mogwai

Looking forward… another new music fix

/ Tony / 2 Comments

Taking a momentary pause in Springsteen-focused posts to look ahead a little. While I haven’t really waded into the ‘that was the year that was’ waters yet there’s plenty already on the horizon for the coming months to look forward to by way of new music and my pre-order pile is already shaping up to the point that I need to reconsider my record storage setup. Again.

Mogwai – Fanzine Made of Flesh

There are some things that are so reliable as to provide comfort. One is that Mogwai will be delivering new music on a regular basis – usually with a soundtrack album in between studio offerings. The others are that these albums are likely to be strong blasts of the good stuff and that they will always contain the strangest of track titles.

With The Bad Fire set to drop in a little over a week, the next track released as a prequel ticks both the quality and the name boxes.

Lucy Dacus – Ankles

Lucy Dacus’ two previous albums – Historian and Home Video – provided some absolutely glorious moments that I still enjoy as often as possible. So with the announcement of Forever Is A Feeling yesterday and the release of ‘Ankles’ and ‘Limerence’ hinting that it’s going to be just as wonderful I jumped on the pre-order button quicker than a MAGA supporter on a link containing flat-earth proof.

Drop Nineteens – Daymom

Drop Nineteens made two brilliant albums in the early ’90s that merged the shoegaze vibe with the then burgeoning alt-rock before packing away their instruments. That they have another new album – after reforming for 2023’s Hard Light – is only good news for me.

Blondshell – T&A

I thoroughly enjoyed the debut from Blondshell – Sabrina Teitelbaum’s recording project – and am keen to get more via her upcoming If You Asked For A Picture. ‘T&A’ takes its title from a line – “tits and ass” – in the Rolling Stone’s song ‘Little T&A.’

My Morning Jacket – Time Waited

It feels like it’s been a while since My Morning Jacket worked with an outside produce but, then again, there was only the one self-titled studio album released during that time. For the up-coming is they’ve worked with Brendan O’Brien whose name you may know from the back of albums by Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against The Machine or Bruce Springsteen’s early ’00s comeback records. While I’m always up for a new My Morning Jacket record I’m very curious as to how O’Brien’s style has worked with the bands. I’ll have to wait until March for the full thing but I’m sure we’ll get more than ‘Time Waited’ ahead of then.

Post-rock Monday: new shit has come to light, man

/ Tony / 4 Comments

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’….

Before even attempting to catch up here I thought it a good hit of post-rock would be a suitable way to try and blow the cobwebs off just as I employ the genre on a Monday morning to ease the kick in the jewels that the start of the week resembles.

As it happens, there’s been a glut of great new post-rock recently that’s been working its magic in my ears but before we get to that, here’s another wonderfully daft attempt at defining the genre:

“Post-rock is a genre of music characterized by its use of rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, often emphasizing atmosphere, texture, and mood over traditional song structures and lyrics. This style frequently incorporates elements from various genres such as electronic, ambient, and experimental music, resulting in a sound that is expansive and cinematic in nature.”

Hm, much beard-stroking.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Grey Rubble, Green Shoots

Yeah, let’s start it with the biggest of bangs. How good is the new Goodspeed You! album? It’s fucking glorious – it’s vast, grungy, majestic, it’s powerful and sweeping in its scale and, on the few listens I’ve been able to fit in since it dropped on Friday, sits strong in their catalogue. It’s title – No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead – a reference to the number of dead Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Mogwai – God Gets You Back

New Mogwai is always a reason to sit up and pay attention. While the announcement that accompanied the release of new song ‘God Gets You Back’ (another random title) was that of a tour, all signs point to new album to follow and this one manages to feel like a much-desired combination of their soundtrack work with their ‘usual’ sound.

Exxasens – Space Collapse

New Exxassens? Space-themed samples? Thunderous beats? Oh sign me up mate.

Public Service Broadcasting – Arabian Flight

I’m relatively sure you can sneak a chunk of Public Service Broadcasting’s music into this category. While I haven’t jumped on board with every album they’ve done when their combination of predominantly instrumental music to accompany archival samples hits my interests I’m in. Previously this was with Race for Space but their new album The Last Flight – chronicling Amelia Earhart’s final attempt – fits into that category too and has already had a couple of spins here.

Jambinai – once more from that frozen bottom

Not strictly ‘new’ but very new to me as I only recently discovered the South Korean band’s 2022 ep apparation and there’s nothing but love from me for their combination of heavier post-rock with traditional folk instruments.

