David Bowie - The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars

Generally speaking, I think David Bowie is a kind of "you had to be there" type of character. To a particular generation of people, predominantly, as far as I can tell, the post punk/New Romantics, his work appears to have had a significant impact and inspired many, Boy George, Duran Duran, Visage, Spandau Ballet, into becoming artists themselves. As someone a little too young to have been into Bowie during this time, he doesn't have quite the same effect on me. Some of his stuff is great but the rest I can do without.

In fairness, this album, which was another whim purchase a year or so ago, leans towards the latter, the fact that it's a concept album is a plus point. I particularly like Starman and, of course, Ziggy Stardust, Mick Ronson's guitar playing is for me, as a casual listener to Bowie but a big guitar fan, one of the highlights here.  Of the slightly less well known songs, to me at least, I like Moonage Daydream.

Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys

Based purely on the lyrics, this is my favourite album of the last few years. I think Elbow's Guy Harvey, is one of the best lyricists around. In particular, Lippy Kids' lyrics are so evocative. It's a song about growing up, especially that point in life when you transition from child to young adult. The lyric "One long june I came down from the trees and, kerbstone cool, you were freshly painted angel walking on walls, stealing booze and hourlong hungry kisses." is one of my favourites of any song or artist. Other songs I love are "Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl", apparently about Garvey's first girlfriend and things that were important to him and the band when they were in the their early days, and "The Night Will Always Win" which is about loss and absence.

Adele - 21

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right, I'm going to assume that the entire population of the world  has at least a passing familiarity with this album so there's not much that I can add in terms of any new insights. I think you either love what Adele does or you hate it. Personally, I love it. As a performer she's not about breaking new creative ground or redefining musical paradigms, she's just an incredibly good singer and, more often than not, that's enough, especially when you've spent most of your time recently listening to instrumental music! My favourite track is  Don't You Remember

Darren Hayman - Lido

 

 

I wasn't aware of  Darren Hayman, prior to hearing this album I now follow him on Twitter and am working my way through his back catalogue. I think I heard about him/it from one of the other blogs I follow, although I can't remember which now. I downloaded it originally, without listening to it first, because of the concept, as a Prog Rock fan concept albums hold no fear for me! which is inspired by the  outdoor swimming pools dotted around the country.

Again, it's instrumental album but, unlike the other albums I've written about recently, it uses mainly "conventional," largely acoustic, instruments, except for some sound effects and field recordings taken at the actual locations of the Lidos themselves. Some of the Lidos are still in use while others are now closed and all the pieces on the album are named after the individual Lidos.

I suppose the purpose is to try evoke something of the atmosphere of being at the Lido on a sunny day and I think it works. The music is largely mid to slow tempo and I'm tempted to describe it with terms like "charming", "quirky" and "whimsical". My favourite track is Parliament Hill.

I'm Off

On the spur of the moment, in the spirit of "everyones' doing it so why can't I" that inspired this blog in the first place. I'm moving my blog to Wordpress. I can now be found here

Dawn Chorus - Day 5

Just a short posting this morning. Todays' Dawn Chorus is Frank Turners' "Polaroid Pictures" from his album "Tape Deck Heart". There's no particular reason why I'm hearing it today, I haven't listened to the Album for a while. I like it though. Good choice brain!

Dawn Chorus - Day 4

It's a bit late in the day really to be doing this and have it count as a dawn chorus. I was up early, considering it's the weekend, doing some chores and errands so was a bit too preoccupied to think about the days' dawn Chorus. However, there is a song that's been rolling around my head most of the day which is Bessie Smiths' Send me to the Electric Chair. Last night I was posting a new jam on This Is my jam and actually chose Aint Nobodys' Business If I Do but it's Send Me to The Electric Chair that I've been thinking about since. I'm a big Bessie Smith fan. I love the way her songs combine dark humour and real emotional strength.

Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory - Elements Of Light

An album, literally, with bells on! As with the last couple of entries, it's instrumental, electronica, with the exception of the bells! I'm starting to feel that this blog needs some noodley, 10 minute guitar wig out or some earnest singer songwriter emoting all over the place but the shuffle refuses to give us that at the moment. This album comes from a very different place to that of the Boards of Canada, which invites (compels?) you to pay it some attention. Elements of Light comes from a more dance (house?) orientated tradition. The use of the bells give the album and overall feeling of warmth but its so warm and smooth I find it a bit soporific, the inclusion of two tracks clocking in at 12 and 17 minutes, respectively, doesn't help either. It's a nice album (damning with faint praise maybe?) but  I think the best thing to do with this is either to dance, gentlely, to it or to have it on in the back ground while you do something else. At least that way you can stay awake.

Dawn Chorus - Day 3

Oh dear, not a good day today. I have that dreary nonsense by Passenger going round in my head! I have no idea why. I don't like the song, not even sure what it's called and I can't remember the last time I actually heard it but I have some line about "only miss your lover when you let her go"  on repeat in my brain. Im going to listen to some Pink Floyd to get rid of it

Dawn Chorus - Day 2

Following yesterdays first entry of The Dawn Chorus, I did think of changing the name to Morning Glory but thought better of it as I am a mature, sensible man who holds no truck with such juvenile smut...honest!

 

Anyway, todays' second entry is Adeles' "Don't You Remember from her 21 album.

The reasons why this might be on my mind and entered my unconscious sleep will become clear in a few weeks,  so stick around to find out why, it's good. Actually that's just my Ham fisted way of getting anyone reading this blog to keep coming back!

The Dawn Chorus

Most mornings I wake up with some song or piece of music going round my head and I thought it might be fun to keep a record of these on a daily basis. It's not a particularly original idea I know, Shaun Keavney on Radio 6 has his "Ear Worms" feature going in a similar vein. Luckily, in the sense that I don't have to get up that early, I rarely hear this. So I'm starting my own version. So, the inaugural "Dawn Chorus" is John Grants' "Pale Green Ghosts

On A Roll

Having got the hang of scheduling I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment. I've scheduled posts up into mid February, so far, which gives me time to listen to stuff as well as blog. Hopefully, this will allow me to keep the momentum going. For anyone who reads this *snigger* the next few posts will be out on a a weekly basis on a Saturday to, hopefully, catch the weekend crowd. 

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

Another album from the last year. If you're ever looking for a definition of the description "Bleak Beauty" listen to this. Like a lot of the stuff I've been listening to recently it's electronic and, largely, instrumental, with the exception of a few sampled, hard to discern, voices. It's great and reminds me of 80s film sound track for something like Escape from New York Friday 13th or Halloween . It's one of those albums that keeps on giving. Every time you listen you hear something new.

John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts

I love John Grant and this is probably my favourite album of 2013. It's, pretty much, perfect. Musically, there's icey 80s electronica combined with darkly humourous, self depreciating, almost self loathing, lyrics which give the album its heart. It's not as instant as his first, solo, album but in some ways, the fact that it takes a little more time and effort to get into, in comparison, makes it, ultimately more rewarding. And its got Sinead O'Connor doing backing vocals!

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.