F#A#∞ by GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR! (1997, Kranky)

Okay so if you thought Portishead's THIRD was miserable this will top it. 

F#A#∞ is the most maudlin record i've ever heard but musically it is beautiful. I guess you'd categorise the Quebec based band as Post-Rock, vaguely similar to the likes of Tortoise, Mogwai or even Sigur Ros but in comparison with GYBE! they all sound very commercial. 

The album F#A#∞ ('F sharp, A sharp, infinity') takes its name from the opening keys of each side and the runout groove on the vinyl version of the album that doesn't lock out but runs endlessly in a loop - allowing the music to play out infinitely.

This album is largely instrumental save for some narration at the beginning of the first track, the 17 minute long 'Dead Flag Blues'. There are also fragments of voices - sound recordings, distress signals. The words seem to tell of an apocalypse similar to that alluded to in Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'. The combination of the deep voiced narration and haunting music has a cinematic feel. I've included them below as they're so evocative. You can see why the band and this album in particular was such an inspiration to Danny Boyle while he directed 28 Days Later.

The three tracks, 'Dead Flag Blues', 'East Hastings' and 'Providence' take you on an incredibly journey through a physical imagined landscape of ruined cities and an emotional landscape of horror, danger, loss.

It's bleak but beautiful.

'DEAD FLAG BLUES'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVekJTmtwqM

'EASY HASTINGS'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kfkUUkEGtc

DEAD FLAG BLUES:

The car is on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel,

And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides

And a dark wind blows.

The government is corrupt,

And we're on so many drugs

With the radio on and the curtains drawn.

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine,

And the machine is bleeding to death.

The sun has fallen down,

And the billboards are all leering,

And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles.

It went like this:

The buildings tumbled in on themselves.

Mothers clutching babies

Picked through the rubble

And pulled out their hair.

The skyline was beautiful on fire.

All twisted metal stretching upwards

Everything washed in a thin orange haze.

I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful -

These are truly the last days"

You grabbed my hand

And we fell into it.

Like a daydream.

Or a fever.

(later)

We woke up one morning and fell a little further down.

For sure it's the valley of death.

I open up my wallet,

And it's full of blood.

THIRD by PORTISHEAD (2008, Go! Beat)

Gone are the smokey jazz spy themes of 'Dummy', or the '60s orchestral sweep of the second album 'Portishead'. For their first album in eleven years Portishead returned with a sound that is altogether more industrial, mechanical and nightmarish. 

Just as previous albums, THIRD has a cinematic quality and undoubtedly film composers like John Barry or Bernard Hermann are still big influences on their sound. 'Hunter' in particular bares similarities to John Barry's 'Space March'. Overall though the sound is more electronic, more broken and sparser. Its a tough listen at first and demands multiple plays before it gets inside your head. Well, it did for me anyway. 

Geoff Barrow's soundscapes are more percussive than the previous two albums. They have a post-apocalyptic wasteland feel. There's no 'songs' here anymore, just the battered shells and frameworks. Were it not for Beth Gibbons vocals some tracks would be totally devoid of melody, I'm thinking of 'Nylon Smile', 'Third' or 'Machine Gun' in particular. The latter is especially intense, the drum effects sounding like a mixture of a workman's pneumatic drill and a lunatic battering a steel drum down a very deep well. I must point out I've never actually heard what that sounds like, but I'm pretty sure it would be a bit like this. The first time you hear 'Machine Gun' you'll think your ears are going to bleed, but it is strangely hypnotic and enjoyable in a masochistic sort of way. 

Beth Gibbon's stays true to form as the tormented chanteuse. You have to assume is suffering from some pretty harrowing psychosis. Whilst I'm sure if you met her she'd be a delightfully chipper individual the noise that emanates from her on record is pure misery. It works perfectly against this industrial backdrop.

It's a great album and certainly up there with the other two. It might not have been as commercially successful but it trumps them both for originality. The smokey jazz "trip hop" sound they helped typify with Dummy has been much copied since. I can't imagine an album as original and obtuse as THIRD being released by anyone anytime soon.

THIRD also contains for me Portishead's finest track, 'The Rip'. A stunning mix of guitar, synth and the theremin that's was such a part of their sound a decade earlier. It has been covered live brilliantly by Radiohead. Which has just made me think, can you imagine a wail-off between Beth Gibbons and Thom Yorke... Sheesh!

An epic album of electronic misery. Happy days.

'THE RIP'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBOaLjtR4mw

'HUNTER'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTpUwluLX0

'MACHINE GUN'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00PdHIPjaWQ

IN THE COOL OF THE DAY by DANIEL MARTIN MOORE (2011, Sub Pop Records)

If you're ever sad enough to punch your own name into Google you might discover a gospel album by a hot new Appalachian folk singer too!

Daniel Martyn Moore is a singer-songwriter from the small town of Cold Spring, Kentucky. On the basis of a 4 track demo he was signed to former grunge label Sub Pop Records where he released his debut album. He subsequently toured with Iron & Wine and My Morning Jacket  (whose Jim James plays banjo on several songs here).

IN THE COOL OF THE DAY is his third album. It is collection of gospel songs largely inspired by his upbringing. Some are original compositions by Daniel, others half-remembered and reinterpreted standards that his mother and grandmother used to sing to him as a child. 

His gently smooth vocals are backed by guitar, banjo, piano and at times a mournful violin. It's an intimate recording and every detail can be heard; the slide of fingers up his guitar strings, the smack of his lips as he delicately enunciates every word. 

