The Complete Anthology (Disc 1) - Stump

Track list:
  
1. Tupperware Stripper
2. Our Fathers
3. Kitchen Table
4. Buffalo
5. Everything In Its Place
6. Bit Part Actor
7. Orgasm Way
8. Ice The Levant
9. Grab Hands
10. 50-0-55   
11. Big End

Running time: 35 minutes
Released: 2007

Complete random insert now. Back when I was getting into Microdisney via Cathal Coughlan's solo work, Stump were recommended to me by some algorithm somewhere (I don't recall whether it was a shop or a music site). I fell for the trap, bought the recently released Complete Anthology and then... thought it was odd and ignored it. Was that a good move?

By the by, this is apparently a concatenation of two releases, Quirk Out and Mud on a Colon.

The first sounds are hardly tuneful, and the early voice sounds more like a lead in to a budget 60's sci-fi tune than a pop song... my first musical point of reference is early Pink Floyd. There are some quite funky sounds buried in this track, in and amongst the rubble of the rest, but it is hard to see myself ever choosing to listen to Tupperware Stripper again. Amusing title, though, and the drive of the rhythm is a positive that hints there may be something salvageable in the anthology as a whole. We shall see!

This listen is my New Year's Eve; I've never been a fan of this night of the year and a safe, low key solo pursuit is just the ticket... even if the content I am consuming is not immediately lovable. I like Our Fathers a lot more than the first number though - there is a more definite tune here, whilst preserving some of the interest and quirkiness. The ending is a little but anti-climactic though, and the cutover to the next track is jarring. It jumps into precisely the kind of experimental noise-pop that I was expecting from my brief experiences of Stump when ripping the CDs... and it's not a culture I buy into, though that said I think the vocals that clearly don't fit standard lines and structures provide interest and creativity; it's the music around that which lets it down.

I am more parochial about my music these days for practical reasons. I have too much, I've never liked radio and the ways that I expanded my horizons in the past are less effective now - the lists of new releases on big online stores are dominated by re-releases and multiple different formats of mainstream items which I have no interest in, so I don't get to discover. I'd like to think I would be open to new artists, new sounds etc. - certainly I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the less familiar works I have listened to - but I don't go out of my way to find them. I also just... don't get to gigs anymore. No idea what is on, where, and no-one to go with if I were make for live music retreating out of my life.

I guess it is a question of priorities to some degree, but I do think it's got harder to sort wheat from chaff because there is now so much more... and the latter has always dominated in scale.

Anyhow - meaningless digression aside, if you overlook the questionable lyrics and suppress the suspicion that they're being weird for the sake of being weird, Stump had some talent in there. There is experimentation and there is cacophony, but there are also funky structures, rhythms and good pace. Nothing can save the horrible noise of Bit Part Actor though... it's just awful. It marks the end of the first EP; the latter 5 tracks are the second.

No song I have heard so far this evening has been entirely likable, but equally not everything has been a write off. For all the noise and weirdness in the construction of the sound, I think the most dubious element of the tracks is the lyrical content. The other parts wax and wane in quality, but the lyrics are just sheer nonsense throughout, and "adult" in that particularly juvenile way more often than I am comfortable with. I find it odd that I bring that up here, but for once I actually feel able to track the words to some degree... perhaps the lack of traditional tune structures throws a little more focus on the script?

Experimentation can be a good thing, but by its nature it is hit and miss. On this disc I feel the balance is more miss than hit. For every cool hook and each sweet sound there are two or three unpalatable items - crap words, walls of tuneless sound, incoherent track structure and so on. On the plus side, the tracks have been short and the whole disc is less than 40 minutes so it's not like it's eaten too much of my life. I find that I am keeping about half of it, much more than I thought I would, because enough of the tracks contained little positives to warrant another listen. By rights I should nuke it all, really, but sometimes that spirit of experimentation is welcome, and for when it is, there is Stump.

Compendium - The Second Hand Marching Band

Track list:
   
1. Mad Sense
2. Lies
3. A Dance to Half Death
4. Don't!
5. Not Yet
6. We Walk in the Room
7. BonBon
8. Grit and Determination
9. My Gift is Waiting
10. Next Year
11. Bottle of Anger/Lies (BBC Scotland Radio Session)
12. A Hurricane, a Thunderstorm (BBC Radio Scotland Session)
13. Love is a Fragile Thing (Sleazy version)
14. Learn to Love (2007 demo)
15. Bypass (2007 demo)
16. Transformers (2007 demo)
17. Dawn Raid (2009 demo with Benni Hemm Hemm)
18. Alexander and Angela (2009 demo)

Running time: 69 minutes
Released: 2010

I've written about how I came across The Second Hand Marching Band before. This has the look of a best-of and retrospective, including tracks I have elsewhere, but that's alright by me. Twee Scottish low-fidelity amateur charm is OK in my book.

