A Few Forthcoming Releases: Jan 2010

The usual monthly round up. A small but perfectly formed list for you.

4th Jan

• ERIC LA CASA – Zone Sensible 2/Dundee 2 (Room 40)
• NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS – The Road (Mute)

11th Jan

• LAURA VEIRS – July Flame (Bella Union)
• ROBERT CURGENVEN – Oltre (Line)
• SLOW SIX – Tomorrow Becomes You (Western Vinyl)
• VAMPIRE WEEKEND – Contra (XL)

18th Jan

• MOTORPSYCHO – Heavy Metal Fruit (Rune Grammofon)

25th Jan

• BJ NILSEN – Invisible City (Touch)
• CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG – IRM (Because)
• FOUR TET – There Is Love In You (Domino)
• LINDSTROM & CHRISTABELLE – Real Life Is No Cool (Smalltown Supersound)
• MAGNETIC FIELDS – Realism (Nonesuch)
• MATTHEW SHIPP – 4d (Thirsty Ear)
• MYCALE & JOHN ZORN – Mycale: The Book of Angels 13 (Tzadik)
• RJD2 – The Colossus (Rj’S Electrical Connections)

1st Feb

• BT – These Hopeful Machines (Nettwerk)
• VARIOUS – The Best of Fried Egg Records: Bristol 1979-80 (Bristol Archive)

8th Feb

• AARKTICA – In Sea Remixes (Silber)
• ANOTHER ELECTRONIC MUSICIAN – States of Space (N5MD)
• GIL SCOTT-HERON – I’m New Here (XL)
• ROEDELIUS – Wenn der Sudwind Weht (Roedelius)

15th Feb

• FIELD MUSIC – Measure (Memphis Industries)
• TINDERSTICKS – Falling Down a Mountain (4AD / Constellation)

22nd Feb

• ALI FARKA TOURE & TOUMANI DIABATE – Ali & Toumani (World Circuit)
• EFTERKLANG – Magic Chairs (4AD)
• JOHNNY CASH – American VI: Ain’t No Grave (American)
• STAFRAENN HAKON – Sanitas (Darla)
• SUBTRACTIVELAD – Life At The End Of The World (N5MD)

1st Mar

• JAGA JAZZIST – One Armed Bandit (Ninja Tune)
• POLAR BEAR – Peepers (Leaf)

22nd Mar

• SERENA MANEESH – S-M 2: Abyss In B Minor (4AD)

Vic Chesnutt 1964-2009

Depressing news. He was a truly unique artist. It’s also a damning indictment of an American health system which is well nigh barbaric.

Full story here.

Perhaps not an appropriate song given the circumstances, but a perfect example of his passion and black humour.

I first came across Vic when he supported Kristin Hersh on her Hips and Makers tour. I saw a few shows on that tour. The first night in Warrington I didn’t really get it, but after that I was swiftly converted. His shambolic, impish stage presence belied songs that were full of rage and mordant humour. I bought all the Texas Hotel albums after that, and saw him live many times over the years – the last at Primavera in Barcelona a few years back. He’d lost none of the power to make you laugh and despair in equal measure, often at the same time.

Ironically, in recent years he’d found a label in Constellation that totally understood and supported him which resulted in some of his very best work.

2009 – Top Twenty Albums

No detailed dissection of the year. Since I spent the first half of it on the dole, there wasn’t an enormous amount of money around (read none) to splash out on records, so there’s a lot of stuff I’ve yet to hear.

The twenty are:

1. BLEEDING HEART NARRATIVE – Tongue Tangled Hair (Tartaruga)
2. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
3. DALEK – Gutter Tactics (Ipecac)
4. 10-20 – 10-20 (Highpoint Lowlife)
5. MONO – Hymn to the Immortal Wind (Temporary Residence)
6. WILLIAM BASINSKI – 92982 (2062)
7. SUNN O)) – Monoliths and Dimensions (Southern Lord)
8. CLARK – Totem Flares (Warp)
9. HARMONIC 313 – When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence (Warp)
10. EVANGELISTA – Prince of Truth (Constellation)
11. 2562 – Unbalance (Baked Goods)
12. SPARKLEHORSE + FENNESZ – In the Fishtank (Konkurrent)
13. A HAWK AND A HACKSAW – Delivrance (Leaf)
14. SIR RICHARD BISHOP – The Freak of Araby (Drag City)
15. CHRISTOPHER TIGNOR – Core Memory Unwound (Western Vinyl)
16. BLACK DOG – Further Vexations (Soma)
17. VILLAGE ORCHESTRA – I Can Hear the Sirens Singing (Highpoint Lowlife)
18. BUSHMAN’S REVENGE – You Lost Me at Hello (Rune Grammofon)
19. VLADISLAV DELAY – Tummaa (Leaf)
20. ELISA LUU – Chromatic Sigh (Hidden Shoal)

Compilation of the Year: 5 Years of Hyperdub

M M & M’s 100 from the noughties – 2008

My ten selections from last year haven’t changed from my top ten of last year which can be seen here.