Post-Rock Mondays: At The Movies

/ Tony / 1 Comment

It’s Monday again and I’m working from home and using a post-rock salve on the punch in the plums that first alarm beep of the week brings.

I’ve also got another take on defining a genre that – having grown so wide and varied – is as full of contradictions of such attempts as is examples: “[post-rock bands] rejected the traditional song structure of rock music, based on chorus and verses, guitar solos, and energised mood, for a more introspective, unconventional structure defined by broader sonic experimentation. In post-rock, subtle suggestions and atmospheres reign free, shaped in the form of the influences that define the band’s background.”

So far, so much chin-stroking.

A side-effect of the ‘typical’ post-rock track – starting quietly, building atmospheres and rising to crescendos – is that such tunes offer a great option for film makers. Think of your traditional classical score, a usually string-heavy arrangement that builds mood and tension, aims for emotional soft spots and can emerge from the background to reach a dramatic conclusion. Post-rock has provided just such a guitar-driven take in many a film….

This Will Destroy You – The Mighty Rio Grande

2011’s ‘Moneyball’ is – for someone who knows nothing about baseball – a surprisingly compelling film anchored by both its actors’ performances and some great pacing, helped along at one point by This Will Destroy You and a tune that also featured in films ‘Earth to Echo’ (never heard of it either) and ‘Lone Survivor’ in which Marky Mark Wahlberg leads the Funky Bunch on a treacherous hike across Afghanistan to a mostly post-rock soundtrack dominated by Explosions In The Sky.

Sigur Ros – Hoppípolla

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZTb8WxEW78

One of those post-rock tunes probably heard more than any other as its stirring and euphoric arrangement has graced screens for a huge range of films and documentaries from the BBC’s ‘Planet Earth’ to the serious, myth-busting ‘Eurovision: Song of Ice and Fire’ and that slasher flick about the time Matt Damon bought a zoo.

Mogwai – Autorock

Mogwai have created many a great soundtrack themselves – from the deliciously atmospheric Atomic, to scoring Les Revenants and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait – eight soundtrack albums, in fact, stacked up against their ten studio albums ‘proper’. Using a soundtrack example seems a bit of an easy push though so I’m going with ‘Autorock’ from their fitth album Mr Beast as used in the Michael Mann take on ‘Miami Vice’

Now I’m gonna call an audible and pivot for two takes on post-rock using movies as I do love a good sample in a tune…

Explosions In The Sky – Have You Passed Through This Night

65daysofstatic – Retreat! Retreat!

Mondays = Post Rock

/ Tony / 16 Comments

For the last couple of years Monday has been a locked-in work from home day for me. Aside from resolving a child care issue it also helps the start of the working week feel a little less of a kick in the nads.

It also means that along with access to good coffee, I have the opportunity to indulge in a post-rock soundtrack for my working day without the usual (‘it’s been ten minutes, how is this the same song?’ or ‘has it even started yet?’) commentary or need to stick headphones on.

For the uninitiated, the term itself came from a discussion of Talk Talk and Bark Psychosis – both bands that helped shape the genre from an early point. I’ll borrow from a couple of definitions here to explain it (dancing about architecture springs to mind at this point) as a “form of experimental rock characterised by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs” performed by a group of musicians leaning on the traditional ‘rock’ instruments / lineup: two guitars, a bass, drums, keys etc and, occasionally, vocals but applied to “nontraditional rhythms, melodies, and chord progressions.”

There’s a lot of beard-stroking.

Of the many things I love about it is the sheer scope and variety found within what can so easily be perceived as a narrow genre (with offshoots into math-rock, post-metal) and the universality of it – as occasionally pointed at in my Out of Europe series.

Anyway, without going too deep into a history or explanation of, I thought this a good moment to drop some of what I’ve been enjoying today:

Mogwai – The Sun Smells Too Loud

Mogwai, from Glasgow Scotland, are one of the titans of the genre. They got in early in ’97 and have been consistently belting out great albums (and soundtracks) since. The Hawk Is Howling is one of my favourite Mogwai albums – it’s their sixth – and recently added to my record shelves completing their discography on wax.

Explosions In The Sky – Logic of a Dream

Texans EITS are another pillar of the genre who have currently got their fans in a bit of worry: having ditched all other content on their social channels and announcing ‘The End’ Tour without any explanation as to what ‘The End’ is – curtains for the band or new album? We all hope for the latter – it’s been some time since The Wilderness – but touring and making money from music is becoming increasingly hard if your name isn’t Taylor Swift these days.