It is a suitably low key starter for 10. Mad Sense's slow tempo, a lone voice, adding another. It's disarmingly charming. Yes, I was biasing myself towards this before I started, but there really is something comforting about the simplicity here. That said, I am happier for the bigger sound and a bit more life in Lies as that takes over, its intro more than half its length before the vocal joins. 

I can't help but feel, though, that I should stop this listen after three tracks, because A Dance to Half Death is undoubtedly the summit. I have loved this track since the first time I heard it. There's some fragility in the voice that endears, whilst the main theme, the twiddling tunes behind the vocal and the pace all strike emotional chords (pun intended) in me.  There is a rawness to it all, a heart laid bare, a pleading appeal. In some ways the song is amateurish, the voice almost fades away in places and it sounds like only an indie-effort could... a little rough around the edges. Yet the earnestness, the genuine intent and belief of the performers and the tones of their strings stir feelings in me, a sort of comfortable loneliness and longing. It is, I think, a masterpiece, albeit one most people will never hear or appreciate.

The sense that everything is slightly off-key can't be as easily brushed off on the more bombastic Don't!, and here the effect of everyone playing and singing together has more of a cacophony about it, and then we hit the first of the tracks on this album that I don't recognise. Not Yet jettisons the noise for a stripped back sound, a female main vocal, it reminds me more of Strike the Colours' less pop-y pieces in places with the intricate little strumming loops, though overall the similarities aren't that great. It builds nicely and I find myself enjoying it a lot.

Of course, my liking this should not be any surprise; The Second Hand Marching Band shares (shared?) some overlap in membership with eagleowl, a lot of their tunes exhibit that very clearly, and eagleowl are the best band no-one ever heard of and the group that I keep going back to when being alone all the time tips over into loneliness. The downside of that is that hearing those sounds when I wasn't feeling lonely (like just now) can tip me over into the very loneliness that I use these sounds to escape. Today is a calm day of not much between two days of hosting people for board games and in the aftermath of family Christmas. The quiet and peace are - or were - welcome, especially as I don't really feel like I have been off work for a week yet!

The album loses its way a bit in the middle. All pace slips from the tunes, and they strip back too far to be interesting. They retain a gentle charm, but it is a detached one, rather than an intimately engaging one.

The combination of Bottle of Anger/Lies brings back the energy. Yes, it is in part a repeat, and I could have sworn it was something I had elsewhere, and a quick search suggests that I axed it! Huh. Context matters - here this combo really worked to bring back something that was lacking as the mid-section drifted. There I found the raucousness abrasive. Odd. I am still not that enamoured of A Hurricane, A Thunderstorm though and I may axe that again (especially as I have other versions).

It amuses me that there is a sleazy version of, well, anything that would be advertised as such, but that is where we are with Love is a Fragile Thing... I can't hear anything immediately worthy of that term, so I guess it is a bit tongue in cheek (or I am tone-deaf). Then we are into a bunch of demos to finish off the offerings.

Learn to Love starts these off with the same trembling vocals that endeared A Dance to Half Death to me. Here there is less to back that up, but it is still plenty pleasant. Actually it may end up being these demos are the real reason to have this album... the search for where I had Bottle of Anger/Lies before laid open how Compendium is less a greatest hits and more the collected works. The first 10 tracks come from two EPs, 11 and 12 from the BBC sessions linked above. Happily thus far they are well worth having. The recording is a little harsher, louder, than perhaps would be ideal but the tone of the songs is right.

My attention wandered, and I find myself suddenly at the end of Transformers without consciously processing the bits in between - nice soft guitars, low key vocal and not a lot to do with the track name as far as I can tell...

Two to go, then; 10 more minutes.

I find my words are gone. My drive to type MIA. Suffice to say I really like Dawn Raid even though I cannot find the lines to explain why. The closing track I am less keen on. Musically its more of the same and OK, but the lyrics are mean-spirited in places. Not a good finish.

Comments of the Inner Chorus - Tunng

Track list:

1. Hanged
2. Woodcat
3. The Wind Up Bird
4. Red and Green
5. Stories
6. Jenny Again
7. Man in the Box
8. Jay Down
9. It's Because... We've Got Hair
10. Sweet William
11. Engine Room

Running time: 42 minutes
Released: 2006

As much as I like Tunng, my favour has always fallen on Good Arrows and And Then We Saw Land. outside of those two albums I haven't listened nearly as much. I suspect that's probably a mistake and I hope this listen will back that up and convince me I should give them more time. We shall see.

Post-Christmas haze. First day back home alone without the family around. Blessed quiet, and space for a listen, albeit competing with the sound of the washing machine in the kitchen. Can't have everything. Hanged starts with precarious found sounds, wandering light beeps and rustling percussion. There is a structure to it though, and it begins to coalesce into something more... then abruptly ends with a vocal sample. An idiosyncratic start, very Tunng, very good for setting the tone. Then we get into a picked guitar loop to start Woodcat, and Sam Genders' soft whispered vocal.

