30/13 - A Weekend In Utah Won't Fix What's Wrong With Us

OK, quick one again. No time to elaborate.

Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?

Always had a soft spot for Arctic Monkeys, and this might be one of their tastiest, sleasiest, most tongue-in-cheek tunes yet. Instant infatuation. Stylish video too:

 

Easy Star All-Stars - Paranoid Android

Screeching dissonant brass solo, yes please! Jah loves his children, yeah!

Marilene - Sinal Vermelho

Samba, to remind me to enjoy the summersun in between all my parallell jobs.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - I'm Not Gonna Cry

Some wonderful tuba notes in this one.

Mountain Goats - The Mess Inside

Almost negating the former tune: I'm not gonna cry.... but I very nearly did cry in the library, when I listened to this while vectorising some euro-notes. If this song doesn't break your heart, I have no idea what material it is cast in.

Over and out! Next week might be more elaborate.

29/13 - Kinda Like the Loose End At the End of the Night

Busy week. Belated list. Rounded up some stuff that hadn't made it onto the last few lists and ended up with some remarkable transitions, if I may say so:
 

John Martyn - May You Never

When noone else is around, I let music take care of me. Pat me on the head and say 'there, there'. After a day of concrete-casting, the gentle blessings of John Martyn cradled and reassured me.

Iron & Wine - Low Light Buddy of Mine

Got a little bit of money in my pocket for once. Couldn't help but indulge in some new CDs. Ghost on Ghost delivers exactly what I expected from it. I love his forays into jazzy arrangements.

Andre Tanker - Living for Lena

Get a grip Lena! Can't you hear how bad you're treating Andre? Bad, bad, bad!

It's so bad to be alone!

Tanya Tagaq - Surge

 Hebbe-be-habbe-be!

The Kills - No Wow

Modern classic. So angry. So sharp. So crampedly restrained. So good.


And one of my favourite tracks from last year has been adorned with a gorgeous music video by one of my favourite filmdirectors ever (Paul Thomas Anderson):

28/13 - Unfold In A Generous Way

A week in Sweden has refilled my heart. My friends' children, the beauty of nature, the comfort of family... Love feels closer. Cynicism and anxiety are on a break.

Björk - Undo

Hello, Vespertine old friend. How many times will you need to caress my brain and re-teach me these lessons? It's not meant to be a strife. 

I'm praying to share me.

Broken Bells - The High Road

...but the high road is hard to find.
Broken Bells is an album well worth a revisit. I find it has matured beautifully, like a fine wine really. For a side-project, its songs sound remarkably like full-bodied statements and its sentimental weight only grows in hindsight.

 

Roberta Flack - Go Up Moses

For once I found that someone else has already written a minor essay around this commanding fighter-track, so allow me to simply cut in on that:

Co-written by Flack, Dorn and Jesse Jackson(!), and is an answer to the traditional spiritual Go Down Moses. It exhorts Black America to quit begging off Pharoah and just let HIM go. Powerful stuff, delivered in this kind of spooky 'night-tripper' groove that just keeps building...

John Smith - A Long Way For A Woman

This was on my iTunes. Mark must have put it there. Another in a long line of revivalists of course, but when the song and the playing is this solid, I don't care whether it was made in 2010 or 1960 or 1910. More to learn here.

Jo Stafford - No Other Love

This song is not about silly love. This song is about sitting by a lake at dusk, watch the swallow swoop and the goose glide, see the treetops reflected in perfect stillness and feel everything at once. Despite what logic tells you; life is love and this song is eternal. Maybe I should go religious.
Also, check out the instrumental version.

27/13 - Summers Past

I'm back in Sweden. Sitting in my parents' home it feels like the past envelops me again. At the same time here is a rich and full present that puts Glasgow in perspective. If my life was a sentence I wouldn't know where to place the parenthesis. I guess I probably won't til I reach the punctuation, and by then it'll be too late.

