Brilliant Light - Danny and the Champions of the World

Track list:

1. Waiting for the Right Time
2. Bring Me to My Knees
3. It Hit Me
4. You'll Remember Me
5. Swift Street
6. Consider Me
7. Coley Point
8. It's Just a Game (That We Were Playing)
9. Never in the Moment
10. Gotta Get Things Right in My Life
11. Waiting for the Wheels to Come Off
12. Don't Walk Away
13. Hey Don't Lose Your Nerve
14. Everything We Need
15. Let the Water Wash over You (Don't You Know)
16. Long Distance Tears
17. The Circus Made the Town
18. Flying by the Seat of Our Pants

Running time: 78 minutes
Released: 2017

I have a love-hate relationship with Danny and the Champions of the World. Well, more like love-ambivalent really. Love, because I found their eponymous first record to be the best of its year, ambivalence because everything that has followed has not made that level. More than that it veered in a different direction, one that gelled less with me. I vacillated a little over whether to pick this one up, then, but I was in a spend to feel better mood and ended up adding it to another order (one which brought me the excellent Every Valley by Public Service Broadcasting), so here I am. Not heard this yet, so first impressions ahoy.

The opening guitar riffs are the latter-day Champs, rather than the iteration I fell in love with a decade or so ago. It's safe indie rock. Not bad, but not an exciting start from my viewpoint. I like the vocal - Danny's gravelly voice, and the interplay with the backing both work quite nicely, even if the song itself becomes repetitive, the title incanted again and again.

Insert usual excuse here for lack of posts. Formulae need to be stuck to!

I think my "problem" with the evolution of Danny and the Champions of the World is that the sound has become less distinct, it has less of a unique selling point than that debut. That was rough and ready, folksy and raw... it played directly to my tastes and sounded different, engaging. This rockier sound... it could be any number of bands. It doesn't have the big sky Americana feel of Grand Drive, not that back to basics sound of the first Champions disc. Both of those sounds resonated more with me. There are hints of Danny George Wilson's musical roots here, but they feel marginalised, made small elements in a less distinctive overall sound.

Having just said that, more individuality has been injected in It Hit Me. Weird comparison of the day, but this has a tinge of Madness in the horns, a frisson of lounge in the keys, and a more open sound. This is less rock song and more crooner ballad, but with an arrangement that does more than make you lazy. Maybe I am just calibrating myself to this... it seems to be growing on me. I have been putting this post off for length, dodging it by way of excuses about tiredness, poor sleep and work stress. When I started this project - 3 years ago now! - I had no responsibilities worth the name and more free evenings and weekends to give over to it. I look at the rate I managed that first 4 months now and my mind boggles. A post a week is beyond me at the moment, let alone 3 or 4. In the last couple of months I have probably bought more than I have heard - this album included - and that is not a recipe for finishing, well, ever.

There is an Americana of sorts about Swift Street, it's the high guitar line that is redolent of country primarily, but when the chorus kicks in the whole sound of the song embraces that slightly corny commercial country sound unashamedly. The next track has a poky little riff in it, though it drops out for the chorus. An interesting sound that I can't quite find the words to describe. There is a better pace to this, though I find myself thinking a smoother voice would be a better fit with the song in place around it. The livelier number is welcome though. I could see this song becoming an earworm - it has that sort of "grower" feel to it... y'know a song that is just OK the first time you hear it but which with continued exposure builds into a favourite. I think, though, the runtime probably knocks that on the head. It sounds like the song should be ending around the 4 minute mark but there is another 90 seconds plus of extended lead out to put up with. That might work in a live gig, but not so well on .mp3.

This is definitely eyes-west though. The guitars continue to hum lines that have an American tinge to them, the pacing is slow, rural... It isn't the same Americana as Grand Drive were, and I maintain that it is more bland (or perhaps familiar?) than that big sky sound but it is slower pace, rural and small town in a way that doesn't feel quite right coming from a British band somehow.

If I didn't know this was from 2017, I wouldn't have a clue where I would place it. It sounds out of its time somehow. The opening track was pretty nondescript 00s rock, the heart of the album I am buried in now has an older feel to it... 80s maybe, with flashes of even earlier. I associate sounds like this with (mostly bad) films watched when I was a teen. I couldn't name one if pushed, but that's the direction my thoughts float on It's Just a Game. When that track ends they launch into another which could have been a continuation in some respects.

At this point I think Wilson's voice is starting to grate. He sounds older, more worn out, on this record and whilst that can really work for some performers the longer I am exposed to him here the more I find that roughness annoying. It probably doesn't help that his style leaves a lot of words open... long sounds that seem not to finish before the lyric moves on. This gives me a scratchy kind of feeling, rather than a cultured one... more "I've been singing too long" than "years of booze and fags to shape it". Not that the latter is better or should be aspired to! The music has receded back into a generic ameri-rock pattern for now, very 80s guitars making my ears glaze over some (who knew ears could do that too?).

I am half way through. It is worth mentioning that the physical copy of this album is 2 discs.