My two favourite Tunng albums sit either side of Genders' split from the band, but I love his vocal style. It's comforting, familiar, understated. It is like a little aural cushion to fall back on to. It wouldn't fit with the bolder sounds of And Then We Saw Land, but Genders-era Tunng were lower key, and labeled with the horrible portmanteau "Folktronica." I can see where the genre-labelers were coming from but really... It's not folk, and it's not electronica. It's not really even between the two, though it is hard to argue against it containing elements of the latter. Tunes are almost incidental as the intriguing array of found sounds and samples predominates over the instrumentation in terms of how the tracks are built and structured. For a man who wasn't keen on being the centre of attention, Genders situates his vocal very much at the fore of these pieces, too - though I don't think anyone could call the lyrics visionary, or insightful.

There is a nice emphasis on structural elements to these tracks, the counterpoint to the relative lack of melody. On Red and Green, for example the tune comes from the variation in the vocal to begin with, whilst the rhythm is prominent, up front and all squeaks and beeps - yet somehow without any harshness to them, and not out of place either. The higher pitch beeps used to form the beats has a tinge of birdsong to it, despite clearly being electric rather than organic. In some respects this is a strange album. It's harder to get into than the more tuneful works that followed but quietly rewarding once you get past the rather odd first impression.

Their tunes are quite hooky, too. As in they all have some little quirk your ear can latch onto and have your brain replicate again and again. I suspect I might be hearing the main loop of Man in the Box for the rest of the day.

Huh. I just noticed that the track list I pulled had 13 tracks for the album, but I only have 11. I wonder if I am missing a couple of bonus numbers? It could also be to do with some hidden tracks in the final number as its 8 minute run time is a little suspicious.

In some ways these songs are all vignettes at heart, a core idea. The group then layer little explorations and theories expanding around that core to build neat little baubles. This listen feels more like wandering through a gallery of things than it does sitting down to appreciate a composition. The Science Museum made into music. A hundred different little things to peer at and move on. It's quite a special feeling, but not really one that this project sets out to capture. I mention that because my attention is wandering... less so from appreciating the sounds presented to me, rather from being able to formulate coherent notes to tie it all together.  The little intricacies and aural oddities that crop up here and there, the somewhat off-kilter sounds, they all pull thought away from typing.

Ah, the final number, Engine Room, is the one track I really recognise from its opening notes. A really strong guitar hook, with a nice roll to it over an ominously tight picked center. It moves away from that core as it goes but its a very strong opening. By the time it becomes a space-y metallic fade out I am not quite sure where the time went. That is about the 4.20 mark, so there are some hidden track shenanigans here, but thankfully there is next to no silence (so it escapes the tag). I am not so enamoured of the postscript though... it's perfectly fine, but no more - and frankly the majority of this album is so much more than merely fine that this waffling final few moments is a complete anti-climax.

I really liked this one; I am not surprised by that, but it has made me think that I should expand the range of Tunng albums that make it to the commute-box.

Comfort of Strangers - Beth Orton

Track list:

1. Worms
2. Countenance
3. Heartland Truckstop
4. Rectify
5. Comfort Of Strangers
6. Shadow Of A Doubt
7. Conceived
8. Absinthe
9. A Place Aside
10. Safe In Your Arms
11. Shopping Trolley
12. Feral Children
13. Heart Of Soul
14. Pieces Of Sky

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2006

I have a strange musical loyalty gene or something, because I keep buying records from artists long after I stop actively enjoying their current releases. I think this is such an example. I loved early Beth Orton... Trailer Park, Best Bit and Central Reservation all. Then was much less enamoured of Daybreaker, yet I bought this album at launch. I also picked up last year's release, Kidsticks, though nothing in the decade between this and that and I can't recall actively listening to it at all. Time to reappraise this one.

In truth I remember little. Worms actually starts things off in a promising manner. Simple backing supporting a song that thrives on its vocal. It's such a simple composition that it really works, all the melody comes from Orton's voice. The song is nonsense, but like most of this disc (14 in 44 mins) it is also short so it doesn't have time to instill any feeling of distaste at the oddities. If this is a sense of things to come then I might actually enjoy this album. I don't have that many shorter songs really, and this type of punchiness - there, formed and gone - is actually a nice thing. Brevity can be welcome.

It is the Saturday before Christmas and I have surprised myself by basically being ready. Yesterday was massively productive and the family commitments only begin on the day itself so I have a couple of days to relax before it hits. On the record, things are breezy and warm, its not really speaking to me the way that Orton did on Trailer Park but it's not bad either. Pleasant background music I guess. Not maintaining a constant rhythm on this project doesn't help with approaching this sort of thing with any consistency. I'm sure that in the past I have binned tunes that were simply "fine" or "nice" like this. I could here, too, but I am not really feeling that decisive today.

