I adore music of almost any sort.  I used to say that there were only two sorts of music that I could not enjoy country and western (10 points to those of you who spotted a vague Blues Brothers reference in that joke).  The situation changed when Elvis Costello went to Nashville in 1982 and produced “Almost Blue”, his album of covers of classic and not so classic country songs.  I was hooked by the lead single “Good Year for the Roses” and it is still a favourite now.  When the album came out I naturally gravitated to the well known tracks like “Sweet Dreams” but one track grabbed me by the heart and has never let go, “Hot Burrito #1″ or as Costello calls it “I’m Your Toy”, which turned out to be a Gram Parsons track.

This led me to Gram Parsons and Costello also sent me off to look out Hank Williams Snr.  Gram Parsons, it turned out was already part of my collection as he was on my favourite Rolling Stones LP “Let it Bleed” (as a side note you only need five Stones albums, “Let it Bleed”, “Beggars Banquet”, “Sticky Fingers”, “Exile on Main Street” and “Forty Licks”.  the latter would be greatly improved if it had the full version of tracks on it rather than cutting so many great songs short.  Anyway).  I have a soft spot for the very melancholy country songs but find over produced country very hard to stomach.  I wandered down the bluegrass route and took great joy in finding the albums by Jerry Garcia, already being a fan of his guitar playing with the Grateful Dead.

Eventually this led to the Avett Brothers album “Country Was”.  A simple country album packed with good songs and full of promises to come.  Their latest album “I and You and Love” is their major label debut and was issued via Columbia Records and American Recordings.  it was produced by Rick Rubin, who surely can be spoken of in the same breath as the greatest producers in the history of modern music George Martin, Brian Eno and Phil Spector (as a producer not as a person at which he sucked donkey balls as Cartman would say).

The album starts with the title track and after 13 tracks of ballads, rock songs and bluegrass ends with “Incomplete and Insincere” two things this album is most certainly not.  My personal favourites include the distinctly country “Laundry Service” (dig that violin solo folks), the very rocky “Kick Drum Heart”, the title track and the very country “January Wedding” the latter could surely count both Gram Parsons and Hank WIlliams as close relatives.

I am not alone in this love of the album and it will surely not be long before the Brothers are not a secret of those ahead of the curve but a staple fo the festival circuit and are being mentioned by Bono et al.

This is
a) a head’s up to say that is coming,
b) a note to say get your hands on this if you can as the sound quality is breathtaking (my B&W speakers were designed for this I am sure) and
c) if you can get hold of the version of “Words” from the “Journey Through the Past” soundtrack (it runs to just over 15 minutes) do so, it is exquisite.

I am going back to it now, see you in 10 discs time!

This album is different to other Fennesz albums in that Sakamoto’s beautiful piano music is to the fore on all tracks. If you follow Sakamoto’s work and have heard or own “BTTB” then you know what to expect. This also makes the album easier for non-Glitch, non-laptop aficionados to appreciate. However, Fennesz devotees should not worry because his distinctive style is there in every track, taking the solo piano technique and adding that superb atmospheric effect, taking it into the ionosphere.

It would be wrong to compare this album to Fennesz last major outing, the wonderful “Venice” with the hauntingly beautiful “Transit” featuring David Sylvian’s vocals and sounding like a 21st century “Ghosts” as it really is a collaboration between these two heavyweights. A union of two worlds not a clash of cultures, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

If you want to know what Debussey in a thunder storm sounds like then this is the closest you are likely to come.

Links:

Fennesz

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Originally posted August 23, 2007

I personally love “Approaching Silence” and living in the middle of London find pieces like this and some of Brian Eno’s ambient pieces are excellent for escaping the dash and the rush of the city for the peace and atmosphere of the countryside or the coast without actually having to leave my home. The only thing that stops it from being a five star album is that unlike “Approaching Silence” it does not have the same drama but as it was written for an installation it was designed to work in a different way than “Approaching Silence”. By the way if you are thinking of getting the latter album go for the US version, which is a different and superior mix to the UK version.

Links:

David Sylvian

Samadhi Sound

Originally posted August 11, 2007

Originally posted July 11, 2005

Links:

Fennesz

David Sylvian

Touch Records

Originally posted March 16, 2004

The new album starts like it’s still 1978 with the poppy/punky/spiky “Jacqueline”. This is followed by the angular vaguely Middle Eastern guitar figures of “Tell Her Tonight”, so far so The Cure circa “Three Imaginary Boys”. Then comes the Top 5 single “Take Me Out”, which is a rather good metaphor for the album as whole. It starts off in a very normal fashion, nothing new, pleasant melody slides beneath the usual “lonely guy” lyrics. Then the whole song slides to halt and restarts as another song entirely, a much more interesting beast.

The album develops from there on in a much more satisfying fashion, living up to the hype, with “The Dark of the Matinee” and “Darts of pleasure” being the obvious standout tracks. It is all very late 1970s early 1980s art rock: angular shapes, spiky guitar figures and they have clearly been listening to Joy Division, possibly to some of the great lost early 80s Scottish bands (Joseph K, Simple Minds when they were all Kraftwerk/European dance rather than the bloaty sub-U2 stadium rock of the mid80s onwards, Paul Quinn, Orange Juice/Edwyn Collins). Is a return to 1978 a bad thing? No, we are due a HUGE kick up the corporate backside and with a few more bands like FF we might get one. Well, I can dream can’t I?

Originally published February 29, 2004

This album was his first, released initially in 1969 and has been constantly available ever since, making the transition from vinyl to CD effortlessly and finally to the latest version the digital re-master issued in 1990. In fact it is rumoured that Joe Boyd made it a part of the sale of his company to island that they would never delete Drake’s albums.

Whilst critics love all the Drake albums, this his debut is generally seen as the lesser of the three. I have to disagree, whilst “Bryter Layter” and “Pink Moon” are utterly gorgeous this is the most beautiful album I have ever heard.”Time has Told Me” introduces Drake’s dulcet tones but it’s “River Man” that really shows his gift of melody, along with the marvellous string arrangement by Robert Kirby. “Way to Blue” is achingly beautiful, “Day is Done” was the first of a number of poignant tracks that Drake recorded and “Man in a Shed” is almost funky, or perhaps a touch honky tonk, whatever, it is one of my favourites.

However, “Fruit tree” has often been seen as the key track in Drake’s career, often quoting the line “Fame is but a fruit tree . . . It can never flourish, ’till its stock is in the ground”, which hints at the fate that awaited Drake all too soon. Indeed this track and “Black Dog”, one of the last four tracks he recorded and available on the posthumous collection “Time of No Reply”, are seen as the lyrical bookends to his life and career. The former, hinting that success would not come until after death and the latter clearly stating that the hell-hounds of depression were hot on his heels.

Links:

The Official website of the Estate of Nick Drake

Some fan sites

Nick Drake.com

Nick Drake.net

Another Nick Drake site

Originally posted October 7, 2003

The best, the different and the wonderful are all here. Elvis and Vegas are inseparable, it became as much his town as it was Sinatra’s and this is the best representation of why they went together so well. The OTTness of the Strip and Elvis’ huge orchestrations of his later pieces went together so well. If he hadn’t died he would be enjoying a renaissance now, hip again with the Vegas years being hailed as the height of post-Sinatra irony. Live, love it, buy it. The Vegas years is Elvis at his best.

Originally posted August 12, 2001