This second half has a couple of really long tracks, the first of which is unfortunately forgettable, It seems to have set a musical theme that I am less than engaged with and there is an awful lot of title chanting in the lyrics right about now. The first half had its moments of difference though so I am hopeful there will be more, and my hope is rewarded almost immediately with a slow number. Don't Walk Away is the stand out of the album so far. I love the female voice added here, I like the muted horns under everything and the space the arrangement gives the voices. It's a little unexpected gem.

To underscore how unexpected it is, the next track adopts more tried (almost typed tired, which might be true, but a little harsh) and tested structures. It is another slower number and brings to mind a whole genre of country tracks that populate radio stations in TV shows. This is the second 7 minute track (rounding up) and it goes on, and on, and on... sucking joy from me as it does. Endings, people, endings are a good thing!

Oh geez. I typed that at 5 minutes. There's no pace, no interest, just hold and sway - this is not a dance hall and I am alone so it is filed under delete. I don't normally like to cut things on first listens because music really can grow on you, but I have limits there.

I will say this... the use of the sax gives things an odd tone in that it is not entirely in tune with the Americana theme, a little bit of incongruity that freshens up what might otherwise be stale.

I like the riff for a change! Let the Water Wash Over You has a hum to it. Very generic light rock hum, but it is still pleasing. I think I am running out of things to say though - fighting the urge for single sentence paragraphs and dismissiveness.  A long day boardgaming half-fried my brain and now words are far from my grasp. 3 hour round trip driving tomorrow too... busy weekend. Of course - the weekends I am busy are the weekends that the weather would have supported being outside doing useful stuff. Such is life.

Oh dear, the end of the song is a weird old let down. Thankfully the following sound is brighter, and we're on the final stretch now. Overall I don't really know what to make of it. Probably I shouldn't have bought this one, but then again there is an obvious high point in there and another couple or more that could be growers. Others are formulaic in construction, repetitive and overly reliant on a small number of lines lyrically. There are grand moments of Americana, and petty faux-pas of Americana. What there isn't is a consistent feel to that theme - it darts about from dull to impactful and back.

Oh that was horrible sentence construction. Nevermind... a less gravelly Wilson and very country guitars are sliding me along to the end of the album. Flying By the Seat of Our Pants is onto a loser though, because the title is so close to I'll Fly By the Seat of My Pants by King Creosote and it puts that other tune - one of my all time favourites - into my head instead. So I end the record thinking of something else rather than paying attention to this one, which is a little unfortunate, because I think this might be one of the better songs on this album.

The summation would be thus: alright, might grow on me if I gave it a chance.

Cold Shoulder - Bdy_Prts

Singleton time. This is not so much an album as a tack released on its own. Bdy_Prts are two  female performers from other Scottish acts come together to do something... and with an album due later in the year. One of those is Jenny Reeve (Strike the Colours) - which is what brought them to my attention when I thought to look into what she may have done more recently.  It turns out I also have music from the other Prt(ner), who was in Sparrow and the Workshop.

That said, I don't think I actually listened to this, or the other track I grabbed (I.D.L.U. - which is categorised as another singleton for some years in the future) after downloading them from whichever outlet I got them from. I honestly don't remember if they were free samples or if I bought them. And that was earlier this year... I suck!

Rather than post a bogus cover image and stuff, I'll link to a YouTube of a live performance:

So what do I make of the song?

Bold single strikes to start, that's good. Reeve's voice, always welcome; her American companion brings a different tone, the composition gives both voices space, doesn't over-complicate things.  I am less fond of the chorus. The track is perhaps not what I was expecting, yet it is enjoyable all the same, without being stellar. I would say it heralds promise and an interesting change of direction for the performers

Coconut - Archie Bronson Outfit

Track List:

1. Magnetic Warrior
2. Shark's Tooth
3. Hoola
4. Wild Strawberries
5. Chunk
6. You Have a Right to a Mountain Life / One Up on Yourself
7. Bite It & Believe It
8. Hunt You Down
9. Harness (Bliss)
10. Run Gospel Singer

Running time: 40 minutes
Released: 2010

Oh dear lord. I remember not getting on with this at all, after buying based on their cover of a James Yorkston song on the collectors edition of When the Haar Rolls In. The covers disc there led me to some beautiful things - not least Cathal Coughlan and on to Microdisney but I recall the sounds I heard as I was ripping Coconut made me sure I would never play it. Perhaps it was one bad track, perhaps there is something here... now is my time to find out.

The first strains aren't exactly encouraging. There is a nice menace to the riff but the edge into the performance is a little too fuzzy for my liking, and the drowned vocal is not really my cup of tea either, though the riff dominates to such an extent its easy to overlook the vocal almost entirely. Well, this will certainly keep me awake. In now customary fashion I remark about how few posts I make here, or rather the length of time between them. I ran out of excuses, even to myself, hence I am defying droopy eyes to listen to something I have been putting off. Magnetic Warrior's cacophony is a million miles away from the cover of Would You Have Me Born With Wooden Eyes (weird song title alert!) that led me to take a punt on Coconut. The incessant noise is pulsating... I can imagine it creating a good gig atmosphere even as I struggle with it.