It's true that the music is not giving me much to write about, but that is as likely to be because the tracks are gone before relevant and coherent thoughts are formed. None of the numbers on this album go over 4.30 in length and many are sub-3 minutes. I've reached the title track already and it feels like I have barely started. This song is the first that makes me feel actively indisposed to it. The vocal sounds a little flighty and a bit more broken, and the sparse backing is more fiddly and offputting than supportive. Compared to Worms, which has a similar high level structure, the execution is off.

I find that the goodwill I felt a mere 2 tracks ago fading, the unwillingness to call this bland and cull is suddenly replaced by the opposite urge. I cannot quite place why.

The general tone of this record is I guess a gentle warmth, it feels a little self-indulgent, self-congratulatory for a nice life. A little comfort bubble, but one that I feel I am outside looking in on, cynically so. That's me being the cynic. I find myself disengaged, distant and unable to find a thread to follow in these tunes. There is a lushness to the sound, and I find that doesn't play well with Orton's voice for me. This is probably ossification of taste, an indication of how I loved earlier material that I am more familiar with. My impression - whether accurate or not - is that the first couple of records were a bit rawer, a bit more visceral, and this one is overdone. 

That said, I rather like the tune on Safe In Your Arms, the longest runner on the album. It has a nicely tilting simple back-and-forth guitar lead and while the arrangement is still a little on the warm and fuzzy side of things, the sounds all rounded off, no hard edges, the tune has more room to grow. The piano deployed here adds something where elsewhere on the album I felt it superfluous. Tellingly, the point at which it feels it might be getting too much is also the point it chooses to close. A good decision, and a gem amidst the pile of stones.

I think the skepticism in my intro is justified by my experience of listening through. There are brief moments here and there when the music within swells and gives joy, but the overwhelming senses I take away from this is apathy and disengagement. Songs that disappoint may contain some nice ideas but then fail to deliver on them - Heart of Soul is a good example of this, where I rather like the approach to the chorus, and the way it breaks the structure from the verses, but I find the vocal does not work for me.

In closing, whilst very little of the album is actively bad, by the same token very little of it has me enthused. I wouldn't complain if someone put this on, but I wouldn't choose to do so myself. Damning with faint praise is damning most of these tunes to the recycle bin.

Come Up With Me - Thea Gilmore

Track list:

1. Come Up With Me

Running time: 3 minutes
Released: 2008

This was a Liejacker-era single or promo or such, and in my library at least shares the album's cover art. One song, not sure when or where I picked it up, but Gilmore remains one of my all-time favourites (and her latest The Counterweight is her best for years). I think I can hear this tune in my head, but how does it go really?

It's gentle folk-rock intro, layers one guitar on to another. The song is fine, I guess, but it's hardly Gilmore's best work. Her voice is good here, and the tone is brighter than a lot of how I hear Liejacker in my head, so that's good, but ultimately this is filler. I think I can live without this one, however much I may like some of her other work.

Come On Die Young - Mogwai

Track list:

1. Punk Rock:
2. Cody
3. Helps Both Ways
4. Year 2000 Non-Compliant Cardia
5. Kappa
6. Waltz for Aidan
7. May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door
8. Oh! How the Dogs Stack Up
9. Ex-Cowboy
10. Chocky
11. Christmas Steps
12. Punk Rock/ Puff Daddy/ Antichrist

Running time: 67 minutes
Released: 1999

As much as I love Mogwai, I've never really got on with CODY as an album. It has always been down the pecking order for me. Probably because I came to the group late, and picked this up by going backwards not forwards. Still, now it's time to listen properly.

Punk Rock: isn't, but the synergy of the voice with the gentle wandering guitar is better than it has any right to be. The louder moments of the sampled voice track (TV show interview I guess) are less effective, crowd noise is not particularly engaging. It is snowing outside, I have not been sleeping well the past week or so and I have been overly social in that time, too - only one weekday evening and today, Sunday afternoon, to myself. I need that alone time to recharge, and hopefully the next hour or so can contribute to that.

I suspect I will enjoy the listen more than I anticipated when I wrote the intro (a long time back given the sparse postings and need to fill in As and Bs that I bought), and come away with a new appreciation for this record, but still - 67 minutes is a marathon, not a sprint. The listen is putting off consideration of how to handle a complex scenario in the RPG I am running, the washing up and various other things I don't really feel like doing right away, so the gentle meandering of the title track is a rather apt form of procrastination. I am actually pretty familiar with track Cody from the live album Special Moves, which I listened to a lot whilst driving in the couple of years after it came out.

Thus far the tone of the disc is subdued, placid, with a tempo to match. It's really rather relaxing, a long way from the quiet/loud dichotomy or the wall of guitar noise that crops up in many Mogwai offerings. The most interesting factor so far has been the use of American TV soundbites. One actually spans two tracks, linking Helps Both Ways to Year 2000 Non-Compliant Cardia. This latest tune has the most body of anything so far, but is still in keeping with the easy overall tone.Not having ready up on the album, I don't know if this continues throughout, whether it was a deliberate choice by the band to mellow out, or whether the longer tunes coming up in the second half are more immediately recognisible as Mogwai.