Just to recap, the ten are:

ALVA NOTO – Unitxt (Raster-Noton)
AUTECHRE – Quaristice (Warp)
BLACK DOG – Radio Scarecrow (Soma)
EVANGELISTA – Hello, Voyager (Constellation)
FENNESZ – Black Sea (Touch)
JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON – Fordlandia (4AD)
MURCOF – The Versailles Sessions (Leaf)
OUR SLEEPLESS FOREST – Our Sleepless Forest (Resonant)
PORTISHEAD – Third (Island)
THEE SILVER MT ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA & TRA-LA-LA BAND – 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons (Constellation)

M M & M’s 100 from the noughties – 2007

I started this blog in February 2007 so most of these have been mentioned before.

BURIAL – Untrue (Hyperdub)
It’s raining. You’re a little drunk, and the reverberations of the music from the club are still bouncing around your head. There’s a light ringing in your ears, and there’s a regret in your heart for the girl you were dancing with and talking to who then melted away into the crowd. You don’t really know this part of town and just want to get home.

GAVIN BRYARS / PHILIP JECK / ALTER EGO – The Sinking of the Titanic (Touch Tones)
This live Italian performance of Bryars’s masterpiece runs to nearly three times the length of the original recording, but doesn’t feel stretched or overlong at all. Jeck’s turntable static intro and outros frame the music, seemingly taking it back to a time of wind-up Victrolas and heavy shellac.

MURCOF – Cosmos (Leaf)
Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space….

NATIONAL – Boxer (Beggars Banquet)
Proving that the four minute rock song still has the capacity to hit all the right spots.

BJ NILSEN – the Short Night (Touch)
As elemental as the weather itself, a meteorological masterwork.

PAN SONIC – Katodivaihe / Cathodephase (Blast First Petite)
Possibly the duo’s most sonically extreme record to date – ranging from sonic booms to barely audible UHF and ghostly echoes to the rage of the blast furnace.

RADIOHEAD – In Rainbows (XL)
Subject of 3.2 billion column inches of piffle about the ‘end of the music industry as we know it’ when it came out which overlooked what a great record it was and is.

SHINING – Grindstone (Rune Grammofon)
A turbulent, exciting ride through jazz-prog-metal and even snatches of grand opera. That might sound ghastly on paper, but Grindstone has teeth and claws.

STARS OF THE LID – And the Refinement of Their Decline (Kranky)
The duo’s masterpiece. Two hours of drone based atmospheres and melancholy melodies slowly unwinding.

SUPERSILENT – 8 (Rune Grammofon)
Another hour or so of edited improvisations by the masters of the genre, filled with exceptional moments.

Album: ÓLÖF ARNALDS – Við Og Við (One Little Indian 2009)

Not to be confused with her compatriot Olafur Arnalds (they might be related, I don’t know), Ólöf Arnalds is an Icelandic folk singer / songwriter who is also a sometime member of mùm. Við Og Við originally appeared in Iceland back in 2007. Only now is it being unleashed on a wider world. Quite why it’s taken so long beats me – perhaps it was seen as a disadvantage that such a lyrical record is sung in a language that few outside of Iceland understand.

The arrangements on the album are spare and gentle, but this isn’t an introspective misery fest. There is a brightness and sense of innocence to many of the songs. With the lyrics impenetrable to most (even an Icelandophile like me), its Ólöf’s voice and the tunes she weaves with it that hold the attention. It’s an instrument that sounds something like a cross between Vashti Bunyan and Márta Sebestyén. By turns, both fragile and powerful, childlike and wise.

The primary accompaniment is acoustic guitar, but there also subtle touches of koto, charango, woodwind, brass and strings. The orchestral swell that ends “Nattsongur” is surprisingly deep and lush compared to the skeletal instrumentation that precedes it. All but two of the songs are self-penned, and yet many sound as old as Icelandic culture itself with an almost hymnal quality to them. It’s an album for quiet moments.

Tracks
1. Englar Og Darar 2:59
2. I Nyju Husi 4:34
3. Klara 2:28
4. Við Og Við 5:39
5. Orfeus Og Evridis 5:37
6. Vittu Af Mer 4:14
7. Moldin 3:21
8. Nattsongur 4:32
9. Skjaldborg 3:03
10. Aevagomul Orkupula 2:00

Websites
www.myspace.com/olofarnalds
olofarnalds.com