Pray for Sound – Julia

A band familiar to at least one reader – ‘Julia’ and Waves hits all the right spots.

Astodan – Sagdid

Astodan hail from Belgium. They’ve added a vocalist to their lineup recently but I’ve yet to check that out as I’m still stuck spinning their 2018 album Ameretat – few bands manage that dynamic of melodic, piano-driven calm to pulverising FUCK YES and back as brilliantly as they do across the album (or even one five minute song).

Live, tonight for one album only, at Budokan…

/ Tony / 7 Comments

In what feels like a fitting post to follow my take on Springsteen’s The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts, I’ve been thinking about live albums of late.

A friend and I have been debating their merits – his ‘no-thanks’ take on them driven by the fact that ‘you don’t get the same vibe as actually being there.’

I can understand that. But – is that really their purpose? I’ve got a lot of time for live albums – there are a lot of artists that really deliver the goods in concert more than others and more than they do in concert. They’ll throw their all into a show and there are plenty of live albums out there where that’s evident as well as the fact that a song performed live is often a different beast to that which graced a studio album. Not only that but there are many bands out there that I’ll never get a chance to see or shows I could never have been at.

Here I can quickly point to two staples of this blog – Springsteen and Pearl Jam, both of whom are renowned for their live shows with both (Springsteen only more recently) performing a different set list every night. Foo Fighters, by contrast, played an identical set (including the rehearsed ‘banter’) night after night.

Whereas once upon a time the live album was once a staple, if contractually obligatory, of many a rock band’s discography we now find ourselves in an era of Nuggs (or whatever service they chose to use) means that almost every show from a tour and many archival individual shows are available to fill up our iPods. Does the traditional live album, then, still have value?

I reckon there’s still a place for it. At least there is within my shelves – digital and physical. While it’s great to have a document of a specific concert – especially if you were there, say – it’s also great to have a live collection from a band at the peak of their power without, say, the mistake they made in the pre-chorus of a song that forced them to restart or a location-specific anecdote, as well as the mastering (not remixing, mind – I’m looking at you Van Halen) that an official release can give. Without having to pay a fortune for a pint of piss-poor beer, swim to the toilet or wonder if you need to duck out during the encore to get the last tube.

With all this preamble in mind I thought I’d take a butchers at some of those live albums that I would say are definitely worth giving a listen to, old and new.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live 1975-85

Keeping it Boss for another moment… Bruce’s first official live album was a suitably hefty 5LP / 3 CD / 3 Cassette beast that covered Springsteen and the E Street Band’s journey from theatres to stadiums across 40 songs. Springsteen had developed a reputation as a live performer and this set delivers upon that and then some – it’s a great listen even close to forty years on, even hearing his earnest story-telling ahead of ‘The River’ as he works to instil a sense of intimacy to the stadium-sized crowd still works and while he could easily have created another similarly-sized instalment to cover the decades since I don’t think (save a few obvious titles) you could want anything more than what’s here. It remains an unimpeachably great snapshot of Bruce and the E Street Band’s powerful peak and sounds as vital now as it did then.

Nirvana – Live at Reading

Nirvana’s second visit to the Reading festival was the stuff of legend even aside from the actual show itself. This was 1992, mind, when the Kurt ‘n’ Courtney show was dominating press coverage – there were rumours that the band wouldn’t show. That the band were on the verge of breaking up, that Kurt’s heroin addiction was so bad he was close to death (both rumours sadly not that far from true)…

Playing to this, Kurt took to the stage in a wheelchair. Wheeled on and wearing a hospital gown and wig, sang a few lines of ‘The Rose’ and collapsed before getting to his feet and the band delivered one of their most intense and powerful sets to date. Yes, there’s no way to capture being at that show – I hold that for every dozen or so people I’ve met that claimed they were there only two are probably telling the truth – but, fuck me, this is one hell of an amazing live album. The band seem to be giving it everything as a middle finger to the rumours and the setlist is everything you’d want, covering nearly all of Nevermind, plenty from Bleach and a few new songs that would later grace In Utero and is the superior live Nirvana document to From The Muddy Banks of Wiskah.

Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison

This one’s got to be a given, right? Johnny Cash’s first live album, a career reviving release that starts with the now famous ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash’ and finds the then relatively-clean Cash singing songs like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, ‘Cocaine Blues’ and ’25 Minutes to Go’ to an audience of convicts in a prison canteen that Cash would later describe as “the most enthusiastic audience I ever played” – lapping up every line like ‘I can’t forgot the day I shot that bad bitch down’ like it was written for them. While At San Quentin recorded the following year would have ‘Boy Named Sue,’ this album combines Cash’s strongest points – grit, balladry, the spiritual and humour – into one setlist that while tailor-made for his audience and became the stuff of legend.