At times its mellowness gets dangerously close to coffee shop folk, due largely to how soft and easy it all sounds. What stops it toppling over into Starbucks faux folk is Daniel's obvious passion for the music and the authenticity with the songs are performed. Were it not for the pristine sound of the recording many of the stripped-back songs could have been recorded decades ago and certainly some of the songs have been sung for a century or more. 

IN THE COOL OF THE DAY is quite simply gorgeous and I urge you to give it a listen particularly the whispered candlelit lullaby 'Softly and Tenderly', the organ led spiritual 'O My Soul' or the more upbeat 'Dark Road'. Links below.

'SOFTLY AND TENDERLY'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVA3tCEQ_ek&feature=BFa&list=PL6E6904E0D39EB44B

'DARK ROAD'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMkYBm5MixI

'O MY SOUL'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjNKCSqQ14I

TAROT SPORT by FUCK BUTTONS (2009, ATP Records)

It was rather ace of Danny Boyle and Underworld to open their wondrous Olympics opening ceremony with a track by Fuck Buttons. That pumping soundtrack set to visuals of young boys splashing merrily in the Gloucestershire source of the River Thames was by the naughtily named electronic duo.

Andrew Hung and Ben Power are Fuck Buttons, two art students who met at Bristol University with an apparent love for Mogwai and The Aphex Twin. It's an apt way to categorise their sound too - melodic though often discordant, beautiful as it often ugly, modern electronica drenched in white noise.

It was a reworked version of this album's opening track, 'Surf Solar', that was used by Boyle/Underworld to start proceedings but there were actually two other Buttons related tracks used within the ceremony; the iridescent 'Olympians' was used during the athletes arrival and also sampled for the breathtaking raising of the cauldron. Though not strictly a Buttons track, music by Ben Powers side project, Blanck Mass, was adapted and played by the London Symphony Orchestra during the raising if the Union Flag. 

The sound of TAROT SPORT is a mix of experimental electronics, drones, blasts, scratches, samples and feedback, set to thumping beats. Industrial 21st century psychedelia and a joyful cacophony that relishes in its own noisy invention. It is at times euphoric and uplifting ('Space Mountain', 'Olympians') but can equally be equally evil and malevolent ('Rough Steez'). It's always mesmerising.

'SURF SOLAR'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hQXSsbQCMs

'OLYMPIANS'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQZo2rsReEM

FOO FIGHTERS by FOO FIGHTERS (1995, Roswell Records)

As their headline set at Reading yesterday comprised of six of the twelve songs from this their debut, I wanted to go back and listen to it for the first time in probably a decade or more.

I really loved FOO FIGHTERS the album when it came out but other than the last Foos album, Wasting Light, I’ve thought Dave Grohl has struggled to deliver an album as consistent or truly exciting as their debut. Although I realize a lot of people would disagree with me. Although every Foo Fighter record is guaranteed to contain some great rock tracks, you do always know what you’re going to get. They’re just a little too predictable. To paraphrase a friend of mine, they belligerently bash you about the head with the same old one-dimensional tricks.

Maybe part of the reason I like this first album so much is that it was a real surprise. Beyond a single Nirvana B-side (‘Marigold’) no one expected Dave Grohl to be such an accomplished musician or songwriter. Sure he was an incredible drummer, but to go in to the studio and over the period of a single week and record every single instrument and sing every vocal as he does on this the Foo Fighters debut was inconceivable. They went some way to filling a hole in that gulf left by his former band.

The other reason I like this album best, is that unlike the more recent Foos albums it doesn’t follow that moderate rock middle ground that they've made their own. Certainly it has big radio-friendly rock tracks (‘This Is a Call’, ‘For All The Cows’), the melodic semi-acoustic number (the lovely ‘Big Me’) but it also has some frenetic hardcore and punk rock moments such as ‘Weenie Beenie’ or ‘Wattershed’. The latter is probably my favourite track on the record. The guitar playing is great, but Dave’s drumming is just awesomely heavy.

The other reason it still sounds so great is that it is probably the Foo Fighter album that sounds most like Nirvana. But I guess that was hardly surprising given that apparently nine of the songs were composed either during or just before Grohl was part of Nirvana. What’s also quite amazing to think, given how long Grohl has been in the public eye, is that he was only 25 when he recorded the album. An amazingly talented guy and despite the fact we know Foo Fighters as a band now, this is really an absolutely incredible solo record.

‘GOOD GRIEF’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzHBKqSDUI0

‘WATTERSHED’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18xqlDQtcPs

‘EXHAUSTED’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_rTTsZZ9KE

SURFER ROSA by THE PIXIES (1988, 4AD)

I'd never heard a single track of this album before I'd bought a cassette copy of it back in 1992. All I knew was that I'd read an interview in Smash Hits (or some other trashy teen music magazine) that Kurt Cobain thought it was one of his top ten albums, if not his favourite. I vividly remember listening to it for the first time on my headphones on a day trip Plymouth, moments after I'd bought it at the Virgin Megastore. I think I kind of expected something like Nevermind; heavy, accessible, slickly produced, warm and rounded. SURFER ROSA couldn't have been more different.

The Pixies first full length album is brittle, tinny and raw sounding. The incredible production is due result of the work of Steve Albini, the notoriously obstinate 'sound-engineer' but musical genius. Albini hates the term 'producer' although that's what he does. From his perspective he's not their to produce anything, he's there to capture and record a band. He is uncompromising in his determination to capture their 'real' sound and will go to extreme lengths to get it.

