others, most notably for me it includes author Neil Gaiman (who inspired another album I have - Where's Neil When You Need Him, which I bought because Thea Gilmore contributed a track). This song is alright but nothing special. I am sensing the end - just this and what I expect to be a nothing-like junk track to go. Stumblin' Home Winter Blues is... yeah. Nothing much to it, or nothing I can see after an hour of other Folds songs anyway. It's another Darren Jesse-penned track, and like Amelia Bright it is pretty-ish but lightweight, nothing to hook on to, nothing to engage with. Its light fare, perfectly listenable but easily forgettable; I wonder if his band Hotel Lights were pretty much that too?

Who knows... not me. I'm done here, slightly trimmer and resolving again to try and make more posts here without such a large gap. We'll see if I manage it.

The Best Imitation of Myself (Disc 2) - Ben Folds

Track list:

1. Julianne - Ben Folds Five
2. Video - Ben Folds Five
3. Song for the Dumped
4. Missing the War - Ben Folds Five
5. Mess - Ben Folds Five
6. Magic - Ben Folds Five
7. Selfless, Cold and Composed
8. Zak and Sara
9. Girl
10. Just Pretend - The Bens
11. Fred Jones, Part 2
12. Careless Whisper (Feat. Rufus Wainwright)
13. All U Can Eat
14. Long Tall Texan
15. Army - Ben Folds Five
16. Battle of Who Could Care Less - Ben Folds Five
17. Kylie from Connecticut
18. Effington
19. Picture Window
20. Sentimental Guy
21. Not the Same

Running time: 79 minutes
Released: 2011

Disc 2 of the Ben Folds retrospective, again featuring solo performances, Ben Folds Five, and a couple of others - The Bens (his collaboration with two other musicians named Ben; I never got into) and a duet with Rufus Wainwright, a definite high point on this disc.

However we start with a rendition of Julianne - one of my least favourite Ben Folds Five numbers when I first heard it, and still so now. This is a disc of live performances, and the song initially benefits from this, but as it gets going it is ultimately still not a very good song. Ben's voice is odd in places on the track too - it feels like a very raw recording, not just live but basic. Thankfully it is also short, and over before I can get too annoyed by it, and Video is a much more pleasant track.

The song does sound different to the album version(s) of it that I have, again a slightly raw and basic edge to the quality, different balance between the parts. The bass is particularly clear which gives the song a strangely rumbling timbre. The album recordings are dominated by the piano (as you might expect) but here those keys are subsumed into the whole rather than tinkling over everything in a domineering fashion. Man, that is an odd sentence, when can a tinkle domineer? In any case, this difference in balance and tone makes it an interesting alternative, and so worth keeping despite duplication of the song.

Not sure I will keep this version of Song for the Dumped though. There is a very tinny edge to the recording, over-driven bass and it also feels like a good performance is ditched in favour of gusto. There are definite differences from other recordings of the song, but it is not a favourite track (I'm sure the younger me loved it for the naughty words and angry sentiment but no more). I am doing this listen now because rain has washed out the cricket for the day - and with it any chance of an England win. Thankfully there was play earlier as I made my way over to Hook Norton to pick up a case of beer, but mostly as an excuse to get out and drive the new car. I would rather be spending this early evening listening to Alistair Cook continue his return to a run of good form, but alas, Folds' songs will have to suffice.

Missing the War is one of my favourite Ben Folds Five tracks (from Whatever and Ever Amen) and this recording does not mess with the formula much. There is some nice harmony, though it also strains at points, and the faithful performance of the album track carries the emotional punch just fine. I do not have much else to add, except that the swell of crowd applause at the end of the track was deserved. Then we dive into Mess and Magic from Reinhold Messner...