The second track tones things down a little to begin with, but the echoey effects around the edge of all elements of the track is really off-putting. It is clearly a deliberate aesthetic choice rather than poor recording, but it makes me feel like the songs are rattling around my skull, concussing me rather than opening spaces for me to enjoy. For all that, I will praise them for having personality. I may not like the effect they have chosen to style the opening tracks on but it gives the album identity.

Archie Bronson Outfit seem to build songs on riffs, and filling them with sound. There is a nice solid drive to Hoola and here, the echo absent except on the vocal, their strong guitar lines are better defined, better employed. A good energy sweeps the song along, and without the brain-battering fuzziness and with a few more open holes in the wall of sound I find I rather like the song that is left. Of course, it then fills in those holes no sooner have I typed that, but it remains a marked improvement.

It has been an odd week. Many board games played, many days worked from home. Today was my first day in the office for a week and I am remote again tomorrow; it's all rather thrown me some and I need to try to establish a better pattern to life again. Clear evenings, some energy and drive at weekends... these things would be nice and conducive to building a healthier lifestyle. So far my intent to get out on the bike more have been frustrated, and I can only blame myself. After another noisome number, we hit on something that reminds me a little of Devo - quirky rock, with high pitch sounds. This lacks the offense of the louder tracks, but also the personality. Whilst there are riffs here, they are less compelling even for being clearer. It ends up being a bit of a nothing track as a result, which is a disappointment as when I first heard the change in sound I thought there might be something there for me. The track drags on a little too long, just to rub that in.

This must read as a hate on. Whilst it is true that I will be culling most of the disc when it concludes, there are elements here I appreciate. The decision to build the songs around strong central riffs is a good one, and the riffs in some cases are bold ones - statement making ones - that have real power to them. Employed with more careful support I think I could have really enjoyed some of them. It's the buzzy, fuzzy constancy of the sound that wears me down rather than the core concepts. Sometimes that sheer volume and layered sound can work, drawing me into a bubble that (stupidly) makes the ringing in the ears when it subsides feel good. Mogwai do that well, I find - building noisy but demanding crucibles. Here the edge is wrong, and it sets everything out of place. It is not a million miles from something I could really like, but the couple of postcodes are far enough in the majority of cases. Bite it & Believe it steps back the right side of whichever imaginary line in the sound I am talking about. Like Hoola before this track drops some of the overwhelming elements in the arrangement. The sound and noise is still constant, but it is constrained, kept manageable by a smaller scope.

I think it is unfortunate that when the songs are most accessible, they are probably also most dull. Hunt You Down is a good example of this phenomenon as nothing here is too loud or too challenging. It slips into a nice little rhythm early. It's nice. Then it just stays there, rinses and repeats, being nice for 4:22 without once becoming engaging. I can see more to like in tracks like the opener which I actively disliked than in ones like this which are simply "alright".

Oh, now that is more application, Harnessed (one might say).

This track has the strong riff, the driving pace, the same affected vocal as Magnetic Warrior, but a sleeker construction, less noise but more sound - refining the formula into something still powerful but more pleasing. The drive, in particular, is really nice - and whilst it does rather become a loop (and no track over 5 minutes should devolve that far) the energy is indeed Blissful, relatively speaking.

OK, that is two horrible puns on the track title in two paragraphs. I should stop. I blame the YouTube video on punning that I saw earlier, and the reminder of how good the wordplay in Arrested Development is.

It approaches time to sum up, and well... Coconut is not for me. I am less hostile to it than I thought I would be, but there are too many tracks where the sheer volume gets to me. I see nice threads running through it but ultimately too many of the songs didn't work, either noisome and violent or lacking enough beyond a riff. My ears are ringing a bit despite the fact I turned the volume way down for this one; that ain't so clever. I will however hold on to a few tracks - not really undiscovered gems, but better examples of a fine idea that didn't quite hit the mark.

The Beautiful & the Actual - Rosie Hood

Track list:

1. Lover's Ghost
2. A Furlong of Flight
3. William's Sweetheart
4. Lord Lovel
5. Dorothy Lawrence
6. Baker's Oven
7. The Little Blind Girl
8. The Red Herring
9. Adrift, Adrift
10. The Hills of Kandahar
11. The Cruel Mother
12. Undaunted Female

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2017

This is a bit of an unknown, a new release I picked up sound unheard because folk singer with good reviews. An old fashioned punt in the dark in an era when that really isn't necessary. This is a first listen, to boot so this listen is unlikely to be definitive.

The opening sound is a low reverberating thrum, a dark contrast to Hood's light, bright voice that chimes over it. It is a good test of the new speaker I have attached for this one - less practical as it has no independent volume dial (and adjusting the PC volume isn't as "one-touch") - since my previous one was gunked up and wouldn't clean up nicely. The song is all here; underneath the vocal are an array of low key background sounds rather than a clear tune. The effect is nice, and I find the vocal style a bit reminiscent of the more interesting side of Lucy Ward. A decent beginning.