To be fair, I'd like to think that if I heard any of these tunes in isolation without knowing them I would still be able to guess the creators because its not a million miles from their signature either.

I am enjoying this little oasis of calm. I am half way through per the track list, but a lot less than that in truth. The back half contains 4 tracks over 8 minutes and 2 at around the two-minute mark, whereas the first half was made up, generally, of standard radio song length pieces. The first of those long tunes does not shake up the formula, the easy-paced, light melodies. It does introduce some more strident strumming, but still within a slow paced formula. At this point the form is starting to wear a little thin for me in some respects. Whilst I appreciate the overall tone I am increasingly finding my mind is wandering because it is all a little too samey. Then Oh! How the Dogs Stack Up comes in with a weird old voice sample and and being completely out of place - old-timey, slightly off-key piano, and a sort of screeching background. I think that tune has to go.

Three epics back to back now.

For some reason when I see the track title Ex-Cowboy, the cattlemen of the American west is not the first thing that comes to mind. I think instead of Football, and Bloodbowl, of Dallas and Darkside. Perhaps it is an affectation, sport on the brain, influenced perhaps by the silenced snooker on my TV right now? I really like the main riff here though I find myself semi-tuned out because the pattern is set, and the track does not seem to have enough of a crescendo. Of course, it arrives as I am typing that last sentence, a sort of helicopter-blade swirl of sound applied over the top of the same riff at the same pace and amplitude. A screech, a scream, an objection to something.

A nod to earlier, the static the tune ends with is used as a bridge between tracks, and Chocky kicks off with a lot of dissonant sound humming and buzzing around, obscuring a gentle piano intro. I find this to be unwelcome. One tune fades, another rises, and then the fuzz clears and we actually have a piece of music with a discernible structure. A pretty good one at that. There are hints of sounds here that remind me of other songs, snatches of other groups - positive associations. The one that I can't shake that pops up again and again through the track is Red Snapper... I don't recall the track title(s) for the songs I am thinking of though, so I can't explain the reference. Maybe They're Hanging Me Tonight? It's a very different piece, different style tone and everything, but there are echoes here and there, similar sounds used in similarly punctuating ways.

There is a sort of restrained but naked threat in the sound of the first crescendo in Christmas Steps, a sound that had me springing forward in interest and excitement. This is the first really aggressive passage of the album and I like the bolder, brasher sound. The contrast is too late in arriving for me to consider CODY a great album, but this at least provides a great moment. The energy disappears from the track thereafter and it feels like the wind-down lasts too long, but then from a certain perspective the whole record is one c.70 minute come-down with a brief lively moment near the back-end.

Awake but Always Dreaming - Hannah Peel

Track list:

1. All That Matters
2. Standing on the Roof of the World
3. Hope Lasts
4. Tenderly
5. Don't Take It out on Me
6. Invisible City
7. Octavia
8. Awake but Always Dreaming
9. Conversations
10. Foreverest
11. Cars in the Garden

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2016

So I had a random shuffle on. Started with some Red Snapper, but quickly ended up in Singer-Songwriter land, through Lisa Knapp and Alessi's Ark. This last one made me think it had been a while since Alessi's last album, and I searched to find that she'd released one 2 days ago. Coincidence. Cue an instant purchase, download and play (spoiler: it's good!). From there I got sucked on to LastFM and exploring similar artists. Seeing a bunch of people I like a lot in that list I took a punt on Hannah Peel who also showed up and sounded interesting. So here I am, much later on.. and with that long rambling intro, lets see how the promise plays out.

We open with some very spangly electronic notes, then add an ethereal voice.  I can both see why the genre tag on this says "Dance & DJ" and why that tag is utterly wrong. There are bits in and amongst it - chiefly the voice and the tone of it - which make it clear why Peel was put up as similar to Alessi's Ark, but the overall style and direction are quite different. Not bad, just different.

I am happier with the opening of the second track. This is more like what I was after when I bought this album... then I realise my mistake. And old and common one relating to not removing shuffle. Start again. The actual second track is and interesting one. Slow, sparse, measured. It could be an epic soundtrack, the gravitas from the pacing really needs a visual. The vocal is a bit disappointing, but the atmosphere created on the tune is one I like a lot, one that is then shattered by the change in track as we head back towards the sound we opened up with.

This flip-flopping I suppose gives me something to moan about... but actually I don't want to moan. I rather like the flow. Hope Lasts is a good example of something that I would run a mile from on the radio, but in context here, I find myself really enjoying its cheesy synths and brighter tone. As we head into December things that bring brightness and warmth are well received. The short days, miserable skies and chilly temperatures all sap at my will to live. Little things like the right tone of music can make a big difference to how I feel in the depths of winter. The right tone isn't always light and bright - dark, cold and distant can sometimes be what I need - but right now? Yeah, light and bright please. It's like sometimes you're really wanting familiarity, and other times really interested in exploring new stuff; same deal.