They form a sort of heartbreaking couplet, melancholy and loneliness imparted strongly, but beautifully and melodically. Mess loses something of the softness of the piano that I want to say exists on the album version, but the performance is as laden with strings and pain and regret as any. I think the tempo is up in places though, it feels quicker than memory recalls but [retread of old ground]. Magic starts with that perfect piano melody, so good it really shows up the fact that Folds' voice is not the best. This might just be his finest tune, not my favourite, and not his best song, but his best tune. I am incredibly fond of its light yet sombre tone and appreciate the more precise and considered playing that comes with it compared to his more bombastic tunes. The love and friendship that come through, the genuine heartfelt emotion carried in the piece, they completely excuse the use of made up words because it simply doesn't matter what is being said at the end of the day - you get the message from the whole thing anyway.

And just like that we're done with Ben Folds Five for a while, even as the next track is a Five song. Selfless Cold and Composed was always a piano-dominated piece so Folds playing it alone loses very little and, like Magic, it has a wonderful theme to fall back on. Listening to these two songs back to back again now rekindles the wish that I could play like this. I have written before of my lasting affinity for piano music after learning as a teen, and emotionally active melodies trigger the regret of not keeping up with things more than anything else.

Zak and Sara works better than it should, and is a powerful performance, Folds' fingers working overtime drumming out a rhythm as well as the tune, but frankly I don't like the song enough to have two live versions of it on my hard drive. I have barely scratched the surface of this listen yet - not half way in. Despite the paucity of my offerings recently I am half-regretting starting this one because of the length. Stupid, that, since it has nothing to do with what I am listening to, though to be frank Girl is jut shit; to be fair Folds describes it as his "0.6" and suitable for a boy-band. My take is its too crap even for that!

The Bens featured Ben Folds, Ben Kweller (the one I remember) and Ben Lee (the one I always forget). I never knew anything about the other two, and never investigated the output of Ben-to-the-power-3. On the basis of the track here, that was a good decision; its just a dull, repetitive loop of a song with nothing to hold or draw the interest. When it ends, I reckon it is unlikely I will ever listen to them again. Coming on the back of that dullness, a return to a sad and emotional piece is effective. Its funny - I never really appreciated Fred Jones as an album track, but here, and thinking back to my prior experience of this disc, it is a song I really like. I don't know if that is because I can relate, working in an office and would hate to be there or what...

Now we hit the heights. Careless Whisper may be a George Michael number but the song is not to be written off just for that, and here the interplay between Folds and his flamboyant guest is awesome. I have a few Rufus Wainwright albums (though to be honest I kinda wish I'd stopped at two) and like him as a showman. He and Folds have very different voices that play off each other well and whilst the whole performance has more than a touch of camp about it, the song is nailed. 

Ugh, my back is starting to ache; I do not have the ideal posture or position for long stints actively addressing the keyboard like this. I think my coffee table has got away from my couch again. I really need to sort out my spare room so I can get a proper desk set up... not that I would use it, it is too convenient having the laptop in the front room with everything else. A couple of comedic numbers drift by before we head back to the Five for a couple more. Long Tall Texan is half a song really - Folds admitting to the crowd mid number he knows no more of the words. Still.

Army; we've been here before. It's a great song and fantastic live. This version is again different from the live version Folds does solo on Ben Folds Live. I don't just mean the fact that they actually have the horns to do the horn parts rather than relying on the audience; the drums and bass really adding to the ensemble sound, taking up slack. I think I prefer the piano-only, audience participation version (as I have been there, done that audience wise) but I like both. This version of Battle of Who Could Care Less is good too - its uptempo washout cheer is oddly welcome right about now and I somehow daze my way through it, remembering to type this line only as it ends.

Five to go, and it is a bit of a denouement from here. Two songs from Way to Normal first, one I rather like followed by one I could take or leave. There is something very sad about Kylie From Connecticut, the narrative of this song is one of a return to an infidelity in later years - speaking to a loneliness. However what really strikes me about this piece is the fact that this rendition goes bananas in the middle of it, an instrumental insert that seems at odds with the sombre general tone. I think it's not as good as the album version (and I didn't like much from that album as we might see when we eventually get there), but I would need to check before hitting delete. Effington is just... blah - it has some nice bits, it has some awful bits and overall it comes to a pretty dull whole.