There's a great description of the recording of SURFER ROSA in the book Our Band Could Be Your Life by Nirvana and Grunge biographer Michael Azzerad: "the recordings were both very basic and very exacting: Albini used few special effects; got an aggressive, often violent guitar sound; and made sure the rhythm section slammed as one." For the tracks 'Gigantic' and 'Where Is My Mind?' Albini moved all the equipment and recorded the vocals in a studio bathroom to achieve a real echo rather than apply one in post-production. Elsewhere he experimented with making the vocals as raw as possible. For the track frenetic feedback-laced track 'Something Against You' he filtered Frank Black's voice through a guitar amp to create a guttural terrifying vocal line. 

The production is one of the best things about the album and created a demand for Albini who subsequently worked with PJ Harvey on the equally ragged 'Rid of Me', Nirvana on 'In Utero' as well as bands like The Wedding Present, Jesus Lizard and The John Spencer Blues Explosion.

Beyond the production, the songs on SURFER ROSA are brilliant. Violent, ragged, alternate rock with some simple, almost childish, pop hooks. The Pixies make excellent use of the dramatic quite builds and punctuations of loud terrifying blasts of noise. The melodies are so deceptively simple you can whistle along to the majority of them. The lyrical subject matter on the other hand is much more disturbing and featuring lashings of torture, mutilation and sex. 

'Cactus' is sung from the perspective of a prison inmate who want's his girlfriend to bloody her dress and send it to him. 'Gigantic' is about a black mans large penis which now having read the lyrics seems totally obvious, but it has not occurred to me once over the past twenty years. 'Break My Bones' and 'Broken Face' both contain explicit reference to incest with mothers or sisters and daughters. Conversely one of the assumed 'darkest' tracks on the album is 'Where is My Mind?' which as it's been used as a staple for film and TV moments of insanity, most notably at the end of the film Fight Club. It was however inspired by a diving holiday Frank Black took in the Caribbean. 

SURFER ROSA has inspired the best of the alternate '90s rock scene. Most vocally Cobain is quoted as saying the songs on the album gave him the confidence to progress the mix of heavy rock and pop he was trying to achieve with Nirvana: that he "heard songs on SURFER ROSA that I'd written and thrown out because I was too afraid to play them to anybody". If you listen to this album and then go back an hear the likes of 'Lithium', 'Rape Me' or 'Aneurysm' you can hear a Pixies template. Personally I just think it rocks. It is without a doubt the best of the four (and a half) Pixies albums. Saucy cover art too!

'GIGANTIC'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJncHEZ3URs

'CACTUS'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjnSAwpbfEY

'BREAK MY BODY'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CF9NOgv1us

THE SUN IS OFTEN OUT by LONGPIGS (1996, Mother)

Massively underrated and largely forgotten Sheffield's Longpigs knocked out two cracking albums. Their debut, THE SUN IS OFTEN OUT is packed with great indie songs which still hold up now. They weren't swaggering Britpoppers and were always on the fringe of that scene. Maybe that's part of the reason their brand of alternative rock or 'whingy indie' sounds less dated now than the output of Menswear, The Bluetones etc.

The album contains the singles 'Lost Myself', 'She Said', 'Far', 'Jesus Christ' and the achingly beautiful 'On and On'.

Singer and songwriter Crispin Hunt seems to have dissapeared off the face of the earth which is a huge shame. He has a emotionally expressive voice, was a great songwriter and was a charismatic front man, especially live. The one good thing about the Longpigs collapsing is that it forced guitarist Richard Hawley to go solo and record a series of stunning albums.

'JESUS CHRIST'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCPDMq8fs3s

'LOST MYSELF'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fdbblQ2HMc

'ON AND ON'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P-oRJ-5M0A

NEU! 75 by NEU (1975, Brain)

Up there
with Velvet Underground as probably the most influential band to have sold
practically no records. Neu! were German duo Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother.
Both were momentarily part of an early incarnation of Kraftwerk but left it to
join forces in 1971 under their 'new' name.




Neu! released
three albums over four years, and then another 20 years later in 1986. Though
they had minimal success at the time they had a lasting over generations of
musicians: Bowie, Brian Eno, Joy Division, PiL in the ‘70s through to like
likes of Radiohead, Primal Scream, Sonic Youth, Spiritualized, Death In Vegas,
Kasabian and most recently The Horrors. In addition they can be seen as the
forbearers for ambient and much of the current electronic scene owes them a
debt.




NEU! 75 is
their third album and contains six tracks. Unlike the first album, Dinger and
Rother had been working on the music independently before recording it and
resultantly the album has two distinct sides. Rother’s productions are more are
more ambient and similar to the first Neu! album. The opening track ‘Isi’ is
atmospheric and melodic. Led by a keyboard and early synths it is a moderate
paced electronic number set to Neu!’s distinctive ‘motorik’ beats. ‘Seeland’
and ‘Leb’ Wohl’ are dreamy ambient numbers.




Dinger’s
tracks on side two are heavier, rockier and feature his sneering and
unintelligible vocals. In particular the track ‘Hero’ is proto-punk with
grinding guitars set to a repetitive beat for seven minutes. It’s this side of
the album in particular that you can see has left the stronger impression on
music that followed, particularly with post-Punk bands like Joy Division and
PiL. 




‘ISI’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiMQ5r5y78g




‘SEELAND’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awNiwKoyoR8&feature=fvwrel




‘HERO’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYeVvp8sdmg

SETTING SONS by THE JAM (1979, Polydor Records)

"Which part of it didn't he get? It wasn't intended as a jolly drinking song for the cadet corps." 