So far this new stuff is working quite nicely - though I am not under any misconceptions that it will become an instant favourite or anything like that. There are some glaring flaws for a start, most notably the lyrics tending to the samey and repetitive, but there are some very nice sounds to sit behind them and the package averages out in the positive.

Invisible City is the track it shuffled to after the opener. I really like the keys on this, and the stately pace. The vocal drips honey, a luscious warmth even in its detachment. The tone is enveloping, a blanket against the outside world. Best track yet - and one I can genuinely see myself loving after a couple more listens.

As I find myself attuning to Peel's style, it grows on me. I like how she mixes up her sounds a lot, how the various bits and pieces fit together, and how she clearly cannot be labeled as mono-dimensional. There are tracks here that skip around several different styles, sounds that come from all over the place, and yet... they sound whole and as though they belong. Sometimes however the cadence of the piece is not quite right. The title track seems to have far too much empty space in it, too much track length to run out, meaning much of it is plodding, too sparse. Through it she is building up the layers of sound but for my money not really doing enough with them and it all feels quite staid, which given the variety of sounds is quite a feat in itself.

When Hannah Peel brings out the piano keys though, there is a nice satisfying resonance to them. She doesn't over-elaborate, using simple and amply-spaced notes to give a solid foundation. This is not complex note-wrangling, but it is really nice craftsmanship (even if the layers on top of the keys sometimes let down). She seems to use the piano structurally, thus creating tunes you think you could play, a deceptive and effective bluff, because the piano alone tells you nothing of the track as a whole.


The second really long track on the album starts much more promisingly, but loses its way about half way through its almost 9 minute duration. But you know what? I really like this album, despite the obvious weak spots.

 

It closes with an odd duet, charmingly odd. Overall, it's a winner.

Alterum - Julie Fowlis

Track list:
   
1. A Phiuthrag 's a Phiuthar
2. Camariñas
3. Fear a' Bhrochain / Dòmhnall Binn
4. Dh'èirich Mi Moch, b' Fheàrr Nach Do Dh'èirich
5. Go Your Way
6. Dh'èirich Mi Moch Madainn Cheòthar
7. Windward Away
8. Thèid Mi Do Loch Àlainn
9. Òran an Ròin
10. An Aghaidh Fàilte Na Mòr-Thìr
11. Cearcall Mun Ghealaich

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 2017

New release time. First listen. All the usual caveats.

I wrote that line a long time back, when this dropped through my door and got elevated to next in line. As seems to be customary these days, I have to preface this post with excuses for not having been productive on the project front - a combination of illness, tiredness, a busy life and, if I am honest, prioritizing other things over listens. I'm going to try to squeeze in two this Thanksgiving... whilst I am in the UK I am taking these 2 days as holiday as all my US colleagues are out and I had days left to take this year.

Right, that done, on to it.

Julie Fowlis' voice is charming though I don't understand a word of her songs, the Scots Gaelic impenetrable to my ear. It comes across as a lyrical language, but then that could just be the context. After all, putting words to song is going to exhibit the more lyrical aspects of a language more often than not. The first tune is a gentle strummed core, backing strings and a lilting, swaying rhythm with natural swells and long held notes. Entirely pleasant, but nothing to get excited about.

I am not used to this - my back is complaining about my posture sat up and forward at the keys, hunched over slightly. Another little challenge I guess. The music on is now more stripped back, the lush backing of the swells from the opening number replaced with a more lonely string line. I found the first track more engaging somehow... more soothing. Here the duet worked but also it rather obscured Fowlis' tones, and I buy her music for two things: 

1. Upbeat folk tunes
2. Her wonderful voice

Thankfully both are in evidence on the third track, which has the tone and tempo of a dance tune and a clearly sung main vocal. There is sunshine through broken clouds in these sounds, images of mountains and islands and a cool but lovely summers evening's light. Yes, tunes like this are stereotypical, but they are so for a reason. Not all stereotypes are bad, and most are rooted in some level of reality - if exaggerated for effect. The jigs, reels, tunes and songs of the isles are a pretty well defined body of work, and to me, a soft southerner working in tech, with no aptitude for country living but an admiration for it (I spend many a Sunday evening with Countryfile, for some reason!), they paint an idyllic (and unrealistic) picture of the beauty of that kind of existence. 

Ah, now we get a number in English and whilst the singer's voice is clearly the same, some of the magic is lost. Yes, it's still a fantastic voice, warm and inviting, but the mystery of the foreign tongue is gone, and I find that it takes a little away from the experience. Why should that be? Well, I guess it's a form of "othering" the songs, but whereas that is usually used in a negative light, here the other is part of what appeals. A sense that this is not my music or heritage, but one I am lucky enough to have been exposed to. I dunno. I am so out of practice with these posts that I suspect the flow of thoughts that I find myself with now is 99% crap and 1% flim-flam. 