Picture Window, on the other hand... this song is a true favourite. Penned by Nick Hornby for Lonely Avenue, it knocks me flat with its chorus. It's a song about the mother of a very sick child, sad and trying not to get hopes up. Hope is a bastard. There is something compelling about that, but oddly (and I would imagine deliberately) genuinely hopeful too. Hope may be a bastard, but its a necessary one and part of being human. Folds nails the tone with his tune, though the playing here sounds a little out compared with the album version in one or two places. Still a great song though.

Sentimental Guy introduces a trumpet which I don't recall being part of the album recording, some harmonies which definitely were (with Weird Al Yankovic if memory serves), and then we hit the last number. An audience-participation version of Not the Same, in place of the choir used on Ben Folds Live. There is, with bass and drums definitely present, more to this recording again than the original version on Rocking the Suburbs, and this is subtly different than the Folds, Piano and choir rendition. I rather like it, at least until the end, where it cuts off very abruptly.

Phew. Just one more post until I can move on to other stuff, though at least disc 3 is more unusual material - and so a little less familiar. I say move on to other stuff... we'll see if I can keep any kind of rhythm up through the other "best of"s, not that many thankfully, and then a Big Box of 6 discs by one artist (who also features in the best ofs). So sameness persists for a while, no doubt contributing to my reticence to find the time. I would like to establish some momentum again, this year has been noticeably slower than last, more gaps and longer gaps between posts. There's not even a shred of hope that I will finish B by the time I have been going a year. I would need to do more than 1 a day as there are 90+ still to go... B is clearly a common first letter for album titles.

Adelphi has to Fly - Lucy Ward

Track list:

1. The Fairy Boy
2. Alice In The Bacon Box
3. Maids When You're Young
4. Death (Rock Me To Sleep)
5. The Unfortunate Lass
6. Julia
7. The Two Sisters
8. Adelphi
9. F For Love
10. A Stitch In Time
11. Bricks & Love

Running time: 46 minutes
Released: 2011

So this is a recent purchase but not a new disc. It sneaks in the midst of the Ben Folds-a-thon (although its hard to really see it as that given the slow progress in getting through it) by virtue of being an A. I decided to pick this up recently because I needed a make-weight on an order to qualify for free shipping and I had picked up and seen promise in Silent Flame - which I bought following one of the Folk Awards albums on which she was showcased.

I am acutely aware that I have not made it to these pages for a long time - over 2 weeks now. Things have been busy between evening plans and the stresses of buying a new car. That all done with for the time being, maybe I will return to a more consistent posting schedule... but enough excuses, time to get listening!

I have been through this a few times on the commute (prior to the car change) so it is not a blind listen of a new purchase. However it is probably the first time I will hear it clearly, with no banging exhaust to cover it up. The Fairy Boy has a very soft backing that I don't think I had picked up previously, for example - a few sparse piano notes, a lightly droning string or organ of some kind, the latter so faint I really can't tell what it is. I like the song more like this - on a quiet evening at the end of a busy day. The additional structure works nicely to support Ward's voice, which has real potential even if it does not always deliver. There are hints of Kate Rusby in her tones and that is an apt comparison for the second track, which has a gentle roll to it that could be a Rusby song. Not so accomplished in performance, not trained and reinforced through years of grooving as Rusby though, but a decent showing which again, restored by the lack of growling engine noise, is much better than my first impressions.

This third song I don't like much. It has been a bit of an earworm for me in the last fortnight, most annoyingly so as it is one of those songs which employs too much nonsense in place of proper lyrics. I also don't much like the subject matter of what lyrics there are. It's a bloody catchy tune, but the charm is completely lost by the words that go with it. It also dominates my mental impression of the album so much that the next track feels unfamiliar, not heard before, even though I don't think I skipped a one over three journeys.

Death is a dark subject for a song given the subtitle implies lullaby. It isn't of course, a lullaby I mean. Actually its a pretty nice piece - there is an edge to it, a tone that sets it apart from the fare that has been before. The darkness is all in the guitar; the vocal performance does not carry such the same menace or, to be honest, interest. Ward was, I think, very young when this was released, and I think the lack of consistency is probably more a factor of inexperience than anything else. Yet at times her delivery is very mature, studied and impressive.