That was Paul Weller's reply when told that David Cameron has said one of his favourite songs was class conflict anthem Eton Rifles. The song was written by Weller following reports of the Right To Work marchers coming off the worst in a scrap against a bunch of obnoxious Etonians who'd spent the previous few hours jeering them as they protested. The marchers thought they could take on a bunch of "posh schoolboys" but they came off bloodied and beaten, after all "all that rugby puts hairs on your chest, what chance have you got against a tie and a crest". You do have to wonder whether Cameron actually ever listened to the lyrics, particularly "I'd prefer the plague to the Eton Rifles". Anyway...

The fourth album by the Woking's finest sons, Weller, Foxton and Butler was initially intended as a concept album but never fully realised. The suggestion is four of the songs have a narrative that follows three young lads as the go away to an unspecified war, reuniting afterwards as grown men to discover they've grown apart and are "no longer as thick as thieves". The likely tracks are 'Thick as Thieves' (obviously!), 'Wastelands', 'Little Boy Soldiers' and 'Burning Sky'. The album cover and name seems to bear this out. In the rush to get a new album out in 1979 the concept was abandoned and the band pulled together what they could. 

SETTING SONS only features ten tracks and that includes a cover version of northern soul classic 'Heatwave', and a former B-side. 'Smithers-Jones' had previous appeared on the flip of the single 'When  We're Young' as a typical Jam rocker. Here it's largely stripped of guitars and led by a simple string arrangement. It gives the beautifully observed lyrics about a suburban businessman walking into his redundancy further poignancy. It's a lovely moment of respite from all the moddish guitars and is similar in tone to The Beatles 'She's Leaving Home' or something from the The Kinks. It's certainly bassist Bruce Foxton's finest three-minutes of songwriting.

Although SETTING SONS is a bit of a jumble, due in large part to the fact it was rushed and the original concept aborted, it does prove that The Jam were much more than a 'singles band', a criticism they've often been labelled with. 

'PRIVATE HELL'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN9JEXI8adM

'SMITHERS-JONES'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoGpSIuVgdg

'ETON RIFLES'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7kUDkK70qQ

STRANGE HOUSE by THE HORRORS (2006, Loog)

If The Lost Boys was set in Southend on Sea rather than fictional Santa Carla, local boys The Horrors could have written the soundtrack. STRANGE HOUSE their debut album is a mixture of gothic punk, garage rock, surf guitar and eerie fairground music.  Like a good ghost train, it's scary and camp, fun and frightening.

The sound is heavily indebted to the likes of goth new wavers like Bauhaus, The Birthday Party and The Cramps but similarly there's an influences from the likes of 1960s british producer Joe Meek who had a love for strange disconcerting sounds within pop records. There's also a cartoonish goth creepiness you'd associate with a soundtrack composer and Tim Burton collaborator Danny Elfman.

The album starts with a caustic version of Screaming Lord Sutch's single 'Jack The Ripper' (originally produced by Joe Meek). When singer Faris Badewan sings about stalking the streets of London late at night you'll think he's an escaped lunatic from the Victorian Mental Asylum, Bedlam.  He starts slowly with a deep menacing growl before descending into frenzied panic of screams and yowls which he sustains for much of the rest of the album.

We take in songs about childhood neuroses ('Count In Fives'), crazed obsessives ('Gloves'), serial killers ('Thunderclaps') and frankly lots of other scary stuff.

'Sheena is a Parasite' is perhaps the best known track. The title is a riff on The Ramones 'Sheena is a Punk Rocker' and The Cramps reply, 'Sheena's in a Goth Gang'. The video for this, the band's debut single, was banned by MTV but not because actress Samantha Morton pukes her intestines at the camera but because of strobing. Vomiting body parts is so passé these days.

STRANGE HOUSE is a disturbing, and sickenly twisted ride but its so over the top and silly that it's also lot of fun. Especially if you play it really, really loud.

'JACK THE RIPPER'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOvqUu6J_hI

'SHEENA IS A PARASITE'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxS95trd6kc

'THUNDERCLAPS'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyW2YLfjb0s

WAR INA BABYLON by MAX ROMEO & THE UPSETTERS (1976, Island)

Max Romeo is a dub reggae musician who's has joined the illustrious ranks of artists such as Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Serge Gainsbourg who have had songs refused airplay by the BBC for being too saucy. Despite his protestations that his 1969 song 'Wet Dream' was about a roof with a leak the record was banned. It's infamy made it a big hit that rose to No. 10 in the UK and kept it on the charts for months. 

Skip forward seven and years and Max Romeo has become a little more respectable. 1976 sees him in Jamaica working with leading dub-reggae producer Lee "Scratch" Perry on what would become one of the definitive classic dub albums of that era.

WAR INA BABYLON was produced by Perry and features Perry's in house band The Upsetters as Romeo's backing. It was recorded at Perry's legendary 'Black Ark Studios'  and is considered to be one of the producer's classic records, one of the Black Ark 'Holy Trinity', the other tracks being Junior Murvin's Police & Thieves and The Heptones Party Time.

A reggae 'Whats Going On' it is a melodic but socially conscious album with lyrics that focus on inequality, Jamaican politics, and the best and worst elements of Rastafarian briefs. 