So far so good though. A couple of ups and downs but the disc is pretty much what I would have expected, what I wanted from it. I'd like a couple more of the pacier tunes where Fowlis is able to convey an impish sense of fun and joy but I suspect that is just me looking back to the point when I first came across her work with a sense of nostalgia and ossification. I have definitely noticed myself being less enchanted by new things of late, which is a saddening thought. Still, despite that I have still bought more than I have made posts in the last quarter so it's not all bad.

Overall the tone of this album seems to be more sombre, which is a bit of a disappointment, not because it isn't good, but because right now I could do with a bit of a lift. And as I typed that sentence the song that was playing turned from slow, mournful tones to quick, lively ones with a very light vocal. Doubt erased. Good stuff. 

The final track is another slow number but it has a couple of really nice touches. First the spoken (English) intro, and then the harmony between two female voices. A poem set to music to close us out. Overall, yes this is a question of more of the same. No, that is not (always) a bad thing. Change and evolution are welcome developments, but sometimes... Sometimes you want something comfortable and familiar - even whilst it is "othered".

Come From Heaven - Alpha

Track list:

1. My Things
2. Rain
3. Sometime Later
4. Delaney
5. Hazeldub
6. Slim
7. Come From Heaven
8. Back
9. Nyquil
10. Apple Orange
11. With
12. Firefly
13. Somewhere Not Here

Running time: 68 minutes
Released: 1997

I can't remember when I picked this up, but it was long, long after it was released, and solely on the basis of a Massive Attack connection. That said I do have some one-off tracks by Alpha scattered through my collection it seems so maybe they led me to the album. I recall being profoundly disappointed with it and don't think I am consciously able to identify any of these tracks, but now it is time to give it its fair shot.

It's straight in to its first loop, no intro. It's a fairly slow, long pattern and the top end of it is not the most interesting. I have a feeling that this listen could become a slog in at least a couple of ways already. To be fair one of those is not the fault of Alpha; that this is the first full weekend I'll have at home in 3 weeks; that I've spent most of the day thus far (and all of the last weekend at home) doing chores, that I've been ridiculously busy of late. But the fact this is downtempo stuff really doesn't help.

Downtempo isn't necessarily bad, far from it, but it does rather lead to a sleepy atmosphere, and when tired that has a knock-on effect. Paying attention for close to 70 minutes of this will test my wakefulness, regardless of what I think of the music. So far, so little. Second track, Rain, has a vocal that sounds pretty phoned in over a similarly bland loop as the opener. The repetitiveness of it is a major drawback - both in terms of my staying alert and in terms of how enjoyable the track is. The loop itself is too strong, too forceful, too central. The variations that really should be making and breaking these tracks are subservient to the structural pieces rather than the other way around. It's all a little turgid, a little stolid and a little guileless.

It probably also doesn't help that I think I am coming down with something... can't keep my throat clear, so I am on the whisky to try to burn whatever it is out. That kind of discomfort and grogginess doesn't make the glacial pace any more palatable though. Three tracks in and I am sorely tempted to write off the whole lot and be done with it. The third is the worst yet - a 7 minute long trudge with nothing of any interest. The vocal is uninspired, the backing seems to alternate between two long-held notes ad nauseam.  Yawn. I am struggling to find something positive to comment on to break up my negativity - I don't like to be too monotonously scathing - but not finding anything.

At least the 7 minute thing is over?

The soporific nature of these tunes is only matched by the sheer boredom of waiting for a couple of minutes every so often for the screen to catch up with my fingers as I type. For some reason Firefox is hanging with a worrying degree of regularity. I really should make the full-time jump to Chrome as FF seems to get worse every week by comparison.

Stopping early is against the spirit of the project. I really shouldn't do it... but I want to, so much, as this is pretty much the worst thing I have encountered to date in my listens. Not worst as in most offensive, not worst as in unlistenable, but worst in terms of simply having nothing to get even remotely interested or excited about. Hazeldub, playing now, is the least worst track so far but even this feels quite poorly stitched together.

A lot has happened since I did my last listen, at the end of a week when I got up a head of steam again. That was 20 days ago. Since then I've been to Moscow for a long week of meetings, and had weeks either side of that in which I have barely had room to breathe, certainly no chance of sitting down to really listen to anything. From that point of view I was dead keen to fit a listen in today. If only the album had been at all interesting. For the sake of not becoming even more of a broken record I am going to stop typing for a bit and really try to search for something to break the monotony of complaint. Fingers crossed, here goes...

There is a nice bit! A break in the pattern as Slim turns in, the vocal is set free a bit and the support goes nice and light. It's nothing special, but in the context of what is around it it's like a droplet of ambrosia.

I don't think I am mellowing to this disc, but at the same time it seems to have got less unpalatable in the last few minutes. I think this is to do with a couple of quieter tracks, background reduced, focus on vocal.  It's not enough of an improvement for me to want to keep any of the tunes yet but it is a noticeable step in the right direction. Here and there some more thoughtful, more impactful sounds are coming to the fore.  Just three tunes and 15 minutes still to go. Somehow I have broken the back of this listen... by largely switching off from one of the core conceits of this blog. I don't want this one to set a pattern.