I am getting goosebumps listening to The Unfortunate Lass, though this is the side effect of bare arms on an evening where the warmth is starting to fade more than a reaction to the song. It is a slow number, a maudlin one, but it is a strong performance, even as the empty arrangement gives her plenty of chance to mess things up. The next piece tells a story that on the face of it tells of a young same-sex relationship, but maybe I am assuming the gender of the teller based on that of the singer (and writer, since this is a Ward original). If so, its a significant subject to take on, and personally I don't think that the song does it justice in a couple of ways. First I think there are some weaknesses in the structure of the writing and secondly I feel the performance is lacking. Where Ward can be strident, bold, here there is a fallibility in the voice which might be appropriate and "in character" for the song, but actually takes away from the experience to my ear.

Two Sisters is a more immediately enjoyable piece. The staccato playing here creates a crucible that sets Ward's singing on fire, the timbres of her voice really gelling with it in the early part of the track. It wavers a bit as the song progresses though, her voice flying higher and losing a bit of the connection with the arrangement and the dark subject matter. There is some really nice build/drop off in the playing here though, despite most of it amounting to repetition of the same loop it sets a fantastic tone. I think this is probably the best track on the album.

In to the last few now, and the song from which the album takes its title is about as uninteresting as anything here - it wanders all over the place, especially in the vocal, whilst the dominant strains of the playing are just... dull. Some of the writing is stretching it, too; it really surprises me that this prompted the title, but still. F for Love is deeply cynical, a darker view of the world than even I can normally conjure - and yet it is paired with a really light, soft-touch piano. It is an odd contrast and one that does not really work for me. I just glanced at the track lengths in WMP and I am surprised that most of the songs top 4 minutes in length because actually none of them really feel like they have that much to them in terms of heft and weight of lyric. I don't mean that as a criticism of the writing (there are points I might make there if I were reviewing), but as an observation that the pieces fly by quicker than expected.

A Stitch In Time is... ugh. A domestic violence story, it's not nice to start with and then answers violence with violence. It has a good outcome for those involved though, somehow. It is also a cappella and not great. At times Ward sounds like she's stuffed up with a cold. It is a memorable track but not a pleasant one.

We close with a more musical tune, but another one that feels light, empty. Missing something. I can see it being a pretty (if sad) song when watched live but on record it gives the impression that things don't quite line up. And just like that it is over and the room falls silent save for my laptop fan.

Two weeks, one post. Must do better. As for the album, there is more to it than I thought, but a lot of tracks, too, that feel weak. It is pretty obviously a debut, more raw and flawed than Single Flame I think. Identifying what to keep and what to chuck now, it may get gutted but not because everything that goes is bad, more that its weaker than similar stuff I have. Still, definitely some keepers too.

The Best Imitation of Myself (Disc 1) - Ben Folds

Track list:

1. Brick (Radio Mix) - Ben Folds Five
2. Annie Waits
3. Philosophy - Ben Folds Five
4. Underground - Ben Folds Five
5. Landed (Strings Version)
6. One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces - Ben Folds Five
7. Don't Change Your Plans - Ben Folds Five
8. The Luckiest
9. Smoke
10. Rockin' the Suburbs
11. Kate - Ben Folds Five
12. Gracie
13. Still Fighting It
14. You Don't Know Me
15. There's Always Someone Cooler Than You
16. Still
17. From Above
18. House - Ben Folds Five

Running time: 74 minutes
Released: 2011

I needn't have worried about overdosing on Ben Folds (Five) as it turned out. Not only have three new purchases sneaked into the gap and extended the distance since I listened to the last little glut, but that is now already a month ago because I have been so unusually busy as to not get down to listening much in the interim. Now, though, we have the three discs of Folds' retrospective, packed with items from the breadth of his career, some phases stronger than others. I forget how they were organised but I think this first disc was the best of, the second disc was live recordings and the third was rarities. There will be some duplicates to cull here but that wont be everything. The disc is notably the only place I have two tracks in particular: the duet with Regina Spektor, You Don't Know Me, and House, which preceded the reformation of Ben Folds Five for The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind and got my psyched for that release. Man, if the album had been even a patch on House it would have been great... alas.

