50 quid bloke

Have you managed to get hold of a copy of Paris Motel’s 071 ep?

I read about it, surprisingly in the NME (I say surprisingly, because it’s very calm for their tastes). Paris Motel is really Amy May and 071 is five tracks that everyone should get hold of.
It’s an utterly blissful bit of acoustic loveliness, that manages to avoid the dangers of being too Laura Veirs (ie whispy nonsense) or too Dido (you know exactly what I mean).

You can buy a copy here (and get a couple of sample downloads). Actually, I thought it was a download - and ended up ordering it twice. But, I feel that’s the very least I could do for her.

Of course, She/ they can be found on MySpace.

I haven’t read a better evaluation of it yet than Andrew Collins’ piece in Word magazine this month. Titled: ‘How Arctic Monkeys saved my life’, it’s basically a description of how they have turned him - a middle-aged, seen-it-all music hack - into a stammering fan again.

Anyway - the album’s out today. But, not on iTunes until tomorrow, I assume. If anyone finds an album review that gives it less than full marks…do tell. I haven’t seen one yet.

Hurray...

Over at Last Sound of Summer - complete with the odd download

To all those people who said: wait till you’ve got a child, then see if you’ll be able to sit down at the kitchen table in the morning and have a quiet hour’s pre-work blogging: Congratulations. You were right. Happy now?

However, the cds keep coming (and I keep on selling the old ones) so here’s a round up of recent goodies and all-righties.

I honestly didn’t think I’d like someone called Andrew Bird, and an album called|: Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Too winsome by half, methinks. But it’s probably ended up as my surprise favourite of the last month. He’s a song writer who’s a little bit alt.country, and a little bit soft rock and roll. And probably my strongest recommendation of the month.

As a perfect accompaniment to Mr Bird, may I recommend Nerina Pallot’s Fires. OK, she’s one of those female singer-songwriters who I reckon is probably incredibly annoying in person and always walks around with a notebook with lots of flowery doodles on it and who gets a little hyper after a decaf cappuccino. But let’s not let that blind our judgement.

It’s perfect Radio 2 stuff - which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but nor is it my strongest recommendation. However, it works well on a playlist with Andrew Bird. They should do a double act: a sort of Elton and Kiki for modern times.

Incidentally, while listening to this, I kept thinking: whatever happened to Fiona Apple (girl/ piano etc etc), and then almost by magic I stumbled across this piece on Slate about her, in case you were wondering.

There’s a lot of buzz around Jose Gonzalez’s album Veneer and rightly so it’s a completely bloody lovely piece of gentle guitar folk. His voice is the closest I’ve heard to the early (Tumbler/ London Conversation) John Martyn. Basically, it ticks every box - except one. I’ve listened to it dozens of times it doesn’t have ‘the song’.

There’s always such a fine line on lovely albums like this…it’s had brilliant reviews, because I imagine if you’re a reviewer wading through your monthly mountain of cds, this is soothing nectar for your abused ear drums. But I’m not completely convinced it gets better with more listening. Still, I’m going to try.

Iron and Wine also fits in this category by the way. Which reminds me - I still haven’t listened to their new ep (quickly clicks to itunes, finds it in the music store and starts to download…a musical revolution happening right here!!!).

There was a right old clever-clogs music quiz on Radio 4 a few months ago, in which various ageing music journos showed just how full of trivia their heads really were. Personally, I found it even harder than the Round Britain quiz.

Anyway, they had a round when everyone was asked to name an artist that was very credible but they didn’t really like (puncturing popular balloons is of course the ultimate opportunity for people to demonstrate the true good taste). Dave Hepworth revealed that he didn’t really like Nirvana - and after they had played a clip from Smells Like Teen Spirit, he smartly quipped in stern dad fashion: ‘Go To Your Room’

This is exactly how I felt after listening to Tom Vek’s We Have Sound. He’s a very young, gifted bloke who’s made an album that’s just a little too difficult to love. I think if he just went back to his room and calmed down a little…he might produce something truly wonderful next time round (see I’m getting the hang of this parenting thing).

Loudon Wainwright’s latest Here Come The Choppers is frankly rubbish. Which means I rank the three Wainwrights on current form: 1. Martha; 2. Rufus; 3. Loudon.

On all time form, however, I’d probably put them in reverse order though. May I suggest (again) that you sample Loudon’s A Live One to understand why.

Away from the world of singer songwriters, I haven’t been able to give British Sea Power’s Open Season the attention it deserves. It’s good full bodies power pop and I can sort of understand what all the fuss is about.

I also dabbled with Alligator from The National which Uncut made their album of the month not so long ago. I think they were wrong.

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One day at school, someone turned up with a box of record they said they’d found at Lime Street station. I took two of them that I’d never heard of: King Crimson’s in the court of the Crimson King; and the seven inch single of Curved Air’s ‘Back Street Luv’.

I think I was a mod at the time, so these were deeply counter cultural. But as they were free, I persevered.

Anyway - I found the King Crimson album utterly unlistenable, except for one track ‘Epitaph’, and I really rather liked the whole rock and roll Curved Air thing…and felt very clever that I knew where Stuart Copeland came from.

Fast forward many, many years and here we are. Last year BBC 4 had an excellent documentary on Prog Rock, and there’s a general buzz that it’s back I also noticed last year that the King Crimson was re-released.

But still I resisted. I was - I’m proud to say - never into Rush, Genesis, Yes or any of that noodling nonsense. And while it’s quite good fun to read about, it I’m certainly not going to get into it now. [I have the same feeling about Formula 1 - fine in theory, deadly dull in practice]

Then a strange set of social/ professional co-incidences gets me looking at the very fine Real Reviews blog, where the enigmatic RS writes about Ulrich Schnauss’s Far Away Trains. An album I have been smitten with since the first time I heard it.