I had hoped to complete more listens in June, whilst on holiday, but issues with getting reliable power in meant my downtime was spent reading instead. Since I have been back I have been a little too pulled in multiple directions to get to this until now. As blind punts go, this one feels like it might pay out, as the second track - a more recognisable tune here - continues to exhibit a very engaging voice. There is a nice simplicity to it. We are firmly in quintessential folk sounds now, as a squeezebox takes up the lead on William's Sweetheart. Here the delivery of the lyric is tighter, clipped a bit, less floating.

There is, then, a versatility on display here; I find I rather like it. This applies to the music as well as the voice as the arrangements to the first 3 or 4 tracks are distinct and use different instruments and forms. Of this first third of the album, Lord Lovel is the least enjoyable by far; here there is something about the voices that doesn't quite gel with me. Hard to put my finger on what and why though. Happily it seems to be a brief misstep as a staccato string base hums under a more impressive vocal on the next track. There is a vibrancy to this that is really impressive - yet I find myself wondering at the same time how much I would really want to listen to it. I hear, and I appreciate, but I wonder about how repeatable that appreciation is. I think that is because some of these are quite stark, raw and open and so the songs can appear challenging.

Rosie Hood can really sing though. Really, really sing. More than just holding the tune, the timing and the expression in her delivery is gorgeous on The Little Blind Girl where (for I think the third time on the disc) she is really carrying everything on her as the accompaniment is almost an afterthought. The difference in accent aside, I also hear echoes of Eliza Carthy here, which is no bad thing, though I think Hood's voice is a little smaller and less forthright than Carthy's they share some rhythmic approaches. I would also call Hood a more musical singer - so not as good in some ways, better in others.

The variation in arrangements and styles seem to have normalised over the course of the disc, it feels slightly more consistent as it goes on, converging on more traditional folk structures, even as it goes off piste subject wise with a song about soldiers in Afghanistan. Of course, I spoke too soon; the very next track returns to a cappella, two voices alone. Nicely executed, but not at all an easy song to listen to. We then close with a return to voice over staccato bass. This form is probably my take home from the album, a nice stripped back way to present the songs - albeit one that I think you have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate. I am not quite there by the end of this listen, not as much as I was at the start of it anyway. That might be the time, the oppressive humidity as even with the house opened up all day the thermostat reads 26 plus and the air is muggy and close.

Silence has fallen as that final track concluded. I found this a striking collection, one I am very glad to have heard but which I wonder about how often I would want to hear it again.

Cobblestone Runway - Ron Sexsmith

Track List:

1. Former Glory
2. These Days
3. Least That I Can Do
4. God Loves Everyone
5. Disappearing Act
6. For a Moment
7. Gold in Them Hills
8. Heart's Desire
9. Dragonfly on Bay Street
10. The Less I Know
11. Up the Road
12. Best Friends
13. Gold in Them Hills (remix)

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2002

If nothing else, Ron Sexsmith conjured an evocative title for this record. Picked up after I got into Sexsmith through Blue Boy, I think there are some gems to be uncovered here despite my moving away from his music in the years since.

Former Glory is a gentle start, rough voice over a simple melody, themed of hope despite some challenges, nostalgia winning out and being a good thing. Bright and breezy in length as well as sound it is a smart little opening. I am sat here tired as a dog, all night indigestion meaning no sleep, so the gentle opener is a welcome thing.

These Days has a bit of strut to the rhythm, but I find I cannot but think of the Danny and the Champions of the World song of the same name instead. This tune is somewhat dull in comparison, but again rather gently so. The snap in the drums is nice, and the tune just about sustains itself as the song meanders on its lazy way. Ron Sexsmith is an odd duck - a prolific songwriter whose tunes have been sung by much bigger names to greater acclaim. A soft soul with a clear talent but not always with the performing chops to pull things off. For me, now, his songs here fall into the "nice" category - they're pleasant enough, but not excitingly so. Not offering anything much to get my teeth into, not offering any standout moments, structures or lines that grab attention.

His voice is not the most accomplished. Whilst I have a lot of time for unconventional voices, Sexsmith's voice on God Loves Everyone is more a question of a conventional voice that can't quite pull off what he is trying to do. It cracks a little, where a purer voice would carry the tune through. It is a shame because without those small cracks around the edges there might actually be that x-factor to some of these songs. That said, there are times when that slight broken edge actually makes his tunes. More on that later.

He returns to a more low-fi sound and twangy guitar for Disappearing Act - a more grubby sort of tune, and this suits him a bit better in my book. This tune is catchy, guitars, background keys and a rough vocal that suits the imperfect sound of the song as a whole. I rather like this one, it has a rawness to it that lends it authenticity, and connectivity. After a rather forgettable filler we hit the high point of the album - at least from memory - and this is one of those moments where the cracks in Sexsmith's voice lend gravitas to his work.

Gold in Them Hills is a wonderful, wonderful tune. Simple piano melody and his soft, stretching voice conveying a real sense of sorrowful hope - the message that, yes, things are bad now, but they'll get better. It is a really accomplished number, strings coming in to add weight to the tone, voice straining on the higher notes - conveying the importance of the message, the personal nature of it. I heard this song first in times that were less good, mental well-being wise, and I found strength in it them. Now I just find it a lovely little number.