We open with the version of Brick that anyone familiar with Ben Folds Five will know. As much as I love the song, this is not a patch on the solo version on Ben Folds Live and I have this on Whatever and Ever Amen so this one, with the (Radio Mix) tacked on, will go. One might ask why I bought this retrospective given that I own the vast majority of Folds' output and yeah... that's a good question with a couple of answers:

1. Rarities and live performances: There are many items on discs 2 and 3 that I did not have before I got this, and even on this disc there are versions of Landed and Smoke that I don't have anywhere else in addition to the Spektor duet and House mentioned before.

2. I use CDs in the car; I am, for a variety of reasons, still wedded to a physical format and a triple album that takes up the space of one? I'm all over that for the commute.

This disc wanders all over Folds' career. Rather than charting a course from early to late, it jumps around with the second song being the opener from Folds' first solo record, Rocking the Suburbs. I was at uni when that album came out, I remember a friend of mine picking it up on release and we listened to it round at his place. I remember he was pretty scathing about this track, but I always rather iked it. I dunno whether that is because, like a lot of Ben's work, the lyrics touch me on a sensitive nerve or whether I am just more able to enjoy the much more commercially flat composition or what. Anyway, I still rather like it now.

I have somehow managed to make it 3 listens in as many days. OK, so one was only 5 songs, but both Friday's and today's are over an hour long - and with the sundries that come with writing these things up, that equates to 90 minutes plus of attention to squeeze out of a schedule that hasn't permitted much lately. Thankfully this is a quiet weekend, not much going on bar buying a new toy and doing some basic garden care.

Having swooped forward, we drop back to the debut of Ben Folds Five for the next two songs and, to this point, everything I am hearing is getting digitally dropped after I am done. That said, the couplet of Philosophy and Underground - age-old as they are now - are appreciated. The best music stays vital, and whilst these songs have definitely aged (or perhaps it is fairer to say that the recording techniques have aged) and have nothing like the richness you might expect to hear in a modern arrangement and mastering, I suspect their themes and subjects are just as relevant to the youth of today (not that I know any).

We fly forward in time to Songs for Silverman next. Landed is a pastiche of an Elton John song, or at least I think I recall Folds saying so. I love it though. I leant hard on this in dark times past... and I feel like I've written this all before. Yup; this was on Ben Folds Five Live. This particular version has a lush string backing (hence Strings Version, duh!); to be honest I am not entirely sure what it adds because I never hear anything other than the vocal, clinging to the lyric. OK, that's hyperbole - the extra structure does change the dynamic a little - just enough for me to hold onto this.

Five of the first seven here are Ben Folds Five recordings, with only 2 more in the other 11 tracks. It makes me wonder how and why the track list was compiled as it was here, but only in passing as I am not that much of a raging Folds nerd (not quite). Of those 7, only Don't Change Your Plans is from their third (and last pre-split) album. I think it is under-represented in the retrospective as a whole, which is a shame because it was a very mature record, a band at the peak of their powers - with a more sombre and grown up tone. I love this song though, it speaks to a wanderlust I do not feel, and a sense of rootedness that I can relate to but have nothing tangible to attach to. If that sentence makes no sense to you, you are probably smarter than I.

Few songwriters can make me feel so viscerally lonely and vulnerable as Ben Folds, and The Luckiest is right up there with the songs that do. Less so now - I am older, wiser, just as single but far less self-defined by it, but whilst I was young, socially awkward and contemplating long term loneliness this love song sparked a terrible envy, even as I recognised the geeky beauty of it. Now I just think its a nice song, and think "wouldn't it be nice to share it" but then move on quickly. The next track doesn't help with that - Smoke is a bastard of a track, horrible break up agony couched in a lovely melody but the bitterness glares through that at you. This is a BFF track but performed instead by Ben and an orchestral backing. Here the orchestra really does add something - there is a sense of depth to the song that is absent from its original form. Assuming my memory of it is right that is much more stark and here the strings enhance the sorrow, overriding the bitterness a little.