Mogwai – Special Moves

As a live band, Mogwai are one of the loudest out there. While they shy away from being branded as post-rock, their predominantly instrumental music takes its cues from a myriad of influences including bands like Loop, My Bloody Valentine and Slint – intricate pieces that build up layers and parts and not play with the quiet-loud-quiet- FUCKING INSANELY LOUD dynamic but own it. I’ve just finished Stuart Braithwaite’s fantastic memoir ‘Spaceships Over Glasgow’ which revealed – amongst other things – the level of nervousness with which he’d play gigs, hoping that the bands head-nodded signals would work when it comes to bringing in the different parts of each song, finding a sound-guy that could sufficiently mix them at the level of noise desired and joy they take in a set when it all clicks.

The New York shows captured on Special Moves – in terms of both setlist and the power of the performance – are as ideal an introduction to and one-hit slab of Mogwai you could ask for. It’s perfectly mixed – balancing all the elements of their music with a smattering of crowd noise to let you know they’re there and capturing the extremes of their sound (the pin-drop silence to absolute wall of sound in Mogwai Fear Satan, for example) perfectly.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Weld

Speaking of wall-of-sound…. Neil Young has got quite a few live albums out there – while Time Fades Away and Rust Never Sleeps were made up of entirely new songs and Live Rust felt like a bit of a cash-grab, Weld is the real deal for me and the more I explore Mr Young’s back catalogue the more I enjoy it. A live document of Young and Crazy Horse’s tour to promote Ragged Glory (my current favourite of Neil’s albums), it’s a ridiculously heavy document of the Horse in full gallop and blasting through some of Ragged Glory‘s highlights like ‘Fuckin’ Up’ and ‘Love To Burn’ along with storming takes on ‘Cinnamon Girl’, ‘Powderfinger’, the then-recent ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ and a blazing cover of Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’.

Gary Clark Jr – Live

This is one of those examples where someone comes across so much better live than on record – to my ears at least and this is my blog, after all. I’d seen the praise heaped upon this enough to be curious and since picking it up it’s been a regular spinner. Having been compared to the mightiest of guitar slingers like Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Clark Jr has both that glorious blues tone and dexterity to make his performances addictive listening while also flowing in a touch of soul and hip hop. On record the combo doesn’t really come across so well with his playing taking a back seat too often to slick production. There’s none of that on 2014’s Live – a mix of originals and covers shed of gimmickry and just highlighting how great and in-focus performance he – and his band – can deliver.

My Morning Jacket – Okonokos

The band captured following the peak of the mighty Z album deliver a brilliant set to a crowd at The Fillmore in San Francisco. While the recent compilation Live Vol. 1 adds newer songs to the mix and further cements how great a live draw the band are, Okonokos captures the band in all their intense power, it’s heavy on Z material with eight of its ten songs gracing the set and showcases the band’s musicianship and a rare ability to both jam out and deliver tight, focused performances.

Jeff Buckley – Live at Sin-é (Legacy Edition)

Jeff Buckley left us with just the one studio album before he took his fateful swim in 1997. His first release for Colombia, though, wasn’t Grace but the Live at Sin-é EP. The EP was just a four-song set was released to draw attention to the power of Buckley’s voice. The full set, released ten years later, instead gave us a captivating and wonderfully intimate (you can even hear the odd clink of coffee cups) performance of some twenty plus songs interspersed with monologues and jokes – we get works in progress of songs like ‘Grace’, ‘Last Goodbye’ and ‘Mojo Pin’ along with covers of Led Zeppelin, Dylan, Nina Simone, Van Morrison and, of course, his take on ‘Hallelujah’ all armed with just his voice and a guitar. For a small coffee house show, Buckley commits fully and for all the myth and mystery that’s build up over the years since his passing, it’s a beautiful document of pure talent and the enjoyment of music.

Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol.4: Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert

First – it wasn’t captured at The Royal Albert Hall, it was Manchester’s Free Trade Hall. It was mislabelled in the bootlegs that so pervaded before its official release. in 1998. It was so extensively bootlegged because it was both a brilliant show and, secondly, the “Judas!” concert.