Whilst trying to avoid a track-by-track I find myself reading a couple of other websites and getting annoyed with the way so many people on the net seem to write one-sentence paragraphs. It looks lazy and child-like to me. The odd short para to visually break up a wall of text is a good thing but every sentence being its own thing looks tacky (take note BBC online - a chief offender here). Of course, I look back up the page here and see a set of very similar length blocks and I don't think that works any better; what is that saying about stones and glasshouses?  On the Record, a perfectly OK song has changed character with a long guitar-led outro, then given way to the disco-styled Dragonfly on Bay Street. This has a difference to it that makes it quite refreshing. It's not really a disco tune, but the rhythm and bass have an electronic fuzz to them that put this musically outside the general pattern of the album. I find myself rather liking it - it's massively watered down as compared to actual practitioners of these types of tunes but that helps make it his, y'know? That, and when it ends we are immediately back into soft ballad and acoustic guitar territory.

This listen feels like it has gone on forever, but this is really quite a short album. Normally that would signify not enjoying it, but... I am?

Putting a short line in there feels rather artificial given the previous stanza but that thought was a genuine one that hit me and I felt needed to be communicated as it is very much in the spirit of this project. Just two short numbers to go, then a remix of Gold in Them Hills to finish. The first of that trio of tunes is pitched lower and fits his voice rather well as a result, but when the vocal disappears what is left is pretty forgettable - a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde number then. This is followed by a sub 2-minute ramble with nothing much worth mentioning. The closing remix adds a tinny quality and unneeded electronic beats to a tune that was pretty much perfect as it was. There is, perhaps, also a nice tonal effect added to some of the keyboard notes, but the cost of adding this nice touch is too high.

The album goes out with a bit of a whimper really. I should perhaps cut a number of the weaker tracks here, but for some un-communicable reason I don't really feel like doing so.

The Coachlight Woods - Glowworm

Track List:

2. Contrails

Running time: 4 minutes
Released: 2007

An odd singleton now. I have no idea what this is or where it came from. Glowworm is apparently an American post-rock act, which is as much as I can find online. That gives me an idea where this might have originated - a mix tape from a friend - but no conclusive proof. Oh well, into the unknown...

It starts light, oscillating between two notes as the sound builds behind them. I rather like this, it has an airy quality to it - a lot of space in the track. It is simple rather than overwrought (as post-rock can sometimes be). I suspect an entire album of this would get to be too much but in small doses... it surprises me with a vocal, conversational recordings played over the background, which leaves a space for them, rather than a singer. Then it strips back to singular sounds, lamentations in note form, a lull before a bigger finish?

The pattern reestablishes itself at least... not for a big finish but for a relatively sudden cessation. The weakness of this closing aside Contrails is a nice little number. On another day I might have reflexively ordered the rest of the album by now but for now I have other things to do...

Club Anthems - Ballboy

Track List:

1. Donald in the Bushes With a Bag of Glue
2. A Day in Space
3. Dumper Truck Racing
4. Public Park
5. Essential Wear for Future Trips to Space
6. I Hate Scotland
7. Olympic Cyclist (acoustic version)
8. One Sailor Was Waving
9. I've Got Pictures of You in Your Underwear
10. Leave the Earth Behind You and Take a Walk Into the Sunshine
11. Swim for Health
12. They'll Hang Flags From Cranes Upon My Wedding Day
13. Postcards From the Beach
14. Sex Is Boring (acoustic version)

Running time: 65 minutes
Released: 2001

First up, this is nothing like the title suggests. If you played these in most clubs you'd be out on your ear as everyone left.

I got turned onto Ballboy by a friend who now is not, their style of self-effacing Scottish indie-pop being right up my street. Looking down the track listing, there are some top songs here, but most of my favourite Ballboy tracks are on other discs.

It starts with a jaunty little riff, a snappy drum beat and a lazy guitar hook, then dives off into a story - one of the things I like about Ballboy is the stories that manifest in their songs - about a recovering glue-sniffer. Cheery start, no really, it is. The music is upbeat and Gordon McIntyre's voice is full of positivity here, despite the lyrics. It beats the crap out of the continental covers band I saw last night, when I discovered what Twitter is really for. Acerbic one-liners when you don't have anyone around you to share the joke with.

The tone changes as we head into space for the first of two visits. Lush background harmonics and a guitar hook sit underneath a spoken monologue from the point of view of a dreamer with a love of space. Here McIntyre's voice is soothing, laid back and enjoyable as he meanders through the stream of consciousness thoughts of our narrator - whether him or a construct for the purpose of the song. He has a nice style of repeating certain lines for emphasis, which focuses you in on certain ideas in the song. All the while the harmonics and guitar circle, producing a lush carpet of sound beneath. Everything strips right back then, as we head into an acoustic number, a tired, dreamlike one at that.