Mott the Hoople - All the Young Dudes

Classic Bowie-penned rock anthem injected with just enough melancholy to shift it from embodying debauchery and youth, to looking at them as though from the future. A eulogy for the ever-slipping present. Nostalgia for what is happening right now. And now. And now... The sleeve-art is perfect too:

Nina Simone - Love Me or Leave Me

Strange thing about Nina Simone, she's one of those most instantly recognizable and universally appreciated voices (and rightly so), but at the same time her actual discography is almost ignored. Completely drowned out by hundreds and hundreds of compilations (just hav a wadethrough of her artist page on Spotify), noone ever lists Wild Is the Wind or High Priestess of Soul or Nina Simone in Concert amongst their favourite albums ever. Why that is I can't understand. This album is another case in point. Every damn track is solid gold. It should belong up there with the best albums of the 60s. It does for me. And this tune... As much as her fantastic singing dominates – just listen to the sheer force with which she drives that last verse home! – it also proves what a brilliant pianist she was.

I intend to be independently blue

The M*A*S*H - Suicide Is Painless

Has got to be the most brilliant and bizarre themetune ever. Lyrically composed by a 14-year old and intended to be "the stupidest song ever", it's the perfect combination of pitch black emo and jaunty barbershop. It's been covered by everyone from Marilyn Manson to the Manic Street Preachers, but you really need those wonderful choirs of the original (sung by the cast of M*A*S*H) to pull off the weird alchemy of melancholy and light-heartedness.

Joe Hisaishi - Kids Return

You know Joe Hisaishi? Yes you do. He's only composed the music for almost every Miyazaki-film there is. Plus he's made a number of soundtracks for that other japanese film-legend; 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano. This tune from the bittersweet nostalgic Kids Return is totally made for bikerides on a sunny summerday.

Abdelrahman Elkhatib & Solar Plexus - Ah Ya Zen

I've been a bit obsessed with this epic track since last week's Kieran Hebden/Gilles Peterson-binge. It seems to include pretty much everything. Frantic rhythms. Emotional crooning. Uplifting choirs. Exquisite instrumental solos. Surprising breaks. Ecstatic chanting. Pure funk. Stay with it til the end!



Finally this video is a brilliant accompaniement to an expertly tongue-in-cheek song. The dove made me laugh out loud.

26/13 - Alter Your Speech

This week my life has been enriched by two flawless mixes I found on the web.

Those who have followed my musicblogging for a long time (i.e. probably noone) would know about my great appreciation for Awesome Tapes of Africa; probably the most valuable music blog on the web. Now another of its fans has chosen some of his favourite laid back tunes from this treasure of african music and made a Slow Music Mixtape. If there's the slightest hint of sun where you are; if you have a hammock, a blanket, or simply a lawn/beach to stretch out on; do yourself a favour; throw away whatever summer hits you had queued up and download this batch. It will be better, I promise.

As if that was not enough, a few days later, Kieran Hebden and Gilles Peterson drop this monster of a session. These guys simply have the most exquisite taste in music, and I had to lay on my bed for two hours, doing nothing but listen, because after every amazing track there came another, even more amazing track. Do give it a listen, but if you don't have two hours to spare right now, you can always start with my little 23-minute list first, as no less than 80% of it is lifted straight from that revelatory mix. ENJOY.

Albert Ayler - Heart Love

Leading off with an unusually and almost impossibly catchy number from the man who's more known for aggressive freejazz. I've never heard Albert like this, with backing vocals and all, but I ain't complaining, and the solos, although quite mainstream compared to some of his more out-there work are still absolutely raving.

Willie Wright - Right On For The Darkness

The "right on" at which the drums break in at 0:40 is so cool I can hardly believe this guy self-released two albums and then more or less disappeared. This track alone should have made him a legend! Even if it is a Curtis Mayfield-cover.

William Adamson - Foggy Dew

Who is this? What is this? It's released this year, but could just as well be 40-50 years old. It's riddled with dark crawling spirits. It's emerged from an evil swamp. It has me hooked to say the least.

Rachel Sweet - It's So Different Here

Four Tet definitely used a sample of those twangy little notes in some track. But I have yet to go through them all to figure out which. I can definitely see why though. What a lovely production! Another artist I can't wait to listen more closely to. I LOVE DISCOVERING NEW MUSIC.

David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Forbidden Colours

I could continue to add tracks from that Four Tet/Gilles-mix, but I'll save some for another week and finish with a track from my own collection, to add a slight touch of originality to this list. Large flamboyant feelings perfectly matched by dreamy keyboardwork and those strings in the outro are so wonderfully dramatic.



And how good is it to re-familiarise yourself with the sound of the Pixies? It doesn't feel cramped, it doesn't feel like a tired reprise of older material. It just sounds like Pixies. Easy and natural and joyfully aggressive.