All these years later it’s hard to conceive of the upset Dylan’s ‘going electric’ caused his folky faithful. Through his 1965-66 tour Dylan would perform a show of two halves: the first alone and the second with his backing band The Hawks for an electric set. Both the heckle and Dylan’s brilliant response – “I don’t believe you…. you’re a liar” – along with Dylan’s instruction to the band to “play fucking loud!” into ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ are captured here along with a fantastic performance of fifteen brilliant Dylan songs that are all worth the price of admission alone and captured with brilliant sound quality.

If you don’t trust my opinion on this, take it from Jimmy Page too – he found the bootleg to be the ultimate album and would buy a whenever he found one.

Some honourable mentions and few additional thoughts in place of a tenth for the list…. I’ve only recently begun listening to the Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East but it’s a mighty fine thing…. The Clash’s Live at Shea Stadium is a great listen too but a little stiff in parts, capturing them opening for The Who – who’s Live AT Leeds is pretty decent too though I’m not that big a Who fan. Dire Straits deserved better representation than the too-short Alchemy and too-sterile On The Night while one of the best bands I’ve seen live, Pearl Jam have yet to drop a live album that really captures how arse quaking they can be live though Live On Two Legs tries and the same could be said for Pink Floyd – Pulse is another case of too much gloss and The Delicate Sound of Thunder features both an excess of gloss and an excess of songs from A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

Ten of ten for ten

/ Tony / 16 Comments

Apparently it’s my ‘WordPress Anniversary’ today. Well, at least with this blog. I say this only to make those of you who have failed to send gifts my way feel guilty.

To mark this most important of events I thought I’d be achingly original and put together a list – Ten great Track Tens.

Ten. In the seventies some couldn’t keep it up that long whereas by the nineties’ era of CD bloat some went on much longer. Some use it as a ‘leave them wanting more’ final track while for others it’s the point at which they’re in the midst of their second wind. For many, though, it’s just filler.

Anywho, without further prattle, ceremony here’s a sweep of some pretty solid tracks that also happen to be the tenth tune on an album – while a little bit of a sausage-fest* – also serves to cover most of what this blog has in the last ten.

Pearl Jam – Present Tense

Bob Dylan – The Man In Me

Bruce Springsteen – Darkness On The Edge of Town

Noir Desir – Lost

Snail Mail – Mia

Tom Petty – Alright For Now

Pink Floyd – Lost for Words

Weezer – Only In Dreams

The Replacements – Skyway

Mogwai – Mogwai Fear Satan

*only down to the lack of stand out tracks that happened to sit between the ninth and eleventh ones.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot…

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Despite another morning of waiting for the ice to dissolve from its windscreen before blasting the Ferrari’s mighty engine off of my drive and into the school-run and commute, the steady bead of afternoon sunlight in my eyes and the calling of the blogging urge has pulled me from my hibernation.

Where have I been? Fucking nowhere there’s a pandemic on and the rules change as much as that cockwomble-in-charge’s excuses do, triple-jabbed or not.

What have I been doing? The break wasn’t intended it just happened, maybe I’d lost my mojo, maybe I just needed to switch off a little. I’ve been reading a lot (potentially to be detailed later but Franzen’s latest was as excellent as expected, The Passenger is an amazing ‘lost’ novel rediscovered and Anna Karenina is proving the Russian beauty I wish I’d read sooner), using the festive break to watch films old (unlikely to be detailed later so Bad Boys 2 was as awful as I thought it would be, Face-Off has not aged well at all while Beverly Hills Cop is still a time-capsule joy) and new (Don’t Look Up suffers from split-personality only one half of which is very good, the other shite) of an evening instead of falling asleep in a cattle-truked daze. Oh, and watching Get Back*.

Of course, I’ve also been consuming music across as many formats and mediums as I can including catching up with some 2021’s finest. As Aphoristic Album Reviews points out in his fine summary of the year: putting together a list of a best albums during the year in question always feels a bit weird. What if your favourite artist surprise released a new album on Christmas Day? There’s also the fact that I don’t always get to absorb ‘new’ albums until that end of year break. Anywho, with that in mind and keeping it short and sweet, here are my five favourites of 2021.

Mogwai – As The Love Continues

Mogwai came out swinging in February with As The Love Continues. After the restrictions of 2020 (especially tougher in Scotland than here) gave them an opportunity to work distraction-free on their album, they produced one of their finest ever some 24 years after their debut and a very early and easy contender for AOTY. It bristles with great tunes, a warmth and thrust that they’ve not exhibited in a decade. A big hit with critics and fans alike it actually hit the top of the album charts here (surely that’s the first post-rock album to do so?),it felt too good to be true at the start of 2021 and, tens of plays later, still feels too good to be true at the start of 2022.