Went out swimming earlier, first time in a long time. Tired now, so I find my eyes wanting to shut as the simple keys and guitar combination lulls me into relaxation. The guitar in particular is soothing, simple patterns of repeating notes at a slow enough pace to make every pass out but insistent enough to not leave holes in the sound. When that bottoms out for the final part of the track it feels slower, duller. Thankfully Ballboy tend to drift around in terms of tempos and fullness of sound, and they follow that sparser number with a lush, expansive one. Strings, guitars, drums creating a backdrop for the vocal - somewhat swallowed by the enveloping soundscape, until they leave him clear to sing over an acoustic for the chorus. One of the things I like about Ballboy is the way they use these lush sounds to support a singular and often quite lonely song, one that could just as well be told with one guitar. And then they switch between modes simply and effectively.

There is also the natural urge to self-deprecate. It is a British thing, not restricted to Scotland, but these guys do it very well. I must have mentioned here before how this sort of doing oneself down resonates with me.

After some very spangly sounds on our second space-themed track we hit the number that was my first introduction to Ballboy. I Hate Scotland (from a Scot, remember) is a grungy repeating low guitar riff, a dirty kind of sound, supporting another monologue, about how modern Scotland doesn't always meet expectations or standards. That said, it begins with a hark back to childhood and school PE lessons. The darkness in the thrum contrasts with the clarity of the spoken vocal. It frames the mood of the lyric, without overpowering it, crafting a powerful overall effect. There are lighter injections into that underlying noise, the equivalent of choruses I guess. I prefer the darker moments though if I am honest. After laying out his mind on Scotland, the narration returns to the PE analogy. It's a little non-sensical, giving everything up for the equipment and ability to execute a singular exercise... I guess I see it as calling back to a perfect moment, a point of pure exhilaration.

There is life in the action of their guitars. I don't play, but I imagine that most of these songs are pretty simple, musically. Rather than going for great technical challenge they focus things down and execute well. Keep it simple stupid, and do it perfectly. Of course as soon as I type that it goes off at the speed of lightning. Whilst fast is not necessarily complex, I guess, it torpedoes the confidence I had in my statement all the same. The opening sentence of this paragraph remains valid though: the band give it some and when they want to the really drive pace through their strumming. It reminds me a bit of The Wedding Present (which I am pretty sure was a reference point at the time I was introduced).

Oh, spangly. I don't really recognise the opening to Leave the Earth Behind You and Take a Walk into the Sunshine. The general form of the track is very recognisably Ballboy, but for whatever reason I think I have not heard this so much. McIntyre's voice here is more ethereal and removed, perhaps fitting for a song which seems to have some existential angst to it ("are you happy with your life" indeed?), but the guitars fall into a familiar pattern. My complaint about this track is that it drones on a little bit - 8 minutes without any real change-up is too long however comfortingly familiar the sounds are. I am tired of it by 6 minutes for reference.

I get the impression that the end of this album will arrive quite suddenly, as the track lengths drop off a bit from this point. That said, I find Swim for Health to drag me down, the horn that has appeared for this track not really fitting - not carrying the burden of the tune as well as the guitars, which have been relegated to support acts. We lurch from that to a stripped back downbeat song. They'll Hang Flags From Cranes Upon My Wedding Day sounds like a positive title but the song has a weary air to it that means it comes across as more circumspect.

The closing is rather low key, too. There's a sense of resignation to Postcards from the Beach, clearly a break-up song, and Sex is Boring is... I dunno. I know the song, I like the song musically but it's a weird one, as it's opening line suggests the listener take him back for BDSM, that he then claims will be dull and unrelated to his purpose for visiting. It progresses into an angry diatribe or rant and, well... I ran out of words, and ran out of time as the song concluded, and with it the album. There are a few sketchy points on this one if I am honest - or maybe its my post-exercise brain failing me.

Closing Time - Tom Waits

Track List:

1. Ol' '55
2. I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You
3. Virginia Avenue
4. Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards)
5. Midnight Lullaby
6. Martha
7. Rosie
8. Lonely
9. Ice Cream Man
10. Little Trip to Heaven (on the Wings of Your Love)
11. Grapefruit Moon
12. Closing Time

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 1973

[Geordie accent]Day three in the Big Brother House[/Geordie]... or the third successive day I get a post done, anyway.

Going back in time to before I was born, to old, old Waits material, not much of which is immediately familiar to me by name, though Waits is Waits. I expect these to rattle through; 12 tracks in 45 minutes. Short, radio friendly lengths.

The first thing that hits me is that the recording level is quiet. I have to turn the volume up to get a good read on Ol' 55 as it starts. It sounds... more melodic and standard than the Waits material I am closer to. I am, sadly, interrupted even before this first track is done. Another mid-tune pause then.It strikes me on resuming the play that I do recognise the song, or at least it carries one of those "familiar" vibes - you know the type: can't place it exactly, but sure you have heard it several times before. The sort that make you go "Oh, that's what it was" when you find out or remember.

This, then, seems to be Waits before Waits became what he is known for now - all gruff and dark and experimental. Whilst it is no surprise that a younger Tom Waits had a slightly more tuneful voice than the one I became accustomed to from his later work, I am slightly surprised by the melodies being more traditional in form. As I finish typing that sentence we hit the start of Virginia Avenue with its bluesy sway. Oh, yes please. more of this. Perhaps not the best fit for the blue skies outside but a glorious sound and mood all the same. I had been starting to feel more human again, but a bad night's sleep last night has set me back a bit on that score so the low tempo and laid back rhythm induce a yawn - of genuine sleepiness not boredom.