He draws a line back from that, via The Who’s Baba O’Reilly, and Won’t Get Fooled, to Terry Riley’s ‘A Rainbow in Curved Air‘, an album I’d never heard of, but which, you might be able to guess from the title has very hairy credentials indeed.

I turns out that Curved Air, took their name from Terry Riley’s album. So I think: I like Ulrich, and I liked that Curved Air song (albeit when I was 15), so I’ll try this. And as Curved Air are inextricably linked with King Crimson in my mind, I really have to retry In The Court of The Crimson King again.

Guess what? King Crimson is still rubbish! Not that there aren’t some good bits in it. But for ever minute of decent melody, or dramatic build or swoopy/ swirly bit, or haunting vocal, there’s 10 minutes of aural mush. I can see the whole thing working wonderfully on acid - but these days, Wrigleys Extra is the strongest thing to pass my lips so that’s not much good.

And the Terry Riley? This, I sort of get. Although it’s got two tracks, one 18 minutes long, the other 22, and I cant’ remember when I last focussed on something for that long. I think full appreciation requires a spliff, a set of headphones and at least an hour of uninterrupted time. Well, I have the headphones.

For completions sake, I’m glad I was introduced to it. Now I really do know where Pete Townshend got the idea for all that synth work that saw the Who through the late 70s. This is important to me.

However, that’s as prog as I’m going to get. If you ever find me writing: ‘So I thought I’d find out what Rush/Yes/ELP were really like..’, please come round and shoot me. You know where I live.

A few years ago, when my interest in music was completely rekindled, I Am Kloot was one of my great discoveries.

Grown up, intelligent, mellow, melodic stuff that was easy on the ear but never boring. Utterly lovely. And, in Titanic and Dark Star two absolutely classic signature songs.

I think I must have read about them in Uncut, or heard a track on their covermount CD, and then downloaded everything they’d done on Audiogalaxy. I have no qualms about this, though because I then went on to buy their album, Natural History, not only for myself, for half a dozen times for Xmas presents. I gave it to people who hadn’t bought any new music for a while…and it was generally much loved.

Anyway, I sort of liked their follow up, I Am Kloot, but it felt a bit too much of the same. Their latest, Gods and Monsters, arrived this week, and I’m utterly in love with it.

They’ve cranked things up just that little bit - a bit more dischord, a little less obviously melodic, just enough to make you listen up, but not so much that they lose their charm.

You don’t want them to get stuck in the same groove - but at the same time, I don’t think the world is ready for the I Am Kloot freeform jazz album, yet..

The funny thing is, the albums had pretty average reviews everywhere. A pretty much uniform three stars. In a way, I can understand this - if you’re a weary music hack ploughing your way through this months pile of hasbeens and wannabees this isn’t going to make your hair stand on end. It’s not genre-defining. They’re unlikely to appear on the cover of Dazed and Confused any time soon. But, it’s a very fine album, and worthy of your time.

A music journo I know told me that despite the fact he can get any cd he wants for free, there is some music he buys as an act of public service - because he feels the artists need the support. I suppose this is how I feel about I Am Kloot. I want there to be bands like this, producing music like this. Frankly, I’ll end up listening to this album about a hundred times more than I’ll listened to The Bravery or Arcade Fire.

PartyBen - the man behind the very fine Boulevard of Broken Tunes Mash Up (it’s mu08.mp3 on this index of mash ups…enjoy the rest) has also done ‘Somebody Rock Me’ a very clever mash up of Rock The Casbah and Somebody Told Me - for ageing post punkers everywhere. There’s a link to it on the front of his site.

Another of those Amazon moments today when a CD arrives that I have absolutely no recollection of ordering.

Who is Dave Mason, I ask? Why is he standing on a mountain in a top hat and tails? and what is this Alone Together album doing in my hands?

Now, yes, I know that the smart music types among you would have known instantly he was in Traffic and this was a solo album of his from 1970 and, you can pretty much guarantee that Paul Weller not only has a copy, but has listened to it about a million times.

I however, was completely baffled. My original thought was that he was some sort of retro-hipster that I’d been recommended on here and I rushed out to buy in fear of falling behind.

However, a quick listen to the gentle, lolloping folk-rock and a check on the date (1970) and it all came back to me: I’d heard a track by him on Jon Savage’s Meridian 1970 album and gone off to find out more. I’d ordered it on caiman.com - so it had taken a while..hence the fact that I’d completely forgotten about it.

What a pleasant surprise. Yes, it’s about as dadrock as it can gets (I heard the phrase ‘neckerchief rock’ the other day - and it fits that bill as well). It wreaks of real ale with a big frothy head, of real men with dynamic facial hair, of..yes, you get the picture. But I’m very glad it’s there in the collection - ready for when the folk rock revival kicks off so I can say I was there all along.

Ironically, the original review of the album in Rolling Stone says it’s very nice but it’s a bit too perfect and polished. By today’s standards it sounds as rough as old boots - although it’s also as charming and comfy as old boots as well.

Something live if you fancy a nice folky thing: Easy Tiger, Michael Chapman and Behind the Sun performing at Bush Hall next Friday. (some more about the event over at LesCousins.co.uk)
 

Something (re)recorded: A new version of Love will tear us apart by Honeyroot (featuring my mate Keith and Glenn Gregory), which I think will be relased formally in the Spring but you can download for a very reasonable 99p from Karmadownload using the link above (here’s a Real Audio sample)