Despite it's somewhat un-menacing name the track 'Norman' is gangster noir which is the kind of track 50 Cent would have sung if he grew up in 1970s Kingston Town rather than Queens, NY. We follow a very bad Rasta loaded with money and surrounded with pretty girls as he cruises about town doing deals and shaking down those with a lot less than he. Similarly toned 'One Step Forward' is a challenge to those Rastafarians who are 'conmen' and have lost their way from the rough but rewarding road to Babylon. Naturally this being a dub record there's the token song dedicated to smoking cannabis, the cheery 'Smokey Room'. But the best and best known track on here is the excellent 'I Chase The Devil' which has been sampled by both Jay-Z for the Black Album track 'Lucifer' and also by The Prodigy for the early single 'Out Of Space'.


'I CHASE THE DEVIL'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fl91GQlET4&feature=fvst

'ONE STEP FORWARD'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NHNIgYRKVQ

'NORMAN'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHf3V0IrBjI

DIRTY by SONIC YOUTH (1992, DGC)

Last year Sonic Youth finally called it a day after thirty years and 16 albums. No one reason was cited but it seems very likely it was to do in large part with the breakdown of the marriage of the group’s two main singers/songwriters Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore.

DIRTY was the second release on David Geffen’s major label DGC, which the year before had released Nirvana’s Nevermind. No doubt the label were hoping for another radio friendly unit shifter. They didn’t get it. In the US it’s highest position in the Billboard charts was No. 83.

Like all Sonic Youth albums it’s can be a tough and raw listen. It is mostly abrasive and discordant. That said DIRTY is also one of Sonic Youth’s most accessible records.

Best tracks for me are those sung by Thurston Moore rather than by Kim Gordon whose guttural delivery I just can’t get with. ‘Youth Against Fascism’ which features Ian Mackaye from Hardcore bands Minor Threat and Fugazi, ‘Sugar Kane’ which is perhaps the most conventional rock tune on the album and also the sludgy discordant grunge of ‘100%’. The video for ‘100%’ is worth checking out in order to see a very young Jason Lee and Spike Jonze, who also directed it.

‘100%’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3gN9Up6hmc

‘SUGAR KANE’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIIEbrMXs20

‘YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWzIlCJAw-o

IN MY OWN TIME by KAREN DALTON (1971, Just Sunshine Records)

Karen Dalton is the great forgotten singer of the ‘60s Greenwich Village Folk Scene which attracted and made names of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Ritchie Havens among others. Dalton only made two albums, IN MY OWN TIME was the second and it is breathtaking.

Her surviving peers are full of praise for Dalton. In his autobiography ‘Chronicles’ Dylan reminisces about the Greenwich scene and the acts that used to frequent the regular live haunt, Café Wah; “My favourite singer in the place was Karen Dalton. Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played guitar like Jimmy Reed. I played with her a few times”.

Dalton has a world weary voice and brought a soulful blues to the folk and acoustic pop that she recorded. Little is known about her private life but what is, sounds tough. Her heritage was Cherokee and before moving to NY she lived in Enid, Oklahoma. By the time she was 21 she had been married and divorced twice. Though she’d been in Greenwich since the early ‘60s but her first album only came out in 1969. Karen did not record her own compositions and both of her albums are made up of folk and pop covers or her versions of traditional songs. It’s been suggested that this is one of the reasons that success eluded her, given that at this time all singer-songwriters wrote their own songs and music.

The recording process proved torturous for Karen. She loathed the experience. Her first album was only recorded because Fred Neil fooled her into believing the tape wasn’t running. The recording of IN MY OWN TIME, her second album, was set up by Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman. In order to make the recording less stressful Dalton apparently returned to her home Oklahoma and brought back with her, her dogs, horse and children to keep her stress under control.

It’s a beautiful and soulful folk album. Standout tracks are the opening song ‘Something On Your Mind’ which speaking personally, her vocals go right through me. They’re heartbreaking and real. There’s also a lovely version of the American folk song ‘Katie Cruel’, a traditional song that dates back to the American Civil War, although Karen’s version is considered now to be the definitive recorded version. Also included are covers of Mowtown classics ‘When A Man Loves A Women’ and ‘How It Sweet It Is’.

The album was a commercial failure when it was released. Karen never recorded again. She spent the majority of the next twenty years destitute, addicted to drink and drugs and the was thought to have died on the streets of NY after long battle with AIDS. However for an article in Uncut magazine it was discovered that actually she died in 1993 in upstate New York having been cared for by friend and fellow folk musician, Peter Walker.

IN MY OWN TIME is forgotten masterpiece by a forgotten singer. 

Both deserve to be much better known than they are.

‘SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsYHN7eCCtU

‘KATIE CRUEL’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEKWpMUZoUE

‘HOW SWEET IT IS’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPzK_ABS_mE

KICK by INXS (1987, Phonogram)

I was never a fan of INXS. Being a kid growing up in the ‘90s they seemed like one of the embarrassing out-of-date ‘80s rock bands that just were not cool. A poor man’s U2 with a singer desperate to be Jim Morrison. My feelings towards them were typified by something Noel Gallagher said to Michael Hutchence when Oasis were presented with an award at the 1996 Brit Awards. Gallagher rather ungraciously, received his Best Video award for ‘Wonderwall’ by saying “has-beens shouldn’t be presenting awards to gonna-bes”.

But I owe a big thanks to my pal Oli who suggested that I go back and check this album out. He said it was good. But seriously, it’s so good. KICK contains five fantastic stadium rock singles; the slinky ‘Need You Tonight’, ‘Devil Inside’, ‘New Sensation’, ‘Mystify’ and the huge ballad ‘Never Tear Us Apart’, the latter being one of the two songs played at Hutchence’s funeral. The other being the heartbreaking ‘Into Your Arms’ by his friend Nick Cave.

