Carole King - Tapestry

OK, so, five months since my last posting. I had, basically, given up on blogging but I mentioned to someone on twitter recently that I'd had a blog and I thought I'd give it another go with this short entry.

I originally intended to blog about This Album, which I bought after hearing it in full for the first time at a friends, way back, even before some previous posts. However, I couldn't really think of what to say, so I left it and moved on to other stuff.

I think the album suffers two "problems". The first, not a problem really, is that there are some really, justifiably, classic songs on here that'll be familiar to most people. So, beyond the sense of familiarity and recognition, there's little to grab the attention since, and this is the second problem, there are some, justifiably, none classics on here, such as "Smackwater Jack" which sounds really dated.

Ah well, it feels good to have got this one out of the way, in blog terms. We'll have to see whether it's going to spur me on to make further entries???

 

Old stuff

Haven't been blogging much recently. Mainly because I haven't been listening to much music and when I have, it's mainly been older stuff which is outside the remit of the blog.
Anyway I thought I'd share something from a band that my flowery and pretentious teenage and not so teenage heart and imagination fell in love with. In case they're not familiar, they're called Marillion.

I'm also visiting Aylesbury, the town where they formed, this weekend. So it seemed like a good reason to listen to them after a break of a couple of years.

Increasing Work Load

It seems that the observation I made in my first post about the rate at which the size of my collection has increased continues to be true. When I started blogging in August last year, I had 381 albums. I just noticed that this has increased to 402 as of today. Given what's on my "wanted" list, this number will have increased again by the blogs' anniversary.

Bert Jansch - Avocet

I have been known to do a bit of bird watching on occasion. It's mainly restricted to my garden but I've had a couple of trips out recently and had the opportunity to see, both, Avocets and Ospreys  after which there's not much else you can do but listen to an album where all the pieces are named after birds, including Avocet and Osprey!!

 I've been listening to quite a bit of instrumental music in recent times anyway, which this album is. I love when musicians or composers attempts to describe "physical" things with their music, such as Gustav Holsts' Planets or  Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons and I suppose this is what Jansch attempts to do here. I'm not enough of a bird watcher to know how well he succeeds in describing the flights or behaviours of the various birds, (according to a couple of friends the best piece of music to do that is Ralph Vaughn Williams' Lark Ascending ) i just know he, along with Danny Thompson and Martin Jenkins, created a fantastic album with flashes of Folk and Jazz, reflecting on and expanding his work with Pentangle. My Favourite track is Kittiwake

Alberta Cross - Broken Side of Time

I did the first posting for awhile last week so I thought I'd try and keep things going for a bit.I got this album from a friend I used to work with. We worked in different parts of the country but we'd meet up 3-4 times a year at training events etc and swap cd's we'd made for each other and try and out geek each other with our musical knowledge, apparently Bombay Bicycle Club aren't from Swansea after all, who knew?? Unfortunately he moved on and I haven't been able to find anyone, at work at least, with the requisite level of geekiness to replace this valuable source of new music.

Anyway, back to the album. It's fine, nothing earth shattering but nothing especially memorable either. I'm happy to listen to it if it shuffles on the ipod but I'm not sure I'd think to myself "wow, its ages since I listened to Alberta Cross , I must make the effort."

In terms of sound or genre, it's like Jane's Addiction channelling Bruce Springsteen. Which has some merits but only a few.

Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction

Sinead O'connor - How About I Be Me And You Be You

It's been a while since I've blogged and hadn't really thought of doing so again until I started listening to this today. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Sinead since her first album The Lion and The Cobra but this is the first album I've owned for a few years.Frankly, it's pretty great.
Over all, the impression is of a album full of positivity and, even, humour e.g. The Wolf Is Getting Married.  But it wouldn't be a Sinead O'Connor album without delving into darker subjects such as the failure of the Catholic church to deal with the abuse scandal Take Off Your Shoes. There's a couple of covers in John Grant's "Queen of Denmark and Tim Buckley's "Song to The Siren." My personal favourite is Old Lady because its so full of joy.

Kuedo-Severant

After my "meh" reaction to the Arcade Fire album from my last post I felt like I needed to listen to and blog about something more positive just so that I could maintain the momentum of writing. Therefore I deliberately chose this album, rather than let shuffle choose for me because I've listened to it often at least in comparison to most of the stuff included in this blog.

In addition to Heavy Metal, my other seminal influence is electronic music from the 80s like Yazoo, Human League and Kraftwerk and this album has echoes of that period.

I believe, in terms of genre, it's what  "The Kids" call "Chillwave" . It's almost entirely instrumental and, to my ear, sounds like Kraftwerk gave Vangelis a hand at writing the music for Blade Runner while, at the same time, inventing Drum & Bass in Brian Eno's studio while he made Music for Airports.

Frankly, I love it. The titles for each piece, I can't call them songs, are pretty obscure such as "Ascension Phase and, my favourite, "Visioning Shared Tomorrows". However, the lack of a narrative actually draws you into the music rather than excludes you. There's space that allows you to really listen and engage with what's going on in the piece. This is a treat and gives a jaded pair of ears a real lift.

ARCADE FIRE-THE SUBURBS

Right, first blog posting for a while. Why's that? Well, mainly, I just got out of the habit for a bit. However, the other reason has to do with this album. This isn't the only Arcade Fire album I have but it's the first one to shuffle onto my blog play list and I've listened to it quite a bit over the last few weeks to try and get to know it. It's, both, musically and lyrically quite diverse, there are some moments of dry humour, and it's sound can't be pigeon holed, which is a good thing but I haven't really managed to engage with it at all. I don't hate it in the way I hated the Mumford and Sons album, it just feels like it all passes me by.

Considering how many times I've listened to it, I'd have expected to become more familiar with the lyrics of individual tracks or at least be able to identify the name of the song by now but the reality is that I can't. Which is why it's taken me so long to sit down and write anything.

I know that, both, band and album are loved by the critics and cool kids and expect that if any of them or, indeed, anyone actually reads this blog they'll be shaking their heads with pity but there you go. I think, from memory, I enjoyed Neone Bible and Funeral more but I suppose I'll see if that's still true when they come up on the play list.