I suppose I might have been really harsh on this in another time. Words like "generic" and "ten-a-penny" and other such epithets for common forms of easily accessible music may have spewed from my fingers or my mouth. I find myself shying away from such vitriol these days; whilst I am as averse to mass-manufactured music as ever, I am more chilled about it just not being for me. With respect to these Waits tunes though... well, I don't have tonnes of stuff like this as my library doesn't skew towards 70s easy listening. The combination of the performer's magnetism, the scarcity of such tracks in my collection and my belated recognition that accessible or popular doesn't have to be bad... well, I can just sit back and enjoy it for what it is. On that score, I don't think it is a patch on, say, Alice (my personal high water mark for Waits, as I am sure I have said before) but it is a nice collection of songs all the same.

The last paragraph reads like a sum-up, but I am only half way through, and finding my ear drawn to the piano on Martha. It doesn't sound completely in tune... it has an echoey, off-note quality to it that reminds me of the piano tunes played in saloon scenes in westerns. A particular affectation of American playing, it seems to me, whether a style affected by the pianist of a deliberate tuning I cannot tell, but I don't associate this kind of "swimming pool" sound to any European artistes. The two tracks named after women seem to merge together in my consciousness, though the twangy-ness of the piano is definitely toned down on Rosie, and it is only the slow, appropriately lonely sounds of Lonely that snap me out of a haze.

Here Waits sounds distant, and with only the piano keys for company he creates an impression of himself on a big stage in an empty auditorium, a sole spotlight on him, a shred of sound just about carrying to the exit that you watch from as he plays, slumped over the keyboard in despair. Say what you want about Tom Waits, his ability to conjure images in the mind of this listener is pretty much second-to-none. We are through that charade and onto an unexpectedly jaunty track, that only gets jauntier as it gets past the intro, doubling down on the jaunt? I like that, and find my foot tapping its appreciation, too. What a contrast from track to track. Out-back mercy-killing in the middle of nowhere to life and soul of a happening party in the blink of an eye.

I really like how this album shifts around tonally. Bluesy for the most part, there are jazzier numbers and plainer "entertainer" faire too. The mix means that none of them get too much - and you don't end up lamenting that Waits is not really a bluesman, or a jazz cat or whatever, but his own thing altogether which takes in aspects of each. On this collection I find myself most drawn to the slowest, lowest tracks, even when Grapefruit Moon has Waits' voice at its wobbliest. The laments, that's what hit me, regret dripping from every note. As Sinatra once sang: regrets, I've had a few (that's a tag I didn't expect to be using).

The title track, Closing Time, is an instrumental, sad and listless - it doesn't hit the moody notes of Grapefruit Moon or despondency of Lonely but it carries that same kind of regretful air from first note to last, and it seems a fitting way to close a disc.

The Clock Comes Down the Stairs - Microdisney

Track list:

1. Horse Overboard
2. Birthday Girl
3. Past
4. Humane
5. Are You Happy
6. Genius
7. Begging Bowl
8. A Friend with a Big Mouth
9. Goodbye It's 1987
10. And
11. Harmony Time
12. Money for Trams
13. Genius
14. 464
15. Goodbye It's 1987
16. Horse Overboard

Running time: 73 minutes
Released: 1985

Microdisney. Genius that I was too young for at the time and which I have since come to adore. My copy of this is a re-issue with bonus tracks - alternate versions. I have the majority of these songs on the Daunt Square to Elsewhere best of anyway, and/or on Big Sleeping House too, but sought out original material for what I was missing. Less than I would have thought, to go by the track list.

This album starts with a trio of tunes I am well acquainted with. Light pop-y tones, spangly little guitars, snappy beats and Cathal Coughlan's vocal... lovely and lyrical, yet far from the sweetness and light you get from tone alone. This is an 80s I could have stomached; the majority of stereotypically 80s fare leaves me cold. Ever since I first heard Microdisney I have felt that the juxtaposition of nice clean and wholesome tunes with such dark and acerbic lyrics was a stroke of genius. Look this way, don't see what we are really doing. Entice with the shallow, reward with depth.

This is comfortable, familiar. Birthday Girl, then Past... the other way around than on Daunt Square, but that's a minor quibble. They both fit squarely into the mould - pop songs with dark centres. Approachable and identifiable, pop-filled with personality. The version of Past here sounds a little muted to my ears, the intro not having quite the same resonance to it that I am used to. Subtle differences in the recording perhaps, or just an artefact of it not being the disc-opener? The tune is just so... nice and enticing, I guess. The lyrics are sad and despairing, threatening, defeatist even but Coughlan's singing is pitched so well as to make it engaging and poignant without making it anything other than an enjoyable pop song at the same time.