Thing is, Come From Heaven is not bad in a way that is amusing, that can be joked or laughed about easily. Its bad because it's so mediocre, so middle-of-the-road, so dull and bland that there are simply not enough talking points. Even the improvements in the second half of the run time have been baby steps - from dull and boring to pleasant and boring. I am glad I stuck with it, happy to have had a little bit more life in the later tracks even if it is not enough for me to say any of them are worth holding on to.

The album ends with a slow, dreamy track, spoiled by its duration (7 minutes) and its context. It's a high point, not just because it signals the end, but alas the peak is too late, and too low.

Afterglow - Jon Boden

Track list:

1. Moths in the Gas Light
2. Afterglow
3. Bee Sting
4. Wrong Side of Town
5. Fires of Midnight
6. All the Stars are Coming Out Tonight
7. Dancing in the Ruin
8. Burning Streets
9. Yellow Lights
10. Aubade

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2017

New release time. Jon Boden's first solo release after the end of Bellowhead is a return to the apocalyptic visions of his previous effort, Songs From the Floodplain, which I loved. I am catching his tour next month (alas not at a full band show) but picked this based on a prompt from the mailing list. This is a first listen so not likely to represent a final opinion.

The first surprise is the lushness of the sound, it's filled in. The vocal doesn't necessarily have the space it needs to create the picture the album sleeve suggests, and the wind instruments in the bridge feel out of place. It is not immediately a winner, then, but I suspect it might grow on me.

Sunday afternoon, this my penultimate thing to do before the weekend (and my week off) is out. The other is a stack of ironing. Joy. It's been a productive week, but I don't really feel like I've had a break because of that. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't, because if I'd taken the full stop I needed then I'd have still been in a terrific mess and feeling bad about not having done anything. Oh well; tomorrow morning is sorting through a week's worth of unanswered mail and figuring out what changed whilst I was out. In light of that I could do with something a bit more immediately positive or energetic than this. Jon Boden is a fantastic performer, very charismatic on stage, but so far that charisma is lacking in the recording.  The title track is pedestrian, dull rhythm leading to a staid overall effect. I hope this is not representative.

The drudgery is brightened a bit by the light guitar work on Bee Sting, but there is still no sense of pace or rhythm in the piece, even when the drums come to the fore, it's more emphasising the stop of the flow rather than providing positive impetus. Sure, not everything needs to be quick, pacy, intense, but the sell on this album is meant to to be big screen, not back room. It isn't working on that score. The imagery not supported by the sound; the concept not realised as well as it was before.

Oh, this is a richer sound. Space is occupied, arrangements more intricate, Bellowhead band mates invited to play a part in building a busier tapestry, but that extra "stuff" is not employed as effectively as it could be. The sense of identity projected by Afterglow is more after-party... come down, soft and easy. I am not picking out the lyrics clearly whilst I am tapping away here, but I don't get the sense of a vivid and lively world from these tracks.  It feels all very... safe?

All the Stars are Coming Out Tonight injects a bit more of a rhythm but whilst this is a crescendo of sorts, it manifests with all the ambition of background noise. The tune is staid, predictable. So whilst we gain a bit of urgency and, towards the end of the track, some more distinctive delivery from Boden's vocal, that is in service to an uninspiring song.

I am better disposed to Dancing in the Ruin, but... from my point of view the same concept was carried off with more gravitas on Songs from the Floodplain's Dancing in the Factory, where the sense of ruin and life in a world amongst the ruins was conveyed far more effectively. So what appears to be the strongest song thus far is weaker than a previous offering. This tune then devolves into an out-of-place instrumental outro.

I might just be in the wrong mood for this. Burning Streets brings a sense of urgency and stridency to the party but I bounce off the arrangement pretty hard. This is the first time that the apocalyptic vision really feels like it belongs, but the song itself leaves me cold. This is followed by some tension... a slow, dangerous tension, rather than a knife-edge or action-pumping tension. Yellow Lights has the most compelling marriage of theme and execution on the album. I wish this was saying more than it is. Having said that, it is not a particularly enjoyable song musically speaking. The vocal is great, and the arrangement does support it, but it doesn't draw you in. It is more keeping you at arms' length, wary. Apt, perhaps, but not the best of selling points. That said, the track's 7 minutes slide by easily enough.

Suddenly we reach the end. Aubade has a more immediate relationship with the folk roots and past work of the performer, or so it seems to me. This track is approachable, familiar, and whilst not the strongest composition Jon Boden will ever pen it remembers to a) make his voice the star and b) deliver on basic principles. It ends up as possibly my favourite track on the album because it remembers to cover the key points first, though the closing with birdsong is a little... off. Overall I find myself very disappointed. The disappointment is keen, because I so loved his Floodplain dystopia, and I had high hopes for another similar vision. I will give it more of a chance to grow on me - a chance albums from other performers whose other work I admired less may not get - but I can't see this becoming a favourite.