Snail Mail – Valentine

I was already hooked on this album on Spotify but after finding the vinyl under the tree this year I’ve fallen ever deeper under its spell (more reason to leave those lists until the year has passed). ‘Sold’ to me as a midway point between Hole and Lucy Dacus, Snail Mail’s second album is a glorious slab of 90’s inspired, emotionally fuelled alt-rock with real range and power.

Dinosaur Jr – Sweep It Into Space

The reunited Dinosaur Jr ‘classic’ lineup have now put out more albums than the three of their original run and one more than the various iterations of the band put out during its major label run. What’s surprising is that they’re still bitingly keen and putting out solid and inspired albums that always have plenty of great tunes on them and a lot of J Mascis’ always dazzling guitar solos. The addition of Kurt Vile as co-producer and occasional rhythm and acoustic guitar player has yielded one of their most sonically interesting and just plain-fucking-great-to-listen-to albums thus far and has been a regular spinner since it dropped in April.

Lucy Dacus – Home Video

I loved Lucy Dacus’ 2018 Historian. Why, then, it took so long for me to pick up Home Video is beyond me.. perhaps it was too much to listen to and too little time but, when my local announced a re-stock I made sure one of them had my name on and I’m glad I did: Home Video is just brilliant: Dacus goes from strength to strength here with an album richer in sound and more personal in lyrics – a compelling mix of alt-rockers and gut-wrench ballads.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – God’s Pee AT STATE’S END

Two post-rock giants releasing great albums in the same year? Yup. Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress and Luciferian Towers were ok but didn’t move me in the way that ‘old’ GY!BE and even ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend Ascend did… yet AT STATE’S END is a powerful return to that earlier form. Reintroducing found recordings and, like Don’t Bend… delivers two monumental slabs of post-rock with the band’s glorious build-ups from scratchy, static transmissions to crescendos that make your soul go ‘oh fuck YES! interspersed with a couple of drone tracks as if to cleanse the palate.

If this were a Top 10 it would also have included The War On Drugs’ I Don’t Live Here Anymore (a brilliant album that’s way too over-priced on vinyl to have been added to my collection and made the Top 5), Explosions In The Sky’s Big Bend (three post-rock albums in the Top 5 would be pushing it though), The Weather Station’s Ignorance and My Morning Jacket’s self-titled album while Ben Howard would’ve taken an honourable mention for his Collections From The Whiteout.

My favourite ‘Old Stuff Revisited’ release of 2021 is a tie between Tom Petty’s Finding Wildflowers and the re-cast Angel Dream (Songs and Music from the Motion Picture ‘She’s the One’) – that Rick Rubin helmed era of tunes from ’94 thru to 99’s Echo was a rich seam for Petty and these archival releases and new versions are like visiting a golden era and finding it even better than you remembered.

That was 2021… 2022 already has some promising releases on the horizon. I’m eagerly anticipating new albums from The Mysterines, Big Thief, Eddie Vedder (of course), Placebo (for the first time in a while) as well as ‘it could still happens’ like Springsteen’s Tracks 2 to name a few.

*Finding a way to summarise my thoughts on Get Back is likely to take a while

Currently spinning: the new, the coming and the anticipated

/ Tony / 15 Comments

It’s been a minute since I dropped a ‘here’s what I’m hearing’ post but there’s no time like the present so, in the immortal words of Marvin Gaye: let’s get it on.

Mogwai – To The Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate The Earth

New albums from Mogwai are always gonna be warmly received by me – be it soundtrack or studio – but this year’s As the Love Continues is one of their finest in years. Its’ so fucking good. In fact this, the first track on the album, is good it got my normally ‘post-rock ambivalent’ wife into the album. Just a stunning effort from the band, no doubt helped by the lack of distractions being in lockdown gave them and an easy Best Album of 2021 contender already.

Dinosaur Jr – I Ran Away

Well – another probable contender for that title is already on the way! Dinosaur Jr recently announced their new album Sweep It Into Space is en route (and pre-ordered by me of course). A new slab of Dinosaur Jr is plenty of reason to pay attention (see this post for more proof) but the new one is produced with Kurt Vile and features him on 12-string apparently. It’s the band’s first since 2016.  Can’t wait!