Amazingly given the huge success of the album - over 6million in the US alone - Atlantic Records hated the record when they first heard it. According to INXS’s manager Chris Murphy: “They hated it, absolutely hated it. They said there was no way they could get this music on rock radio. They said it was suited for black radio, but they didn't want to promote it that way. The president of the label told me that he'd give us $1 million to go back to Australia and make another album”.

It seems incredible. This is a pretty perfect collection of pop rock ‘n’ roll with at least five flawless singles and should be part of every collection. If you wanted an INXS greatest hits, you may as well buy this. It’s all their best songs are on one record.

One thing I’d also discovered as part of this review is that U2’s beautiful ‘Stuck In A Moment You Can’t get Out Of’ was actually written by Bono about a fictional conversation he would’ve had with his friend Hutchence, as an intervention, to talk him out of his (alleged) suicide. I’ve always thought the lyrics were some of Bono’s best, but if you go back and read them now with that knowledge in mind, they seem especially poignant.
All the talk about Hutchence’s relationships and tragic death have overshadowed what a great rock front man he was. Give KICK a listen and remind yourself.

‘NEED YOU TONIGHT’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-rv2BQa2OU

‘NEVER TEAR US APART’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr-I5xX_BFk

‘MYSTIFY’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMi5KU0UjYE

SEARCHING FOR THE YOUNG SOUL REBELS by DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS (1980, EMI)

Earlier this year the newly reformed Dexys released their fourth album 27 years after their last. For anyone wondering what all the fuss was about you need to go back and check out their still mighty debut, SEARCHING FOR THE YOUNG SOUL REBELS, 

As album starts go its pretty audacious one and could only come from a bandleader as cocksure as Kevin Rowland. It's a statement of intent, Dexys had arrived and were here to take the throne. It begins with a radio being tuned. We get snatches of Deep Purple, Sex Pistols and The Specials before the radio is turned abruptly off. Rowland calling to his trombonist "Big" Jim Patterson and his crew of Midnight Runners...

"Big Jimmy!"

"Yeah"

"Now!"

"Yeah"

"For godsake BURN IT DOWN!"

And in blasts the brass. It's a thrilling start. A northern soul kick delivered with punk rock aggression. Very much inspired by the Punk ethic Rowland felt that great soul could be sung and played by anyone, even those without a "classic" voice like himself, all you needed was emotion and conviction, something Rowland had in spades. Rowland's raw emotional crying vocal style is not for everyone but you can't deny It has drama and soul.

The distinctive sound and their New York Dockers aesthetic was all part of Rowland's determination that the band not "become part of anyone else's movement. We'd rather be our own movement". He wanted to represent something unique and "a formed group" not just a bunch of random musicians. Not only did Rowland ruthlessly enforce the dress code, inspired by Scorsese's movie Mean Streets, as things progressed he also made his band do group exercise regime: "The togetherness of running along together just gets...that fighting spirit going". And on the album that group aggression really comes through musically. Just like the Pistols and the Specials, Dexy's are against the world and will fight all comers.

The bolshy brass of opener 'Burn It Down' is followed swiftly by the thrilling singalong 'Tell Me When My Light Turns Green' and then the militant instrumental 'The Teams That Meets in Caffs'. Also featured is the stomping UK Number 1 single  'Geno' dedicated to British based American Soul singer 'Geno Washington'. Rowland sings "I can feel the desperation" as music builds into the chorus with an equal sense of urgency. Such an exciting song. Its followed by the brilliant desperation of 'Seven Days Without You'. The album is rounded off in euphoric fashion by the air-punchingly good 'There, There, My Dear'.

'GENO'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnoUlZnwYy4

'SEVEN DAYS WITHOUT YOU'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkbXY15c-kg 

'TELL ME WHEN THE LIGHTS GO GREEN'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mYxZUJt4xc

HAIR by TY SEGAL & WHITE FLAG (2012, Drag City)

San Francisco musician Ty Segal is nothing of not prolific, releasing three albums this year, HAIR is the second with another to follow. It's an album of stoned garage rock with heavy psychedelic overtones.

You'd think it was recorded in during '69s Summer of Love. It has those distinctive late sixties wasted vocals, lazy guitars and raw live production. Some tracks are heavier and suggest the influence of bands like Sabbath or The Stooges but much of it sounds like sounds like dreamy and surreal West Coast late '60s rock but with Lennon-esque vocals.  

Standout tracks are the rockier numbers. The Stooges/MC5 garage stomp of 'Crybaby' and the baggy jam of 'Tongues' which sounds a very much like The Beta Bands 'Dry The Rain'. It also uses the same backward looping of sound as appears on the breakdown during Led Zepplin's 'Whole Lotta Love'. Also great is the mellotron led rock n roller 'I Am Not A Game'.

The album is essentially an eight song psych-wigout and whilst its retro revival is fun for a few listens, the nostalgic fuzz and squalling guitars does wear a bit thin and you're left wishing this great musician would just write a great tune. 

Its good, but despite all it promises HAIR won't leave leave you totally psyched. 

'I AM NOT A GAME'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SRcMko1hXQ

'TONGUES'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRw430N785g&feature=related

LUST FOR LIFE by IGGY POP (1977, RCA)

How can a man thats ingested that many drugs look so ripped at the age of 65. I mean look at Keith Richards, legendary as he is the old boy can barely structure a sentance. Where as Keith is as likely to fall off his perch as he is to fall out of another cocoanut tree, Iggy is going to outlive us all. A walking pharmaceutical experiment through most of the '70s Iggy has a constitution of steel and still has muscles that makes the British gymnastics team look like a bunch of pussies. And he still has time to sell reasonably priced car insurance too. What a guy!