It is a very dramatic change of tone to have the next track as Rocking the Suburbs - a self-deprecating comedy song with (deliberately?) crappy programming and other modern stuff and nonsense that somehow became not just a title track for an album but actually a reasonable track in its own right despite this, and screamed invective in the middle. I think this comes down to the writer's natural knack for catchy, and it helps that even though it is a comedic approach it is purely self-focused. We Brits like humble folks, so self-deprecation always plays well with us - much more so than standing big and proud shouting "look at me I'm great" - even if we think the person is great.

Ah Kate. This was, I am sure, the song that got me into Ben Folds Five as a teenager. I have vague memories of stupidly shuffling around the living room to this breezy number, taping it off the radio and so forth. I am not sure it holds up as well as most of their output, perhaps because it is more inextricably linked with being young and I am no longer that. It is still a pleasant tune though - Folds only started failing to deliver those with Way to Normal really, and even then there are some decent songs to balance out the dross. It is hard to really pick favourites though, in a way that I don't find with other artists. King Creosote and Thea Gilmore are two more artists that have touched me deeply at various points, but there I am easily able to point to favourite songs. With Ben Folds it is more dependent on my own mood as to which of his numbers I prefer. Incidentally Gilmore just released Ghosts & Graffiti which features KC on one track; that's a pairing I was stoked for initially, then less so when I realised which track (it is, again, kinda a retrospective) - its an aside from this post, but I am closing in on the point where I stop following Thea Gilmore as the last few releases have been drifting away from my musically, alas. At one point a Gilmore/Folds collaboration was my dream duet.

Back on track, after a version of Still Fighting It that I think might be different from the album version (have to check that and remove one later if not, I guess) its time for You Don't Know Me. This is just geeky joy for me. Ben Folds and Regina Spektor on the same record, personalities bumping off each other and sparking a really natural-feeling interplay. The quirky staccato structure really works for this too, bouncing around nicely. It makes for an incredibly catchy number, and there is also something intimate about Spektor's delivery in places, almost whispered. Perfect pairings like this can often be disappointing when they occur - see the previous paragraph! - but this one really works for me, and makes me wish there was more.

Still is the one track on this disc that I am not really familiar with, whilst I do apparently have another copy of it the name means nothing. However it is familiar when it starts, a haunting solo piano, a slow number. Strings are added later, creating more of a sad and wistful air which is quickly whisked away by the opening of From Above. This is high tempo, from Folds' collaboration with author Nick Hornby of About a Boy/High Fidelity etc. fame. Hornby is a big Folds fan and cited one of Ben Folds Fives numbers in 31 Songs, which I have read, though I cannot recall which song it was off the top of my head. At some point he connected with Ben, and ended up penning an album's worth of songs which Folds then arranged and recorded. The resulting LP - Lonely Avenue - is pretty good. From Above is not the best song from it (that is Picture Window in my book) but it is an enjoyable romp.

We arrive at House. This is a really strong song. The chorus is Ben Folds Five at their absolute best, emotion, structure melody, and power. When they really get into it they produce a whole heap of sound. It feels much less impactful listening now that when I first heard the song in 2011 and it hammered in to me - but I think that is to do with my speaker, the relative volume and no longer having the excitement of a potential Five reformation. Hearing this new recording back then was a promise of awesomeness - one that ultimately I feel the band did not deliver on. Now I listen to it and it is just a pretty decent song; it has lost something intangible, something I brought to it.

So what's left after this runthrough? Landed, Smoke, Still Fighting It, You Don't Know Me, Still and House. 6 of 18; I've checked Still and Still Fighting It against the other versions I have and they are different (Still is 5 minutes shorter here for a start!) so will stay.

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.