Ben Howard – What A Day

Well, here we are with another hotly-anticipated (by me) album. Ben Howard has been a real mainstay on my stereo for years, there’s something about the vibe he taps into that’s just right up my street. His new album – Collections From the Whiteout –  is produced with The National’s Aaron Dessner – and songs dropped so far feel like a lighter, though no-less adventurous sound than his last album

Jaguar Sun – The Heart

You know Spotify certainly has its drawbacks but it can also lead to great discoveries too. I stumbled by pure chance – having been listening to that fucking great Bleachers tune ‘chinatown’ which features Bruce Springsteen – a few weeks back into a playlist it was recommending me called ‘Dream Pop’ – a genre I hadn’t really paid attention to. What a fucking muppet. There’s so much gold in there that hits so may buttons for me that I’ve spent a long time immersed in it every evening and just drifting off like I’m wrapped in shimmering clouds, man. This Jaguar Sun dude has some great stuff but ‘The Heart’ is the one that I keep finding myself humming.

Philip Sayce – Black Roller Coming

Oh dude – getting back to the grittier guitars and electric blues crunch just in case you worried. I caught a Philip Sayce last year and his album Spirit Rising got a load of plays last year and into this. Loads of that sweet guitar tone and rip for when it needs turning up load.

R.E.M – So Fast So Numb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1BIdqPfWx8

Even if they’re no longer active as a band in the traditional sense, R.E.M have been outstanding in celebrating the anniversaries of their albums with beefed up takes on all bang on their 25th Anniversary with notable beefed-up editions of their Warner Bros albums especially. This year marks 25 years since the release of my favourite R.E.M album New Adventures in Hi-Fi and I’m eagerly anticipating news of a similar treatment  for it, especially as getting the original on vinyl is pretty priced way out of likelihood.

Pixies – Alec Eiffel

As much as I love new Pixies music arriving, they’re another band that are aware of their legacy and the value it has to fans and have treated us to similar revisiting of their albums, albeit on their 30th anniversary. Expanded takes on Dolittle and Come on Pilgrim… It’s Surfer Rosa were treasure troves of additional material while last year’s Bossanova was a great pressing of a classic. This year marks 30 (shocking) years since the last album in their initial run – Trompe Le Monde and another I’m in eager anticipation for.

 

Side note: while we’re talking new music and spins… I heard the new Foo Fighters album and fell asleep. I’ll leave it at that.

Spinning The New… 2

/ Tony / 4 Comments

Taking a momentary pause from the Pearl Jam series for, as those playing along at home may have sussed our, the final three all dropped between 1993 and 1996 and I thought it was time to take a quick gander at the newer stuff spinning right now.

This is fairly genre-specific. I’m not about to jump any sharks and start discussing Eminem’s ‘diss track’ (this is something that baffles me as a concept) or even start talking about the new Paul McCartney stuff (some of the worst material I’ve heard from the former Fab that didn’t involve frogs). While I have heard the new Smashing Pumpkins track I must have dozed off listening to it so it’s not going to be appearing here.

Mogwai – We’re Not Done Yet (End Title)

Another year another new Mogwai album. Well, sort of. These dons of post-rock have seemingly hit a real stride in terms of output as there’s a been a release per year of late alternating between ‘studio’ and ‘soundtrack’ album. Their soundtrack albums are different to their ‘own’ as the music is, obviously enough, written to suit someone else’s vision / story but each have been strong and worth additions to their catalogue (take Atomic as a prime example). Kin the film would appear to be destined to be seen by nobody: a box office and critical bomb. Kin the soundtrack should be heard by many – it’s a great, moody, sci-fi soundtrack that feels like it could just as easily blend into the background on Stranger Things (yes, I’m a very recent convert all binge-watched up to speed).

Jim James – Just A Fool

Back in 2015 My Morning Jacket were talking up the possibility of a very quick follow up the then-new The Waterfall on the back of how much material they’d written and recorded in those sessions. It hasn’t happened and can’t see it happening any time soon. Instead we got three solo albums from Jim James: one patchy, one a continuation of his covers project and this year’s Uniform Distortion which I picked up from the record store while collecting my pre-order of Kin. Uniform Distortion feels actually like a very fine MMJ album and is well worth exploring.

Kurt Vile – Loading Zones

There’s a new Kurt Vile album dropping later this year and I’ve already got it on pre-order. I got hooked on Vile’s sound following Smoke Ring For My Halo. There’s something hypnotic about Vile’s sound and once you’re hooked.. well.