During the drug-addled '70s Pop was really under the patronage of David Bowie. It was 'Our David' who helped bring The Stooges back together to record the classic Raw Power album which he also produced. It was David who took Iggy to Germany to write and record his first two solo albums, The Idiot and LUST FOR LIFE. It was also David who visited Pop at the Los Angeles mental institute where Iggy  had admitted himself for drug addiction. Bowie kindly taking his friend wraps of cocaine to keep his spirits up.

LUST FOR LIFE is the second of the solo Pop and Bowie collaborations. Jut as with Pop's first solo album, The Idiot, and Bowie's own Low and "Heroes" it was produced at West Germany's Hansa Studios. Incredibly it was written, recorded and mixed in just eight days, reflected by its loose and raw production. Bowie wrote the music for seven of the nine songs with Iggy providing lyrics. That said it sounds more like an 'Iggy record' than The Idiot which was definitely an experimental Bowie album.

LUST FOR LIFE contains two of Pop's best known tracks. 'The Passenger' is supposed to be inspired by a Jim Morrison poem that sees "modern life as a journey by car". That's Bowie you can hear singing the "la, la, la's". It also features the energised anthem 'Lust For Life' which was Iggy's announcement to the world that he had decided to 'choose life'. Other standouts are 'Sixteen', the only track entirely Pop's own. It's a garage rock stomp that could have appeared on any of The Stooges records. 'Success' is swaggering Stones-like bar-room rock n roll with a call and response verses. My favourite though is 'Fall In Love With Me' the final and longest track on the album which is a loose trance-like jam of bass drums, guitar and hammond organ not dissimilar sounding to tracks off The Horror's last album. 

I think most of us if a certain age know the title tune probably due to the opening scenes of Trainspotting, the track now being indelibly linked to Renton steaming through Edinburgh's streets. It's a great album from start to finish though and definitely worth checking out. I love it.

'LUST FOR LIFE'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQvUBf5l7Vw

'SUCCESS'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGbw-cz35qo

'SIXTEEN'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrI62NSarSc

TOXICITY by SYSTEM OF A DOWN (2001, American Recordings)

System of a Down defy classification. They're definitely thrash metal but are much more progressive and experimental than that might suggest. Their Armenian-American background noticeable frequently in singer Serj Tankian singing style and through the bands percussion. But as influenced as they are by Middle-Eastern music there's equally as much thrash, hardcore punk and out-there experimentalism. Another reviewer described them as a mixture of Fugazi, Rush and Frank Zappa. Despite all their influences one thing for sure, there is no-one else like SOAD.

Metal/Hard Rock is easy to deride largely due to lumpen headed redneck idiots like Metallica's James Hetfield or preening irony-free ego-monsters like Axl Rose. SOAD could not be further away from these morons. Lyrically and politically they are closest to Rage Against The Machine. They have been outspoken opponents of genocide, the war in Iraq, and singer Takian in particular has promoted the causes of Amnesty International and PETA as well as founding his own organisation, Axis of Justice, with Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello.

They took there name from a poem called 'Victims of a Down' written by guitarist Daron Malakian but allegedly changed the first word to System so that their records would sit closer to Slayer in stores. Which tells you much of what you need to know about the music itself. TOXICITY is very heavy album, but despite the very fast guitars, very hard drums, and very loud shouted vocals it is a very accessible and dare I say it quite 'pop', album. While things do get politically heavy and serious on tracks like 'Prison Song', 'Deer Dance' and 'X' there are just great fun moshing tracks like 'Bounce' which is about a boy and his pogo stick!

Standout song the has to be the epic single 'Chop Suey!' which manages to be at times ferocious thrash and gothic opera. It was high on the Billboard charts at the time of the September 2001 attacks in New York. It's lyrics regarding "self-righteous suicide" led to it being placed on a list of "inappropriate songs" and banned from the air by the organisation Clear Channel. A link to its brilliant video is below.

Also worth checking out is the hidden track 'Arto' that appears after the final album song 'Arials'. Featuring Turkish avant-garde jazz musician Arto Tunçboyacıyan it reveals most explicitly SOADs Middle Eastern influences.

TOXICITY is an exciting, inventive metal record and sounds like little else out there.

'CHOP SUEY'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvFpBOe8eY

'ARTO'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzVlP9g1mKM

'TOXICITY'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUa5yJNaLBs

KITTY JAY by SETH LAKEMAN (2004, iScream)

Devon: the home of Ambrosia Custard, Burts Chips, cream teas and of glorious sandy beaches. But there is another side to Devon. The Devon of death, murder, suicide, of blood and lives given down deep copper mines or lost out to sea, of Dartmoor and its barren windswept hills, eerie goings on, and its cold isolated Victorian prison. 

KITTY JAY is musician Seth Lakemen's second album. It is inspired by the history, myths and legends of his native Dartmoor where he was brought up and still lives. It's this haunting and dark side of Devon that Lakeman explores on this atmospheric and brilliant album.

All the tracks were recorded in his brothers Dartmoor cottage with the exception of the melancholic instrumental 'Cape Clear' which was recorded at St. Andrews Church in the village if Buckland Monachorum in order to make use of the Church organ. 

The songs themselves are a mixture of traditional folk standards and Lakeman's own compositions that weave Devonshire myths and local history and together with an authentic folk sound which features violin, tenor guitar, mandolin and bouzouki. 