Humane is the fourth track, the first that I don't really know (we have another triptych of familiar tunes to follow it). This sounds tinny by comparison to what came before, thinner. The vocal is edgier, less melodic, but just as pointed. The tune is definitely less immediately engaging - in places it sounds flat and repetitive, the workload and heart of the track shifted to the singing. The long bridge with no vocals... no, the long outro as it turns out tries to do something to liven up the accompaniment but frankly it feels a little weak. Perhaps that is just unfamiliarity winning out in the bias stakes because as soon as Are You Happy starts I am back in my comfort zone. I do prefer the lusher background sounds. This song is slower, a stately pace giving lots of space between lines, letting the vocal breathe. It's never been amongst my favourite Mircodisney tunes but I find now that I really like this effect and the lack of sparkle in the tune is apt.

This is becoming a blow-by-blow, if only because my head is emptying as I relax as a result of not being at work. Genius sounds different. I guess that makes sense in that the other version of this tune I have was presumably recorded live - it is on The Peel Sessions. Here it has a sort of stately edge to it, a slower tempo than I associate with the chorus when I hear it in my head. Oh, definite difference... a verse in the middle is pretty much spoken here where it is very definitely sung in the other version. This feels flatter to me, but then we get a nice melodic outro which pulls the whole tune up with its peppy, light touch.

It does not surprise me that Microdisney weren't a big hit at the time, any more than it surprises me that clever songwriters of my era seem to fly under the radar. That said, there are clearly enough pop sensibilities in these tunes that you could see many of them as radio hits - not all of them, by any means; the slower tunes are not for the mass market, but the livelier numbers could have belted out from radio sets all over and not been out of place.

The songs are clever, on-the-nose. The dark anger, acid and indignation are concealed under a veneer of wholesome pop. I imagine that a lot of the lyrics are incredibly pointed - though it is not always clear, through the fog of 30 years passing (and, perhaps, my not being Irish) what they were pointed at. In some cases it is very clear indeed either directly from the lyrics or through documentation of their targets (though my go-to examples are noticeably not from this disc). I find myself looking up and finding a song I really don't recognise playing... Harmony Time and Money for Trams are two tracks that I don't have in other forms, and the former came on just now. It has a different feel to it, faster-paced, skinny guitar, synthetic keys, a rough-and-tumble rhythm. It almost feels like an improvised tune cribbed out at the end of a concert rather than a planned recording. There is something about it that reminds me of For Those of Y'all Who Wear Fanny Packs - a Ben Folds Five tune where the trio were pissing about in the studio, which was released as part of Naked Baby Photos.

Money for Trams was, I guess, the original end point of the album. This has a slow pace and a cop-show edginess. Vocals are spoken with a PA-like effect. It feels like tense movie music. After a bit of a pause in play - things come up even during time off it seems! - I resume and the same repeating bassline meanders along. Coughlan screeches something over the top, a very different tone of voice to the majority of the lyrics here. All in all I think the song is pretty dull, then we are into the bonuses, which a bit of Googling suggests are Peel Session tracks... so I have these elsewhere.

Genius is indeed faster, and better for it. 464 was not on this album; in fact it seems to only have been on the Peel Session - a bonus track then in truth, though one that made the later anthology. I find myself too much in a stupor to offer much on these closing numbers... though when Goodbye It's 1987 starts playing again it hits me that this was not on the Peel Sessions disc I bought so... well. You know - I can't actually compare the two versions on this disc even. I don't specifically recall enough of the first time it came about. I guess I have been stuck in a relaxing reverie. This second version is light-touch and open, soft and... lazy? Lazy in a good sense - like a Sunday afternoon: easy and to be left to wash over you.

I get the feeling I should perhaps kill some of the duplicates but I also don't feel moved to do so. As I stare blankly at the screen, Horse Overboard finishes for the second time, and suddenly I am done. Ho hum.

Clean the Night - eagleowl

Track list:

1. Clean the Night
2. Life We Knew

Running time: 8 minutes
Released: 2014

Ah eagleowl (small e because all their promo stuff eschews capitals; alas I capitalised the tag some time back and cannot seem to correct this). One of my favourite bands all told. I bought this earlier this year - not realising they had made anything available since This Silent Year in 2013. I routinely find myself listening to shuffles just of eagleowl tracks - there is something very pleasant and rewarding about their understated compositions that just chimes with me. These two tracks cost me the best part of a tenner (I did get the physical picture disc for that, too, mind).

I am doing this on the first day on my Grecian holiday for the year, good intentions to do it earlier dashed by tiredness. Now, with a 30 degree plus sun outside the slow, dark, moody tones of Scotland feel a long way off. There is, though, a definite comfort in the simple guitar hook, the droning strings and the accented vocal. I am starting to unwind after the travel yesterday and the joy of not having anything to do today, and whilst incongruous with the Mediterranean weather, the post-folk refrains of Clean the Night are joyous invitations to relax. There is a soothing quality to the primary male voice in particular, but that is backed up well.

The second, shorter, track is more peppy to begin with - the snatched chords brighter and happier even as the words reference scattering ashes. The upbeat nature of the song shines through, little hook repeating, the layers of dark strings from the first tune absent for the most part. There is a constant chorus of "oohs" from the female vocalist giving a nice contrast to the male-led song and whilst by the time it closes I find the track a little repetitive I cannot hold this against them. eagleowl bring me joy... I rather wish there was more.