J Mascis – See You At The Movies

Oddly enough, there’s a direct line between Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis and Kurt Vile in terms of style and sound and the two have often shared a track. It’s fitting, then, that Mascis has a new solo record dropping this autumn too – his solo work is less wall-of-sound guitar than the Dino albums but he’s started mixing his trademark guitar solos and shredding into his folksier / acoustic solo stuff to strong results so I’m looking forward to Elastic Days – also on pre-order from my not-quite local dealer.

….it was a very good year

/ Tony / 7 Comments

… to quote Mr Sinatra.

So, after a period of hint dropping, it was confirmed that, in a rare move, Radiohead would be revisiting their past and would mark the 20th anniversary of the game-changing OK Computer.

My copy of OKNotOK 1997 2017 as it’s called (3 LPs featuring three unreleased tracks and eight B-sides, all newly remastered) has been secured in its indies-only blue variant with my new-favourite shop and I’m sure that I’ll be talking more about OK Computer when I’ve dropped needle upon it.

However, the fact that it’s now 20 years since 1997 has seen a few of those nostalgic lists appear on various sites (Spin published a pretty solid 79 Best Alternative Rock Songs of 1997 list) and it got me to thinking that, from an alt-rock point of view at least, 1997 was a very strong year for releases. Let’s take a butchers…

Yes, kicking off with the fact that if ’97 saw Britpop killed by Oasis’ abhorrently indulgent and tuneless Be Here Now, then Radiohead’s OK Computer nailed down the coffin. I remember catching the video for ‘Paranoid Android’ on MTV2 and being blown away.

Foo Fighters would release their second (first as a band) album The Colour And The Shape, an album which is still held up as their best by so many* and contains some of their biggest tunes like ‘My Hero’, ‘Monkey Wrench’, ‘Walking After You,’ and, of course that barely-known song ‘Everlong’.

The ‘Everlong’ video was directed by Michel Gondry who also directed the video for Björk’s ‘Joga‘, which features on her album Homogenic which also came out in 1997. Built To Spill used their major label debut to mark a massive stylistic shift and dropped the sublime Perfect From Now On, Portishead released their self-titled album and, while Hand It Over isn’t the best Dinosaur Jr album (it would be the last issued under that name for some time), it features some belters in ‘Nothing’s Goin’ On‘ and ‘I’m Insane’ guaranteeing it gets pretty regular plays from me.

A chap called Elliott Smith released his third album, the beautiful and much-loved Either/Or containing some of the best songs he’d ever produce in his all too-short life.

The post-rock cannon got two very important débuts in 1997. Godspeed You! Black Emperor released their F♯ A♯ ∞ and would go on to become, to me at least, the most important band in the genre. Meanwhile, five blokes from Glasgow in a band called Mogwai released Mogwai Young Team on their way to also becoming a hugely important band in the genre.

Ben Fold Five’s Whatever & Ever, Amen, home to ‘Brick’, ‘Song For The Dumped’ and ‘Battle of Who Could Care Less’ was also released in ’97 and Pavement released Brighten The Corners.

Back into the less ‘alt’ side of things, that fella born Robert Zimmerman made a quick recovery from a life-threatening heart infection despite thinking he’d “be seeing Elvis soon” and dropped, seven years after his previous studio album, the hugely impressive return to form that was Time Out of Mind.

1997 was also the year that I started to get into Aerosmith  released a stonker of an album, even if it would turn out to be their last strong effort to date, in Nine Lives. Look at the evidence: Get A Grip in 1993 was a monster in sales terms but not that much critically speaking and not one I listen to too often. Nine Lives, however, is a powerhouse record of raw sounding rock with some real earthy tones and – for the genre – some pretty eclectic sound and instrumentation. There’s still not one song I’d skip, though I wouldn’t necessarily hold up ‘Hole In My Soul’ as exemplary the rest of the album – ‘Taste of India’, ‘Full Circle’, ‘Ain’t That A Bitch’, the Joe Perry showcase ‘Falling Off’, ‘Somethings Gotta Give…’ ‘Fallen Angels’ – is a classic. Even before they changed the artwork and it shifted like hotcakes thanks to the addition of that asteroid movie song.

There’s also… Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ The Boatman’s Call and, I’m sure, plenty I’m omitting that a look through over such lists will make me go “oh, of course…” but with a lot of strong albums released and the fact that I was earning a regular pay cheque  (weekend work at a supermarket) at this point to fund my growing habit, there’s an awful lot of music in my collection from 1997 that still gets a lot of play.

*I could do a Foo Fighters Least to Most…. The Colour and the Shape battles it out with Wasting Light in my mind for their best to date. Both represent their most consistent and one will have the edge over the other depending on the day.