The title song 'Kitty Jay' tells the story of a servant girl who committed suicide out on the moors sometime the late 18th century. The story goes that she fell pregnant out of wedlock and hung herself in a barn. The three local parishes refused to give her a Christian burial on consecrated ground and so her unmarked grave rests at the site of a crossroads, near the village of Manaton. There's always been tales of sightings and flowers are frequently found on the sight yet no one takes responsibility. Spooky.

Elsewhere we get servants murdering their masters for the love of their mistress ('John Lomas'), soldiers dying of their battle wounds out on the moors ('The Brave Knight'), and the hard toil of miners working deep underground in Dartmoors mines ('Blood Upon Copper').

KITTY JAY is a great modern folk album but with its traditional influences readily apparent. Its raw and live performance give the whole album an authentic local feel. You imagine many of these songs being sung in cottages and taverns hundreds of years ago. This is truly a West Country classic. 

Devon sent!

'KITTY JAY'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw6dPKorOBs

'FAREWELL MY LOVE'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX8gcBVExxk

'CAPE CLEAR'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwTOkycHt5g

SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME by MILES DAVIS (1961, Columbia)

Overlooked amongst Miles Davis’s albums SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME is not one of the classics or a big seller. Coming after the the run of ‘Porgy & Bess’, ‘Kind of Blue’ (the biggest selling jazz album of all time) and ‘Sketches of Spain’, it’s been largely forgotten.

Unlike the previous album ‘Sketches’ which featured a big band, SOMEDAY... is Miles leading a small quintet. Like Kind of Blue it features John Coltrane on tenor sax but for the last time as he’d left Mile’s touring band. They play together on the title track and the Davis composition ‘Teo’ (the track is named after the album’s producer Teo Macero)

The album features a mixture of original Davis tunes and pop and jazz standards. The title track was originally a song from Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs but became a Jazz Standard covered by Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Chet Baker and many others. Here it features Coltrane playing alongside Davis delivering an incredible solo. It also contains the lovely ballads ‘Old Folks’ and ‘I Thought About You’ which has also been covered by the likes of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and much later pianist Keith Jarrett. Davis trumpet sounds elegant and seductive.

Incidentally the woman on the cover, is Davis’ beautiful wife Frances.

‘SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C00IcNvSMnM

‘I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53ygnzCHbbo

‘OLD FOLKS’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuXAUoOqVzw

IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER by BELLE & SEBASTIAN (1996, Jeepster)

Still the best job I have ever had was working in an independent record shop, the mighty Soundcheck in Taunton. Owned by a lovely man called Roly, it was a safe haven where i could spend literally hours deciding which 7" singles i would spend my Saturday job money on. Finally aged 17 I got a job there. To be chap behind the record counter was pretty cool: playing the local DJs the new dance vinyl, chilling out in the back room which was a treasure trove of music and of course trying to look cool and knowledgeable (and failing) in front any pretty female music fan that might come in. I think my interview contains the best question I have ever been asked in that situation. "What are you 5 favourite bands and why?" 

In the year I worked there I don't think I ever left with any money. In fact I think after every Saturday I probably owed Roly money. But what I did leave with was a heaving bag of vinyl bought at "trade price". Happy days.

That's when I first heard of a new Scottish band called 'Belle & Sebastian'. I liked the cover. It was a bit like The Smiths. Monotone and with someone reading Kafka on the front. It looked like the sort of album an A Level Art student should probably own. I think I even had intentions of reading The Trial. Still haven't though. Anyway the cool cover meant it made the payday goody bag.

The music is wistful and slightly amateur sounding chamber pop. Recording is very loose and sounds almost live given there's barely any production. You kind of feel that it was recorded in a single take in some quaint village hall. Probably just after Sunday School and before the W.I. came in for Flower Arranging. It's fair to say, Belle & Sebastian are more than a little twee.

Singer/Songwriter Stuart Murdoch sounds like Nick Drake when he sings. He has the presence of that frail kid from school that you felt a little protective about. But beneath the softly spoken and effete vocals there's a sharp wit. Murdoch dryly delivers some great barbed lyrics and demonstrates the ability to acutely draw small vignettes about the kind of  'mis-shapes' that Pulp sung about, or Morrissey. One of my favourites is from 'If You're Feeling Sinister': "Hillary in went to her death because she couldn't think of anything to say. Everybody thought that she was boring so they never listened anyway". I also like the following from the 'Stars of Track And Field': "I met a boy who went through one of you sessions / In his blue velour and silk / You liberated / A boy I never rated / And now he's throwing discus / For Liverpool and Widnes". I love how it captures petty small town jealousy and the perceived success. It's a lyric Alan Bennett could have written. 

Murdoch has said that IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER is probably his best collection of songs a and I think he's probably right. Of the ten tracks on this the only duff tracks are 'The Fox In The Snow' and 'Mayfly' which are just the wrong side of twee. The other eight are both pretty and perfect - especially 'Dylan In The Movies', 'Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying' and 'The Boy Done Wrong Again'.

At the time it felt like a real discovery. Back it those pre-iTunes days when if you came across a gorgeous gatefold vinyl of an album this surprisingly good, it was genuinely rather exciting. Sadly Belle & Sebastian's inability to move on musically has meant that now, it's seems a little less brilliant, but IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER is still something to treasure and protect. Just like that soft kid you knew.

'GET ME AWAY FROM HERE I'M DYING'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjwCWSOp9DI

'LIKE DYLAN IN THE MOVIES'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4XOlPvxrVs

'STARS OF TRACK AND FIELD'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgohBw0hL-k